Like any other kind of writing, research papers have a purpose. Reporting, explaining, evaluating, problem solving, and arguing are all purposes for a research paper. Purposes may appear in combinations, as in a paper that summarizes the current research and then proposes a solution to a current problem. Research papers are not just reports of other people's ideas or evidence, however. What you, the researcher, observe and remember and learn is important, too. Most subjects are not interesting until writers make them so. Your curiosity, your interests in the subject, your reason and intuition establish why the subject is worth researching in the first place - and why a reader would want to read the paper once it is finished.
Research papers have a defined audience, too. The subject you choose, the kind of research you do, the documentation format, the vocabulary and style you use - all should be appropriate for your selected audience. If you writing a senior research paper for your major, you will write to a professor or a community of people knowledgeable about your field. If you are a legal assistant or a junior attorney in the law firm, a superior may ask you to research a specific legal precedent. If you work for a manufacturer, a manager may assign you a research report on the sales and strategies of a competitor. Although your classmates and teacher will probably read the research paper you write for this class, you will ask them to role-play your audience. They will try to read your paper from the point of view of a defined audience - an employer, a politician, a nutritionist, an artist, an astronomer, or a senior law partner. Your instructor may, in fact, ask you to send your paper to some person or persons who actually are part of your audience.
Finally, your research paper will follow a form that fits your purpose and meets the expectations and needs of your audience. First, form is controlled by purpose. If you are writing a research paper evaluating some product or performance, your research paper may look as an evaluating paper, organized around your claims, criteria, judgments, and evidence. If you are writing a research paper arguing for a position or claim, you will present research showing both sides of controversy and then try to convince your reader to believe or act on your claim. In each case, however, you will cite your sources in the body or text of your paper and include a list of your sources (a bibliography) at the end.
The form of your research paper is also affected by your intended audience. If you are researching new advances in sports medicine for an audience of experts or researchers, you may choose an elaborate form, with an abstract or summary of your ideas in the beginning, a section reviewing and evaluating current research, subsections for each of your main points with diagrams and charts, and an appendix with supplementary materials. If, however, you are writing primarily for jogging enthusiasts, your research paper may look more like an informal essay. Magazines and journals in the field illustrate a variety of appropriate forms for research papers.
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