Common Errors in Writing a Research

Paper
By

MUHAMMAD ANAS
Roll No.250 BSc (Hon) 7th semester
Department of Plant Breeding and Genetics

Submitted to

Prof. Dr. GULAM HASSAN SIR

The University of Agriculture Peshawar Pakistan

Common Errors in Writing a Research
Paper
RESEARCH
 Discipline of research- basic science / applied science or social science
 Nature of research- qualitative or quantitative
 Type of research- historical / survey / experimental / descriptive

Elements of Any Research Paper

Take the time to clearly outline your research paper before you begin to write, keep in mind what each
section needs to accomplish

 Title
 Abstracts
 Introduction
 Reviews of literature
 Objective/s
 Hypothesis
 Methodology (sample/ sample size/ tools /data analysis)
 Result analysis
 Conclusion
 Implementations

Letting your deadline slip (procrastination)

 You never mean to do it, but somehow deadlines often creep up out of nowhere.
 For big research papers, try making a timeline in your planner.
 Schedule dates that you’d like to have certain tasks completed (such as your outline and the first
draft),
 And maintain your progress.

Letting your deadline slip (procrastination)

“Chunking”
 “you may be able to divide some of your research tasks up into small chunks which can be
tackled whenever you have a title spare time.
 For example, if you take photocopies of materials you need to read.”
 Be sure to not wait until the last minute to ask for help with things you should have begun long
ago, though.
Being Afraid To Ask For Help
 Everyone struggles with research paper writing now and again.
 Professors, advisors and librarians will all be able eager to help you or give advice where they
can. Don’t hesitate to contact your professor if you’re not sure how to get started or how to
progress with your paper; they’re there to help you.
 Schedule a meeting and bring along some of the work you’ve done so far.

Lack of Research Before Choosing The Title

 Sometimes, when stressed or busy, students/research scholars will rush their selection of a
subject for a paper.
 As a result, their focus and connection with the subject matter can suffer greatly, and inevitably
this comes through in their writing.
 Doing good research and choosing a subject for you feel you can connect to are important steps
in writing a successful thesis statement, and ultimately a successful paper.

Making Your Topic Too Broad

 Once you start developing ideas for your research paper, try to narrow your focus down even
further.
 Papers that lack focus only skim the surface of a number of concepts but never delve into
details.
 The thesis should serve tow purposes, they should guide you while you write and guide the
readers when they read.

Limitations of the Study Are Not Acknowledged

 One must mention the delimitation of the study.
 It is like outer most boundary of your research.
 Your discussion section tells readers what your study is all about.
 Including limitations shows a thorough evaluation of your methods and results.
PAPER THAT CONTAINS PLAGIARIZED CONTENT

 A paper that contains text copied from another paper more or less reduce your chance of begin
accepted, depending on the amount of text that you copied.
 All the text in your papers should be written by yourself only.
 It is easy for a reviewer to detect plagiarized content using the internet.

PAPER THAT CONTAINS PLAGIARIZED CONTENT

 A paper that contains text copied from another paper more or less reduce your chance
of being accepted, depending on the amount of text that is copied.
 All the text in your papers should be written by yourself only.
 It is easy for a reviewer to detect plagiarized content using the internet.

PAPER THAT CONTAINS PLAGIARIZED CONTENT

 You must not use the ideas or words of others without giving the exact source;
   if you are found to have committed plagiarism, your paper will be rejected, and the case
will be reported. 
  The worst kind of plagiarism at the moment is the cutting and pasting of (mostly bad
/inappropriate) passages from the internet and other’s work. 
 It is just as bad to simply type off passages from published essays or books without
listing the authors whose texts you are using.

INCREMENTAL EXTENSION OF THE AUTHOR’S PREVIOUS WORK (SELF- PLAGIARISM) 

 Where the author extended his own work, published just a few months/years ago.
 The problem with that paper was that the author just made a few minor changes before
submitting it as a new paper. 
 A new paper should present on a same topic should present at least 30 to 40 % new
content and there should be a significant difference with the previous work.

OVER-LENGTH PAPERS
  When a paper is submitted to a conference or journal, there is generally a page limit.
 If the page limit is not respected, several reviewers will not like it.
 The reason is that reviewers are generally very busy, and they have to review many
papers. 
 Reviewers should not have to spend more time reading a paper because someone did
not want to spend time to make it fit within the page limit.

DELETE ANY PARAGRAPH WITHOUT CONSIDERING IT’S IMPORTANCE IN A PAPER

 When asked to reduce size of paper, this is the most common practice.

PROOFREADING AND UNREADABLE PAPERS

 A paper should be well-written, and the author(s) proofread it before submitting it.
 Sometimes we come across some unreadable paper that look like they were
automatically translated by Google.
 (This is a guaranteed reject.)

NOT USING THE PROPER FORMAT

 Grantham, for instance, has adopted a system- wide protocol that all papers should be in
APA format.
 APA format is very similar. It is a format that starts with a running head, a title page,
certain margins, certain font – and it standardizes everything.
 Don’t be afraid to check out the OWL Purdue site.
 IEEE format APA format MLA format.
THE RESEARCH QUESTION IS NOT ANSWERED

 Because the discussion section allows for the most freedom, it also can be the most
difficult section to write.
 Before you start this section, go back to your research question and think about how you
want to answer it.
 Revisit your research question frequently while writing the discussion.
NOT USING PROPER CITATION 
 If you use someone’s exact words, wrap that thing in quotes and put a bow on top of it
with a proper internal citation.
 If you paraphrase, you still have to put the bow on it – but you can leave the wrapping
paper at home.
 When writing a paper, it is recommended to add a few newer references in your paper to
show that you are aware of the newest research.

NOT USING PROPER CITATION

 Several reviewers check the dates of the references when evaluating a paper. For
example, I have read a paper recently where all references where from before 2016.
 This is a bad sign, since it is unlikely that nothing has happened in a given field since
2016.
 Follow proper style of Citation for your bibliography and Reference section. 
  APA Style, MLA Style, Chicago Style.
POOR ORGANIZATION / PARAGRAPHS SHOULD FLOW NATURALLY

 It is important that the various parts of the research papers are connected by a “flow”.
 What I mean is that when the reviewer is reading your paper, each section or paragraph
should feel logically connected the previous and next paragraphs.
FIGURES/CHARTS THAT DO NOT LOOK GOOD OR ARE TOO SMALL

 About charts, it is important to make them look good. 

 Besides, a second mistake is to make the charts or figures so small that they become
unreadable.
 If the reviewer prints your paper to read it, he should be able to read the text without
using a magnifying glass.
 Moreover, it should not be expected that the reviewer will read the PDF version of your
paper and can zoom in.
FIGURES THAT ARE IRRELEVANT 

 In some papers, authors put a lot of figures that are irrelevant.

 For example, if a figure can be summarized with one or two lines of text, it is better to
remove it.

POOR GRAMMAR & IMPROPER USE OF LANGUAGE

 Take help of your teacher/guide or subject expert or colleague at any point in your
writing, especially when you’re polishing and finalizing your research paper. 
 Confirm about proper use of correct Spellings, Punctuation marks, Capitalization.
 Proper use of grammar should be there.
TRUSTING THE COMPUTER TO SPELL-CHECK

 Just because you’ve managed to avoid those red squiggles while typing your research
paper doesn’t mean your paper is error-free.
 Your computer won’t always let you know when you’ve used the wrong form of a word
such as “you’re” or “their” but your professor/guide certainly will. 
  Carefully read over your entire paper when you’ve finished to be sure you’ve avoided
simple spelling and grammar mistakes.
 You must hate making silly mistakes.

BEING SNEAKY
 Changing the margins? 
 Adjusting the line spacing? 
 Altering the font size ever so slightly?
 Resist the temptation to do this.

IRRELEVANT INFORMATION
 Some papers contain irrelevant information or information that is not really important.
 For example, if your paper is a data mining paper submitted to a data mining or artificial
intelligence conference, it is not necessary to explain what data mining is.
 It can be assumed that the reviewers who are specialist in their field know what is “data
mining”
 Another example is to mention irrelevant details such as to why a given software was
used to make charts.

A RESEARCH PAPER IS NOT “CONNECT THE QUOTES

 Some students/ researchers believe that a research paper is 30-40% quotations – and
they simply connect commentary between each additional quote. That’s not the way
research papers work. 
 Good research papers should synthesize material.
 Use original quotes sparingly and avoid the temptation to play connect the quotes.
NOT HAVING A FRIEND READ IT OVER / EDITING /REVIEWING

 Sometimes after you’ve spent so many hours and days on a research paper, your
exhausted eyes can start to miss things. Concepts that may make sense to you after
doing all your research may not make sense to anyone else.
 Have someone else do a read-through of your paper, even if it’s a quick one, to make
sure that your paragraphs are coherent, and you haven’t made any obvious mistakes.
 Also, consider visiting your guide or subject expert for further help if they offer one. The
more reviews, the better.