how long to write research paper

• How to write a research paper

Last updated

11 January 2024

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With proper planning, knowledge, and framework, completing a research paper can be a fulfilling and exciting experience. 

Though it might initially sound slightly intimidating, this guide will help you embrace the challenge. 

By documenting your findings, you can inspire others and make a difference in your field. Here's how you can make your research paper unique and comprehensive.

• What is a research paper?

Research papers allow you to demonstrate your knowledge and understanding of a particular topic. These papers are usually lengthier and more detailed than typical essays, requiring deeper insight into the chosen topic.

To write a research paper, you must first choose a topic that interests you and is relevant to the field of study. Once you’ve selected your topic, gathering as many relevant resources as possible, including books, scholarly articles, credible websites, and other academic materials, is essential. You must then read and analyze these sources, summarizing their key points and identifying gaps in the current research.

You can formulate your ideas and opinions once you thoroughly understand the existing research. To get there might involve conducting original research, gathering data, or analyzing existing data sets. It could also involve presenting an original argument or interpretation of the existing research.

Writing a successful research paper involves presenting your findings clearly and engagingly, which might involve using charts, graphs, or other visual aids to present your data and using concise language to explain your findings. You must also ensure your paper adheres to relevant academic formatting guidelines, including proper citations and references.

Overall, writing a research paper requires a significant amount of time, effort, and attention to detail. However, it is also an enriching experience that allows you to delve deeply into a subject that interests you and contribute to the existing body of knowledge in your chosen field.

• How long should a research paper be?

Research papers are deep dives into a topic. Therefore, they tend to be longer pieces of work than essays or opinion pieces. 

However, a suitable length depends on the complexity of the topic and your level of expertise. For instance, are you a first-year college student or an experienced professional? 

Also, remember that the best research papers provide valuable information for the benefit of others. Therefore, the quality of information matters most, not necessarily the length. Being concise is valuable.

Following these best practice steps will help keep your process simple and productive:

1. Gaining a deep understanding of any expectations

Before diving into your intended topic or beginning the research phase, take some time to orient yourself. Suppose there’s a specific topic assigned to you. In that case, it’s essential to deeply understand the question and organize your planning and approach in response. Pay attention to the key requirements and ensure you align your writing accordingly. 

This preparation step entails

Deeply understanding the task or assignment

Being clear about the expected format and length

Familiarizing yourself with the citation and referencing requirements 

Understanding any defined limits for your research contribution

Where applicable, speaking to your professor or research supervisor for further clarification

2. Choose your research topic

Select a research topic that aligns with both your interests and available resources. Ideally, focus on a field where you possess significant experience and analytical skills. In crafting your research paper, it's crucial to go beyond summarizing existing data and contribute fresh insights to the chosen area.

Consider narrowing your focus to a specific aspect of the topic. For example, if exploring the link between technology and mental health, delve into how social media use during the pandemic impacts the well-being of college students. Conducting interviews and surveys with students could provide firsthand data and unique perspectives, adding substantial value to the existing knowledge.

When finalizing your topic, adhere to legal and ethical norms in the relevant area (this ensures the integrity of your research, protects participants' rights, upholds intellectual property standards, and ensures transparency and accountability). Following these principles not only maintains the credibility of your work but also builds trust within your academic or professional community.

For instance, in writing about medical research, consider legal and ethical norms , including patient confidentiality laws and informed consent requirements. Similarly, if analyzing user data on social media platforms, be mindful of data privacy regulations, ensuring compliance with laws governing personal information collection and use. Aligning with legal and ethical standards not only avoids potential issues but also underscores the responsible conduct of your research.

3. Gather preliminary research

Once you’ve landed on your topic, it’s time to explore it further. You’ll want to discover more about available resources and existing research relevant to your assignment at this stage. 

This exploratory phase is vital as you may discover issues with your original idea or realize you have insufficient resources to explore the topic effectively. This key bit of groundwork allows you to redirect your research topic in a different, more feasible, or more relevant direction if necessary. 

Spending ample time at this stage ensures you gather everything you need, learn as much as you can about the topic, and discover gaps where the topic has yet to be sufficiently covered, offering an opportunity to research it further. 

4. Define your research question

To produce a well-structured and focused paper, it is imperative to formulate a clear and precise research question that will guide your work. Your research question must be informed by the existing literature and tailored to the scope and objectives of your project. By refining your focus, you can produce a thoughtful and engaging paper that effectively communicates your ideas to your readers.

5. Write a thesis statement

A thesis statement is a one-to-two-sentence summary of your research paper's main argument or direction. It serves as an overall guide to summarize the overall intent of the research paper for you and anyone wanting to know more about the research.

A strong thesis statement is:

Concise and clear: Explain your case in simple sentences (avoid covering multiple ideas). It might help to think of this section as an elevator pitch.

Specific: Ensure that there is no ambiguity in your statement and that your summary covers the points argued in the paper.

Debatable: A thesis statement puts forward a specific argument––it is not merely a statement but a debatable point that can be analyzed and discussed.

Here are three thesis statement examples from different disciplines:

Psychology thesis example: "We're studying adults aged 25-40 to see if taking short breaks for mindfulness can help with stress. Our goal is to find practical ways to manage anxiety better."

Environmental science thesis example: "This research paper looks into how having more city parks might make the air cleaner and keep people healthier. I want to find out if more green spaces means breathing fewer carcinogens in big cities."

UX research thesis example: "This study focuses on improving mobile banking for older adults using ethnographic research, eye-tracking analysis, and interactive prototyping. We investigate the usefulness of eye-tracking analysis with older individuals, aiming to spark debate and offer fresh perspectives on UX design and digital inclusivity for the aging population."

6. Conduct in-depth research

A research paper doesn’t just include research that you’ve uncovered from other papers and studies but your fresh insights, too. You will seek to become an expert on your topic––understanding the nuances in the current leading theories. You will analyze existing research and add your thinking and discoveries.  It's crucial to conduct well-designed research that is rigorous, robust, and based on reliable sources. Suppose a research paper lacks evidence or is biased. In that case, it won't benefit the academic community or the general public. Therefore, examining the topic thoroughly and furthering its understanding through high-quality research is essential. That usually means conducting new research. Depending on the area under investigation, you may conduct surveys, interviews, diary studies , or observational research to uncover new insights or bolster current claims.

7. Determine supporting evidence

Not every piece of research you’ve discovered will be relevant to your research paper. It’s important to categorize the most meaningful evidence to include alongside your discoveries. It's important to include evidence that doesn't support your claims to avoid exclusion bias and ensure a fair research paper.

8. Write a research paper outline

Before diving in and writing the whole paper, start with an outline. It will help you to see if more research is needed, and it will provide a framework by which to write a more compelling paper. Your supervisor may even request an outline to approve before beginning to write the first draft of the full paper. An outline will include your topic, thesis statement, key headings, short summaries of the research, and your arguments.

9. Write your first draft

Once you feel confident about your outline and sources, it’s time to write your first draft. While penning a long piece of content can be intimidating, if you’ve laid the groundwork, you will have a structure to help you move steadily through each section. To keep up motivation and inspiration, it’s often best to keep the pace quick. Stopping for long periods can interrupt your flow and make jumping back in harder than writing when things are fresh in your mind.

10. Cite your sources correctly

It's always a good practice to give credit where it's due, and the same goes for citing any works that have influenced your paper. Building your arguments on credible references adds value and authenticity to your research. In the formatting guidelines section, you’ll find an overview of different citation styles (MLA, CMOS, or APA), which will help you meet any publishing or academic requirements and strengthen your paper's credibility. It is essential to follow the guidelines provided by your school or the publication you are submitting to ensure the accuracy and relevance of your citations.

11. Ensure your work is original

It is crucial to ensure the originality of your paper, as plagiarism can lead to serious consequences. To avoid plagiarism, you should use proper paraphrasing and quoting techniques. Paraphrasing is rewriting a text in your own words while maintaining the original meaning. Quoting involves directly citing the source. Giving credit to the original author or source is essential whenever you borrow their ideas or words. You can also use plagiarism detection tools such as Scribbr or Grammarly to check the originality of your paper. These tools compare your draft writing to a vast database of online sources. If you find any accidental plagiarism, you should correct it immediately by rephrasing or citing the source.

12. Revise, edit, and proofread

One of the essential qualities of excellent writers is their ability to understand the importance of editing and proofreading. Even though it's tempting to call it a day once you've finished your writing, editing your work can significantly improve its quality. It's natural to overlook the weaker areas when you've just finished writing a paper. Therefore, it's best to take a break of a day or two, or even up to a week, to refresh your mind. This way, you can return to your work with a new perspective. After some breathing room, you can spot any inconsistencies, spelling and grammar errors, typos, or missing citations and correct them. 

• The best research paper format 

The format of your research paper should align with the requirements set forth by your college, school, or target publication. 

There is no one “best” format, per se. Depending on the stated requirements, you may need to include the following elements:

Title page: The title page of a research paper typically includes the title, author's name, and institutional affiliation and may include additional information such as a course name or instructor's name. 

Table of contents: Include a table of contents to make it easy for readers to find specific sections of your paper.

Abstract: The abstract is a summary of the purpose of the paper.

Methods : In this section, describe the research methods used. This may include collecting data , conducting interviews, or doing field research .

Results: Summarize the conclusions you drew from your research in this section.

Discussion: In this section, discuss the implications of your research . Be sure to mention any significant limitations to your approach and suggest areas for further research.

Tables, charts, and illustrations: Use tables, charts, and illustrations to help convey your research findings and make them easier to understand.

Works cited or reference page: Include a works cited or reference page to give credit to the sources that you used to conduct your research.

Bibliography: Provide a list of all the sources you consulted while conducting your research.

Dedication and acknowledgments : Optionally, you may include a dedication and acknowledgments section to thank individuals who helped you with your research.

• General style and formatting guidelines

Formatting your research paper means you can submit it to your college, journal, or other publications in compliance with their criteria.

Research papers tend to follow the American Psychological Association (APA), Modern Language Association (MLA), or Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS) guidelines.

Here’s how each style guide is typically used:

Chicago Manual of Style (CMOS):

CMOS is a versatile style guide used for various types of writing. It's known for its flexibility and use in the humanities. CMOS provides guidelines for citations, formatting, and overall writing style. It allows for both footnotes and in-text citations, giving writers options based on their preferences or publication requirements.

American Psychological Association (APA):

APA is common in the social sciences. It’s hailed for its clarity and emphasis on precision. It has specific rules for citing sources, creating references, and formatting papers. APA style uses in-text citations with an accompanying reference list. It's designed to convey information efficiently and is widely used in academic and scientific writing.

Modern Language Association (MLA):

MLA is widely used in the humanities, especially literature and language studies. It emphasizes the author-page format for in-text citations and provides guidelines for creating a "Works Cited" page. MLA is known for its focus on the author's name and the literary works cited. It’s frequently used in disciplines that prioritize literary analysis and critical thinking.

To confirm you're using the latest style guide, check the official website or publisher's site for updates, consult academic resources, and verify the guide's publication date. Online platforms and educational resources may also provide summaries and alerts about any revisions or additions to the style guide.

Citing sources

When working on your research paper, it's important to cite the sources you used properly. Your citation style will guide you through this process. Generally, there are three parts to citing sources in your research paper: 

First, provide a brief citation in the body of your essay. This is also known as a parenthetical or in-text citation. 

Second, include a full citation in the Reference list at the end of your paper. Different types of citations include in-text citations, footnotes, and reference lists. 

In-text citations include the author's surname and the date of the citation. 

Footnotes appear at the bottom of each page of your research paper. They may also be summarized within a reference list at the end of the paper. 

A reference list includes all of the research used within the paper at the end of the document. It should include the author, date, paper title, and publisher listed in the order that aligns with your citation style.

10 research paper writing tips:

Following some best practices is essential to writing a research paper that contributes to your field of study and creates a positive impact.

These tactics will help you structure your argument effectively and ensure your work benefits others:

Clear and precise language:  Ensure your language is unambiguous. Use academic language appropriately, but keep it simple. Also, provide clear takeaways for your audience.

Effective idea separation:  Organize the vast amount of information and sources in your paper with paragraphs and titles. Create easily digestible sections for your readers to navigate through.

Compelling intro:  Craft an engaging introduction that captures your reader's interest. Hook your audience and motivate them to continue reading.

Thorough revision and editing:  Take the time to review and edit your paper comprehensively. Use tools like Grammarly to detect and correct small, overlooked errors.

Thesis precision:  Develop a clear and concise thesis statement that guides your paper. Ensure that your thesis aligns with your research's overall purpose and contribution.

Logical flow of ideas:  Maintain a logical progression throughout the paper. Use transitions effectively to connect different sections and maintain coherence.

Critical evaluation of sources:  Evaluate and critically assess the relevance and reliability of your sources. Ensure that your research is based on credible and up-to-date information.

Thematic consistency:  Maintain a consistent theme throughout the paper. Ensure that all sections contribute cohesively to the overall argument.

Relevant supporting evidence:  Provide concise and relevant evidence to support your arguments. Avoid unnecessary details that may distract from the main points.

Embrace counterarguments:  Acknowledge and address opposing views to strengthen your position. Show that you have considered alternative arguments in your field.

7 research tips 

If you want your paper to not only be well-written but also contribute to the progress of human knowledge, consider these tips to take your paper to the next level:

Selecting the appropriate topic: The topic you select should align with your area of expertise, comply with the requirements of your project, and have sufficient resources for a comprehensive investigation.

Use academic databases: Academic databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, and JSTOR offer a wealth of research papers that can help you discover everything you need to know about your chosen topic.

Critically evaluate sources: It is important not to accept research findings at face value. Instead, it is crucial to critically analyze the information to avoid jumping to conclusions or overlooking important details. A well-written research paper requires a critical analysis with thorough reasoning to support claims.

Diversify your sources: Expand your research horizons by exploring a variety of sources beyond the standard databases. Utilize books, conference proceedings, and interviews to gather diverse perspectives and enrich your understanding of the topic.

Take detailed notes: Detailed note-taking is crucial during research and can help you form the outline and body of your paper.

Stay up on trends: Keep abreast of the latest developments in your field by regularly checking for recent publications. Subscribe to newsletters, follow relevant journals, and attend conferences to stay informed about emerging trends and advancements. 

Engage in peer review: Seek feedback from peers or mentors to ensure the rigor and validity of your research . Peer review helps identify potential weaknesses in your methodology and strengthens the overall credibility of your findings.

• The real-world impact of research papers

Writing a research paper is more than an academic or business exercise. The experience provides an opportunity to explore a subject in-depth, broaden one's understanding, and arrive at meaningful conclusions. With careful planning, dedication, and hard work, writing a research paper can be a fulfilling and enriching experience contributing to advancing knowledge.

How do I publish my research paper? 

Many academics wish to publish their research papers. While challenging, your paper might get traction if it covers new and well-written information. To publish your research paper, find a target publication, thoroughly read their guidelines, format your paper accordingly, and send it to them per their instructions. You may need to include a cover letter, too. After submission, your paper may be peer-reviewed by experts to assess its legitimacy, quality, originality, and methodology. Following review, you will be informed by the publication whether they have accepted or rejected your paper. 

What is a good opening sentence for a research paper? 

Beginning your research paper with a compelling introduction can ensure readers are interested in going further. A relevant quote, a compelling statistic, or a bold argument can start the paper and hook your reader. Remember, though, that the most important aspect of a research paper is the quality of the information––not necessarily your ability to storytell, so ensure anything you write aligns with your goals.

Research paper vs. a research proposal—what’s the difference?

While some may confuse research papers and proposals, they are different documents. 

A research proposal comes before a research paper. It is a detailed document that outlines an intended area of exploration. It includes the research topic, methodology, timeline, sources, and potential conclusions. Research proposals are often required when seeking approval to conduct research. 

A research paper is a summary of research findings. A research paper follows a structured format to present those findings and construct an argument or conclusion.

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How to Write a Research Paper: the LEAP approach (+cheat sheet)

In this article I will show you how to write a research paper using the four LEAP writing steps. The LEAP academic writing approach is a step-by-step method for turning research results into a published paper .

The LEAP writing approach has been the cornerstone of the 70 + research papers that I have authored and the 3700+ citations these paper have accumulated within 9 years since the completion of my PhD. I hope the LEAP approach will help you just as much as it has helped me to make an real, tangible impact with my research.

What is the LEAP research paper writing approach?

I designed the LEAP writing approach not only for merely writing the papers. My goal with the writing system was to show young scientists how to first think about research results and then how to efficiently write each section of the research paper.

In other words, you will see how to write a research paper by first analyzing the results and then building a logical, persuasive arguments. In this way, instead of being afraid of writing research paper, you will be able to rely on the paper writing process to help you with what is the most demanding task in getting published – thinking.

The four research paper writing steps according to the LEAP approach:

I will show each of these steps in detail. And you will be able to download the LEAP cheat sheet for using with every paper you write.

But before I tell you how to efficiently write a research paper, I want to show you what is the problem with the way scientists typically write a research paper and why the LEAP approach is more efficient.

How scientists typically write a research paper (and why it isn’t efficient)

Writing a research paper can be tough, especially for a young scientist. Your reasoning needs to be persuasive and thorough enough to convince readers of your arguments. The description has to be derived from research evidence, from prior art, and from your own judgment. This is a tough feat to accomplish.

The figure below shows the sequence of the different parts of a typical research paper. Depending on the scientific journal, some sections might be merged or nonexistent, but the general outline of a research paper will remain very similar.

Here is the problem: Most people make the mistake of writing in this same sequence.

While the structure of scientific articles is designed to help the reader follow the research, it does little to help the scientist write the paper. This is because the layout of research articles starts with the broad (introduction) and narrows down to the specifics (results). See in the figure below how the research paper is structured in terms of the breath of information that each section entails.

How to write a research paper according to the LEAP approach

For a scientist, it is much easier to start writing a research paper with laying out the facts in the narrow sections (i.e. results), step back to describe them (i.e. write the discussion), and step back again to explain the broader picture in the introduction.

For example, it might feel intimidating to start writing a research paper by explaining your research’s global significance in the introduction, while it is easy to plot the figures in the results. When plotting the results, there is not much room for wiggle: the results are what they are.

Starting to write a research papers from the results is also more fun because you finally get to see and understand the complete picture of the research that you have worked on.

Most importantly, following the LEAP approach will help you first make sense of the results yourself and then clearly communicate them to the readers. That is because the sequence of writing allows you to slowly understand the meaning of the results and then develop arguments for presenting to your readers.

I have personally been able to write and submit a research article in three short days using this method.

Step 1: Lay Out the Facts

You have worked long hours on a research project that has produced results and are no doubt curious to determine what they exactly mean. There is no better way to do this than by preparing figures, graphics and tables. This is what the first LEAP step is focused on – diving into the results.

How to p repare charts and tables for a research paper

Your first task is to try out different ways of visually demonstrating the research results. In many fields, the central items of a journal paper will be charts that are based on the data generated during research. In other fields, these might be conceptual diagrams, microscopy images, schematics and a number of other types of scientific graphics which should visually communicate the research study and its results to the readers. If you have reasonably small number of data points, data tables might be useful as well.

Tips for preparing charts and tables

• Try multiple chart types but in the finished paper only use the one that best conveys the message you want to present to the readers
• Follow the eight chart design progressions for selecting and refining a data chart for your paper: https://peerrecognized.com/chart-progressions
• Prepare scientific graphics and visualizations for your paper using the scientific graphic design cheat sheet: https://peerrecognized.com/tools-for-creating-scientific-illustrations/

How to describe the results of your research

Now that you have your data charts, graphics and tables laid out in front of you – describe what you see in them. Seek to answer the question: What have I found?  Your statements should progress in a logical sequence and be backed by the visual information. Since, at this point, you are simply explaining what everyone should be able to see for themselves, you can use a declarative tone: The figure X demonstrates that…

Tips for describing the research results :

• Answer the question: “ What have I found? “
• Use declarative tone since you are simply describing observations

Step 2: Explain the results

The core aspect of your research paper is not actually the results; it is the explanation of their meaning. In the second LEAP step, you will do some heavy lifting by guiding the readers through the results using logic backed by previous scientific research.

How to define the Message of a research paper

To define the central message of your research paper, imagine how you would explain your research to a colleague in 20 seconds . If you succeed in effectively communicating your paper’s message, a reader should be able to recount your findings in a similarly concise way even a year after reading it. This clarity will increase the chances that someone uses the knowledge you generated, which in turn raises the likelihood of citations to your research paper. 

Tips for defining the paper’s central message :

• Write the paper’s core message in a single sentence or two bullet points
• Write the core message in the header of the research paper manuscript

How to write the Discussion section of a research paper

In the discussion section you have to demonstrate why your research paper is worthy of publishing. In other words, you must now answer the all-important So what? question . How well you do so will ultimately define the success of your research paper.

Here are three steps to get started with writing the discussion section:

• Write bullet points of the things that convey the central message of the research article (these may evolve into subheadings later on).
• Make a list with the arguments or observations that support each idea.
• Finally, expand on each point to make full sentences and paragraphs.

Tips for writing the discussion section:

• What is the meaning of the results?
• Was the hypothesis confirmed?
• Write bullet points that support the core message
• List logical arguments for each bullet point, group them into sections
• Instead of repeating research timeline, use a presentation sequence that best supports your logic
• Convert arguments to full paragraphs; be confident but do not overhype
• Refer to both supportive and contradicting research papers for maximum credibility

How to write the Conclusions of a research paper

Since some readers might just skim through your research paper and turn directly to the conclusions, it is a good idea to make conclusion a standalone piece. In the first few sentences of the conclusions, briefly summarize the methodology and try to avoid using abbreviations (if you do, explain what they mean).

After this introduction, summarize the findings from the discussion section. Either paragraph style or bullet-point style conclusions can be used. I prefer the bullet-point style because it clearly separates the different conclusions and provides an easy-to-digest overview for the casual browser. It also forces me to be more succinct.

Tips for writing the conclusion section :

• Summarize the key findings, starting with the most important one
• Make conclusions standalone (short summary, avoid abbreviations)
• Add an optional take-home message and suggest future research in the last paragraph

How to refine the Objective of a research paper

The objective is a short, clear statement defining the paper’s research goals. It can be included either in the final paragraph of the introduction, or as a separate subsection after the introduction. Avoid writing long paragraphs with in-depth reasoning, references, and explanation of methodology since these belong in other sections. The paper’s objective can often be written in a single crisp sentence.

Tips for writing the objective section :

• The objective should ask the question that is answered by the central message of the research paper
• The research objective should be clear long before writing a paper. At this point, you are simply refining it to make sure it is addressed in the body of the paper.

How to write the Methodology section of your research paper

When writing the methodology section, aim for a depth of explanation that will allow readers to reproduce the study . This means that if you are using a novel method, you will have to describe it thoroughly. If, on the other hand, you applied a standardized method, or used an approach from another paper, it will be enough to briefly describe it with reference to the detailed original source.

Remember to also detail the research population, mention how you ensured representative sampling, and elaborate on what statistical methods you used to analyze the results.

Tips for writing the methodology section :

• Include enough detail to allow reproducing the research
• Provide references if the methods are known
• Create a methodology flow chart to add clarity
• Describe the research population, sampling methodology, statistical methods for result analysis
• Describe what methodology, test methods, materials, and sample groups were used in the research.

Step 3: Advertize the research

Step 3 of the LEAP writing approach is designed to entice the casual browser into reading your research paper. This advertising can be done with an informative title, an intriguing abstract, as well as a thorough explanation of the underlying need for doing the research within the introduction.

How to write the Introduction of a research paper

The introduction section should leave no doubt in the mind of the reader that what you are doing is important and that this work could push scientific knowledge forward. To do this convincingly, you will need to have a good knowledge of what is state-of-the-art in your field. You also need be able to see the bigger picture in order to demonstrate the potential impacts of your research work.

Think of the introduction as a funnel, going from wide to narrow, as shown in the figure below:

• Start with a brief context to explain what do we already know,
• Follow with the motivation for the research study and explain why should we care about it,
• Explain the research gap you are going to bridge within this research paper,
• Describe the approach you will take to solve the problem.

Tips for writing the introduction section :

• Follow the Context – Motivation – Research gap – Approach funnel for writing the introduction
• Explain how others tried and how you plan to solve the research problem
• Do a thorough literature review before writing the introduction
• Start writing the introduction by using your own words, then add references from the literature

How to prepare the Abstract of a research paper

The abstract acts as your paper’s elevator pitch and is therefore best written only after the main text is finished. In this one short paragraph you must convince someone to take on the time-consuming task of reading your whole research article. So, make the paper easy to read, intriguing, and self-explanatory; avoid jargon and abbreviations.

How to structure the abstract of a research paper:

• The abstract is a single paragraph that follows this structure:
• Problem: why did we research this
• Methodology: typically starts with the words “Here we…” that signal the start of own contribution.
• Results: what we found from the research.
• Conclusions: show why are the findings important

How to compose a research paper Title

The title is the ultimate summary of a research paper. It must therefore entice someone looking for information to click on a link to it and continue reading the article. A title is also used for indexing purposes in scientific databases, so a representative and optimized title will play large role in determining if your research paper appears in search results at all.

Tips for coming up with a research paper title:

• Capture curiosity of potential readers using a clear and descriptive title
• Include broad terms that are often searched
• Add details that uniquely identify the researched subject of your research paper
• Avoid jargon and abbreviations
• Use keywords as title extension (instead of duplicating the words) to increase the chance of appearing in search results

How to prepare Highlights and Graphical Abstract

Highlights are three to five short bullet-point style statements that convey the core findings of the research paper. Notice that the focus is on the findings, not on the process of getting there.

A graphical abstract placed next to the textual abstract visually summarizes the entire research paper in a single, easy-to-follow figure. I show how to create a graphical abstract in my book Research Data Visualization and Scientific Graphics.

Tips for preparing highlights and graphical abstract:

• In highlights show core findings of the research paper (instead of what you did in the study).
• In graphical abstract show take-home message or methodology of the research paper. Learn more about creating a graphical abstract in this article.

Step 4: Prepare for submission

Sometimes it seems that nuclear fusion will stop on the star closest to us (read: the sun will stop to shine) before a submitted manuscript is published in a scientific journal. The publication process routinely takes a long time, and after submitting the manuscript you have very little control over what happens. To increase the chances of a quick publication, you must do your homework before submitting the manuscript. In the fourth LEAP step, you make sure that your research paper is published in the most appropriate journal as quickly and painlessly as possible.

How to select a scientific Journal for your research paper

The best way to find a journal for your research paper is it to review which journals you used while preparing your manuscript. This source listing should provide some assurance that your own research paper, once published, will be among similar articles and, thus, among your field’s trusted sources.

After this initial selection of hand-full of scientific journals, consider the following six parameters for selecting the most appropriate journal for your research paper (read this article to review each step in detail):

• Scope and publishing history
• Ranking and Recognition
• Publishing time
• Acceptance rate
• Content requirements
• Access and Fees

How to select a journal for your research paper:

• Use the six parameters to select the most appropriate scientific journal for your research paper
• Use the following tools for journal selection: https://peerrecognized.com/journals
• Follow the journal’s “Authors guide” formatting requirements

How to Edit you manuscript

No one can write a finished research paper on their first attempt. Before submitting, make sure to take a break from your work for a couple of days, or even weeks. Try not to think about the manuscript during this time. Once it has faded from your memory, it is time to return and edit. The pause will allow you to read the manuscript from a fresh perspective and make edits as necessary.

I have summarized the most useful research paper editing tools in this article.

Tips for editing a research paper:

• Take time away from the research paper to forget about it; then returning to edit,
• Start by editing the content: structure, headings, paragraphs, logic, figures
• Continue by editing the grammar and language; perform a thorough language check using academic writing tools
• Read the entire paper out loud and correct what sounds weird

How to write a compelling Cover Letter for your paper

Begin the cover letter by stating the paper’s title and the type of paper you are submitting (review paper, research paper, short communication). Next, concisely explain why your study was performed, what was done, and what the key findings are. State why the results are important and what impact they might have in the field. Make sure you mention how your approach and findings relate to the scope of the journal in order to show why the article would be of interest to the journal’s readers.

I wrote a separate article that explains what to include in a cover letter here. You can also download a cover letter template from the article.

Tips for writing a cover letter:

• Explain how the findings of your research relate to journal’s scope
• Tell what impact the research results will have
• Show why the research paper will interest the journal’s audience
• Add any legal statements as required in journal’s guide for authors

How to Answer the Reviewers

Reviewers will often ask for new experiments, extended discussion, additional details on the experimental setup, and so forth. In principle, your primary winning tactic will be to agree with the reviewers and follow their suggestions whenever possible. After all, you must earn their blessing in order to get your paper published.

Be sure to answer each review query and stick to the point. In the response to the reviewers document write exactly where in the paper you have made any changes. In the paper itself, highlight the changes using a different color. This way the reviewers are less likely to re-read the entire article and suggest new edits.

In cases when you don’t agree with the reviewers, it makes sense to answer more thoroughly. Reviewers are scientifically minded people and so, with enough logical and supported argument, they will eventually be willing to see things your way.

Tips for answering the reviewers:

• Agree with most review comments, but if you don’t, thoroughly explain why
• Highlight changes in the manuscript
• Do not take the comments personally and cool down before answering

The LEAP research paper writing cheat sheet

Imagine that you are back in grad school and preparing to take an exam on the topic: “How to write a research paper”. As an exemplary student, you would, most naturally, create a cheat sheet summarizing the subject… Well, I did it for you.

This one-page summary of the LEAP research paper writing technique will remind you of the key research paper writing steps. Print it out and stick it to a wall in your office so that you can review it whenever you are writing a new research paper.

Now that we have gone through the four LEAP research paper writing steps, I hope you have a good idea of how to write a research paper. It can be an enjoyable process and once you get the hang of it, the four LEAP writing steps should even help you think about and interpret the research results. This process should enable you to write a well-structured, concise, and compelling research paper.

Have fund with writing your next research paper. I hope it will turn out great!

Learn writing papers that get cited

The LEAP writing approach is a blueprint for writing research papers. But to be efficient and write papers that get cited, you need more than that.

My name is Martins Zaumanis and in my interactive course Research Paper Writing Masterclass I will show you how to  visualize  your research results,  frame a message  that convinces your readers, and write  each section  of the paper. Step-by-step.

And of course – you will learn to respond the infamous  Reviewer No.2.

Hey! My name is Martins Zaumanis and I am a materials scientist in Switzerland ( Google Scholar ). As the first person in my family with a PhD, I have first-hand experience of the challenges starting scientists face in academia. With this blog, I want to help young researchers succeed in academia. I call the blog “Peer Recognized”, because peer recognition is what lifts academic careers and pushes science forward.

Besides this blog, I have written the Peer Recognized book series and created the Peer Recognized Academy offering interactive online courses.

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How To Write A Research Paper

Step-By-Step Tutorial With Examples + FREE Template

By: Derek Jansen (MBA) | Expert Reviewer: Dr Eunice Rautenbach | March 2024

For many students, crafting a strong research paper from scratch can feel like a daunting task – and rightly so! In this post, we’ll unpack what a research paper is, what it needs to do , and how to write one – in three easy steps. 🙂 

Overview: Writing A Research Paper

What (exactly) is a research paper.

• How to write a research paper
• Stage 1 : Topic & literature search
• Stage 2 : Structure & outline
• Stage 3 : Iterative writing
• Key takeaways

Let’s start by asking the most important question, “ What is a research paper? ”.

Simply put, a research paper is a scholarly written work where the writer (that’s you!) answers a specific question (this is called a research question ) through evidence-based arguments . Evidence-based is the keyword here. In other words, a research paper is different from an essay or other writing assignments that draw from the writer’s personal opinions or experiences. With a research paper, it’s all about building your arguments based on evidence (we’ll talk more about that evidence a little later).

Now, it’s worth noting that there are many different types of research papers , including analytical papers (the type I just described), argumentative papers, and interpretative papers. Here, we’ll focus on analytical papers , as these are some of the most common – but if you’re keen to learn about other types of research papers, be sure to check out the rest of the blog .

With that basic foundation laid, let’s get down to business and look at how to write a research paper .

Overview: The 3-Stage Process

While there are, of course, many potential approaches you can take to write a research paper, there are typically three stages to the writing process. So, in this tutorial, we’ll present a straightforward three-step process that we use when working with students at Grad Coach.

These three steps are:

• Finding a research topic and reviewing the existing literature
• Developing a provisional structure and outline for your paper, and
• Writing up your initial draft and then refining it iteratively

Let’s dig into each of these.

Need a helping hand?

Step 1: Find a topic and review the literature

As we mentioned earlier, in a research paper, you, as the researcher, will try to answer a question . More specifically, that’s called a research question , and it sets the direction of your entire paper. What’s important to understand though is that you’ll need to answer that research question with the help of high-quality sources – for example, journal articles, government reports, case studies, and so on. We’ll circle back to this in a minute.

The first stage of the research process is deciding on what your research question will be and then reviewing the existing literature (in other words, past studies and papers) to see what they say about that specific research question. In some cases, your professor may provide you with a predetermined research question (or set of questions). However, in many cases, you’ll need to find your own research question within a certain topic area.

Finding a strong research question hinges on identifying a meaningful research gap – in other words, an area that’s lacking in existing research. There’s a lot to unpack here, so if you wanna learn more, check out the plain-language explainer video below.

Once you’ve figured out which question (or questions) you’ll attempt to answer in your research paper, you’ll need to do a deep dive into the existing literature – this is called a “ literature search ”. Again, there are many ways to go about this, but your most likely starting point will be Google Scholar .

If you’re new to Google Scholar, think of it as Google for the academic world. You can start by simply entering a few different keywords that are relevant to your research question and it will then present a host of articles for you to review. What you want to pay close attention to here is the number of citations for each paper – the more citations a paper has, the more credible it is (generally speaking – there are some exceptions, of course).

Ideally, what you’re looking for are well-cited papers that are highly relevant to your topic. That said, keep in mind that citations are a cumulative metric , so older papers will often have more citations than newer papers – just because they’ve been around for longer. So, don’t fixate on this metric in isolation – relevance and recency are also very important.

Beyond Google Scholar, you’ll also definitely want to check out academic databases and aggregators such as Science Direct, PubMed, JStor and so on. These will often overlap with the results that you find in Google Scholar, but they can also reveal some hidden gems – so, be sure to check them out.

Once you’ve worked your way through all the literature, you’ll want to catalogue all this information in some sort of spreadsheet so that you can easily recall who said what, when and within what context. If you’d like, we’ve got a free literature spreadsheet that helps you do exactly that.

Step 2: Develop a structure and outline

With your research question pinned down and your literature digested and catalogued, it’s time to move on to planning your actual research paper .

It might sound obvious, but it’s really important to have some sort of rough outline in place before you start writing your paper. So often, we see students eagerly rushing into the writing phase, only to land up with a disjointed research paper that rambles on in multiple

Now, the secret here is to not get caught up in the fine details . Realistically, all you need at this stage is a bullet-point list that describes (in broad strokes) what you’ll discuss and in what order. It’s also useful to remember that you’re not glued to this outline – in all likelihood, you’ll chop and change some sections once you start writing, and that’s perfectly okay. What’s important is that you have some sort of roadmap in place from the start.

At this stage you might be wondering, “ But how should I structure my research paper? ”. Well, there’s no one-size-fits-all solution here, but in general, a research paper will consist of a few relatively standardised components:

• Introduction
• Literature review
• Methodology

Let’s take a look at each of these.

First up is the introduction section . As the name suggests, the purpose of the introduction is to set the scene for your research paper. There are usually (at least) four ingredients that go into this section – these are the background to the topic, the research problem and resultant research question , and the justification or rationale. If you’re interested, the video below unpacks the introduction section in more detail. 

The next section of your research paper will typically be your literature review . Remember all that literature you worked through earlier? Well, this is where you’ll present your interpretation of all that content . You’ll do this by writing about recent trends, developments, and arguments within the literature – but more specifically, those that are relevant to your research question . The literature review can oftentimes seem a little daunting, even to seasoned researchers, so be sure to check out our extensive collection of literature review content here .

With the introduction and lit review out of the way, the next section of your paper is the research methodology . In a nutshell, the methodology section should describe to your reader what you did (beyond just reviewing the existing literature) to answer your research question. For example, what data did you collect, how did you collect that data, how did you analyse that data and so on? For each choice, you’ll also need to justify why you chose to do it that way, and what the strengths and weaknesses of your approach were.

Now, it’s worth mentioning that for some research papers, this aspect of the project may be a lot simpler . For example, you may only need to draw on secondary sources (in other words, existing data sets). In some cases, you may just be asked to draw your conclusions from the literature search itself (in other words, there may be no data analysis at all). But, if you are required to collect and analyse data, you’ll need to pay a lot of attention to the methodology section. The video below provides an example of what the methodology section might look like.

By this stage of your paper, you will have explained what your research question is, what the existing literature has to say about that question, and how you analysed additional data to try to answer your question. So, the natural next step is to present your analysis of that data . This section is usually called the “results” or “analysis” section and this is where you’ll showcase your findings.

Depending on your school’s requirements, you may need to present and interpret the data in one section – or you might split the presentation and the interpretation into two sections. In the latter case, your “results” section will just describe the data, and the “discussion” is where you’ll interpret that data and explicitly link your analysis back to your research question. If you’re not sure which approach to take, check in with your professor or take a look at past papers to see what the norms are for your programme.

Alright – once you’ve presented and discussed your results, it’s time to wrap it up . This usually takes the form of the “ conclusion ” section. In the conclusion, you’ll need to highlight the key takeaways from your study and close the loop by explicitly answering your research question. Again, the exact requirements here will vary depending on your programme (and you may not even need a conclusion section at all) – so be sure to check with your professor if you’re unsure.

Step 3: Write and refine

Finally, it’s time to get writing. All too often though, students hit a brick wall right about here… So, how do you avoid this happening to you?

Well, there’s a lot to be said when it comes to writing a research paper (or any sort of academic piece), but we’ll share three practical tips to help you get started.

First and foremost , it’s essential to approach your writing as an iterative process. In other words, you need to start with a really messy first draft and then polish it over multiple rounds of editing. Don’t waste your time trying to write a perfect research paper in one go. Instead, take the pressure off yourself by adopting an iterative approach.

Secondly , it’s important to always lean towards critical writing , rather than descriptive writing. What does this mean? Well, at the simplest level, descriptive writing focuses on the “ what ”, while critical writing digs into the “ so what ” – in other words, the implications . If you’re not familiar with these two types of writing, don’t worry! You can find a plain-language explanation here.

Last but not least, you’ll need to get your referencing right. Specifically, you’ll need to provide credible, correctly formatted citations for the statements you make. We see students making referencing mistakes all the time and it costs them dearly. The good news is that you can easily avoid this by using a simple reference manager . If you don’t have one, check out our video about Mendeley, an easy (and free) reference management tool that you can start using today.

Recap: Key Takeaways

We’ve covered a lot of ground here. To recap, the three steps to writing a high-quality research paper are:

• To choose a research question and review the literature
• To plan your paper structure and draft an outline
• To take an iterative approach to writing, focusing on critical writing and strong referencing

Remember, this is just a b ig-picture overview of the research paper development process and there’s a lot more nuance to unpack. So, be sure to grab a copy of our free research paper template to learn more about how to write a research paper.

Can you help me with a full paper template for this Abstract:

Background: Energy and sports drinks have gained popularity among diverse demographic groups, including adolescents, athletes, workers, and college students. While often used interchangeably, these beverages serve distinct purposes, with energy drinks aiming to boost energy and cognitive performance, and sports drinks designed to prevent dehydration and replenish electrolytes and carbohydrates lost during physical exertion.

Objective: To assess the nutritional quality of energy and sports drinks in Egypt.

Material and Methods: A cross-sectional study assessed the nutrient contents, including energy, sugar, electrolytes, vitamins, and caffeine, of sports and energy drinks available in major supermarkets in Cairo, Alexandria, and Giza, Egypt. Data collection involved photographing all relevant product labels and recording nutritional information. Descriptive statistics and appropriate statistical tests were employed to analyze and compare the nutritional values of energy and sports drinks.

Results: The study analyzed 38 sports drinks and 42 energy drinks. Sports drinks were significantly more expensive than energy drinks, with higher net content and elevated magnesium, potassium, and vitamin C. Energy drinks contained higher concentrations of caffeine, sugars, and vitamins B2, B3, and B6.

Conclusion: Significant nutritional differences exist between sports and energy drinks, reflecting their intended uses. However, these beverages’ high sugar content and calorie loads raise health concerns. Proper labeling, public awareness, and responsible marketing are essential to guide safe consumption practices in Egypt.

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How to Write a Research Paper

Use the links below to jump directly to any section of this guide:

Research Paper Fundamentals

How to choose a topic or question, how to create a working hypothesis or thesis, common research paper methodologies, how to gather and organize evidence , how to write an outline for your research paper, how to write a rough draft, how to revise your draft, how to produce a final draft, resources for teachers .

It is not fair to say that no one writes anymore. Just about everyone writes text messages, brief emails, or social media posts every single day. Yet, most people don't have a lot of practice with the formal, organized writing required for a good academic research paper. This guide contains links to a variety of resources that can help demystify the process. Some of these resources are intended for teachers; they contain exercises, activities, and teaching strategies. Other resources are intended for direct use by students who are struggling to write papers, or are looking for tips to make the process go more smoothly.

The resources in this section are designed to help students understand the different types of research papers, the general research process, and how to manage their time. Below, you'll find links from university writing centers, the trusted Purdue Online Writing Lab, and more.

What is an Academic Research Paper?

"Genre and the Research Paper" (Purdue OWL)

There are different types of research papers. Different types of scholarly questions will lend themselves to one format or another. This is a brief introduction to the two main genres of research paper: analytic and argumentative. 

"7 Most Popular Types of Research Papers" (Personal-writer.com)

This resource discusses formats that high school students commonly encounter, such as the compare and contrast essay and the definitional essay. Please note that the inclusion of this link is not an endorsement of this company's paid service.

How to Prepare and Plan Out Writing a Research Paper

Teachers can give their students a step-by-step guide like these to help them understand the different steps of the research paper process. These guides can be combined with the time management tools in the next subsection to help students come up with customized calendars for completing their papers.

"Ten Steps for Writing Research Papers" (American University)  

This resource from American University is a comprehensive guide to the research paper writing process, and includes examples of proper research questions and thesis topics.

"Steps in Writing a Research Paper" (SUNY Empire State College)

This guide breaks the research paper process into 11 steps. Each "step" links to a separate page, which describes the work entailed in completing it.

How to Manage Time Effectively

The links below will help students determine how much time is necessary to complete a paper. If your sources are not available online or at your local library, you'll need to leave extra time for the Interlibrary Loan process. Remember that, even if you do not need to consult secondary sources, you'll still need to leave yourself ample time to organize your thoughts.

"Research Paper Planner: Timeline" (Baylor University)

This interactive resource from Baylor University creates a suggested writing schedule based on how much time a student has to work on the assignment.

"Research Paper Planner" (UCLA)

UCLA's library offers this step-by-step guide to the research paper writing process, which also includes a suggested planning calendar.

There's a reason teachers spend a long time talking about choosing a good topic. Without a good topic and a well-formulated research question, it is almost impossible to write a clear and organized paper. The resources below will help you generate ideas and formulate precise questions.

"How to Select a Research Topic" (Univ. of Michigan-Flint)

This resource is designed for college students who are struggling to come up with an appropriate topic. A student who uses this resource and still feels unsure about his or her topic should consult the course instructor for further personalized assistance.

"25 Interesting Research Paper Topics to Get You Started" (Kibin)

This resource, which is probably most appropriate for high school students, provides a list of specific topics to help get students started. It is broken into subsections, such as "paper topics on local issues."

"Writing a Good Research Question" (Grand Canyon University)

This introduction to research questions includes some embedded videos, as well as links to scholarly articles on research questions. This resource would be most appropriate for teachers who are planning lessons on research paper fundamentals.

"How to Write a Research Question the Right Way" (Kibin)

This student-focused resource provides more detail on writing research questions. The language is accessible, and there are embedded videos and examples of good and bad questions.

It is important to have a rough hypothesis or thesis in mind at the beginning of the research process. People who have a sense of what they want to say will have an easier time sorting through scholarly sources and other information. The key, of course, is not to become too wedded to the draft hypothesis or thesis. Just about every working thesis gets changed during the research process.

CrashCourse Video: "Sociology Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is tailored to sociology students, it is applicable to students in a variety of social science disciplines. This video does a good job demonstrating the connection between the brainstorming that goes into selecting a research question and the formulation of a working hypothesis.

"How to Write a Thesis Statement for an Analytical Essay" (YouTube)

Students writing analytical essays will not develop the same type of working hypothesis as students who are writing research papers in other disciplines. For these students, developing the working thesis may happen as a part of the rough draft (see the relevant section below). 

"Research Hypothesis" (Oakland Univ.)

This resource provides some examples of hypotheses in social science disciplines like Political Science and Criminal Justice. These sample hypotheses may also be useful for students in other soft social sciences and humanities disciplines like History.

When grading a research paper, instructors look for a consistent methodology. This section will help you understand different methodological approaches used in research papers. Students will get the most out of these resources if they use them to help prepare for conversations with teachers or discussions in class.

"Types of Research Designs" (USC)

A "research design," used for complex papers, is related to the paper's method. This resource contains introductions to a variety of popular research designs in the social sciences. Although it is not the most intuitive site to read, the information here is very valuable. 

"Major Research Methods" (YouTube)

Although this video is a bit on the dry side, it provides a comprehensive overview of the major research methodologies in a format that might be more accessible to students who have struggled with textbooks or other written resources.

"Humanities Research Strategies" (USC)

This is a portal where students can learn about four methodological approaches for humanities papers: Historical Methodologies, Textual Criticism, Conceptual Analysis, and the Synoptic method.

"Selected Major Social Science Research Methods: Overview" (National Academies Press)

This appendix from the book  Using Science as Evidence in Public Policy , printed by National Academies Press, introduces some methods used in social science papers.

"Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper: 6. The Methodology" (USC)

This resource from the University of Southern California's library contains tips for writing a methodology section in a research paper.

How to Determine the Best Methodology for You

Anyone who is new to writing research papers should be sure to select a method in consultation with their instructor. These resources can be used to help prepare for that discussion. They may also be used on their own by more advanced students.

"Choosing Appropriate Research Methodologies" (Palgrave Study Skills)

This friendly and approachable resource from Palgrave Macmillan can be used by students who are just starting to think about appropriate methodologies.

"How to Choose Your Research Methods" (NFER (UK))

This is another approachable resource students can use to help narrow down the most appropriate methods for their research projects.

The resources in this section introduce the process of gathering scholarly sources and collecting evidence. You'll find a range of material here, from introductory guides to advanced explications best suited to college students. Please consult the LitCharts  How to Do Academic Research guide for a more comprehensive list of resources devoted to finding scholarly literature.

Google Scholar

Students who have access to library websites with detailed research guides should start there, but people who do not have access to those resources can begin their search for secondary literature here.

"Gathering Appropriate Information" (Texas Gateway)

This resource from the Texas Gateway for online resources introduces students to the research process, and contains interactive exercises. The level of complexity is suitable for middle school, high school, and introductory college classrooms.

"An Overview of Quantitative and Qualitative Data Collection Methods" (NSF)

This PDF from the National Science Foundation goes into detail about best practices and pitfalls in data collection across multiple types of methodologies.

"Social Science Methods for Data Collection and Analysis" (Swiss FIT)

This resource is appropriate for advanced undergraduates or teachers looking to create lessons on research design and data collection. It covers techniques for gathering data via interviews, observations, and other methods.

"Collecting Data by In-depth Interviewing" (Leeds Univ.)

This resource contains enough information about conducting interviews to make it useful for teachers who want to create a lesson plan, but is also accessible enough for college juniors or seniors to make use of it on their own.

There is no "one size fits all" outlining technique. Some students might devote all their energy and attention to the outline in order to avoid the paper. Other students may benefit from being made to sit down and organize their thoughts into a lengthy sentence outline. The resources in this section include strategies and templates for multiple types of outlines. 

"Topic vs. Sentence Outlines" (UC Berkeley)

This resource introduces two basic approaches to outlining: the shorter topic-based approach, and the longer, more detailed sentence-based approach. This resource also contains videos on how to develop paper paragraphs from the sentence-based outline.

"Types of Outlines and Samples" (Purdue OWL)

The Purdue Online Writing Lab's guide is a slightly less detailed discussion of different types of outlines. It contains several sample outlines.

"Writing An Outline" (Austin C.C.)

This resource from a community college contains sample outlines from an American history class that students can use as models.

"How to Structure an Outline for a College Paper" (YouTube)

This brief (sub-2 minute) video from the ExpertVillage YouTube channel provides a model of outline writing for students who are struggling with the idea.

"Outlining" (Harvard)

This is a good resource to consult after completing a draft outline. It offers suggestions for making sure your outline avoids things like unnecessary repetition.

As with outlines, rough drafts can take on many different forms. These resources introduce teachers and students to the various approaches to writing a rough draft. This section also includes resources that will help you cite your sources appropriately according to the MLA, Chicago, and APA style manuals.

"Creating a Rough Draft for a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

This resource is useful for teachers in particular, as it provides some suggested exercises to help students with writing a basic rough draft. 

Rough Draft Assignment (Duke of Definition)

This sample assignment, with a brief list of tips, was developed by a high school teacher who runs a very successful and well-reviewed page of educational resources.

"Creating the First Draft of Your Research Paper" (Concordia Univ.)

This resource will be helpful for perfectionists or procrastinators, as it opens by discussing the problem of avoiding writing. It also provides a short list of suggestions meant to get students writing.

Using Proper Citations

There is no such thing as a rough draft of a scholarly citation. These links to the three major citation guides will ensure that your citations follow the correct format. Please consult the LitCharts How to Cite Your Sources guide for more resources.

Chicago Manual of Style Citation Guide

Some call  The Chicago Manual of Style , which was first published in 1906, "the editors' Bible." The manual is now in its 17th edition, and is popular in the social sciences, historical journals, and some other fields in the humanities.

APA Citation Guide

According to the American Psychological Association, this guide was developed to aid reading comprehension, clarity of communication, and to reduce bias in language in the social and behavioral sciences. Its first full edition was published in 1952, and it is now in its sixth edition.

MLA Citation Guide

The Modern Language Association style is used most commonly within the liberal arts and humanities. The  MLA Style Manual and Guide to Scholarly Publishing  was first published in 1985 and (as of 2008) is in its third edition.

Any professional scholar will tell you that the best research papers are made in the revision stage. No matter how strong your research question or working thesis, it is not possible to write a truly outstanding paper without devoting energy to revision. These resources provide examples of revision exercises for the classroom, as well as tips for students working independently.

"The Art of Revision" (Univ. of Arizona)

This resource provides a wealth of information and suggestions for both students and teachers. There is a list of suggested exercises that teachers might use in class, along with a revision checklist that is useful for teachers and students alike.

"Script for Workshop on Revision" (Vanderbilt University)

Vanderbilt's guide for leading a 50-minute revision workshop can serve as a model for teachers who wish to guide students through the revision process during classtime. 

"Revising Your Paper" (Univ. of Washington)

This detailed handout was designed for students who are beginning the revision process. It discusses different approaches and methods for revision, and also includes a detailed list of things students should look for while they revise.

"Revising Drafts" (UNC Writing Center)

This resource is designed for students and suggests things to look for during the revision process. It provides steps for the process and has a FAQ for students who have questions about why it is important to revise.

Conferencing with Writing Tutors and Instructors

No writer is so good that he or she can't benefit from meeting with instructors or peer tutors. These resources from university writing, learning, and communication centers provide suggestions for how to get the most out of these one-on-one meetings.

"Getting Feedback" (UNC Writing Center)

This very helpful resource talks about how to ask for feedback during the entire writing process. It contains possible questions that students might ask when developing an outline, during the revision process, and after the final draft has been graded.

"Prepare for Your Tutoring Session" (Otis College of Art and Design)

This guide from a university's student learning center contains a lot of helpful tips for getting the most out of working with a writing tutor.

"The Importance of Asking Your Professor" (Univ. of Waterloo)

This article from the university's Writing and Communication Centre's blog contains some suggestions for how and when to get help from professors and Teaching Assistants.

Once you've revised your first draft, you're well on your way to handing in a polished paper. These resources—each of them produced by writing professionals at colleges and universities—outline the steps required in order to produce a final draft. You'll find proofreading tips and checklists in text and video form.

"Developing a Final Draft of a Research Paper" (Univ. of Minnesota)

While this resource contains suggestions for revision, it also features a couple of helpful checklists for the last stages of completing a final draft.

Basic Final Draft Tips and Checklist (Univ. of Maryland-University College)

This short and accessible resource, part of UMUC's very thorough online guide to writing and research, contains a very basic checklist for students who are getting ready to turn in their final drafts.

Final Draft Checklist (Everett C.C.)

This is another accessible final draft checklist, appropriate for both high school and college students. It suggests reading your essay aloud at least once.

"How to Proofread Your Final Draft" (YouTube)

This video (approximately 5 minutes), produced by Eastern Washington University, gives students tips on proofreading final drafts.

"Proofreading Tips" (Georgia Southern-Armstrong)

This guide will help students learn how to spot common errors in their papers. It suggests focusing on content and editing for grammar and mechanics.

This final set of resources is intended specifically for high school and college instructors. It provides links to unit plans and classroom exercises that can help improve students' research and writing skills. You'll find resources that give an overview of the process, along with activities that focus on how to begin and how to carry out research. 

"Research Paper Complete Resources Pack" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, rubrics, and other resources is designed for high school students. The resources in this packet are aligned to Common Core standards.

"Research Paper—Complete Unit" (Teachers Pay Teachers)

This packet of assignments, notes, PowerPoints, and other resources has a 4/4 rating with over 700 ratings. It is designed for high school teachers, but might also be useful to college instructors who work with freshmen.

"Teaching Students to Write Good Papers" (Yale)

This resource from Yale's Center for Teaching and Learning is designed for college instructors, and it includes links to appropriate activities and exercises.

"Research Paper Writing: An Overview" (CUNY Brooklyn)

CUNY Brooklyn offers this complete lesson plan for introducing students to research papers. It includes an accompanying set of PowerPoint slides.

"Lesson Plan: How to Begin Writing a Research Paper" (San Jose State Univ.)

This lesson plan is designed for students in the health sciences, so teachers will have to modify it for their own needs. It includes a breakdown of the brainstorming, topic selection, and research question process. 

"Quantitative Techniques for Social Science Research" (Univ. of Pittsburgh)

This is a set of PowerPoint slides that can be used to introduce students to a variety of quantitative methods used in the social sciences.

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How to start your research paper [step-by-step guide]

1. Choose your topic

2. find information on your topic, 3. create a thesis statement, 4. create a research paper outline, 5. organize your notes, 6. write your introduction, 7. write your first draft of the body, 9. write your conclusion, 10. revise again, edit, and proofread, frequently asked questions about starting your research paper, related articles.

Research papers can be short or in-depth, but no matter what type of research paper, they all follow pretty much the same pattern and have the same structure .

A research paper is a paper that makes an argument about a topic based on research and analysis.

There will be some basic differences, but if you can write one type of research paper, you can write another. Below is a step-by-step guide to starting and completing your research paper.

Choose a topic that interests you. Writing your research paper will be so much more pleasant with a topic that you actually want to know more about. Your interest will show in the way you write and effort you put into the paper. Consider these issues when coming up with a topic:

• make sure your topic is not too broad
• narrow it down if you're using terms that are too general

Academic search engines are a great source to find background information on your topic. Your institution's library will most likely provide access to plenty of online research databases. Take a look at our guide on how to efficiently search online databases for academic research to learn how to gather all the information needed on your topic.

Tip: If you’re struggling with finding research, consider meeting with an academic librarian to help you come up with more balanced keywords.

If you’re struggling to find a topic for your thesis, take a look at our guide on how to come up with a thesis topic .

The thesis statement is one of the most important elements of any piece of academic writing. It can be defined as a very brief statement of what the main point or central message of your paper is. Our thesis statement guide will help you write an excellent thesis statement.

In the next step, you need to create your research paper outline . The outline is the skeleton of your research paper. Simply start by writing down your thesis and the main ideas you wish to present. This will likely change as your research progresses; therefore, do not worry about being too specific in the early stages of writing your outline.

Then, fill out your outline with the following components:

• the main ideas that you want to cover in the paper
• the types of evidence that you will use to support your argument
• quotes from secondary sources that you may want to use

Organizing all the information you have gathered according to your outline will help you later on in the writing process. Analyze your notes, check for accuracy, verify the information, and make sure you understand all the information you have gathered in a way that you can communicate your findings effectively.

Start with the introduction. It will set the direction of your paper and help you a lot as you write. Waiting to write it at the end can leave you with a poorly written setup to an otherwise well-written paper.

The body of your paper argues, explains or describes your topic. Start with the first topic from your outline. Ideally, you have organized your notes in a way that you can work through your research paper outline and have all the notes ready.

After your first draft, take some time to check the paper for content errors. Rearrange ideas, make changes and check if the order of your paragraphs makes sense. At this point, it is helpful to re-read the research paper guidelines and make sure you have followed the format requirements. You can also use free grammar and proof reading checkers such as Grammarly .

Tip: Consider reading your paper from back to front when you undertake your initial revision. This will help you ensure that your argument and organization are sound.

Write your conclusion last and avoid including any new information that has not already been presented in the body of the paper. Your conclusion should wrap up your paper and show that your research question has been answered.

Allow a few days to pass after you finished writing the final draft of your research paper, and then start making your final corrections. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gives some great advice here on how to revise, edit, and proofread your paper.

Tip: Take a break from your paper before you start your final revisions. Then, you’ll be able to approach your paper with fresh eyes.

As part of your final revision, be sure to check that you’ve cited everything correctly and that you have a full bibliography. Use a reference manager like Paperpile to organize your research and to create accurate citations.

The first step to start writing a research paper is to choose a topic. Make sure your topic is not too broad; narrow it down if you're using terms that are too general.

The format of your research paper will vary depending on the journal you submit to. Make sure to check first which citation style does the journal follow, in order to format your paper accordingly. Check Getting started with your research paper outline to have an idea of what a research paper looks like.

The last step of your research paper should be proofreading. Allow a few days to pass after you finished writing the final draft of your research paper, and then start making your final corrections. The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill gives some great advice here on how to revise, edit and proofread your paper.

There are plenty of software you can use to write a research paper. We recommend our own citation software, Paperpile , as well as grammar and proof reading checkers such as Grammarly .

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Home » Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Research Paper – Structure, Examples and Writing Guide

Table of Contents

Research Paper

Definition:

Research Paper is a written document that presents the author’s original research, analysis, and interpretation of a specific topic or issue.

It is typically based on Empirical Evidence, and may involve qualitative or quantitative research methods, or a combination of both. The purpose of a research paper is to contribute new knowledge or insights to a particular field of study, and to demonstrate the author’s understanding of the existing literature and theories related to the topic.

Structure of Research Paper

The structure of a research paper typically follows a standard format, consisting of several sections that convey specific information about the research study. The following is a detailed explanation of the structure of a research paper:

The title page contains the title of the paper, the name(s) of the author(s), and the affiliation(s) of the author(s). It also includes the date of submission and possibly, the name of the journal or conference where the paper is to be published.

The abstract is a brief summary of the research paper, typically ranging from 100 to 250 words. It should include the research question, the methods used, the key findings, and the implications of the results. The abstract should be written in a concise and clear manner to allow readers to quickly grasp the essence of the research.

Introduction

The introduction section of a research paper provides background information about the research problem, the research question, and the research objectives. It also outlines the significance of the research, the research gap that it aims to fill, and the approach taken to address the research question. Finally, the introduction section ends with a clear statement of the research hypothesis or research question.

Literature Review

The literature review section of a research paper provides an overview of the existing literature on the topic of study. It includes a critical analysis and synthesis of the literature, highlighting the key concepts, themes, and debates. The literature review should also demonstrate the research gap and how the current study seeks to address it.

The methods section of a research paper describes the research design, the sample selection, the data collection and analysis procedures, and the statistical methods used to analyze the data. This section should provide sufficient detail for other researchers to replicate the study.

The results section presents the findings of the research, using tables, graphs, and figures to illustrate the data. The findings should be presented in a clear and concise manner, with reference to the research question and hypothesis.

The discussion section of a research paper interprets the findings and discusses their implications for the research question, the literature review, and the field of study. It should also address the limitations of the study and suggest future research directions.

The conclusion section summarizes the main findings of the study, restates the research question and hypothesis, and provides a final reflection on the significance of the research.

The references section provides a list of all the sources cited in the paper, following a specific citation style such as APA, MLA or Chicago.

How to Write Research Paper

You can write Research Paper by the following guide:

• Choose a Topic: The first step is to select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Brainstorm ideas and narrow down to a research question that is specific and researchable.
• Conduct a Literature Review: The literature review helps you identify the gap in the existing research and provides a basis for your research question. It also helps you to develop a theoretical framework and research hypothesis.
• Develop a Thesis Statement : The thesis statement is the main argument of your research paper. It should be clear, concise and specific to your research question.
• Plan your Research: Develop a research plan that outlines the methods, data sources, and data analysis procedures. This will help you to collect and analyze data effectively.
• Collect and Analyze Data: Collect data using various methods such as surveys, interviews, observations, or experiments. Analyze data using statistical tools or other qualitative methods.
• Organize your Paper : Organize your paper into sections such as Introduction, Literature Review, Methods, Results, Discussion, and Conclusion. Ensure that each section is coherent and follows a logical flow.
• Write your Paper : Start by writing the introduction, followed by the literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. Ensure that your writing is clear, concise, and follows the required formatting and citation styles.
• Edit and Proofread your Paper: Review your paper for grammar and spelling errors, and ensure that it is well-structured and easy to read. Ask someone else to review your paper to get feedback and suggestions for improvement.
• Cite your Sources: Ensure that you properly cite all sources used in your research paper. This is essential for giving credit to the original authors and avoiding plagiarism.

Research Paper Example

Note : The below example research paper is for illustrative purposes only and is not an actual research paper. Actual research papers may have different structures, contents, and formats depending on the field of study, research question, data collection and analysis methods, and other factors. Students should always consult with their professors or supervisors for specific guidelines and expectations for their research papers.

Research Paper Example sample for Students:

Title: The Impact of Social Media on Mental Health among Young Adults

Abstract: This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults. A literature review was conducted to examine the existing research on the topic. A survey was then administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Introduction: Social media has become an integral part of modern life, particularly among young adults. While social media has many benefits, including increased communication and social connectivity, it has also been associated with negative outcomes, such as addiction, cyberbullying, and mental health problems. This study aims to investigate the impact of social media use on the mental health of young adults.

Literature Review: The literature review highlights the existing research on the impact of social media use on mental health. The review shows that social media use is associated with depression, anxiety, stress, and other mental health problems. The review also identifies the factors that contribute to the negative impact of social media, including social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Methods : A survey was administered to 200 university students to collect data on their social media use, mental health status, and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. The survey included questions on social media use, mental health status (measured using the DASS-21), and perceived impact of social media on their mental health. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and regression analysis.

Results : The results showed that social media use is positively associated with depression, anxiety, and stress. The study also found that social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO are significant predictors of mental health problems among young adults.

Discussion : The study’s findings suggest that social media use has a negative impact on the mental health of young adults. The study highlights the need for interventions that address the factors contributing to the negative impact of social media, such as social comparison, cyberbullying, and FOMO.

Conclusion : In conclusion, social media use has a significant impact on the mental health of young adults. The study’s findings underscore the need for interventions that promote healthy social media use and address the negative outcomes associated with social media use. Future research can explore the effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health. Additionally, longitudinal studies can investigate the long-term effects of social media use on mental health.

Limitations : The study has some limitations, including the use of self-report measures and a cross-sectional design. The use of self-report measures may result in biased responses, and a cross-sectional design limits the ability to establish causality.

Implications: The study’s findings have implications for mental health professionals, educators, and policymakers. Mental health professionals can use the findings to develop interventions that address the negative impact of social media use on mental health. Educators can incorporate social media literacy into their curriculum to promote healthy social media use among young adults. Policymakers can use the findings to develop policies that protect young adults from the negative outcomes associated with social media use.

References :

• Twenge, J. M., & Campbell, W. K. (2019). Associations between screen time and lower psychological well-being among children and adolescents: Evidence from a population-based study. Preventive medicine reports, 15, 100918.
• Primack, B. A., Shensa, A., Escobar-Viera, C. G., Barrett, E. L., Sidani, J. E., Colditz, J. B., … & James, A. E. (2017). Use of multiple social media platforms and symptoms of depression and anxiety: A nationally-representative study among US young adults. Computers in Human Behavior, 69, 1-9.
• Van der Meer, T. G., & Verhoeven, J. W. (2017). Social media and its impact on academic performance of students. Journal of Information Technology Education: Research, 16, 383-398.

Appendix : The survey used in this study is provided below.

Social Media and Mental Health Survey

• How often do you use social media per day?
• Less than 30 minutes
• 30 minutes to 1 hour
• 1 to 2 hours
• 2 to 4 hours
• More than 4 hours
• Which social media platforms do you use?
• Others (Please specify)
• How often do you experience the following on social media?
• Social comparison (comparing yourself to others)
• Cyberbullying
• Fear of Missing Out (FOMO)
• Have you ever experienced any of the following mental health problems in the past month?
• Do you think social media use has a positive or negative impact on your mental health?
• Very positive
• Somewhat positive
• Somewhat negative
• Very negative
• In your opinion, which factors contribute to the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Social comparison
• In your opinion, what interventions could be effective in reducing the negative impact of social media on mental health?
• Education on healthy social media use
• Counseling for mental health problems caused by social media
• Social media detox programs
• Regulation of social media use

Thank you for your participation!

Applications of Research Paper

Research papers have several applications in various fields, including:

• Advancing knowledge: Research papers contribute to the advancement of knowledge by generating new insights, theories, and findings that can inform future research and practice. They help to answer important questions, clarify existing knowledge, and identify areas that require further investigation.
• Informing policy: Research papers can inform policy decisions by providing evidence-based recommendations for policymakers. They can help to identify gaps in current policies, evaluate the effectiveness of interventions, and inform the development of new policies and regulations.
• Improving practice: Research papers can improve practice by providing evidence-based guidance for professionals in various fields, including medicine, education, business, and psychology. They can inform the development of best practices, guidelines, and standards of care that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• Educating students : Research papers are often used as teaching tools in universities and colleges to educate students about research methods, data analysis, and academic writing. They help students to develop critical thinking skills, research skills, and communication skills that are essential for success in many careers.
• Fostering collaboration: Research papers can foster collaboration among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers by providing a platform for sharing knowledge and ideas. They can facilitate interdisciplinary collaborations and partnerships that can lead to innovative solutions to complex problems.

When to Write Research Paper

Research papers are typically written when a person has completed a research project or when they have conducted a study and have obtained data or findings that they want to share with the academic or professional community. Research papers are usually written in academic settings, such as universities, but they can also be written in professional settings, such as research organizations, government agencies, or private companies.

Here are some common situations where a person might need to write a research paper:

• For academic purposes: Students in universities and colleges are often required to write research papers as part of their coursework, particularly in the social sciences, natural sciences, and humanities. Writing research papers helps students to develop research skills, critical thinking skills, and academic writing skills.
• For publication: Researchers often write research papers to publish their findings in academic journals or to present their work at academic conferences. Publishing research papers is an important way to disseminate research findings to the academic community and to establish oneself as an expert in a particular field.
• To inform policy or practice : Researchers may write research papers to inform policy decisions or to improve practice in various fields. Research findings can be used to inform the development of policies, guidelines, and best practices that can improve outcomes for individuals and organizations.
• To share new insights or ideas: Researchers may write research papers to share new insights or ideas with the academic or professional community. They may present new theories, propose new research methods, or challenge existing paradigms in their field.

Purpose of Research Paper

The purpose of a research paper is to present the results of a study or investigation in a clear, concise, and structured manner. Research papers are written to communicate new knowledge, ideas, or findings to a specific audience, such as researchers, scholars, practitioners, or policymakers. The primary purposes of a research paper are:

• To contribute to the body of knowledge : Research papers aim to add new knowledge or insights to a particular field or discipline. They do this by reporting the results of empirical studies, reviewing and synthesizing existing literature, proposing new theories, or providing new perspectives on a topic.
• To inform or persuade: Research papers are written to inform or persuade the reader about a particular issue, topic, or phenomenon. They present evidence and arguments to support their claims and seek to persuade the reader of the validity of their findings or recommendations.
• To advance the field: Research papers seek to advance the field or discipline by identifying gaps in knowledge, proposing new research questions or approaches, or challenging existing assumptions or paradigms. They aim to contribute to ongoing debates and discussions within a field and to stimulate further research and inquiry.
• To demonstrate research skills: Research papers demonstrate the author’s research skills, including their ability to design and conduct a study, collect and analyze data, and interpret and communicate findings. They also demonstrate the author’s ability to critically evaluate existing literature, synthesize information from multiple sources, and write in a clear and structured manner.

Characteristics of Research Paper

Research papers have several characteristics that distinguish them from other forms of academic or professional writing. Here are some common characteristics of research papers:

• Evidence-based: Research papers are based on empirical evidence, which is collected through rigorous research methods such as experiments, surveys, observations, or interviews. They rely on objective data and facts to support their claims and conclusions.
• Structured and organized: Research papers have a clear and logical structure, with sections such as introduction, literature review, methods, results, discussion, and conclusion. They are organized in a way that helps the reader to follow the argument and understand the findings.
• Formal and objective: Research papers are written in a formal and objective tone, with an emphasis on clarity, precision, and accuracy. They avoid subjective language or personal opinions and instead rely on objective data and analysis to support their arguments.
• Citations and references: Research papers include citations and references to acknowledge the sources of information and ideas used in the paper. They use a specific citation style, such as APA, MLA, or Chicago, to ensure consistency and accuracy.
• Peer-reviewed: Research papers are often peer-reviewed, which means they are evaluated by other experts in the field before they are published. Peer-review ensures that the research is of high quality, meets ethical standards, and contributes to the advancement of knowledge in the field.
• Objective and unbiased: Research papers strive to be objective and unbiased in their presentation of the findings. They avoid personal biases or preconceptions and instead rely on the data and analysis to draw conclusions.

Advantages of Research Paper

Research papers have many advantages, both for the individual researcher and for the broader academic and professional community. Here are some advantages of research papers:

• Contribution to knowledge: Research papers contribute to the body of knowledge in a particular field or discipline. They add new information, insights, and perspectives to existing literature and help advance the understanding of a particular phenomenon or issue.
• Opportunity for intellectual growth: Research papers provide an opportunity for intellectual growth for the researcher. They require critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity, which can help develop the researcher’s skills and knowledge.
• Career advancement: Research papers can help advance the researcher’s career by demonstrating their expertise and contributions to the field. They can also lead to new research opportunities, collaborations, and funding.
• Academic recognition: Research papers can lead to academic recognition in the form of awards, grants, or invitations to speak at conferences or events. They can also contribute to the researcher’s reputation and standing in the field.
• Impact on policy and practice: Research papers can have a significant impact on policy and practice. They can inform policy decisions, guide practice, and lead to changes in laws, regulations, or procedures.
• Advancement of society: Research papers can contribute to the advancement of society by addressing important issues, identifying solutions to problems, and promoting social justice and equality.

Limitations of Research Paper

Research papers also have some limitations that should be considered when interpreting their findings or implications. Here are some common limitations of research papers:

• Limited generalizability: Research findings may not be generalizable to other populations, settings, or contexts. Studies often use specific samples or conditions that may not reflect the broader population or real-world situations.
• Potential for bias : Research papers may be biased due to factors such as sample selection, measurement errors, or researcher biases. It is important to evaluate the quality of the research design and methods used to ensure that the findings are valid and reliable.
• Ethical concerns: Research papers may raise ethical concerns, such as the use of vulnerable populations or invasive procedures. Researchers must adhere to ethical guidelines and obtain informed consent from participants to ensure that the research is conducted in a responsible and respectful manner.
• Limitations of methodology: Research papers may be limited by the methodology used to collect and analyze data. For example, certain research methods may not capture the complexity or nuance of a particular phenomenon, or may not be appropriate for certain research questions.
• Publication bias: Research papers may be subject to publication bias, where positive or significant findings are more likely to be published than negative or non-significant findings. This can skew the overall findings of a particular area of research.
• Time and resource constraints: Research papers may be limited by time and resource constraints, which can affect the quality and scope of the research. Researchers may not have access to certain data or resources, or may be unable to conduct long-term studies due to practical limitations.

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Writing a Research Paper

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The Research Paper

There will come a time in most students' careers when they are assigned a research paper. Such an assignment often creates a great deal of unneeded anxiety in the student, which may result in procrastination and a feeling of confusion and inadequacy. This anxiety frequently stems from the fact that many students are unfamiliar and inexperienced with this genre of writing. Never fear—inexperience and unfamiliarity are situations you can change through practice! Writing a research paper is an essential aspect of academics and should not be avoided on account of one's anxiety. In fact, the process of writing a research paper can be one of the more rewarding experiences one may encounter in academics. What is more, many students will continue to do research throughout their careers, which is one of the reasons this topic is so important.

Becoming an experienced researcher and writer in any field or discipline takes a great deal of practice. There are few individuals for whom this process comes naturally. Remember, even the most seasoned academic veterans have had to learn how to write a research paper at some point in their career. Therefore, with diligence, organization, practice, a willingness to learn (and to make mistakes!), and, perhaps most important of all, patience, students will find that they can achieve great things through their research and writing.

The pages in this section cover the following topic areas related to the process of writing a research paper:

• Genre - This section will provide an overview for understanding the difference between an analytical and argumentative research paper.
• Choosing a Topic - This section will guide the student through the process of choosing topics, whether the topic be one that is assigned or one that the student chooses themselves.
• Identifying an Audience - This section will help the student understand the often times confusing topic of audience by offering some basic guidelines for the process.
• Where Do I Begin - This section concludes the handout by offering several links to resources at Purdue, and also provides an overview of the final stages of writing a research paper.

How to Write a 10-Page Research Paper

• Writing Research Papers
• Writing Essays
• English Grammar
• M.Ed., Education Administration, University of Georgia
• B.A., History, Armstrong State University

A large research paper assignment can be scary and intimidating. As always, this large assignment becomes more manageable (and less scary) whenever you break it down into digestible bites.

Start Early

The first key to writing a good research paper is starting early. There are a few good reasons to get an early start:

• The best sources for your topic might be taken by other students, or they might be located in a faraway library.
• It will take time to read the sources and write those note cards.
• You will find that every rewrite of your paper makes it better. Give yourself plenty of time to polish your paper.
• If you wait until the last minute, you could find that there is no information available to support your topic or thesis. You might need to find a new topic.

Write in Stages

The timeline below should help you get to the number of pages you desire. The key to writing a long research paper is writing in stages: You will need to establish a general overview first and then identify and write about several subtopics.

The second key to writing a lengthy research paper is to think of the writing process as a cycle. You will alternate researching, writing, reordering, and revising.

You will need to revisit each subtopic to insert your own analysis and arrange the proper order of your paragraphs in the final stages. Be sure to cite all information that is not common knowledge. Consult a style guide to make sure you are always citing properly.

Use a Timeline

Develop your own timeline with the tool below. If possible start the process four weeks before the paper is due.

• Graduate School Papers and You
• What Is a Literature Review?
• How to Develop a Research Paper Timeline
• Strategies for Writing a 20-Page Paper
• Creating a Table of Contents
• How to Write a Research Paper That Earns an A
• How to Write an Instructional Outline
• The Difference Between Revising and Editing
• How to Use Footnotes in Research Papers
• Tips for Writing a "What I Did on Vacation" Essay
• Brainstorming Techniques for Students
• 60 Writing Topics for Extended Definitions
• How to Write an Ode
• How to Write a Solid Thesis Statement
• What Is a Research Paper?
• How to Outline and Organize an Essay

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• Research paper

How to Create a Structured Research Paper Outline | Example

Published on August 7, 2022 by Courtney Gahan . Revised on August 15, 2023.

A research paper outline is a useful tool to aid in the writing process , providing a structure to follow with all information to be included in the paper clearly organized.

A quality outline can make writing your research paper more efficient by helping to:

• Organize your thoughts
• Understand the flow of information and how ideas are related
• Ensure nothing is forgotten

A research paper outline can also give your teacher an early idea of the final product.

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Table of contents

Research paper outline example, how to write a research paper outline, formatting your research paper outline, language in research paper outlines.

• Definition of measles
• Rise in cases in recent years in places the disease was previously eliminated or had very low rates of infection
• Figures: Number of cases per year on average, number in recent years. Relate to immunization
• Symptoms and timeframes of disease
• Risk of fatality, including statistics
• How measles is spread
• Immunization procedures in different regions
• Different regions, focusing on the arguments from those against immunization
• Immunization figures in affected regions
• High number of cases in non-immunizing regions
• Illnesses that can result from measles virus
• Fatal cases of other illnesses after patient contracted measles
• Summary of arguments of different groups
• Summary of figures and relationship with recent immunization debate
• Which side of the argument appears to be correct?

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Follow these steps to start your research paper outline:

• Decide on the subject of the paper
• Write down all the ideas you want to include or discuss
• Organize related ideas into sub-groups
• Arrange your ideas into a hierarchy: What should the reader learn first? What is most important? Which idea will help end your paper most effectively?
• Create headings and subheadings that are effective
• Format the outline in either alphanumeric, full-sentence or decimal format

There are three different kinds of research paper outline: alphanumeric, full-sentence and decimal outlines. The differences relate to formatting and style of writing.

• Alphanumeric
• Full-sentence

An alphanumeric outline is most commonly used. It uses Roman numerals, capitalized letters, arabic numerals, lowercase letters to organize the flow of information. Text is written with short notes rather than full sentences.

• Sub-point of sub-point 1

Essentially the same as the alphanumeric outline, but with the text written in full sentences rather than short points.

• Additional sub-point to conclude discussion of point of evidence introduced in point A

A decimal outline is similar in format to the alphanumeric outline, but with a different numbering system: 1, 1.1, 1.2, etc. Text is written as short notes rather than full sentences.

• 1.1.1 Sub-point of first point
• 1.1.2 Sub-point of first point
• 1.2 Second point

To write an effective research paper outline, it is important to pay attention to language. This is especially important if it is one you will show to your teacher or be assessed on.

There are four main considerations: parallelism, coordination, subordination and division.

Parallelism: Be consistent with grammatical form

Parallel structure or parallelism is the repetition of a particular grammatical form within a sentence, or in this case, between points and sub-points. This simply means that if the first point is a verb , the sub-point should also be a verb.

Example of parallelism:

• Include different regions, focusing on the different arguments from those against immunization

Coordination: Be aware of each point’s weight

Your chosen subheadings should hold the same significance as each other, as should all first sub-points, secondary sub-points, and so on.

Example of coordination:

• Include immunization figures in affected regions
• Illnesses that can result from the measles virus

Subordination: Work from general to specific

Subordination refers to the separation of general points from specific. Your main headings should be quite general, and each level of sub-point should become more specific.

Example of subordination:

Division: break information into sub-points.

Your headings should be divided into two or more subsections. There is no limit to how many subsections you can include under each heading, but keep in mind that the information will be structured into a paragraph during the writing stage, so you should not go overboard with the number of sub-points.

Ready to start writing or looking for guidance on a different step in the process? Read our step-by-step guide on how to write a research paper .

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How to write your first research paper.

Writing a research manuscript is an intimidating process for many novice writers in the sciences. One of the stumbling blocks is the beginning of the process and creating the first draft. This paper presents guidelines on how to initiate the writing process and draft each section of a research manuscript. The paper discusses seven rules that allow the writer to prepare a well-structured and comprehensive manuscript for a publication submission. In addition, the author lists different strategies for successful revision. Each of those strategies represents a step in the revision process and should help the writer improve the quality of the manuscript. The paper could be considered a brief manual for publication.

It is late at night. You have been struggling with your project for a year. You generated an enormous amount of interesting data. Your pipette feels like an extension of your hand, and running western blots has become part of your daily routine, similar to brushing your teeth. Your colleagues think you are ready to write a paper, and your lab mates tease you about your “slow” writing progress. Yet days pass, and you cannot force yourself to sit down to write. You have not written anything for a while (lab reports do not count), and you feel you have lost your stamina. How does the writing process work? How can you fit your writing into a daily schedule packed with experiments? What section should you start with? What distinguishes a good research paper from a bad one? How should you revise your paper? These and many other questions buzz in your head and keep you stressed. As a result, you procrastinate. In this paper, I will discuss the issues related to the writing process of a scientific paper. Specifically, I will focus on the best approaches to start a scientific paper, tips for writing each section, and the best revision strategies.

1. Schedule your writing time in Outlook

Whether you have written 100 papers or you are struggling with your first, starting the process is the most difficult part unless you have a rigid writing schedule. Writing is hard. It is a very difficult process of intense concentration and brain work. As stated in Hayes’ framework for the study of writing: “It is a generative activity requiring motivation, and it is an intellectual activity requiring cognitive processes and memory” [ 1 ]. In his book How to Write a Lot: A Practical Guide to Productive Academic Writing , Paul Silvia says that for some, “it’s easier to embalm the dead than to write an article about it” [ 2 ]. Just as with any type of hard work, you will not succeed unless you practice regularly. If you have not done physical exercises for a year, only regular workouts can get you into good shape again. The same kind of regular exercises, or I call them “writing sessions,” are required to be a productive author. Choose from 1- to 2-hour blocks in your daily work schedule and consider them as non-cancellable appointments. When figuring out which blocks of time will be set for writing, you should select the time that works best for this type of work. For many people, mornings are more productive. One Yale University graduate student spent a semester writing from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. when her lab was empty. At the end of the semester, she was amazed at how much she accomplished without even interrupting her regular lab hours. In addition, doing the hardest task first thing in the morning contributes to the sense of accomplishment during the rest of the day. This positive feeling spills over into our work and life and has a very positive effect on our overall attitude.

Rule 1: Create regular time blocks for writing as appointments in your calendar and keep these appointments.

2. start with an outline.

Now that you have scheduled time, you need to decide how to start writing. The best strategy is to start with an outline. This will not be an outline that you are used to, with Roman numerals for each section and neat parallel listing of topic sentences and supporting points. This outline will be similar to a template for your paper. Initially, the outline will form a structure for your paper; it will help generate ideas and formulate hypotheses. Following the advice of George M. Whitesides, “. . . start with a blank piece of paper, and write down, in any order, all important ideas that occur to you concerning the paper” [ 3 ]. Use Table 1 as a starting point for your outline. Include your visuals (figures, tables, formulas, equations, and algorithms), and list your findings. These will constitute the first level of your outline, which will eventually expand as you elaborate.

The next stage is to add context and structure. Here you will group all your ideas into sections: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion/Conclusion ( Table 2 ). This step will help add coherence to your work and sift your ideas.

Now that you have expanded your outline, you are ready for the next step: discussing the ideas for your paper with your colleagues and mentor. Many universities have a writing center where graduate students can schedule individual consultations and receive assistance with their paper drafts. Getting feedback during early stages of your draft can save a lot of time. Talking through ideas allows people to conceptualize and organize thoughts to find their direction without wasting time on unnecessary writing. Outlining is the most effective way of communicating your ideas and exchanging thoughts. Moreover, it is also the best stage to decide to which publication you will submit the paper. Many people come up with three choices and discuss them with their mentors and colleagues. Having a list of journal priorities can help you quickly resubmit your paper if your paper is rejected.

Rule 2: Create a detailed outline and discuss it with your mentor and peers.

3. continue with drafts.

After you get enough feedback and decide on the journal you will submit to, the process of real writing begins. Copy your outline into a separate file and expand on each of the points, adding data and elaborating on the details. When you create the first draft, do not succumb to the temptation of editing. Do not slow down to choose a better word or better phrase; do not halt to improve your sentence structure. Pour your ideas into the paper and leave revision and editing for later. As Paul Silvia explains, “Revising while you generate text is like drinking decaffeinated coffee in the early morning: noble idea, wrong time” [ 2 ].

Many students complain that they are not productive writers because they experience writer’s block. Staring at an empty screen is frustrating, but your screen is not really empty: You have a template of your article, and all you need to do is fill in the blanks. Indeed, writer’s block is a logical fallacy for a scientist ― it is just an excuse to procrastinate. When scientists start writing a research paper, they already have their files with data, lab notes with materials and experimental designs, some visuals, and tables with results. All they need to do is scrutinize these pieces and put them together into a comprehensive paper.

3.1. Starting with Materials and Methods

If you still struggle with starting a paper, then write the Materials and Methods section first. Since you have all your notes, it should not be problematic for you to describe the experimental design and procedures. Your most important goal in this section is to be as explicit as possible by providing enough detail and references. In the end, the purpose of this section is to allow other researchers to evaluate and repeat your work. So do not run into the same problems as the writers of the sentences in (1):

1a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation. 1b. To isolate T cells, lymph nodes were collected.

As you can see, crucial pieces of information are missing: the speed of centrifuging your bacteria, the time, and the temperature in (1a); the source of lymph nodes for collection in (b). The sentences can be improved when information is added, as in (2a) and (2b), respectfully:

2a. Bacteria were pelleted by centrifugation at 3000g for 15 min at 25°C. 2b. To isolate T cells, mediastinal and mesenteric lymph nodes from Balb/c mice were collected at day 7 after immunization with ovabumin.

If your method has previously been published and is well-known, then you should provide only the literature reference, as in (3a). If your method is unpublished, then you need to make sure you provide all essential details, as in (3b).

3a. Stem cells were isolated, according to Johnson [23]. 3b. Stem cells were isolated using biotinylated carbon nanotubes coated with anti-CD34 antibodies.

Furthermore, cohesion and fluency are crucial in this section. One of the malpractices resulting in disrupted fluency is switching from passive voice to active and vice versa within the same paragraph, as shown in (4). This switching misleads and distracts the reader.

4. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness [ 4 ].

The problem with (4) is that the reader has to switch from the point of view of the experiment (passive voice) to the point of view of the experimenter (active voice). This switch causes confusion about the performer of the actions in the first and the third sentences. To improve the coherence and fluency of the paragraph above, you should be consistent in choosing the point of view: first person “we” or passive voice [ 5 ]. Let’s consider two revised examples in (5).

5a. We programmed behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 by using E-Prime. We took ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods) as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music. We operationalized the preferred and unpreferred status of the music along a continuum of pleasantness. 5b. Behavioral computer-based experiments of Study 1 were programmed by using E-Prime. Ratings of enjoyment, mood, and arousal were taken as the patients listened to preferred pleasant music and unpreferred music by using Visual Analogue Scales (SI Methods). The preferred and unpreferred status of the music was operationalized along a continuum of pleasantness.

If you choose the point of view of the experimenter, then you may end up with repetitive “we did this” sentences. For many readers, paragraphs with sentences all beginning with “we” may also sound disruptive. So if you choose active sentences, you need to keep the number of “we” subjects to a minimum and vary the beginnings of the sentences [ 6 ].

Interestingly, recent studies have reported that the Materials and Methods section is the only section in research papers in which passive voice predominantly overrides the use of the active voice [ 5 , 7 , 8 , 9 ]. For example, Martínez shows a significant drop in active voice use in the Methods sections based on the corpus of 1 million words of experimental full text research articles in the biological sciences [ 7 ]. According to the author, the active voice patterned with “we” is used only as a tool to reveal personal responsibility for the procedural decisions in designing and performing experimental work. This means that while all other sections of the research paper use active voice, passive voice is still the most predominant in Materials and Methods sections.

Writing Materials and Methods sections is a meticulous and time consuming task requiring extreme accuracy and clarity. This is why when you complete your draft, you should ask for as much feedback from your colleagues as possible. Numerous readers of this section will help you identify the missing links and improve the technical style of this section.

Rule 3: Be meticulous and accurate in describing the Materials and Methods. Do not change the point of view within one paragraph.

3.2. writing results section.

For many authors, writing the Results section is more intimidating than writing the Materials and Methods section . If people are interested in your paper, they are interested in your results. That is why it is vital to use all your writing skills to objectively present your key findings in an orderly and logical sequence using illustrative materials and text.

Your Results should be organized into different segments or subsections where each one presents the purpose of the experiment, your experimental approach, data including text and visuals (tables, figures, schematics, algorithms, and formulas), and data commentary. For most journals, your data commentary will include a meaningful summary of the data presented in the visuals and an explanation of the most significant findings. This data presentation should not repeat the data in the visuals, but rather highlight the most important points. In the “standard” research paper approach, your Results section should exclude data interpretation, leaving it for the Discussion section. However, interpretations gradually and secretly creep into research papers: “Reducing the data, generalizing from the data, and highlighting scientific cases are all highly interpretive processes. It should be clear by now that we do not let the data speak for themselves in research reports; in summarizing our results, we interpret them for the reader” [ 10 ]. As a result, many journals including the Journal of Experimental Medicine and the Journal of Clinical Investigation use joint Results/Discussion sections, where results are immediately followed by interpretations.

Another important aspect of this section is to create a comprehensive and supported argument or a well-researched case. This means that you should be selective in presenting data and choose only those experimental details that are essential for your reader to understand your findings. You might have conducted an experiment 20 times and collected numerous records, but this does not mean that you should present all those records in your paper. You need to distinguish your results from your data and be able to discard excessive experimental details that could distract and confuse the reader. However, creating a picture or an argument should not be confused with data manipulation or falsification, which is a willful distortion of data and results. If some of your findings contradict your ideas, you have to mention this and find a plausible explanation for the contradiction.

In addition, your text should not include irrelevant and peripheral information, including overview sentences, as in (6).

6. To show our results, we first introduce all components of experimental system and then describe the outcome of infections.

Indeed, wordiness convolutes your sentences and conceals your ideas from readers. One common source of wordiness is unnecessary intensifiers. Adverbial intensifiers such as “clearly,” “essential,” “quite,” “basically,” “rather,” “fairly,” “really,” and “virtually” not only add verbosity to your sentences, but also lower your results’ credibility. They appeal to the reader’s emotions but lower objectivity, as in the common examples in (7):

7a. Table 3 clearly shows that … 7b. It is obvious from figure 4 that …

Another source of wordiness is nominalizations, i.e., nouns derived from verbs and adjectives paired with weak verbs including “be,” “have,” “do,” “make,” “cause,” “provide,” and “get” and constructions such as “there is/are.”

8a. We tested the hypothesis that there is a disruption of membrane asymmetry. 8b. In this paper we provide an argument that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

In the sentences above, the abstract nominalizations “disruption” and “argument” do not contribute to the clarity of the sentences, but rather clutter them with useless vocabulary that distracts from the meaning. To improve your sentences, avoid unnecessary nominalizations and change passive verbs and constructions into active and direct sentences.

9a. We tested the hypothesis that the membrane asymmetry is disrupted. 9b. In this paper we argue that stem cells repopulate injured organs.

Your Results section is the heart of your paper, representing a year or more of your daily research. So lead your reader through your story by writing direct, concise, and clear sentences.

Rule 4: Be clear, concise, and objective in describing your Results.

3.3. now it is time for your introduction.

Now that you are almost half through drafting your research paper, it is time to update your outline. While describing your Methods and Results, many of you diverged from the original outline and re-focused your ideas. So before you move on to create your Introduction, re-read your Methods and Results sections and change your outline to match your research focus. The updated outline will help you review the general picture of your paper, the topic, the main idea, and the purpose, which are all important for writing your introduction.

The best way to structure your introduction is to follow the three-move approach shown in Table 3 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak [ 11 ].

The moves and information from your outline can help to create your Introduction efficiently and without missing steps. These moves are traffic signs that lead the reader through the road of your ideas. Each move plays an important role in your paper and should be presented with deep thought and care. When you establish the territory, you place your research in context and highlight the importance of your research topic. By finding the niche, you outline the scope of your research problem and enter the scientific dialogue. The final move, “occupying the niche,” is where you explain your research in a nutshell and highlight your paper’s significance. The three moves allow your readers to evaluate their interest in your paper and play a significant role in the paper review process, determining your paper reviewers.

Some academic writers assume that the reader “should follow the paper” to find the answers about your methodology and your findings. As a result, many novice writers do not present their experimental approach and the major findings, wrongly believing that the reader will locate the necessary information later while reading the subsequent sections [ 5 ]. However, this “suspense” approach is not appropriate for scientific writing. To interest the reader, scientific authors should be direct and straightforward and present informative one-sentence summaries of the results and the approach.

Another problem is that writers understate the significance of the Introduction. Many new researchers mistakenly think that all their readers understand the importance of the research question and omit this part. However, this assumption is faulty because the purpose of the section is not to evaluate the importance of the research question in general. The goal is to present the importance of your research contribution and your findings. Therefore, you should be explicit and clear in describing the benefit of the paper.

The Introduction should not be long. Indeed, for most journals, this is a very brief section of about 250 to 600 words, but it might be the most difficult section due to its importance.

Rule 5: Interest your reader in the Introduction section by signalling all its elements and stating the novelty of the work.

3.4. discussion of the results.

For many scientists, writing a Discussion section is as scary as starting a paper. Most of the fear comes from the variation in the section. Since every paper has its unique results and findings, the Discussion section differs in its length, shape, and structure. However, some general principles of writing this section still exist. Knowing these rules, or “moves,” can change your attitude about this section and help you create a comprehensive interpretation of your results.

The purpose of the Discussion section is to place your findings in the research context and “to explain the meaning of the findings and why they are important, without appearing arrogant, condescending, or patronizing” [ 11 ]. The structure of the first two moves is almost a mirror reflection of the one in the Introduction. In the Introduction, you zoom in from general to specific and from the background to your research question; in the Discussion section, you zoom out from the summary of your findings to the research context, as shown in Table 4 .

Adapted from Swales and Feak and Hess [ 11 , 12 ].

The biggest challenge for many writers is the opening paragraph of the Discussion section. Following the moves in Table 1 , the best choice is to start with the study’s major findings that provide the answer to the research question in your Introduction. The most common starting phrases are “Our findings demonstrate . . .,” or “In this study, we have shown that . . .,” or “Our results suggest . . .” In some cases, however, reminding the reader about the research question or even providing a brief context and then stating the answer would make more sense. This is important in those cases where the researcher presents a number of findings or where more than one research question was presented. Your summary of the study’s major findings should be followed by your presentation of the importance of these findings. One of the most frequent mistakes of the novice writer is to assume the importance of his findings. Even if the importance is clear to you, it may not be obvious to your reader. Digesting the findings and their importance to your reader is as crucial as stating your research question.

Another useful strategy is to be proactive in the first move by predicting and commenting on the alternative explanations of the results. Addressing potential doubts will save you from painful comments about the wrong interpretation of your results and will present you as a thoughtful and considerate researcher. Moreover, the evaluation of the alternative explanations might help you create a logical step to the next move of the discussion section: the research context.

The goal of the research context move is to show how your findings fit into the general picture of the current research and how you contribute to the existing knowledge on the topic. This is also the place to discuss any discrepancies and unexpected findings that may otherwise distort the general picture of your paper. Moreover, outlining the scope of your research by showing the limitations, weaknesses, and assumptions is essential and adds modesty to your image as a scientist. However, make sure that you do not end your paper with the problems that override your findings. Try to suggest feasible explanations and solutions.

If your submission does not require a separate Conclusion section, then adding another paragraph about the “take-home message” is a must. This should be a general statement reiterating your answer to the research question and adding its scientific implications, practical application, or advice.

Just as in all other sections of your paper, the clear and precise language and concise comprehensive sentences are vital. However, in addition to that, your writing should convey confidence and authority. The easiest way to illustrate your tone is to use the active voice and the first person pronouns. Accompanied by clarity and succinctness, these tools are the best to convince your readers of your point and your ideas.

Rule 6: Present the principles, relationships, and generalizations in a concise and convincing tone.

4. choosing the best working revision strategies.

Now that you have created the first draft, your attitude toward your writing should have improved. Moreover, you should feel more confident that you are able to accomplish your project and submit your paper within a reasonable timeframe. You also have worked out your writing schedule and followed it precisely. Do not stop ― you are only at the midpoint from your destination. Just as the best and most precious diamond is no more than an unattractive stone recognized only by trained professionals, your ideas and your results may go unnoticed if they are not polished and brushed. Despite your attempts to present your ideas in a logical and comprehensive way, first drafts are frequently a mess. Use the advice of Paul Silvia: “Your first drafts should sound like they were hastily translated from Icelandic by a non-native speaker” [ 2 ]. The degree of your success will depend on how you are able to revise and edit your paper.

The revision can be done at the macrostructure and the microstructure levels [ 13 ]. The macrostructure revision includes the revision of the organization, content, and flow. The microstructure level includes individual words, sentence structure, grammar, punctuation, and spelling.

The best way to approach the macrostructure revision is through the outline of the ideas in your paper. The last time you updated your outline was before writing the Introduction and the Discussion. Now that you have the beginning and the conclusion, you can take a bird’s-eye view of the whole paper. The outline will allow you to see if the ideas of your paper are coherently structured, if your results are logically built, and if the discussion is linked to the research question in the Introduction. You will be able to see if something is missing in any of the sections or if you need to rearrange your information to make your point.

The next step is to revise each of the sections starting from the beginning. Ideally, you should limit yourself to working on small sections of about five pages at a time [ 14 ]. After these short sections, your eyes get used to your writing and your efficiency in spotting problems decreases. When reading for content and organization, you should control your urge to edit your paper for sentence structure and grammar and focus only on the flow of your ideas and logic of your presentation. Experienced researchers tend to make almost three times the number of changes to meaning than novice writers [ 15 , 16 ]. Revising is a difficult but useful skill, which academic writers obtain with years of practice.

In contrast to the macrostructure revision, which is a linear process and is done usually through a detailed outline and by sections, microstructure revision is a non-linear process. While the goal of the macrostructure revision is to analyze your ideas and their logic, the goal of the microstructure editing is to scrutinize the form of your ideas: your paragraphs, sentences, and words. You do not need and are not recommended to follow the order of the paper to perform this type of revision. You can start from the end or from different sections. You can even revise by reading sentences backward, sentence by sentence and word by word.

One of the microstructure revision strategies frequently used during writing center consultations is to read the paper aloud [ 17 ]. You may read aloud to yourself, to a tape recorder, or to a colleague or friend. When reading and listening to your paper, you are more likely to notice the places where the fluency is disrupted and where you stumble because of a very long and unclear sentence or a wrong connector.

Another revision strategy is to learn your common errors and to do a targeted search for them [ 13 ]. All writers have a set of problems that are specific to them, i.e., their writing idiosyncrasies. Remembering these problems is as important for an academic writer as remembering your friends’ birthdays. Create a list of these idiosyncrasies and run a search for these problems using your word processor. If your problem is demonstrative pronouns without summary words, then search for “this/these/those” in your text and check if you used the word appropriately. If you have a problem with intensifiers, then search for “really” or “very” and delete them from the text. The same targeted search can be done to eliminate wordiness. Searching for “there is/are” or “and” can help you avoid the bulky sentences.

The final strategy is working with a hard copy and a pencil. Print a double space copy with font size 14 and re-read your paper in several steps. Try reading your paper line by line with the rest of the text covered with a piece of paper. When you are forced to see only a small portion of your writing, you are less likely to get distracted and are more likely to notice problems. You will end up spotting more unnecessary words, wrongly worded phrases, or unparallel constructions.

After you apply all these strategies, you are ready to share your writing with your friends, colleagues, and a writing advisor in the writing center. Get as much feedback as you can, especially from non-specialists in your field. Patiently listen to what others say to you ― you are not expected to defend your writing or explain what you wanted to say. You may decide what you want to change and how after you receive the feedback and sort it in your head. Even though some researchers make the revision an endless process and can hardly stop after a 14th draft; having from five to seven drafts of your paper is a norm in the sciences. If you can’t stop revising, then set a deadline for yourself and stick to it. Deadlines always help.

Rule 7: Revise your paper at the macrostructure and the microstructure level using different strategies and techniques. Receive feedback and revise again.

5. it is time to submit.

It is late at night again. You are still in your lab finishing revisions and getting ready to submit your paper. You feel happy ― you have finally finished a year’s worth of work. You will submit your paper tomorrow, and regardless of the outcome, you know that you can do it. If one journal does not take your paper, you will take advantage of the feedback and resubmit again. You will have a publication, and this is the most important achievement.

What is even more important is that you have your scheduled writing time that you are going to keep for your future publications, for reading and taking notes, for writing grants, and for reviewing papers. You are not going to lose stamina this time, and you will become a productive scientist. But for now, let’s celebrate the end of the paper.

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College Info Geek

How to Write a Killer Research Paper (Even If You Hate Writing)

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Research papers.

Unless you’re a weirdo like me, you probably dread them. When I was in college, depending on the class, I even dreaded these.

It’s the sort of project that can leave even the most organized student quaking in their boots, staring at the assignment like they’re Luke Skywalker and it’s the Death Star.

You have to pick a broad topic, do some in-depth research, hone in on a research question, and then present your answer to that question in an interesting way. Oh, and you have to use citations, too.

How on earth are you supposed to tackle this thing?

Fear not, for even the Death Star had weaknesses. With a well-devised plan, some courage, and maybe a little help from a few midichlorians, you can conquer your research paper, too.

Let’s get started.

1. Pick a Topic

And pick one that interests you. This is not up for debate.

You and this topic are going to be spending a lot of time together, so you might as well pick something you like, or, at the very least, have a vague interest in. Even if you hate the class, there’s probably at least one topic that you’re curious about.

Maybe you want to write about “mental health in high schools” for your paper in your education class. That’s a good start, but take a couple steps to hone your idea a little further so you have an idea of what to research. Here’s a couple of factors to look at when you want to get more specific:

• Timeframe : What are the most important mental health issues for high schoolers that have come up in the last five years?
• Location : How does the mental health of students in your area compare to students in the next state (or country) over?
• Culture or Group : How does the mental health of inner-city students compare to those in the suburbs or places like Silicon Valley?
• Solution : If schools were to make one change to high schools to improve the well-being of their students, what would be most effective, and why?

It’s good to be clear about what you’re researching, but make sure you don’t box yourself into a corner. Try to avoid being too local (if the area is a small town, for example), or too recent, as there may not be enough research conducted to support an entire paper on the subject.

Also, avoid super analytical or technical topics that you think you’ll have a hard time writing about (unless that’s the assignment…then jump right into all the technicalities you want).

You’ll probably need to do some background research and possibly brainstorm with your professor before you can identify a topic that’s specialized enough for your paper.

At the very least, skim the Encyclopedia Britannica section on your general area of interest. Your professor is another resource: use them! They’re probably more than happy to point you in the direction of a possible research topic.

Of course, this is going to be highly dependent on your class and the criteria set forth by your professor, so make sure you read your assignment and understand what it’s asking for. If you feel the assignment is unclear, don’t go any further without talking to your professor about it.

2. Create a Clear Thesis Statement

Say it with me: a research paper without a thesis question or statement is just a fancy book report.

All research papers fall under three general categories: analytical, expository, or argumentative.

• Analytical papers present an analysis of information (effects of stress on the human brain)
• Expository papers seek to explain something (Julius Caesar’s rise to power)
• Argumentative papers are trying to prove a point (Dumbledore shouldn’t be running a school for children).

So figure out what sort of paper you’d like to write, and then come up with a viable thesis statement or question.

Maybe it starts out looking like this:

• Julius Caesar’s rise to power was affected by three major factors.

Ok, not bad. You could probably write a paper based on this. But it’s not great , either. It’s not specific, neither is it arguable . You’re not really entering any sort of discussion.

Maybe you rework it a little to be more specific and you get:

• Julius Caesar’s quick rise to power was a direct result of a power vacuum and social instability created by years of war and internal political corruption.

Better. Now you can actually think about researching it.

Every good thesis statement has three important qualities: it’s focused , it picks a side , and it can be backed up with research .

If you’re missing any of these qualities, you’re gonna have a bad time. Avoid vague modifier words like “positive” and “negative.” Instead use precise, strong language to formulate your argument.

Take this thesis statement for example:

• “ High schools should stop assigning so much homework, because it has a negative impact on students’ lives.”

Sure, it’s arguable…but only sort of . It’s pretty vague. We don’t really know what is meant by “negative”, other than “generically bad”. Before you get into the research, you have to define your argument a little more.

Revised Version:

• “ High schools in the United States should assign less homework, as lower workloads improve students’ sleep, stress levels, and, surprisingly, their grades.”

When in doubt, always look at your thesis and ask, “Is this arguable?”  Is there something you need to prove ? If not, then your thesis probably isn’t strong enough. If yes, then as long as you can actually prove it with your research, you’re golden.

Good thesis statements give you a clear goal. You know exactly what you’re looking for, and you know exactly where you’re going with the paper. Try to be as specific and clear as possible. That makes the next step a lot easier:

3. Hit the Books

So you have your thesis, you know what you’re looking for. It’s time to actually go out and do some real research. By real research, I mean more than a quick internet search or a quick skim through some weak secondary or tertiary sources.

If you’ve chosen a thesis you’re a little unsteady on, a preliminary skim through Google is fine, but make sure you go the extra mile. Some professors will even have a list of required resources (e.g. “Three academic articles, two books, one interview…etc).

It’s a good idea to start by heading to the library and asking your local librarian for help (they’re usually so excited to help you find things!).

Check your school library for research papers and books on the topic. Look for primary sources, such as journals, personal records, or contemporary newspaper articles when you can find them.

As you’re starting your research, create some kind of system for filing helpful quotes, links, and other sources. I preferred it to all be on one text document on my computer, but you could try a physical file, too.

In this text document, I start compiling a list of all the sources I’m using. It tends to look like this:

Remember that at this point, your thesis isn’t solid. It’s still in a semi-squishy state. If your research starts to strongly contradict your thesis, then come up with a new thesis, revise, and keep on compiling quotes.

The more support you can find, the better. Depending on how long your paper is, you should have 3-10 different sources, with all sorts of quotes between them.

Here are some good places to look for reputable sources:

• Google Scholar
• Sites ending in .edu, .org, or .gov. While it’s not a rule, these sites tend to represent organizations, and they are more likely to be reputable than your run-of-the-mill .com sites
• Your school library. It should have a section for articles and newspapers as well as books
• Your school’s free academic database
• Online encyclopedias like Britannica
• Online almanacs and other databases

As you read, analyze your sources closely, and take good notes . Jot down general observations, questions, and answers to those questions when you find them. Once you have a sizable stack of research notes, it’s time to start organizing your paper.

4. Write an Outline

Even if you normally feel confident writing a paper without one, use an outline when you’re working on a research paper.

Outlines basically do all the heavy lifting for you when it comes to writing. They keep you organized and on track. Even if you feel tempted to just jump in and brain-dump, resist. You’ll thank me later.

Here’s how to structure an outline:

You’ll notice it’s fairly concise, and it has three major parts: the introduction , the body , and the conclusion . Also notice that I haven’t bothered to organize my research too much.

I’ve just dumped all the relevant citations under the headings I think they’ll end up under, so I can put in my quotes from my research document later as they fit into the overall text.

Let’s get a little more in-depth with this:

The Introduction

The introduction is made up of two main parts: the thesis and the introduction to the supporting points. This is where you essentially tell your reader exactly what sort of wild ride they’re in for if they read on.

It’s all about preparing your reader’s mind to start thinking about your argument or question before you even really get started.

Present your thesis and your supporting points clearly and concisely. It should be no longer than a paragraph or two. Keep it simple and easy to read.

Body Paragraphs

Okay, now that you’ve made your point, it’s time to prove it. This is where your body paragraphs come in. The length of this is entirely dependent on the criteria set by your professor, so keep that in mind.

However, as a rule, you should have at least three supporting points to help defend, prove, or explain your thesis. Put your weakest point first, and your strongest point last.

This doesn’t need a lot of outlining. Basically, take your introduction outline and copy it over. Your conclusion should be about a paragraph long, and it should summarize your main points and restate your thesis.

There’s also another key component to this outline example that I haven’t touched on yet:

Research and Annotations

Some people like to write first, and annotate later. Personally, I like to get my quotes and annotations in right at the start of the writing process.

I find the rest of the paper goes more smoothly, and it’s easier to ensure that I’ve compiled enough support for my claim. That way, I don’t go through all the work of writing the paper, only to discover that my thesis doesn’t actually hold any water!

As a general rule, it’s good to have at least 3-5 sources for every supporting point. Whenever you make a claim in your paper, you should support it with evidence.

Some professors are laxer on this, and some are more stringent. Make sure you understand your assignment requirements really, really, really well. You don’t want to get marked down for missing the correct number of sources!

At this stage, you should also be sure of what sort of format your professor is looking for (APA, MLA, etc.) , as this will save you a lot of headache later.

When I was in college, some professors wanted in-text parenthetical citations whenever I made a claim or used my research at all. Others only wanted citations at the end of a paragraph. And others didn’t mind in-text citations at all, so long as you had a bibliography at the end of your entire paper.

So, go through your outline and start inserting your quotes and citations now. Count them up. If you need more, then add them. If you think you have enough (read: your claims are so supported that even Voldemort himself couldn’t scare them), then move on to the next step:

5. Write the First Draft

Time to type this thing up. If you created a strong enough outline, this should be a breeze. Most of it should already be written for you. All you have to do at this point is fill it in. You’ve successfully avoided the initial blank-screen panic .

Don’t worry too much about grammar or prose quality at this point. It’s the rough draft, and it’s not supposed to see the light of day.

I find it helpful to highlight direct quotes, summaries, paraphrases, and claims as I put them in. This helps me ensure that I never forget to cite any of them.

So, do what you’ve gotta do . Go to a studious place or create one , put on an awesome playlist, close your social media apps, and get the work done.

Once you’ve gotten the gist of your paper down, the real work begins:

6. Revise Your Draft

Okay, now that you’ve word-vomited everywhere in a semi-organized fashion, it’s time to start building this thing into a cohesive paper. If you took the time to outline properly, then this part shouldn’t be too difficult.

Every paper has two editing stages:the developmental edit , and the line edit.

The developmental edit (the first one, at least) is for your eyes only. This is the part where you take a long, hard look at your paper and ask yourself, “Does this make sense, and does it accomplish what I want it to accomplish?” If it does, then great. If it doesn’t, then how can you rearrange or change it so that it does?

Here are a few good questions to ask yourself at this stage:

• Is the paper well-organized, and does it have a logical flow of thought from paragraph to paragraph?
• Does your thesis hold up to the three criteria listed earlier? Is it well supported by your research and arguments?
• Have you checked that all your sources are properly cited?
• How repetitive is the paper? Can you get rid of superlative points or language to tighten up your argument?

Once you’ve run the paper through this process at least once, it’s time for the line edit . This is the part where you check for punctuation, spelling, and grammar errors.

It helps to let your paper sit overnight, and then read it out loud to yourself, or the cat, or have a friend read it. Often, our brains know what we “meant” to say, and it’s difficult for us to catch small grammatical or spelling errors.

Here are a couple more final questions to ask yourself before you call it a day:

• Have you avoided filler words , adverbs , and passive voice as much as possible?
• Have you checked for proper grammar, spelling, and punctuation? Spell-checker software is pretty adept these days, but it still isn’t perfect.

If you need help editing your paper, and your regular software just isn’t cutting it, Grammarly is a good app for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Chrome that goes above and beyond your run-of-the-mill spell-checker. It looks for things like sentence structure and length, as well as accidental plagiarism and passive tense.

7. Organize Your Sources

The paper’s written, but it’s not over. You’ve still got to create the very last page: the “works cited” or bibliography page.

Now, this page works a little differently depending on what style your professor has asked you to use, and it can get pretty confusing, as different types of sources are formatted completely differently.

The most important thing to ensure here is that every single source, whether big or small, is on this page before you turn your paper in. If you forget to cite something, or don’t cite it properly, you run the risk of plagiarism.

I got through college by using a couple of different tools to format it for me. Here are some absolute life-savers:

• EasyBib – I literally used this tool all throughout college to format my citations for me, it does all the heavy lifting for you, and it’s free .
• Microsoft Word – I honestly never touched Microsoft Word throughout my college years, but it actually has a tool that will create citations and bibliographies for you, so it’s worth using if you have it on your computer.

Onwards: One Step at a Time

I leave you with this parting advice:

Once you understand the method, research papers really aren’t as difficult as they seem. Sure, there’s a lot to do, but don’t be daunted. Just take it step by step, piece by piece, and give yourself plenty of time. Take frequent breaks, stay organized, and never, ever, ever forget to cite your sources. You can do this!

Looking for tools to make the writing process easier? Check out our list of the best writing apps .

Image Credits: featured

Tips for Online Students , Tips for Students

Hacks How to Write a 10 and 20 page Paper in One Night

Updated: June 19, 2024

Published: April 19, 2020

It’s the night before a big paper is due. For whatever reason, you find yourself needing to write an entire research paper in a very short amount of time. While procrastination isn’t ideal, extenuating circumstances may have caused your timeline to get pushed back. So, here you are, looking for how to write a 10-page paper or how to write a 20-page paper in one night.

It goes without saying the best way to write a paper is to give yourself enough time to outline, draft, and edit. Yet, it’s still possible to write in less time. Take heed of these best tips and tricks to organize your thoughts and get your thesis on paper as fast as possible.

Photo by  Adolfo Félix  on  Unsplash

How to prepare before you write, 1. create a schedule to maximize your time.

You’ve likely already spent time panicking. Once you calm yourself of the anxiety of having to finish a 10- or 20-page paper in one night, organize your plan of attack. First, you should designate an area free of distractions so that you can focus. Aside from a few breaks and snacks, it’s best to set up a comfortable place to write. Give yourself some time to outline and find/cite research . Once you know how you’re going to approach the subject, then you can start drafting.

2. Determine your Main Topic

If you’ve been given a prompt, then your topic is clear. However, sometimes you have the freedom to choose what your research will be about. In this case, it’s smartest to choose a topic that you are already knowledgeable about. That way, you will save yourself key time that would have otherwise been spent on research. If you don’t feel strongly about any particular topic, then at least try to pick one that has a lot of information available.

3. Perform Research

Start looking up sources to cite that support your thesis, or main argument. As you research, be sure to take notes. One of the best ways to do this is to use a word processor like Google Docs or Microsoft Word to copy and paste URLs. For each source, it would be best to copy/paste one main sentence that covers its point.

Then, you can write brief notes in your own words that summarize what you have read from that source. While you are performing research, you can start to put together an outline, or the flow of how you will present your ideas broken down by topic and argument.

4. Outline 3-5 subtopics

Once you’ve chosen your topic, then try to pull 3-5 subtopics from it. Each sub-topic should be juicy enough to be able to write a lot about it. The subtopics are your supporting paragraphs which fill the body of the research paper. They should basically be mini essays within themselves.

Writing in One Night

Writing a long research paper in one night isn’t ideal, but it is doable. Some of the best ways to get it done is to follow these 5 tips:

1. Plan and Outline

Take those few extra moments to plan and outline your paper. While it may feel like a waste of valuable time, it is going to help you stay on track. When you have an outline and you get to the middle of your paper, you won’t feel lost as to how to continue. An outline will be useful to you like a map is on a journey.

2. Use Specialized Search

Take advantage of search tools that are designed for scholars. For example, a few of these include: Google Scholar and Elsevier .

3. Leverage Tools

There are citation management tools that will help you find sources for your topic. Mendeley is just one of them. You can type parts of your paper into the tool and find quotes of value. Be sure to cite everything you use to avoid plagiarism .

4. Proofread and Edit

Once you complete writing 10 to 20 pages, you may feel like throwing in the towel and going to sleep for a few hours. However, it is crucial to power through and proofread your paper. If you have anyone available who can read your paper over, that would be best because it’s hard to catch mistakes when you’ve been looking at the same thing for so long. But, if no one is available, try to read your paper back to yourself out loud. This way, you may be able to catch typos better.

5. Check Formatting

Every research paper needs to adhere to a particular format guideline. Whether it’s APA, MLA, or another standard formatting practice, be sure to double check that your layout adheres to the guidelines.

Photo by  Christin Hume  on  Unsplash

When to start writing.

If you have yet to find yourself trying to write a paper at the last minute and all the notes above are scaring you out of procrastination, then that’s a good start! Perhaps you were recently assigned a research paper. In this case, the best way to tackle the project is to do the following:

Start Early

Get started right away. Even if it means just performing early research or writing an outline, starting early is going to save you from having to write a paper in one night down the line. When you start early, you benefit greatly because you can: leverage peers for ideas, take the necessary time to edit and rewrite, and you lower your risk of picking a topic with too little information and having to change topics at the last minute.

Writing in Stages

Starting early also affords you the opportunity to write in stages. You can think of writing as a cycle when you write in stages. First, you can create your outline. Then, you can write the introduction, edit it, and rewrite anything you may need to before moving on to the next piece (or the first body paragraph, in this case).

Use a Timeline

Create a timeline for your writing in stages. If you start four weeks in advance, for example, you have time to do all of the following:

• Fully understand the assignment and ask any questions
• Start to read and document sources
• Create notecards and cite books for sources
• Write a summary of what you’ve discovered so far that will be used in some of your paper
• Create 3-5 subtopics and outline points you want to explore
• Look for more sources on your subtopics
• Start writing summaries on each subtopic
• Write some analysis of your findings
• Start to piece together the research paper based on your notes and outline (almost like completing a puzzle)
• Edit and proofread / ask for feedback

The Writing Process

The actual writing process is a little different for everyone, but this is a general overview for how to write a 20-page paper, or one that is shorter.

• Start with a Thesis: Your thesis is one sentence that clearly and concisely explains what you are going to prove with research.
• Include a Menu Sentence: At the end of your introduction, you will briefly outline your subtopics in what is often referred to as a “menu sentence.” This allows the reader to understand what they can expect to learn about as they continue to read your paper.
• Create a Detailed Introduction: Your introduction should be detailed enough so that someone with little to no knowledge about your subject matter can understand what the paper is about.
• Keep References: Be sure to write your references as you go along so that you basically can create your bibliography in the process of writing. Again, this is where a tool like Mendeley may be useful.
• Write First: Write first and edit later. You want to get all your ideas down on the page before you start judging or editing the writing.
• Save Often: Create the draft on a cloud platform that is automatically saved (i.e. Google Docs in case your computer crashes) or email the work to yourself as you go.

The Breakdown of a 10-Page Paper

Sources to Consider Using

When writing your research paper and finding sources, it’s best to use a mix of sources. This may include:

• Internet: The Internet is filled with limitless possibilities. When you use the Internet, it’s best to find credible and trustworthy sources to avoid using fake news as a source. That’s why tools like Google Scholar can be so helpful.
• Textbooks: It’s more likely than not that you’ll be able to use your class textbook as a source for the research you are conducting.
• Books: Additionally, other books outside of those you read within your class will prove useful in any research paper.

Final Steps: Editing and Formatting

Once you’ve written all your ideas on the page, it’s time to edit. It cannot be stressed enough that editing is pivotal before submission. This is especially true if you’ve been writing under immense pressure.

Writing a 10- or 20-page research paper in one night is not easy, so there are bound to be mistakes and typos. The best way to catch these mistakes is to follow these tips:

• Take a break before you edit so you can come back to the page with somewhat fresh eyes and a clearer head
• Read it out loud to edit and catch mistakes because sometimes your brain will override typos or missing words to make sense of what it is reading
• If possible, ask someone else to look it over
• Consider using footnotes or block quotes
• Format according to how your university asks – MLA or APA, etc.

The Bottom Line

Life throws curveballs your way without warning. Whether you are holding yourself accountable for procrastinating or something out of your control came up, you may find yourself needing to write a big research paper in one night. It’s not the best-case scenario, but with the right tools and tricks up your sleeve, you can surely get it done!

In this article

At UoPeople, our blog writers are thinkers, researchers, and experts dedicated to curating articles relevant to our mission: making higher education accessible to everyone.

• Locations and Hours
• UCLA Library
• Research Guides
• Research Tips and Tools

Advanced Research Methods

Writing the research paper.

• What Is Research?
• Library Research
• Writing a Research Proposal

Before Writing the Paper

Methods, thesis and hypothesis, clarity, precision and academic expression, format your paper, typical problems, a few suggestions, avoid plagiarism.

• Presenting the Research Paper

Find a topic.

• Try to find a subject that really interests you.
• While you explore the topic, narrow or broaden your target and focus on something that gives the most promising results.
• Don't choose a huge subject if you have to write a 3 page long paper, and broaden your topic sufficiently if you have to submit at least 25 pages.
• Consult your class instructor (and your classmates) about the topic.

Explore the topic.

• Find primary and secondary sources in the library.
• Read and critically analyse them.
• Take notes.
• Compile surveys, collect data, gather materials for quantitative analysis (if these are good methods to investigate the topic more deeply).
• Come up with new ideas about the topic. Try to formulate your ideas in a few sentences.
• Review your notes and other materials and enrich the outline.
• Try to estimate how long the individual parts will be.
• Do others understand what you want to say?
• Do they accept it as new knowledge or relevant and important for a paper?
• Do they agree that your thoughts will result in a successful paper?
• Qualitative: gives answers on questions (how, why, when, who, what, etc.) by investigating an issue
• Quantitative:requires data and the analysis of data as well
• the essence, the point of the research paper in one or two sentences.
• a statement that can be proved or disproved.
• Be specific.
• Avoid ambiguity.
• Use predominantly the active voice, not the passive.
• Deal with one issue in one paragraph.
• Be accurate.
• Double-check your data, references, citations and statements.

Academic Expression

• Don't use familiar style or colloquial/slang expressions.
• Write in full sentences.
• Check the meaning of the words if you don't know exactly what they mean.
• Avoid metaphors.
• Almost the rough content of every paragraph.
• The order of the various topics in your paper.
• On the basis of the outline, start writing a part by planning the content, and then write it down.
• Put a visible mark (which you will later delete) where you need to quote a source, and write in the citation when you finish writing that part or a bigger part.
• Does the text make sense?
• Could you explain what you wanted?
• Did you write good sentences?
• Is there something missing?
• Check the spelling.
• Complete the citations, bring them in standard format.

Use the guidelines that your instructor requires (MLA, Chicago, APA, Turabian, etc.).

• Adjust margins, spacing, paragraph indentation, place of page numbers, etc.
• Standardize the bibliography or footnotes according to the guidelines.

• EndNote and EndNote Basic by UCLA Library Last Updated Jul 3, 2024 1577 views this year
• Zotero by UCLA Library Last Updated Jul 3, 2024 1065 views this year

(Based on English Composition 2 from Illinois Valley Community College):

• Weak organization
• Poor support and development of ideas
• Weak use of secondary sources
• Excessive errors
• Stylistic weakness

When collecting materials, selecting research topic, and writing the paper:

• Be systematic and organized (e.g. keep your bibliography neat and organized; write your notes in a neat way, so that you can find them later on.
• Use your critical thinking ability when you read.
• Write down your thoughts (so that you can reconstruct them later).
• Stop when you have a really good idea and think about whether you could enlarge it to a whole research paper. If yes, take much longer notes.
• When you write down a quotation or summarize somebody else's thoughts in your notes or in the paper, cite the source (i.e. write down the author, title, publication place, year, page number).
• If you quote or summarize a thought from the internet, cite the internet source.
• Write an outline that is detailed enough to remind you about the content.
• Read your paper for yourself or, preferably, somebody else. 
• When you finish writing, check the spelling;
• Use the citation form (MLA, Chicago, or other) that your instructor requires and use it everywhere.

Plagiarism : somebody else's words or ideas presented without citation by an author

• Cite your source every time when you quote a part of somebody's work.
• Cite your source  every time when you summarize a thought from somebody's work.
• Cite your source  every time when you use a source (quote or summarize) from the Internet.

Consult the Citing Sources research guide for further details.

• << Previous: Writing a Research Proposal
• Next: Presenting the Research Paper >>
• Last Updated: May 16, 2024 10:20 AM
• URL: https://guides.library.ucla.edu/research-methods

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How Long Should a Research Paper Be?

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When it comes to academic writing, one of the most common questions asked is: How long should a research paper be? This question is essential, as the length...

When it comes to academic writing, one of the most common questions asked is: How long should a research paper be? This question is essential, as the length can impact not only the scope but also the quality of the paper. In this article, we'll explore various elements that come into play when deciding the length of a research paper. We'll delve into the components, their specific lengths, and the average time required to compile an excellent research paper.

A research paper is a type of academic paper where the author conducts original research on a specific topic, interprets the findings, and then summarizes, argues, or presents the information. This form of academic writing requires in-depth analysis and a thorough literature review to establish credibility and relevance.

The number of pages in a research paper can vary significantly depending on the level of study, subject matter, and specific requirements set by the course or academic journal. High school papers may range from 5-20 pages, college-level papers from 10-30 pages, and graduate theses can be significantly longer, even reaching 100+ pages for Ph.D. dissertations. The spacing, citation style (APA, MLA, Chicago), and number of words also affect the paper's length.

A research paper typically consists of several key components, each with its importance:

• Title Page: The title page includes the paper's title, author's name, and institutional affiliation. This section is generally short but should be formatted according to the relevant citation style.
• Abstract: The abstract provides a concise summary of the research paper, often limited to 150-250 words, depending on the journal or academic requirements.
• Introduction: The intro presents the background, research question, and thesis statement. It sets the context and outlines the main points of the paper.
• Literature Review: This section reviews existing research related to your topic, offering a critical analysis of previous studies and identifying gaps your research aims to fill.
• Methods Section: The methodology details the procedures for collecting and analyzing data. This part should be explicit enough for another researcher to replicate your study.
• Results Section: Here, the findings of the research are presented in a structured manner, often supported by tables and graphs.
• Discussion Section: The discussion interprets the results, linking them to the research question and existing literature. It may also propose areas for future research.
• Conclusion: This section summarizes the main points and restates the thesis in light of the research findings.
• References Section: The references page lists all cited works in the paper, formatted according to the specific citation style being used.
• Appendices: The appendices provide additional data or material that is supplementary but not essential to the main text.

The length of each component depends on the overall length and complexity of the research paper. As a general guideline, the abstract might be 150-250 words, the introduction and conclusion around 10% of the entire paper each, literature review and methodology sections could be a few pages each, and the results and discussion sections might take up the rest of the paper.

The average length of a research paper varies widely depending on the field, level, and journal specifications. However, most academic papers range from 10-20 pages.

The time it takes to write a research paper can vary significantly. For college students or researchers familiar with the topic and the research process, it may take a few weeks. However, if it is your first time, it might take longer, possibly a few months. This time includes researching, writing the first draft, revising, proofreading, and finalizing the paper.

An effective summary, often in the form of an abstract, should include the research question, methodology, main findings, and conclusions. It must be concise while encapsulating the essential aspects of the paper.

The word count for a research paper depends on several factors, such as academic level, field of study, and specific guidelines. However, research papers commonly range from 2,500 to 10,000 words.

Top 9 Tools Needed to Write Long Research Papers

Cost : Free to try

Speechify Text to Speech is a groundbreaking tool that has revolutionized the way individuals consume text-based content. By leveraging advanced text-to-speech technology, Speechify transforms written text into lifelike spoken words, making it incredibly useful for those with reading disabilities, visual impairments, or simply those who prefer auditory learning. Its adaptive capabilities ensure seamless integration with a wide range of devices and platforms, offering users the flexibility to listen on-the-go.

Top 5 Speechify TTS Features :

• High-Quality Voices : Speechify offers a variety of high-quality, lifelike voices across multiple languages. This ensures that users have a natural listening experience, making it easier to understand and engage with the content.
• Seamless Integration : Speechify can integrate with various platforms and devices, including web browsers, smartphones, and more. This means users can easily convert text from websites, emails, PDFs, and other sources into speech almost instantly.
• Speed Control : Users have the ability to adjust the playback speed according to their preference, making it possible to either quickly skim through content or delve deep into it at a slower pace.
• Offline Listening : One of the significant features of Speechify is the ability to save and listen to converted text offline, ensuring uninterrupted access to content even without an internet connection.
• Highlighting Text : As the text is read aloud, Speechify highlights the corresponding section, allowing users to visually track the content being spoken. This simultaneous visual and auditory input can enhance comprehension and retention for many users.

Cost : Free basic version; premium plans start at $11.66/month.

Grammarly is a crucial tool for academic writing, helping with everything from grammar errors to plagiarism. Its real-time feedback can make the difference between a rough first draft and a polished piece of original research. Grammarly is particularly helpful for students whose first language is not English.

Grammarly also offers a word count feature that can help you gauge how long your research paper is turning out. This can be particularly useful if you're writing a term paper with a strict word limit. It supports different citation styles like APA, MLA, and Chicago, which are critical for formatting in-text citations and references section correctly.

Top 5 Features

• Grammar and spelling check
• Plagiarism detection
• Tone and style analysis
• Word count tracker
• Sentence structure analysis

Cost : Free with optional paid storage.

Zotero stands as one of the best tools for managing references for your research paper. Forget the hassle of manually writing down your citations; Zotero automates this process. The tool helps you organize your research material and is excellent for keeping track of your literature review articles and journal citations.

Zotero is not just a one-stop-shop for citation needs. It also offers collaborative features, making it suitable for team research projects. Its cross-platform support ensures you can switch between devices without losing your saved citations. The tool is a must-have for both high school and college students undertaking research papers.

• Citation and bibliography creation
• Research organization
• Cross-platform support
• Browser extension for easy source capture
• Collaboration features

Cost : Part of Microsoft Office Suite, pricing starts at $69.99/year.

Microsoft Word is perhaps the most traditional yet indispensable tool for academic writing. Most people are familiar with its basic functionalities, but Word also offers advanced features that can aid in the writing process of your research paper. From setting up your title page to managing page numbers and appendices, the software has it all.

The tool also helps in inserting in-text citations, endnotes, and footnotes. One of the underutilized features is the "Review" tab, which helps in tracking changes, something essential for revising and re-writing. Word is an all-rounder and has stood the test of time when it comes to academic writing, from your first time doing a paper to your last.

• Robust text editor
• In-built templates
• Spelling and grammar check
• Wide range of formatting options including APA, MLA, and Chicago

Cost : One-time payment of $49 for macOS and Windows, $19.99 for iOS.

Scrivener is a powerful tool that excels in helping you organize complex projects. While Microsoft Word is sufficient for shorter papers, Scrivener shines when you're working on a longer research paper or thesis. Its corkboard view allows you to see the structure of your entire paper, from the intro to the results and discussion sections.

The software offers templates designed for academic papers, making it easier to start your project without worrying about formatting. It has a split-screen feature, allowing you to refer to your research or another section of your paper while writing. The tool’s writing statistics can help you track your progress and set goals, helping you spend less time worrying about how long your research paper should be.

• Draft and manuscript organization
• Research storage
• Templates for academic papers
• Split-screen feature
• Writing statistics and goals

Cost : Typically purchased by educational institutions; individual pricing not publicly listed.

Turnitin is often the go-to tool for educational institutions when it comes to checking the originality of academic papers. It is not just a plagiarism checker; it's a comprehensive solution for academic integrity. Turnitin provides an originality report that can be invaluable for both students and educators in identifying unintended plagiarism.

The tool also includes a Feedback Studio feature, where professors can leave comments or grade the paper. This is particularly useful for improving your writing in real-time. Moreover, Turnitin’s peer review capabilities are great for collaborative projects and can be beneficial in graduate-level research where multiple stakeholders are involved.

• Feedback studio for grading and comments
• Peer review capabilities
• Originality reports
• Grammar and spell check

Cost : Free.

Google Scholar serves as an excellent tool for conducting the literature review part of your research paper. Unlike standard search engines, Google Scholar focuses solely on academic publications, including articles, theses, and conference papers. It's a free resource, making it accessible for students at all levels, from high school to postgraduate.

One standout feature of Google Scholar is its “Cited by” function, which allows you to see how many times a particular paper has been cited. This can provide a good idea of the paper's relevance and impact in the academic community. The service also allows you to export citations in various styles such as MLA, APA, and Chicago, simplifying the often complex task of creating a references section.

• Comprehensive academic search engine
• Cited by feature
• Related articles feature
• Citation export
• Legal case and patent search

Cost : Free with optional paid plans starting at $7.99/month.

Evernote is a note-taking app that can be particularly useful when you're in the research phase of your paper. The tool's web clipper extension allows you to save articles, PDFs, or even just parts of web pages, turning your Evernote into a digital research library. It’s excellent for gathering material for your literature review, methodology, or any other section of your paper.

Evernote isn't just for research; it's also an effective organizational tool. You can create separate notebooks for different research papers or subjects, tag your notes for easy searching, and even share them with classmates or co-authors. The cross-platform syncing means your notes follow you, whether you're at the library, at home, or on the go.

• Note-taking and organization
• Web clipper for research
• Cross-platform syncing
• Searchable handwritten notes

Cost : Free with optional paid plans for more storage.

Mendeley is a reference management tool that also functions as a social network for researchers. The software can store your research papers and other documents, keeping them accessible and organized. For any academic paper, especially those requiring extensive literature review, this feature is invaluable.

Mendeley offers a Word plugin that helps you insert citations and generate bibliographies in real-time as you write your research paper. The collaboration feature enables you to connect with other researchers, an excellent way to share resources, or get feedback on your research paper. Given its extensive features, Mendeley is not just a tool but an academic community that can guide you through your academic writing process.

• Reference management
• PDF annotator
• Collaboration and networking with researchers
• Citation plug-in for Word
• Researcher profiles

The time required to write a research paper depends on several factors, including your familiarity with the topic, research requirements, and writing skills. It could range from a few weeks to several months.

While it's technically possible to write a research paper in one day, the quality will likely suffer, risking plagiarism and inadequate research.

A 20-page research paper could take several weeks to a couple of months to write, depending on the level of depth and research required.

Writing a research paper for college typically takes a few weeks to a couple of months, depending on the complexity and research requirements.

By understanding the different factors that contribute to the length and time required for a research paper, you'll be better equipped to produce high-quality academic writing. Keep this guide handy to navigate through your research paper journey effectively.

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Cliff Weitzman is a dyslexia advocate and the CEO and founder of Speechify, the #1 text-to-speech app in the world, totaling over 100,000 5-star reviews and ranking first place in the App Store for the News & Magazines category. In 2017, Weitzman was named to the Forbes 30 under 30 list for his work making the internet more accessible to people with learning disabilities. Cliff Weitzman has been featured in EdSurge, Inc., PC Mag, Entrepreneur, Mashable, among other leading outlets.

• Writing Center

Beginner’s Guide to Research

Click here to download a .pdf copy of our Beginner’s Guide to Research !

Last updated : July 18, 2024

Consider keeping a printed copy to have when writing and revising your resume!  If you have any additional questions, make an appointment or email us at [email protected] !

Most professors will require the use of academic (AKA peer-reviewed) sources for student writing. This is because these sources, written for academic audiences of specific fields, are helpful for developing your argument on many topics of interest in the academic realm, from history to biology. While popular sources like news articles also often discuss topics of interest within academic fields, peer-reviewed sources offer a depth of research and expertise that you cannot find in popular sources. Therefore, knowing how to (1) identify popular vs. academic sources, (2) differentiate between primary and secondary sources, and (3) find academic sources is a vital step in writing research. Below are definitions of the two ways scholars categorize types of sources based on when they were created (i.e. time and place) and how (i.e. methodology):

Popular vs. academic sources:

• Popular sources are publicly accessible periodicals–newspapers, magazines, and blogs–such as The Washington Post or The New Yorker . These sources are most often written for non-academic audiences, but can be helpful for finding general information and a variety of opinions on your topic.
• Academic sources , known also as peer reviewed or scholarly articles, are those that have undergone peer review before being published. Typically, these articles are written for other scholars in the field and are published in academic journals, like Feminist Studies or The American Journal of Psychology . Literature reviews, research projects, case studies, and notes from the field are common examples.

Primary vs. secondary sources:

• Primary sources are articles written by people directly involved in what they were writing about, including: News reports and photographs, diaries and novels, films and videos, speeches and autobiographies, as well as original research and statistics.
• Secondary sources , on the other hand, are second hand accounts written about a topic based on primary sources. Whether a journal article or other academic publication is considered a secondary source depends on how you use it.

How to Find Academic Sources

Finding appropriate academic sources from the hundreds of different journal publications can be daunting. Therefore, it is important to find databases –digital collections of articles–relevant to your topic to narrow your search. Albertson’s Library has access to several different databases, which can be located by clicking the “Articles and Databases” tab on the website’s homepage, and navigating to “Databases A-Z” to refine your search. Popular databases include: Academic Search Premier and Proquest Central (non-specific databases which include a wide variety of articles), JSTOR (humanities and social sciences, from literature to history), Web of Science (formal sciences and natural sciences such as biology and chemistry), and Google Scholar (a web search engine that searches scholarly literature and academic sources). If you are unable to access articles from other databases, make sure you’re signed in to Alberton’s Library through Boise State!

Performing a Database Search

Databases include many different types of sources besides academic journals, however, including book reviews and other periodicals. Using the search bar , you can limit search results to those containing specific keywords or phrases like “writing center” or “transfer theory.” Utilizing keywords in your search–names of key concepts, authors, or ideas–rather than questions is the most effective way to find articles in databases. When searching for a specific work by title, placing the title in quotation marks will ensure your search includes only results in that specific word order. In the example below, search terms including the author (“Virginia Woolf”) and subject (“feminism”) are entered into the popular database EBSCOhost:

Refining Your Search Results

Many databases have a bar on the left of the screen where you can further refine your results. For example, if you are only interested in finding complete scholarly articles, or peer-reviewed ones, you can toggle these different options to further limit your search. These options are located under the “Refine Results” bar in EBSCOhost, divided into different sections, with a display of currently selected search filters and filter options to refine your search based on your specific needs, as seen in the figure below:

Search results can also be limited by subject : If you search “Romeo and Juliet” on Academic Search Premier to find literary analysis articles for your English class, you’ll find a lot of other sources that include this search term, such as ones about theater production or ballets based on Shakespeare’s play. However, if you’re writing a literary paper on the text of the play itself, you might limit your search results to “fiction” to see only articles that discuss the play within the field of literature. Alternatively, for a theater class discussing the play, you might limit your search results to “drama.”

The Writing Center

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• Published: 17 July 2024

Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain

• Joshua S. Siegel   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5752-3641 1 ,
• Subha Subramanian 2 ,
• Demetrius Perry 1 ,
• Benjamin P. Kay   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-3628-8029 3 ,
• Evan M. Gordon   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-2276-5237 4 ,
• Timothy O. Laumann   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0428-427X 1 ,
• T. Rick Reneau   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-0211-2482 4 ,
• Nicholas V. Metcalf 3 ,
• Ravi V. Chacko 5 ,
• Caterina Gratton   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0003-4607-7401 6 ,
• Christine Horan 7 ,
• Samuel R. Krimmel 3 ,
• Joshua S. Shimony 4 ,
• Julie A. Schweiger 1 ,
• Dean F. Wong   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-9343-8367 4 ,
• David A. Bender 1 ,
• Kristen M. Scheidter 3 ,
• Forrest I. Whiting 3 ,
• Jonah A. Padawer-Curry 8 ,
• Russell T. Shinohara 9 , 10 , 11 ,
• Yong Chen 11 ,
• Julia Moser   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6219-415X 12 , 13 ,
• Essa Yacoub 14 ,
• Steven M. Nelson 12 , 15 ,
• Luca Vizioli 14 ,
• Damien A. Fair   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-8602-393X 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ,
• Eric J. Lenze 1 ,
• Robin Carhart-Harris   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6062-7150 16 , 17 ,
• Charles L. Raison 18 , 19 ,
• Marcus E. Raichle 3 , 4 , 8 , 20 , 21 ,
• Abraham Z. Snyder   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-3379-9627 3 , 4 ,
• Ginger E. Nicol 1   na1 &
• Nico U. F. Dosenbach   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-6876-7078 3 , 4 , 8 , 20 , 22   na1  

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• Consciousness
• Drug development
• Neural circuits
• Neuroscience

A single dose of psilocybin, a psychedelic that acutely causes distortions of space–time perception and ego dissolution, produces rapid and persistent therapeutic effects in human clinical trials 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 . In animal models, psilocybin induces neuroplasticity in cortex and hippocampus 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . It remains unclear how human brain network changes relate to subjective and lasting effects of psychedelics. Here we tracked individual-specific brain changes with longitudinal precision functional mapping (roughly 18 magnetic resonance imaging visits per participant). Healthy adults were tracked before, during and for 3 weeks after high-dose psilocybin (25 mg) and methylphenidate (40 mg), and brought back for an additional psilocybin dose 6–12 months later. Psilocybin massively disrupted functional connectivity (FC) in cortex and subcortex, acutely causing more than threefold greater change than methylphenidate. These FC changes were driven by brain desynchronization across spatial scales (areal, global), which dissolved network distinctions by reducing correlations within and anticorrelations between networks. Psilocybin-driven FC changes were strongest in the default mode network, which is connected to the anterior hippocampus and is thought to create our sense of space, time and self. Individual differences in FC changes were strongly linked to the subjective psychedelic experience. Performing a perceptual task reduced psilocybin-driven FC changes. Psilocybin caused persistent decrease in FC between the anterior hippocampus and default mode network, lasting for weeks. Persistent reduction of hippocampal-default mode network connectivity may represent a neuroanatomical and mechanistic correlate of the proplasticity and therapeutic effects of psychedelics.

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Psychedelic drugs can reliably induce powerful acute changes in the perception of self, time and space by agonism of the serotonin 2A (5-HT 2A ) receptor 9 , 10 . In clinical trials, a single high dose of psilocybin (25 mg) has demonstrated rapid and sustained symptom relief in depression 1 , 2 , 3 , 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , addiction 4 , 15 and end-of-life anxiety 13 , 14 . Together, these observations indicate that psychedelics should induce potent acute (lasting roughly 6 hours) and persistent (24 hours to 21 days) neurobiological changes.

In rodent models, transient activation of the 5-HT 2A receptors by a psychedelic can alter neuronal communication in 5-HT 2A -rich regions (for example, the medial frontal lobe) and induce persistent plasticity-related phenomena 5 , 6 , 7 . Synaptogenesis in the medial frontal lobe and anterior hippocampus is thought to be key to the neurotrophic antidepressant effects of psilocybin 5 , 16 , 17 . Yet, inherent limitations of rodent models, and imperfect homology to the human 5-HT 2A receptor 18 , limit the generalizability of these assertions.

Understanding the effects of psychedelics on human brain networks is critical to unlocking their therapeutic mechanisms. In humans, during the roughly 6 hour duration of action, psilocybin increases glutamate signalling and glucose metabolism 19 , 20 , 21 , broadly decreases the power of electrophysiological signals 22 , reduces hemodynamic fluctuations 23 and decreases segregation between functional networks 24 . The drivers of these acute changes are poorly understood, particularly in the subcortex. Preliminary efforts to identify network changes in the weeks after psilocybin have yielded mixed results 25 , 26 , 27 . Persistent effects of psilocybin on clinically relevant circuits have yet to be characterized in humans.

The ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior and middle hippocampus are functionally connected to the default mode network (DMN) 28 , 29 . Increased FC between the hippocampus and DMN has been associated with depression symptoms 30 and decreased FC is associated with treatment 31 , 32 . These 5-HT 2A receptor rich 33 and depression associated default mode regions 34 , 35 , 36 are candidates for mediating the neurotrophic antidepressant effects of psychedelics.

Precision functional mapping uses dense repeated functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) sampling 37 , 38 , 39 , 40 , 41 to reveal the time course of individual-specific intervention-driven brain changes 42 . This approach accounts for inter-individual variability in brain networks 37 and capitalizes on the high stability of networks within individuals from day to day 38 . Using precision functional mapping, we observed individual-specific acute and persistent brain changes following a single high dose of psilocybin.

Healthy young adults received 25 mg psilocybin and 40 mg methylphenidate (MTP, generic name Ritalin, dose-matched for arousal effects) 1–2 weeks apart and underwent regular MRI sessions (roughly 18 per participant) before, during, between and after the two drug doses (Extended Data Fig. 1 , Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Video  1 : data quality metrics for 129 total MRI visits). Dense predrug sampling familiarized participants with the scanner and established baseline variability.

Psilocybin disrupts brain connectivity

Psilocybin acutely caused profound and widespread brain FC changes (Fig. 1a ) across most of the cerebral cortex ( P  < 0.05 based on two-sided linear mixed-effects (LME) model and permutation testing), but most prominent in association networks (FC change mean (standard deviation, s.d.): association cortex 0.44 (0.03), primary cortex 0.36 (0.05)). In the subcortex the largest psilocybin-associated FC changes were seen in DMN connected parts of the thalamus, basal ganglia, cerebellum and hippocampus 29 , 43 , 44 (Fig. 1a and Extended Data Fig. 2 ). In the hippocampus, foci of strong FC disruption were located in the anterior hippocampus (Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates −24, −22, −16 and 24, −18, −16). Other large FC disruptions were seen in mediodorsal and paraventricular thalamus 45 and anteromedial caudate. In the cerebellum, the largest FC changes were seen in the DMN connected areas 44 (Fig. 1a ).

FC change (Euclidean distance) was calculated across the cortex and subcortical structures. Effects of drug condition were tested with an LME model in n  = 6 longitudinally sampled participants over ten sessions with psilocybin and six sessions with methylphenidate (MTP) ( a and b are thresholded at P  < 0.05 based on permutation testing with TFCE; see unthresholded statistical maps in Extended Data Fig. 2 ). a , Psilocybin-associated FC change, including in subcortex. a, anterior; p, posterior; L, left; R, right. b , MTP-associated FC change. c , Typical day-to-day variability as a control to the drug conditions (unthresholded: not included in LME model). d , Average FC change in individual-defined networks. Open circles represent individual participants. FC change is larger in DMN than other networks. Rotation-based null model (spin test 62 , 97 ): ten psilocybin doses, 1,000 permutations, one-sided P spin  < 0.001, ( P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks). ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected. e , Whole-brain FC change (Euclidean distance from baseline) for all rest scans across conditions. FC change for MTP, psilocybin and day-to-day are in comparison to same-participant baseline. White dots indicate median, vertical lines indicate quartiles. LME model predicting whole-brain FC change: ten psilocybin doses (275 observations), estimate (95% CI) = 15.83 (13.50, 18.15), t (266)  = 13.39, P  = 1.36 × 10 −31 , uncorrected. For the full FC distance matrix with session labels, see Extended Data Fig. 3 . f , g , Comparison of the differences in FC change to differences in psychedelic experiences. f , Individual FC change maps and MEQ30 scores for two exemplars (see Extended Data Fig. 4 for all drug sessions). g , The relationship between whole-brain FC change and mystical experience rating is plotted for all drug sessions (psilocybin and MTP). The LME model demonstrated a significant relationship: 16 drug doses (ten psilocybin, six MTP), estimate (95% CI) = 69.78 (50.15, 89.41), t (13)  = 7.68, P  = 3.5 × 10 −6 , uncorrected. h , The relationship between FC change and MEQ30 ( r 2 ) is mapped across the cortical surface.

By comparison, MTP-associated FC changes localized to sensorimotor systems (Fig. 1b and Extended Data Fig. 2 ) and paralleled the map of day-to-day variability (Fig. 1c ) probably due to arousal effects 39 . Psilocybin-associated FC change was largest in the DMN (Fig. 1d and Supplementary Fig. 1 ; averaged across all psilocybin sessions; spin test, 1,000 permutations, one-sided P spin  < 0.001; P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks). However, MTP-associated FC change was largest in motor and action networks ( P spin  = 0.002; P spin  > 0.05 for all other networks; Supplementary Fig. 1b ).

Despite MTP and psilocybin causing similar increases in heart rate (Supplementary Fig. 2 ), the effects of psilocybin on FC were more than threefold larger than the effects of MTP (Fig. 1e ; post hoc two-sided t -test; P  = 3.6 × 10 −6 , uncorrected). The psilocybin effects also dwarfed those of other control conditions (Fig. 1e ; day-to-day change (normalized) 1; task 1.22, MTP 1.10, high head motion 1.29, psilocybin 3.52, between person 3.53; Extended Data Fig. 3 ; these effects were robust to preprocessing choices: Supplementary Figs. 3 and 4 ). To put the effects of psilocybin into perspective, it helps to consider that the mean changes in brain organization caused by the drug were as large as the differences in brain organization between different people (Fig. 1e ).

The psychedelic experience

The large amount of data collected per participant, under the individual-specific imaging model, allowed us to move beyond group-analyses and compare the subjective psychedelic experience (30-item Mystical Experience Questionnaire, MEQ30) 46 to brain function data session-by-session (Fig. 1f ). The MEQ30 is a self-assessment instrument used to measure the intensity and quality of mystical experiences, including feelings of connectedness, transcendence of time and space, and a sense of awe, with a maximum score of 150 (ref. 46 ). Across psilocybin sessions and participants, FC change tracked with the intensity of the subjective experience (Fig. 1f and Extended Data Fig. 4 ). Correlating the whole-brain FC change ( x axis) against the MEQ30 scores ( y axis) for all drug sessions (Fig. 1g ) revealed an r 2  = 0.81 (LME model predicting MEQ30 score: effect of FC change, t (13)  = 7.68; P  = 3.5 × 10 −6 , uncorrected). Head motion was not significantly correlated with MEQ30 scores (effect of framewise displacement, t (13)  = −1.26, P  = 0.23, uncorrected). Projecting the relationship between someone’s mystical experience and the corresponding FC change onto the brain (Fig. 1h , vertex-wise) showed it to be driven by association cortex, relatively sparing primary motor and sensory regions. Of the four MEQ30 dimensions (mystical, positive mood, transcendence of time and space, and ineffability), the one most strongly correlating with brain change was transcendence (for example, ‘loss of your usual sense of time or space’, r 2  = 0.86, Supplementary Fig. 5 ), however, all dimensions were highly correlated ( r  > 0.8). Repeated sampling enabled us to determine that the inter-individual variability in the effects of psilocybin in the brain was more likely related to differences in drug effects than measurement error (likelihood ratio test of participant-specific response to psilocybin, P  = 0.00245, uncorrected) 47 , 48 .

The psychedelic dimension

To examine the latent dimensions of brain network changes we performed multidimensional scaling (MDS) on the parcellated FC matrices from every fMRI scan 38 . MDS is blind to session labels (for example, drug, participant). Yet, dimension 1, which explained the largest amount of variability, separated psilocybin from other scans (Fig. 2a ), apart from one session during which the participant (P5R) had emesis 30 minutes after taking psilocybin (dark red dots on the left of Fig. 2a ). The higher score on dimension 1 associated with psilocybin, corresponded to reduced segregation between the DMN and other networks (fronto-parietal 49 , dorsal attention 50 , salience 51 and action-mode 52 , 53 ) that are typically anticorrelated with it 54 (Fig. 2b and Extended Data Fig. 5 ). To determine whether this reflects a common effect of psilocybin that generalizes across datasets and psychedelics, we calculated dimension 1 scores for extant datasets from participants receiving intravenous (i.v.) psilocybin 55 and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD) 56 . Psychedelic treatment increased dimension 1 in nearly every participant in the psilocybin and LSD datasets (Fig. 2c ), suggesting that this is a common effect across psychedelic drugs and individuals.

MDS blind to session labels was used to assess brain changes across conditions. a , In the scatter plots, each point represents whole-brain FC from a single 15 min scan, plotted in a multidimensional space on the basis of the similarity between scans. Dimensions 1 and 4 showed strong effects of psilocybin. The top shows scans coded on the basis of drug condition. Dark red denotes that the participant had an episode of emesis shortly after taking psilocybin. The bottom shows scans coloured on the basis of participant identity. Dimension 1 separates psilocybin from non-drug and MTP scans in most cases. See Extended Data Fig. 5 for the dimension 1–4 weight matrices. b , Visualization of dimension 1 weights. The top 1% of edges (connections) are projected onto the brain (green indicates connections that are increased by psilocybin). Cerebellar connections are included although the structure is not shown. c , Re-analysis of dimension 1 in extant datasets with intravenous psilocybin (left, ref. 55 , paired two-sided t -test of change in dimension 1 score, n  = 9, t (8)  = 2.97, P  = 0.0177, uncorrected) and LSD (right, ref. 56 , paired two-sided t -test: n  = 16, t (15)  = 4.58, P  = 3.63 × 10 −4 , uncorrected). * P  < 0.05, ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected. d , Average effects of psilocybin on network FC, shown separately for within-network integration (left) and between network segregation (right). For network integration (left), blue indicates a loss of FC (correlations) between regions within the same network. For network segregation (right), blue indicates a loss of FC (anticorrelations) to all other regions in different networks; see Extended Data Fig. 6 for a full correlation matrix. Dissolution of functional brain organization corresponds to decreased within-network integration and decreased between network segregation.

Subtraction of average FC (psilocybin minus baseline) revealed a pattern of FC change similar to dimension 1 (Fig. 2d and Extended Data Figs. 5 and 6 ). Consistent with previous psychedelics studies 24 , psilocybin increased FC between networks (particularly fronto-parietal, default mode and dorsal attention), whereas FC within networks was relatively less affected. A similar pattern of loss of segregation between brain networks is produced by nitrous oxide and ketamine 57 , suggesting that the psychedelic dimension observed here may generalize to psychedelic-like dissociative drugs.

By comparison, MTP decreased within-network FC in the sensory, motor and auditory regions (Extended Data Fig. 6 ), consistent with previous reports 58 and similar to the effects of caffeine 39 . To verify that observations in our sample ( n  = 6) were generalizable, we compared stimulant effects in our study to those in the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study 59 ( n  = 487 taking stimulants). The effect of stimulant use in ABCD was consistent with MTP-associated FC changes in our dataset (Extended Data Fig. 6 ).

Desynchronization explains FC change

Multi-unit recording studies suggest that agonism of 5-HT 2A receptors by psychedelics desynchronizes populations of neurons that typically co-activate 60 . We proposed that this phenomenon, observed at a larger spatial scale, might account for psilocybin-associated FC change (Fig. 1 ). We observed that the typically stable spatial structure of resting fMRI fluctuations was disrupted and desynchronized by psilocybin (Supplementary Videos  2 – 7 : brain activity time courses during drug sessions for each participant). Therefore, we quantified brain signal synchrony using normalized global spatial complexity (NGSC): a measure of spatial entropy that is independent of the number of signals 61 . NGSC calculates cumulative variance explained by subsequent spatiotemporal patterns (Fig. 3a ). The lowest value of NGSC (0) means that the time course for every vertex and/or voxel is identical. The highest value of NGSC (equal to one) means that the time course for every vertex and/or voxel is independent, indicating maximal desynchronization (or spatial entropy).

a , NGSC captures the complexity of brain activity patterns. It is derived from the number of spatial principal components needed to explain the underlying structure. Higher entropy equals desynchronized activity. On the right is variance explained by subsequent principal components for psilocybin in red, MTP in blue and no drug in grey for P6. b , Whole-brain entropy (NGSC) is shown for every fMRI scan for a single participant (P6). At right, increases during psilocybin were present in all participants. Sample sizes are provided in Supplementary Table 1 . Grey bars indicate condition means. c , Parcel entropy (computed on individual-specific parcels) within functional brain areas shows similar psilocybin-driven increases as whole-brain entropy. d , Psilocybin-associated spatial entropy (individual-specific parcels, averaged across participants) is visualized on the cortical surface. Psilocybin-associated increases in entropy were largest in association cortex. e , LSD-associated increases in spatial entropy were similar to those induced by psilocybin (using data from ref. 56 ). f , Increases corresponded spatially to 5-HT 2A receptor density 33 . In b – d , n  = 6 participants, 272 observations (scans). For e , n  = 16 participants.

Psilocybin significantly increased NGSC acutely with values returning to predrug baseline by the following session (Fig. 3b,c ). The increase in NGSC was observed at the whole-brain level (Fig. 3b ; LME model, estimate (95% confidence interval (CI)) = 0.0510 (0.0343, 0.0676), t (265)  = 6.8, P  = 2.0 × 10 −6 , uncorrected) and correlated with the subjective experience (MEQ30: Extended Data Fig. 7 ; r  = 0.80, P  = 3.52 × 10 −4 , uncorrected, after single outlier removal), whereas nuisance variables did not. Increased NGSC was also observed for individual-defined brain areas 62 (Fig. 3c ; LME model, estimate (95% CI) = 0.0149 (0.0071, 0.0228), t (265)  = 3.74, P  = 2.30 × 10 −4 , uncorrected), with the largest increases in association cortex and minimal changes in primary cortex (Fig. 3d ). Global and local desynchronization replicated in an LSD dataset 56 (Fig. 3e ) and the distribution of these effects correlated with 5-HT 2A receptor density (Fig. 3f ; bivariate correlation NGSC psilocybin to Cimbi-36 binding, r  = 0.39, P  = 1.9 × 10 −13 ; NGSC LSD to Cimbi-36 binding, r  = 0.32, P  = 4.5 × 10 −9 , uncorrected) 33 , 63 .

Task engagement reduces desynchronization

To investigate how psilocybin-driven brain changes are influenced by task states, participants were asked to complete a simple auditory–visual matching task in the scanner ( Methods , perceptual fMRI task). Participants performed this task with more than 80% accuracy during drug sessions (Extended Data Fig. 8a–c ). Engagement in the task significantly decreased the magnitude of psilocybin-associated network disruption and desynchronization (Fig. 4 ; LME model interaction of task × psilocybin: FC change P  = 5.49 × 10 −5 , NGSC P  = 4.82 × 10 −8 , uncorrected). These results were robust to scan order effects (Supplementary Fig. 6 ) and regression of evoked responses (Supplementary Fig. 7 ).

a , Psilocybin-associated FC change from resting scans (left) and from task scans (right). b , Regional NGSC change (psilocybin minus baseline) from rest scans (left) and from task scans (right). Bar graphs on the bottom indicate the corresponding whole-brain FC change ( a ) and whole-brain NGSC values ( b ) during rest and task for baseline and drug conditions. LME models indicated an interaction of task × psilocybin on FC change ( n  = 7 with task data on psilocybin, estimate (95% CI) = −6.48 (−9.59, −3.37), t (265)  = −6.48, P  = 5.49 × 10 −5 , uncorrected) and an interaction of task × psilocybin on NGSC ( n  = 7 with task data on psilocybin, estimate (95% CI) = −0.042 (−0.056, −0.027), t (265)  = −5.62, P  = 4.82 × 10 −8 , uncorrected). Bars indicate mean and error bars indicate s.e.m.. ** P  < 0.001, uncorrected.

The reduction of psilocybin-driven brain changes during task performance seems to parallel the psychological principle of ‘grounding’: directing one’s attention externally as a means of alleviating intense or distressing thoughts or emotions. Grounding techniques are commonly used in psychedelic-associated psychotherapy to lessen overwhelming or distressing effects of psilocybin 64 . Task-related reductions in network desynchronization provide strong evidence for context-dependent effects of psilocybin on brain activity and FC 65 and fill an important gap between preclinical studies of context dependence 66 , 67 and clinical observations 68 .

Classical animal studies documented that psychedelics reduce optic tract responses to photic stimulation of the retina, indirectly reducing visual cortex activation 69 , 70 . We replicated these effects by documenting reduced task-evoked responses in primary visual cortex (Extended Data Fig. 8d–g ). To assess whether psilocybin affects the magnitude of hemodynamic responses elsewhere, we analysed evoked responses during the perceptual task in other task-related regions of interest (Extended Data Fig. 8f,g ). But the magnitudes of other evoked responses were not significantly changed by psilocybin (two-way analysis of variance of drug and participant; effect of drug: left V1 P  = 0.03, right V1 P  = 0.02, all other P  > 0.1, uncorrected).

Persistent decrease in hippocampal FC

To assess whether persistent neurotrophic and psychological effects of psychedelics might be associated with persistent FC changes after psilocybin, we compared FC changes 1–21 days post-psilocybin to pre-psilocybin. Whole-brain FC change scores were small (normalized FC change (range) of 1.05 (0.94, 1.27)), indicating that the brain’s network structure had mostly returned to baseline (Extended Data Fig. 2 ).

Atypical cortico-hippocampal connectivity has been associated with affective symptoms 30 and hippocampus neurogenesis is observed after psilocybin 6 . Further, acute decreases in hippocampal glutamate after psilocybin correlate with decreased DMN connectivity and ego dissolution 21 . Thus, we investigated whether the same region of the anterior hippocampus that showed strong acute FC change also showed persistent FC change. We observed significant FC change in the 3 week postdrug period (Fig. 5a,b ; LME mean change 0.095, P pre– post-psilocybin  = 0.0033, uncorrected). No persistent FC differences were observed post-MTP ( Methods , section ‘Persistent effects analysis’; LME ‘FC change’ 90% CI (−0.056, 0.080); equivalence δ  = ±0.086, P pre– post-MTP  = 0.77).

a , Hippocampus FC change maps (left hippocampus; unthresholded t -maps, as in Extended Data Fig. 2 ). Acute psilocybin FC change is shown on top and persistent FC change (3 weeks after psilocybin) on the bottom. b , Each dot represents the FC change score for the anterior hippocampus for a single scan before (left) and after (right) psilocybin for every participant (coloured as in Fig. 2 ). Participants showed a post-psilocybin increase in FC change in the anterior hippocampus (LME model, pre- versus post-psilocybin; n  = 6 participants, 186 observations, estimate (95% CI) = 0.095 (0.032, 0.168), t (182)  = 2.97, P  = 0.0033, uncorrected). c , Connectivity from an anterior hippocampus seed (Montreal Neurological Institute coordinates −24, −22, −16 and 24, −18, −16) pre-psilocybin (left), post-psilocybin (middle) and persistent change (post- minus pre-) for an exemplar participant (P3). The red border on the right-most brain outlines the individual-specific DMN. A decrease in hippocampal FC with parietal and frontal components of the DMN is seen. d , Time course of anterior hippocampus minus DMN for all participants and scans (participant colours as in b ). A moving average is shown in black. e , Schematic of hippocampal-cortical circuits, reproduced from ref. 29 , CC BY 4.0 .

FC between the anterior hippocampus and DMN was decreased postpsilocybin (Fig. 5c,d ). Time-course visualization, after aligning them so that psilocybin dose was day 0, suggests that connectivity is reduced for 3 weeks following a single psilocybin dose (Fig. 5d ; AntHip-DMN FC mean (95% CI): pre-psilocybin was 0.180 (0.169, 0.192); post-psilocybin was 0.163 (0.150, 0.176)). AntHip-DMN FC values returned to pre-psilocybin baseline by the replication visit 6–12 months later, however, the smaller replication sample ( n  = 4 with one pre-psilocybin visit each) was not statistically powered to detect small changes. This observation is compelling, as it localized to the anterior hippocampus, a brain region showing substantial synaptogenesis following psilocybin 6 . Reduced hippocampal-cortical FC may reflect increased plasticity of self-oriented hippocampal circuits 31 (Fig. 5e ).

From micro- to macro-scale psychedelic effects

The synchronized patterns of cofluctuations during the resting state are believed to reflect the brain’s perpetual task of modelling reality 71 . It follows that the stability of functional network organization across day, task, MTP and arousal levels (but not between individuals), reflects the subjective stability of waking consciousness. By contrast, the much larger changes induced by psilocybin fit with participants’ subjective reports of a radical change in consciousness. The large magnitude of effects of psilocybin, in comparison to the effects of MTP, suggests that observed changes are not merely due to increased arousal or non-specific effects of monoaminergic stimulation 72 .

Our observation that psychedelics desynchronize brain activity regionally and globally provides a bridge between previous findings at the micro- and macro-scales of neuroscience. Multi-unit recording studies suggest that agonism of 5-HT 2A receptors by psychedelics does not uniformly increase or decrease firing of pyramidal neurons, but rather serves to desynchronize pairs or populations of neurons that co-activate under typical conditions 60 . Meanwhile, previous resting fMRI studies have reported a range of acute changes following ingestion of psilocybin 55 , 63 , ayahuasca 73 and LSD 56 , 74 , which broadly converge on a loss of network connectivity and an increase in global integration 24 , 75 . Disruption of synchronized activity at several scales may explain the paradoxical observation that psychedelics produce an increase in metabolic activity 19 , 20 , a decrease in the power of local fluctuations 22 , 76 and a loss of the brain’s segregated network structure 23 , 56 . This desynchronization of neural activity has been described as an increase in entropy or randomness of brain activity in the psychedelic state 77 , 78 . Our results support the hypothesis that these changes underpin the cognitive and perceptual changes associated with psychedelics.

Desynchrony may drive persistent change

The dramatic departure from typical synchronized patterns of co-activity may be key to understanding the acute effects of psilocybin and also its persistent neurotrophic effects. Changes in resting activity are linked to shifts in glutamate-dependent signalling during psilocybin exposure 21 , 79 , 80 . This phenomenon, shared by ketamine and psychedelics, engages homeostatic plasticity mechanisms 81 , 82 , a neurobiological response to large deviations in typical network activity patterns 83 , 84 , 85 . This response to novelty includes rapid upregulation in expression of BDNF , M TOR , E EF2 and other plasticity-related immediate early genes 8 , 80 , which are thought to have a key role in the antidepressant response 86 . Consistent with this notion, psilocybin produced the largest changes in the DMN, frequently associated with neuropsychiatric disorders 34 , 35 , 87 , 88 , 89 , 90 , 91 , and in a region of the anterior and middle hippocampus associated with the self 29 , 92 and the present moment 93 .

Psychedelics rapidly induce synaptogenesis in the hippocampus and cortex, effects that seem to be necessary for rapid antidepressant-like effects in animal models 7 , 17 . However, understanding the underpinnings of the behavioural effects of psychedelics requires human studies. Advances in precision functional mapping 37 , 94 , 95 and individual-level characterization enabled us to identify desynchronization of resting-state fMRI signals, connect these changes with subjective psychedelic effects and localize these changes to depression-relevant circuits (DMN, hippocampus). These analyses rely on precise characterization of an individuals’ baseline brain organization (for example, individual definition of brain areas, networks and day-to-day variability) to understand how that organization is altered by an intervention. This precision drug mechanism study was conducted in non-depressed volunteers. Verification of the proposed antidepressant mechanism of psilocybin will require precision patient studies. New methods to measure neurotrophic markers in the human brain 96 will provide a critical link between mechanistic observations at the cellular, brain networks and psychological levels.

Regulatory approvals and registrations

Written informed consent was obtained from all participants in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki and procedures established by the Washington University in Saint Louis Institutional Review Board. All participants were compensated for their time. All aspects of this study were approved by the Washington University School of Medicine (WUSOM) Internal Review Board, the Washington University Human Research Protection Office (WU HRPO), the Federal Drug Administration (IND no. 202002165) and the Missouri Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) under a federal DEA schedule 1 research licence and registered with ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT04501653. Psilocybin was supplied by Usona Institute through Almac Clinical Services.

Study design

Healthy young adults ( n  = 7, 18–45 years) were enrolled between April 2021 and March 2023 in a randomized cross-over precision functional brain mapping study at Washington University in Saint Louis (see  Supplementary Methods for inclusion and exclusion criteria). The purpose of the study was to evaluate differences in individual-level connectomics before, during and after psilocybin exposure. Participants underwent imaging during drug sessions (with MRI starting 1 h after drug ingestion) with 25 mg psilocybin or 40 mg MTP, as well as non-drug imaging sessions. Drug condition categories were (1) baseline, (2) drug 1 (MTP or psilocybin), (3) between, (4) drug 2 and (5) after. Randomization allocation was conducted using REDCap and generated by team members who prepared study materials including drug or placebo but otherwise had no contact with participants. A minimum of three non-drug imaging sessions were completed during each non-drug window: baseline, between and after drug sessions. The number of non-drug MRI sessions was dependent on availability of the participant, scanner and scanner support staff. Dosing day imaging sessions were conducted 60–180 min following drug administration during peak blood concentration 98 . One participant (P2) was not able tolerate fMRI while on psilocybin, and had trouble staying awake on numerous fMRI visits after psilocybin and was thus excluded from analysis (except for data quality metrics in Extended Data Fig. 1 ).

MTP was selected as the active control condition to simulate the cardiovascular effects and physiological arousal (that is, controlling for dopaminergic effects) associated with psilocybin 99 . Usona Institute, a US non-profit medical research organization, provided good manufacturing practices for psilocybin.

Drug sessions were facilitated by two clinical research staff who completed an approved in-person or online facilitator training programme provided by Usona Institute, as part of the phase 2 study (ClinicalTrials.gov identifier NCT03866174). The role of the study facilitators was to build a therapeutic alliance with the participant throughout the study, prepare them for their drug dosing days and to observe and maintain participant safety during dosing day visits 64 . The pair consisted of an experienced clinician (lead clinical facilitator) and a trainee (cofacilitator).

The predefined primary outcome measure was precision functional mapping (numerous visits, very long scans to produce individual connectomes) examining the effects of psilocybin on cortical and cortico- subcortical brain networks that could explain its rapid and sustained behavioural effects. Predefined secondary outcome measures included (1) assessment of hemodynamic response to evaluate how 5-HT 2A receptor agonism by psychedelics may alter neurovascular coupling, (2) assessment of acute psychological effects of psilocybin using the MEQ30 score ( Supplementary Methods ) and (3) assessment of personality change using the International Personality Item Pool-Five-Factor Model 100 . Changes in pulse rate and respiratory rate during psilocybin and placebo were later added as secondary outcome measures and personality change was abandoned because it was clear that we would not be powered to detect personality change.

Replication protocol

Participants were invited to return 6–12 months after completing the initial cross-over study for a replication protocol. This included 1–2 baseline fMRIs, a psilocybin session (identical to the initial session, except for lack of blinding) and 1–2 ‘after’ sessions within 4 days of the dose.

Participants

Healthy adults aged 18–45 years were recruited by campus-wide advertisement and colleague referral. Participants ( n  = 7) were enrolled from March 2021 to May 2023. Participants were required to have had at least one previous lifetime psychedelic exposure (for example, psilocybin, mescaline, ayahuasca, LSD), but no psychedelics exposure within the past 6 months. Individuals with psychiatric illness (depression, psychosis or addiction) based on the DSM-5 were excluded. Demographics and data summary details are provided in Supplementary Table 1 . One of the authors (N.U.F.D.) was a study participant.

Participants were scanned roughly every other day over the course of the experiment (Extended Data Fig. 1 ). Imaging was performed at a consistent time of day to minimize diurnal effects in FC 101 . Neuroimaging was performed on a Siemens Prisma scanner (Siemens) in the neuroimaging laboratories at the Washington University Medical Center.

Structural scans (T1w and T2w) were acquired for each participant at 0.9 mm isotropic resolution, with real-time motion correction. Structural scans from different sessions were averaged together for the purposes of Freesurfer segmentation and nonlinear atlas registrations.

To capture high-resolution images of blood oxygenation level-dependent (BOLD) signal, we used an echo-planar imaging sequence 102 with 2 mm isotropic voxels, multiband 6, multi-echo 5 (times to echo: 14.20, 38.93, 63.66, 88.39, 113.12 ms) 103 , repetition or relaxation time: 1,761 ms, flip angle of 68° and in-plane acceleration 104 (IPAT or grappa) of 2. This sequence acquired 72 axial slices (144 mm coverage). Each resting scan included 510 frames (lasting 15 min, 49 s) as well as three frames at the end used to provide estimate electronic noise.

Every session included two 15-min resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) scans, during which participants were instructed to hold still and look at a white fixation crosshair presented on a black background. Head motion was tracked in real time using Framewise Integrated Real-time MRI Monitoring software (FIRMM) 105 . An eye-tracking camera (EyeLink) was used to monitor participants for drowsiness.

Perceptual (matching) fMRI task

Participants also completed a previously validated event-related fMRI task. This was a suprathreshold auditory–visual matching task in which participants were presented with a naturalistic visual image (duration 500 ms) and coincident spoken English phrase, and were asked to respond with a button press to indicate whether the image and phrase were ‘congruent’ (for example, an image of a beach and the spoken word ‘beach’) or ‘incongruent’. Both accuracy and response time of button presses were recorded. Each trial was followed by a jittered inter-stimulus interval optimized for event-related designs. In a subset of imaging sessions, two task fMRI scans were completed following the two resting scans. Task fMRI scans used the same sequence used in resting fMRI, included 48 trials (24 congruent, 24 incongruent) and lasted a total of 410 s. In analyses, high motion frames were censored 106 and the two task scans were concatenated to better match the length of the rs-fMRI scans. Note the stimulus order in the two trials did not vary across session. The order of rest and task scans was not counterbalanced across sessions to avoid concern that task scans may influence subsequent rest scans.

Resting fMRI processing and resting-state network definition

Resting fMRI data were preprocessed using an in-house processing pipeline. In brief, this included removal of thermal noise using NORDIC denoising 107 , 108 , 109 , correction for slice timing and field distortions, alignment, optimal combination of many echoes by weighted summation 110 , normalization, nonlinear registration, bandpass filtering and scrubbing at a movement threshold of 0.3 mm to remove reduce the influence of confounds 111 . Tissue-based regressors were computed in volume (white matter, ventricles, extra-axial cerebrospinal fluid) 112 and applied following projection to surface. Task-based regressors were only applied when indicated. Details on rs-fMRI preprocessing are provided in  Supplementary Methods . Visualizations of motion, physiological traces and signal across the brain (‘grayplots’) before and after processing 113 are provided in Supplementary Video  1 .

Surface generation and brain areal parcellation

Surface generation and processing of functional data followed similar procedures to Glasser et al. 114 . To compare FC and resting-state networks across participants, we used a group-based surface parcellation and community assignments generated previously 62 .

For subcortical regions, we used a set of regions of interest 115 generated to achieve full coverage and optimal region homogeneity. A subcortical limbic network was defined on the basis of neuroanatomy: amygdala, anteromedial thalamus, nucleus accumbens, anterior hippocampus and posterior hippocampus 116 , 117 . These regions were expanded to cover anatomical structures (for example, anterior hippocampus) 31 .

To generate region-wise connectivity matrices, time courses of all surface vertices or subcortical voxels within a region were averaged. FC was then computed between each region timeseries using a bivariate correlation and then Fisher z -transformed for group comparison.

Individualized network and brain area mapping

We identified canonical large-scale networks using the individual-specific network matching approach described previously 43 , 44 , 62 . In brief, cortical surface and subcortical volume assignments were derived using the graph-theory-based Infomap algorithm 118 . In this approach, we calculated the correlation matrix from all cortical vertices and subcortical voxels, concatenated across all a participant’s scans. Correlations between vertices within 30 mm of each other were set to zero. The Infomap algorithm was applied to each participant’s correlation matrix thresholded at a range of edge densities spanning from 0.01 to 2%. At each threshold, the algorithm returned community identities for each vertex and voxel. Communities were labelled by matching them at each threshold to a set of independent group average networks described previously 62 . In each individual and in the average, a ‘consensus’ network assignment was derived by collapsing assignments across thresholds, giving each node the assignment it had at the sparsest possible threshold at which it was successfully assigned to one of the known group networks. See Extended Data Fig. 4 and Supplementary Fig. 1 for individual and group mode assignments, respectively. The following networks were included: the association networks including the DMN, fronto-parietal, dorsal attention, parietal memory, ventral attention, action-mode, salience and context networks; and the primary networks including the visual, somato-motor, somato-motor face and auditory networks.

To compute local (areal) desynchronization, we also defined brain areas at the individual level using a previously described areal parcellation approach 39 . In brief, for each participant, vertex-wise FC was averaged across all sessions to generate a dense connectome. Then, abrupt transitions in FC values across neighbouring vertices were used to identify boundaries between distinct functional areas.

To take advantage of the multilevel precision functional mapping study design, a LME model was used. Every scan was labelled on the following dimensions: participant identity (ID), MRI visit, task (task or rest), drug condition (prepsilocybin, psilocybin, MTP, postpsilocybin) and head motion (average framewise displacement). The rs-fMRI metrics (described below) were set as the dependent variable, drug (drug condition), task, framewise displacement (motion) and drug × task were defined as fixed effects, and participant ID and MRI session were random effects.

Let y ij be the rs-fMRI metric (for example, FC change score at a given vertex) for the j th observation (15 min fMRI scan) within the i th participant. The LME model can be written as:

β 0 is the intercept term.

β drug , β FD , β task and β task-by-drug are the coefficients for the fixed effects predictors.

drug ij , frame displacement ij (FD ij ) and task ij are the values of the fixed effects predictors for the j th observation within the i th group.

u 0 i represents the random intercept for the i th participant, accounting for individual-specific variability.

v 0 j represents the random intercept for the j th observation within the i th participant, capturing scan-specific variability.

ε ij is the error term representing unobserved random variation.

In MATLAB (Wilkinsonian notation), this model is expressed for every vertex Y (vertex) = fitlme(groupd, FC_Change(vertex) ~ drug + framewise displacement + task + task-by-drug + (1 |SubID) + (1 |session)).

To compensate for the implementations of this LME model on many rs-fMRI-related dependent variables, differences were highlighted when P  < 0.001. All P values reported are not corrected for multiple comparisons.

Vertex-wise FC change

FC change (‘distance’) was calculated at the vertex level to generate FC change maps and a LME model (equation ( 1 )) was used in combination with wild bootstrapping 119 , 120 and threshold-free cluster enhancement (TFCE) 95 , 121 to estimate P values for t -statistic maps resulting from the model (Figs. 1a–d and  4 ). Wild bootstrapping is an approach to permutation testing that was designed for models that are not independent and identically distributed, and are heteroscedastic.

First, a FC change map was generated for every scan by computing, for each vertex, the average distance between its FC seedmap and the FC seedmap for each of that participant’s baseline scans. As each participant had several baseline visits, FC change was computed for baseline scans by computing distance from all other baseline scans (excluding scans within the same visit). This provided a measure of day-to-day variability. Second, the distance value was used as the dependent variable y ij in the LME model to generate a t -statistic. Third, a wild bootstrapping procedure was implemented as follows. Several bootstrap samples ( B  = 1,000) were generated using the Rademacher procedure 120 , in which the residuals were randomly inverted. Specifically, a Rademacher vector was generated by randomly assigning −1 or 1 values with equal probability to the residual of each observation. By element-wise multiplication of the original residuals with the Rademacher vector, bootstrap samples were created to capture the variability in the data.

For the observed t -statistic-map and each bootstrap sample, the TFCE algorithm was applied to enhance the sensitivity to clusters of significant voxels or regions while controlling for multiple comparisons. The value of the enhanced cluster statistic derived from the bootstrap samples was used to create a null distribution under the null hypothesis. By comparing the original observed cluster statistic with the null distribution, P values were derived to quantify the statistical significance of the observed effect. The P values were obtained on the basis of the proportion of bootstrap samples that produced a maximum cluster statistic exceeding the observed cluster statistic.

The combined approach of wild bootstrapping with the Rademacher procedure and TFCE provided the method to estimate P values for our multilevel (drug condition, participant, session, task) design. This methodology accounted for the complex correlation structure, effectively controlled for multiple comparisons and accommodated potential autocorrelation in the residuals through the Rademacher procedure. By incorporating these techniques, association with psilocybin and other conditions was reliably identified amid noise and spatial dependencies.

Whole-brain FC change

For analyses in Figs. 1e,g , 2 and 4a (bottom), Extended Data Fig. 3 and Supplementary Figs. 3 , 4 and 6 , distance calculations were computed on the FC matrix using z -transformed bivariate correlation of time courses from parcellated brain areas 62 . The effects of day-to-day, drug condition, task and framewise displacement and drug × task were directly examined by calculating the distance between functional network matrices generated from each scan. Root-mean-squared Euclidean distance was computed between the linearized upper triangles of the parcellated FC matrix between each pair of 15 min fMRI scans, creating a second-order distance matrix (Extended Data Fig. 3 ). Subsequently, the average distance (reported as ‘whole-brain FC change’) was examined for FC matrices that were from the same individual within a single session, from the same individual across days (‘day-to-day’), from the same participant between drug and baseline (for example, psilocybin), from the same individual but different tasks (‘task:rest’), from the same individual between highest motion scans and baseline (‘hi:lo motion’), from different individuals (‘between person’). In the ‘high head motion’ comparison (‘hi:lo motion’ in Supplementary Fig. 3 ), the two non-drug scans with the highest average framewise displacement were labelled and compared against all other baseline scans.

A LME model (equation ( 1 )) and post hoc t -tests were used to assess statistical differences between drug conditions. A related approach using z -transformed bivariate correlation (‘similarity’ rather than distance) was also taken and results were unchanged (Supplementary Fig. 3c ).

Likelihood ratio test of participant-specific response

To test whether variability in participant-specific response to psilocybin was larger than would be expected by chance, we used a likelihood ratio test for variance of random slopes for a participant-specific response to psilocybin 48 . The difference in log likelihood ratios was compared to a null distribution of 1 million draws from a mixture of chi-squared distributions with degrees of freedom 1 and 2. We note that the likelihood ratio test of variance components is a non-standard problem 47 as the covariance matrix of the random effects is positive definite and the variances of random effects are non-negative. Finally, the test statistic for the likelihood ratio in this LME model was compared against a 50/50 mixture of two independent chi-squared distributions, each with one and two degrees of freedom, respectively.

Assessing subjective experience

Subjective experience was assessed for drug sessions using the MEQ30 46  ( Supplementary Methods ). The MEQ30 is designed to capture the core domains of the subjective effects of psychedelics (as compared to the altered states of consciousness rating scales that more broadly assess effects of psychoactive drugs 122 ) and is related to the therapeutic benefits of psychedelics. We applied a LME model across all drug sessions, similar to the one described above, but with MEQ30 total score as the dependent variable. Whole-brain FC change and framewise displacement were modelled as fixed effects, and participant was modelled as a random effect. The same model was solved using FC change from every vertex to generate a vertex-wise map of the FC change versus MEQ30.

Normalized FC change

The conditions above were compared by calculating normalized FC change scores using the following procedure: we (1) determined FC change for each condition compared to baseline as described above, (2) subtracted within-session distance for all conditions (such that within-session FC change was 0), (3) divided all conditions by day-to-day distance (such that day-to-day FC change was equal to 1). Thus, normalized whole-brain FC change values (for example, psilocybin versus base was 3.52) could be thought of as proportional to day-to-day variability.

Data-driven MDS

We used a classical MDS approach to cluster parcellated connectomes across fMRI scans, as previously described 38 . This data-driven approach was used to identify how different parameters (for example, task, drug, individual) affect similarity and/or distance between networks. MDS places data in multidimensional space on the basis of the dissimilarity (Euclidean distance) among data points, which in this case means a data point represents the linearized upper triangle of a FC matrix. Every matrix was entered into the classical MDS algorithm (implemented using MATLAB 2019, cmdscale.m). Many dimensions of the data were explored. The eigenvectors were multiplied by the original FC matrices to generate a matrix of eigenweights that corresponded to each dimension. These eigenweights were also applied to other rs-fMRI psychedelics datasets to generate dimensions scores (section ‘Other datasets’).

Rotation-based null model (spin test) for network specificity

To assess network specificity of FC change values, we calculated average FC change of matched null networks consisting of randomly rotated networks with preserved size, shape and relative position to each other 62 , 97 . To create matched random networks, we rotated each hemisphere of the original networks a random amount around the x , y and z axes on the spherical expansion of the cortical surface 62 . This procedure randomly relocated each network while maintaining networks’ sizes, shapes and relative positions to each other. Random rotation followed by computation of network-average FC change score was repeated 1,000 times to generate null distributions of FC change scores. Vertices rotated into the medial wall were not included in the calculation. Actual psilocybin FC change was then compared to null rotation permutations to generate a P value for the 12 networks that were consistently present across every participant’s Infomap parcellation. For bar graph visualization (Fig. 1 and Supplementary Fig. 1b ), networks with greater change ( P  < 0.05 based on null rotation permutations) are shown in their respective colour and other networks are shown in grey.

We used an approach previously validated to assess spatial complexity (termed entropy) or neural signals 61 . Temporal principal component analysis was conducted on the full BOLD dense timeseries, which yielded m principal components ( m roughly 80 K surface vertices and subcortical voxels) and associated eigenvalues. The normalized eigenvalue of the i th principal component was calculated as

where m is the number of principal components, and λ i and λ ′ i represent the eigenvalue and the normalized eigenvalue of the i th principal component, respectively. Last, the NGSC, defined as the normalized entropy of normalized eigenvalues, was computed using the equation:

The NGSC computed above attains values from the interval 0 to 1. The lowest value NGSC = 0 would mean the brain-wide BOLD signal consisted of exactly one principal component or spatial mode, and there is maximum global FC between all vertices. The highest value NGSC = 1 would mean the total data variance is uniformly distributed across all m principal components, and a maximum spatial complexity or a lowest FC is found.

NGSC was additionally calculated at the ‘parcel level’. To respect areal boundaries, this was done by first generating a set of individual-specific parcels in every participant (on all available resting fMRI sessions concatenated) using procedures described oreviously 39 , 62 .

NGSC maps were compared to PET-based 5-HT 2A receptor binding maps published in ref. 33 . Similarity was assessed by computing the bivariate correlation between NGSC values and 5-HT 2A binding across 324 cortical parcels from the Gordon–Laumann parcellation.

Persistent effects analysis

To assess the persistent effects of psilocybin, we compared FC changes 1–21 days postpsilocybin to predrug baseline. The FC change analysis (described above) indicated that connectivity at the whole-brain level did not change following psilocybin (Supplementary Fig. 1 ). A screen was conducted with P  < 0.05 threshold to identify brain networks or areas showing persistent effects. This analysis identified the anterior hippocampus as a candidate region of interest for persistent FC change (section ‘Baseline/after psilocybin FC change analysis’ in  Supplementary Methods ).

We assessed change in anterior hippocampus ‘FC change’ pre- versus postpsilocybin using the LME model described previously. In this model, all sessions before psilocybin (irrespective or cross-over order) were labelled as prepsilocybin and all sessions within 21 days after psilocybin were labelled as postpsilocybin.

As a control, we tested anterior hippocampus FC change pre- versus post-MTP using both the LME model, and an equivalence test. To control for potential persistent psilocybin effects, only the block of scans immediately before and after MTP were used (for example, if a participant took MTP as drug 1, then all baseline scans were labelled as ‘pre-MTP’ and all scans between drugs 1 and 2 were labelled ‘post-MTP’).

Equivalence testing (to conclude no change in anterior hippocampus after MTP) was accomplished by setting δ  = 0.5 standard deviation of FC change across pre-MTP sessions. We computed the 90% CI of change in FC change between pre- and post-MTP sessions. If the bounds of the 90% CI were within ± δ , then equivalence was determined 123 .

Other datasets

Raw fMRI and structural data published previously 55 , 56 were run through our in-house registration and processing pipeline described above. These datasets were used for replication, external validation and generalization to another classic psychedelic (that is, LSD) for the measures described above (for example, NGSC and the MDS-derived psilocybin FC dimension, dimension 1).

Using the data from ref. 55 : n  = 15 healthy adults (five women, mean age 34.1 years, s.d. 8.2) completed two scanning sessions (psilocybin and saline) that included an eyes-closed resting-state BOLD scan for 6 min before and following i.v. infusion of drug. fMRI data were acquired using a gradient-echo-planar imaging sequence, TR and TE of 3,000 and 35 ms, field-of-view 192 mm, 64 × 64 acquisition matrix, parallel acceleration factor of 2 and 90° flip angle.

Using the data from ref. 56 : healthy adults completed two scanning sessions (LSD and saline), which included an eyes-closed resting-state BOLD scan acquired for 22 min following i.v. drug infusion lasting 12 min. n  = 20 participants completed the protocol, but data were used for n  = 15 (four women; mean age 30.5, standard deviation 8.0) deemed suitable for BOLD analyses. fMRI data were acquired using a gradient-echo-planar imaging sequence, TR and TE of 2,000 and 35 ms, field-of-view 220 mm, 64 × 64 acquisition matrix, parallel acceleration factor of 2, 90° flip angle and 3.4 mm isotropic voxels.

The ABCD database resting-state functional MRI 59 (annual release v.2.0, https://doi.org/10.15154/1503209 ) was used to replicate the effects of stimulant use on FC. Preprocessing included framewise censoring with a criterion of frame displacement less than or equal to 0.2 mm in addition the standard predefined preprocessing procedures 124 . Participants with fewer than 600 frames (equivalent to 8 min of data after censoring) were excluded from the analysis. Parcel-wise group-averaged FC matrices were constructed for each participant as described above for 385 regions on inter-test in the brain.

Use of a stimulant (for example, MTP, amphetamine salts, lisdexamfetamine) in the last 24 h was assessed by parental report. Participants with missing data were excluded. Regression analysis was used to assess the relationship between FC (edges) and stimulant use in the last 24 h. Framewise displacement (averaged over frames remaining after censoring) was used as a covariate to account for motion-related effects. The t -values that reflect the relationship between stimulant use and FC were visualized on a colour scale from −5 to +5 to provide a qualitative information about effect of stimulant use on FC.

Reporting summary

Further information on research design is available in the  Nature Portfolio Reporting Summary linked to this article.

Data availability

All data from individual participants P1–P7 are available at https://wustl.box.com/v/PsilocybinPFM , with a password available on completion of a data use agreement. The ABCD data used in this report came from ABCD the Annual Release 2.0, https://doi.org/10.15154/1503209 . The ABCD data repository grows and changes over time ( https://nda.nih.gov/abcd ). The Imperial College London psilocybin and LSD datasets are available upon request.

Code availability

Data processing code for the psilocybin precision functional mapping data can be found at https://wustl.box.com/s/dmj5s3h9pxt9bcw9mm3ai9c15y756o79 . Code specific to analyses can be found at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/ . Data processing code for the ABCD data can be found at https://github.com/DCAN-Labs/abcd-hcp-pipeline . Matching task stimuli are available at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/-/blob/main/image_task_clean.zip . Software packages incorporated into the above pipelines for data analysis included: MATLAB R2019b, https://www.mathworks.com/ (including Psychtoolbox v.2.0 and Statistics and Machine Learning Toolbox v.11.6); Connectome Workbench v.1.5; http://www.humanconnectome.org/software/connectome-workbench.html ; Freesurfer v.6.2, https://surfer.nmr.mgh.harvard.edu/ ; FSL v.6.0, https://fsl.fmrib.ox.ac.uk/fsl/fslwiki ; 4dfp tools, https://4dfp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ ; Infomap, https://www.mapequation.org ; Cifti MATLAB utilities (including spin test): https://github.com/MidnightScanClub/SCAN and 4dfp tools, https://4dfp.readthedocs.io/en/latest/ . MRI pulse sequences used to acquire the data are provided at https://gitlab.com/siegelandthebrain1/Psilocybin_PFM/-/blob/main/NP1161_MRI_sequence.pdf .

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported by the Taylor Family Institute Fund for Innovative Psychiatric Research (J. S. Siegel, T.O.L., G.E.N.); the McDonnell Center for Systems Neuroscience (J. S. Siegel, G.E.N.); the Institute of Clinical and Translational Science (G.E.N.); National Institutes of Health (NIH) grants MH112473 (J. S. Siegel, S.S., D.A.B., C.H., G.E.N.), T32 DA007261 (J. S. Siegel), NS123345 (B.P.K.), MH129616 (T.O.L.), MH121276 (N.U.F.D., E.M.G., D.A.F.), MH118370 (C.G.), NS124738 (C.G.), MH096773 (D.A.F., N.U.F.D.), MH122066 (D.A.F., E.M.G., N.U.F.D.), MH124567 (D.A.F., E.M.G., N.U.F.D.), NS129521 (E.M.G., D.A.F., N.U.F.D.) and NS088590 (N.U.F.D.); the National Spasmodic Dysphonia Association (E.M.G.); the Ralph Metzner Professorship and the Tianqiao and Chrissy Chen Institute (R.C.-H.); the Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities Research Center (N.U.F.D.); by the Kiwanis Foundation (N.U.F.D.); the Washington University Hope Center for Neurological Disorders (E.M.G., N.U.F.D.) and by Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology pilot funding (E.M.G., N.U.F.D.). Furthermore, this study used data from the ABCD study, supported by National Institutes of Health grant no. U01DA041120. We give a special thanks to our study participants, who completed a demanding protocol with grace for the benefit of scientific inquiry. Data used in the preparation of this article were obtained from the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study ( https://abcdstudy.org ), held in the NIMH Data Archive (NDA). This is a multisite, longitudinal study designed to recruit more than 10,000 children age 9-10 and follow them over 10 years into early adulthood. The ABCD Study is supported by the National Institutes of Health and additional federal partners under award numbers U01DA041048, U01DA050989, U01DA051016, U01DA041022, U01DA051018, U01DA051037, U01DA050987, U01DA041174, U01DA041106, U01DA041117, U01DA041028, U01DA041134, U01DA050988, U01DA051039, U01DA041156, U01DA041025, U01DA041120, U01DA051038, U01DA041148, U01DA041093, U01DA041089, U24DA041123, U24DA041147. A full list of supporters is available at https://abcdstudy.org/federal-partners.html . A listing of participating sites and a complete listing of the study investigators can be found at https://abcdstudy.org/consortium_members/ . ABCD consortium investigators designed and implemented the study and/or provided data but did not necessarily participate in the analysis or writing of this report. This manuscript reflects the views of the authors and may not reflect the opinions or views of the NIH or ABCD consortium investigators.

Author information

These authors contributed equally: Ginger E. Nicol, Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Authors and Affiliations

Department of Psychiatry, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Joshua S. Siegel, Demetrius Perry, Timothy O. Laumann, Julie A. Schweiger, David A. Bender, Eric J. Lenze & Ginger E. Nicol

Department of Psychiatry, Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, MA, USA

Subha Subramanian

Department of Neurology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Benjamin P. Kay, Nicholas V. Metcalf, Samuel R. Krimmel, Kristen M. Scheidter, Forrest I. Whiting, Marcus E. Raichle, Abraham Z. Snyder & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Mallinckrodt Institute of Radiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Evan M. Gordon, T. Rick Reneau, Joshua S. Shimony, Dean F. Wong, Marcus E. Raichle, Abraham Z. Snyder & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Department of Emergency Medicine, Advocate Christ Health Care, Oak Lawn, IL, USA

Ravi V. Chacko

Department of Psychology, Florida State University, Tallahassee, FL, USA

Caterina Gratton

Miami VA Medical Center, Miami, FL, USA

Christine Horan

Department of Biomedical Engineering, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

Jonah A. Padawer-Curry, Marcus E. Raichle & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Center for Biomedical Image Computing and Analytics, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Russell T. Shinohara

Penn Statistics in Imaging and Visualization Endeavor, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Department of Biostatistics, Epidemiology and Informatics, Perelman School of Medicine, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Russell T. Shinohara & Yong Chen

Masonic Institute for the Developing Brain, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Julia Moser, Steven M. Nelson & Damien A. Fair

Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Julia Moser & Damien A. Fair

Center for Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR), University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Essa Yacoub, Luca Vizioli & Damien A. Fair

Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN, USA

Steven M. Nelson & Damien A. Fair

Department of Neurology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA

Robin Carhart-Harris

Centre for Psychedelic Research, Imperial College London, London, UK

Usona Institute, Fitchburg, WI, USA

Charles L. Raison

Department of Psychiatry, University of Wisconsin School of Medicine & Public Health, Madison, WI, USA

Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Washington University in St Louis, St Louis, MO, USA

Marcus E. Raichle & Nico U. F. Dosenbach

Department of Neuroscience, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Marcus E. Raichle

Department of Pediatrics, Washington University School of Medicine, St Louis, MO, USA

Nico U. F. Dosenbach

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Contributions

The concept came from J. S. Siegel and G.E.N. The study was designed by J. S. Siegel, S.S., T.O.L., C.L.R., E.J.L., A.Z.S. and G.E.N. Data acquisition and processing were done by J. S. Siegel, S.S., T.R.R., D.P., C.H., J. S. Shimony, J.A.S., D.A.B., K.M.S., F.I.W., J.M., E.Y., S.M.N., L.V., D.A.F. and A.Z.S.. Data analysis and interpretation were carried out by J. S. Siegel, B.P.K., E.M.G., T.O.L., N.V.M., C.G., R.V.C., S.R.K., D.F.W., J.A.P.-C., R.T.S., Y.C., R.C.-H., M.E.R., G.E.N. and N.U.F.D. The paper was written and revised by J. S. Siegel, S.S., M.E.R., A.Z.S., G.E.N. and N.U.F.D. Participant 7 was author N.U.F.D.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Joshua S. Siegel .

Ethics declarations

Competing interests.

Within the past year, J. S. Siegel has been an employee of Sumitomo Pharma America and received consulting fees from Longitude Capital. J. S. Siegel, N.U.F.D., T.O.L. and E.M.G. have submitted a provisional patent (patent no. 020949/US 15060-1787) for the use of precision functional mapping for measuring target engagement by experimental therapeutics. R.T.S. has received consulting compensation from Octave Bioscience and compensation for reviewership duties from the American Medical Association. C.L.R. serves as a consultant to Usona Institute and Novartis and receives research support from the Tiny Blue Dot Foundation. G.E.N. has received research support from Usona Institute (drug only). She has served as a paid consultant for Carelon, Alkermes, Inc., Sunovion Pharmaceuticals, Inc. and Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corp. T.O.L. holds a patent for taskless mapping of brain activity licenced to Sora Neurosciences and a patent for optimizing targets for neuromodulation, implant localization and ablation is pending. J. S. Siegel is a consultant and received stock options in Sora Neuroscience, and company that focuses on resting-state analysis. D.A.F. and N.U.F.D. are cofounders of Turing Medical Inc, have financial interest, may benefit financially if the company is successful in marketing FIRMM motion monitoring software products, may receive royalty income based on FIRMM technology developed at WUSOM and licenced to Turing Medical Inc. S.M.N., E.M.G. and T.O.L. have received consulting fees from Turing Medical Inc. D.F.W. is a consultant for Engrail Therapeutics and receives contract funds for WUSOM research studies from Eisai, Anavex and Roche. These potential conflicts of interest have been reviewed and are managed by WUSOM. The other authors declare no competing interests. All authors report no financial interest in psychedelics companies.

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Extended data figures and tables

Extended data fig. 1 quantifying psilocybin effects with precision functional mapping: design..

a) Schematic illustrating the study protocol of the individual-specific precision functional mapping study of acute and persistent effects of psilocybin (single dose: 25 mg). Repeated longitudinal study visits enabled high-fidelity individual brain mapping, measurement of day-to-day variance, and acclimation to the scanner. The open label replication protocol 6-12 months later included one or two scans each of baseline, psilocybin, and after drug. b) Timeline of imaging visits for 7 participants. c) Head motion comparisons across psychedelics studies 55 , 56 . Average head motion (FD, framewise displacement, in mm) off and on drug compared between our dataset and prior psychedelic fMRI studies. Unpaired two-sided t -test: n PSIL 2012  = 15, n LSD,2016  = 20, n PSIL(PFM)  = 7; off drug PSIL2012-PSIL(PFM) t (274)  = −4.57, P uncorr  = 7.33 × 10 −5 ; off drug LSD2016-PSIL(PFM) t (286)  = −4.03, P uncorr  = 7.34 × 10 −6 ; on drug PSIL2012-PSIL(PFM) t (46)  = −1.80, P uncorr  = 0.079; on drug LSD2016-PSIL(PFM) t (88)  = −0.73, P uncorr  = 0.46. Dotted line at FD of 0.2 mm. Dark gray bars indicate quartiles, light gray violins indicate distribution. * P uncorr  < 0.05, + P  < 0.1. d) Timeline for an example participant (P1). e) Participants reported significantly higher scores on all dimensions of the mystical experience questionnaire during psilocybin (red) than placebo (40 mg methylphenidate; blue). Paired two-tailed t -test, n  = 7; Mystical t (6)  = −3.64, P uncorr  = 0.011; Positive Mood t (6)  = −5.44, P uncorr  = 0.0016; Transcendence t (6)  = −4.98, P uncorr  = 0.0025; Ineffability t (6)  = −2.54, P uncorr  = 0.044. Error bars indicate SEM.

Extended Data Fig. 2 Unthresholded vertex-wise FC change maps.

T-statistic maps, resulting from the linear mixed effects (LME) model based on vertex-wise FC change (Euclidean distance from baseline scans) across the cortex and subcortical structures for every scan. Higher t values indicate a larger change from baseline (pre-drug) scans. Effects of drug condition (baseline, psilocybin, methylphenidate, post-psilocybin, post-methylphenidate), were modeled as fixed effects. For example, if drug 1 was psilocybin and drug 2 was methylphenidate, then scans between drug visits were labeled post-psilocybin and scans after drug 2 were labeled post-methylphenidate.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Functional connectivity (FC) distance and condition matrices for all fMRI scans.

Following Gratton et al. 38 , we compared FC matrices between rs-fMRI sessions to quantify contributors to variability in whole-brain FC. Under this approach, the effects of group, individual, session, and drug (as well as their interactions) are examined by first calculating the Euclidean distance among every pair of FC matrices (i.e., distance among the linearized upper triangles). a) In the resulting second-order distance matrix, each row and column show whole-brain FC from a single study visit. The colours in the matrix indicate distance between functional networks for a pair of visits (i.e., Euclidean distance between the linearized upper triangles of two FC matrices). Panels b and c demonstrate how the distance matrix was subdivided to compare different conditions. b) Black triangles represent distinct individuals. Replication protocol visits are listed at the end. c ) Task and rest scans are shown in white and orange, respectively. Note that psilocybin scans (black arrows pointing to P1 psilocybin scans in panel a are very dissimilar to no-drug scans from the same individual (left arrow; in a ) but have heightened similarity to psilocybin scans from other individuals (right arrow in a ).

Extended Data Fig. 4 Participant-specific FC change maps for drug sessions.

Individual participant methylphenidate (MTP) and psilocybin (PSIL) FC change maps. Left most column shows individuals’ functional networks. Right 3 columns show FC change maps, generated by calculating Euclidean distance from baseline seedmaps for each vertex. For each session the total score on the Mystical Experience Questionnaire (MEQ30: out of a maximum of 150) is given in the upper right corner. *P5 had an episode of emesis 30 minutes after drug ingestion during PSIL2.

Extended Data Fig. 5 Multi-dimensional scaling, dimension edge weights.

a) Group parcellation (324 cortical and 61 subcortical parcels) 31 b) Weights from the first 4 dimensions generated by multi-dimensional scaling of the full dataset. The color of each pixel in the plot represents the weight of a given edge. Dimension 1 captures the loss of network integration (on diagonal boxes) and segregation (off diagonal boxes) of psilocybin. Dimensions 2 and 3 primarily explain individual differences and do not show network patterns as clearly. Dimension 4 captures shared effects of psilocybin (PSIL) and methylphenidate (MTP) on sensorimotor systems (suspected arousal effects).

Extended Data Fig. 6 Average functional connectivity (FC) matrices by condition.

a) Group parcellation (324 cortical and 61 subcortical parcels) 31 . b) Average FC matrices and condition differences. Top left shows the group average FC adjacency matrix. Bottom left shows the effect of psilocybin, e.g. increased correlation between dorsal attention, fronto-parietal, and default mode network to each other and to other cortical, limbic, and cerebellar systems. Top right shows effect of methylphenidate. For comparison and validation, we compared methylphenidate to the main effect of stimulant use within the last 24 hours (bottom right, n  = 487 yes, n  = 7992 no) in ABCD rs-fMRI data (bottom right).

Extended Data Fig. 7 Correlations with mystical experience scores.

Comparison of MEQ30 score (y-axes) to global desynchronization (top left; NGSC change, drug minus baseline), head motion (bottom left; framewise displacement (FD) in mm), heart rate change (top right; drug minus baseline), and respiratory rate change (bottom right; drug minus baseline), for all drug sessions. Statistics ( rho , P ) are based on bivariate correlation, two-sided, uncorrected. In the case of Δ NGSC, statistics are reported before and after the removal of an outlier point (> 2 SD lower than mean, indicated by the gray arrow).

Extended Data Fig. 8 Auditory-visual matching fMRI task.

a) Schematic of auditory/visual matching task design. b) Comparison of performance (‘No Drug’ and psilocybin conditions are at ceiling). Lines indicate means and standard deviation across sessions. Number of task sessions are indicated in Supplementary Table 1 . c) Comparison of reaction time (RT). Lines indicate mean and standard deviation across all trials (48 trials per session). d) Task fMRI activation maps (beta weights) and e) contrasts (simple subtraction) using the canonical hemodynamic response function (HRF). f) Eight a priori regions of interest for timecourse analyses. g) Average timecourses from the regions of interest shown in panel f , calculated using finite impulse response model over 13 TR x 1.761 s/TR = 22.89 seconds, for all trials. Shaded area around each line indicates SEM. ANOVAN of Condition x HRF Beta (Main effect of all trials) magnitude testing effect of drug, two-sided: Left V1, F (2,40)  = 3.91, P  = 0.030; Right V1, F (2,40)  = 4.40, P  = 0.020; Left M1 hand, F (2,40)  = 0.40, P  = 0.68; Left Auditory A1, F (2,40)  = 0.22, P  = 0.81; Right Auditory A1, F (2,40)  = 0.77, P  = 0.47; Left Language, F (2,40)  = 0.025, P  = 0.98; Left DMN, F (2,40)  = 1.15, P  = 0.33; Right DMN, F (2,40)  = 0.14, P  = 0.87. * P  < 0.05. P-values are uncorrected for multiple comparisons.

Supplementary information

Supplementary information.

This file contains Supplementary Table 1, Figs. 1–7 and Methods.

Reporting Summary

Peer review file, supplementary video 1.

Quality control plots for every fMRI scan. For each participant (P1, P3–P7, concatenated) the quality control plots are concatenated in the order that the scans were acquired (Extended Data Fig. 1). The top plot shows head position (frame-by-frame, relative to frame 1) separated into x , y , z translation and x , y , z rotation (six parameters). The second plot from the top shows DVARS, which index the rate of change of fMRI signal across the entire brain at each frame of data. The D refers to the temporal derivative of time courses, and VARS refers to the root-mean-square variance over voxels. The third plot shows head motion measured as FD (framewise displacement) in mm. Underneath in the fourth row, the time course for the whole-brain grayordinates (cortex on top, subcortex on the bottom) are shown before preprocessing (known as ‘grayplot’ or ‘carpet plot’). The fifth row shows the same grayordinates, but after preprocessing (bandpass filtering, removal of nuisance signals by regression, and smoothing at 4 mm full-width at half-maximum). The vertical black lines or bars in the grayplots indicate these data frames that were censored due to excessive head motion. At the end, quality control plots are compared to physiology (heart rate, respiratory rate) plots for every session in which physiological monitoring data were acquired.

Supplementary Video 2

Time series of fully preprocessed resting-state fMRI (rs-fMRI) data (roughly 9 min), taken from the first resting scan of the MRI session. Frame-by-frame rs-fMRI data, excluding high head motion frames (FD > 0.3), are shown for the drug scans (psilocybin, MTP) for each participant (P1, P3–P7).

Supplementary Video 3

Supplementary video 4, supplementary video 5, supplementary video 6, supplementary video 7, rights and permissions.

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Siegel, J.S., Subramanian, S., Perry, D. et al. Psilocybin desynchronizes the human brain. Nature (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07624-5

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Accepted : 29 May 2024

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DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07624-5

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