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How to Write a Research Essay

Last Updated: January 12, 2023 Fact Checked

This article was co-authored by Michelle Golden, PhD . Michelle Golden is an English teacher in Athens, Georgia. She received her MA in Language Arts Teacher Education in 2008 and received her PhD in English from Georgia State University in 2015. There are 11 references cited in this article, which can be found at the bottom of the page. This article has been fact-checked, ensuring the accuracy of any cited facts and confirming the authority of its sources. This article has been viewed 385,313 times.

Research essays are extremely common assignments in high school, college, and graduate school, and are not unheard of in middle school. If you are a student, chances are you will sooner or later be faced with the task of researching a topic and writing a paper about it. Knowing how to efficiently and successfully do simple research, synthesize information, and clearly present it in essay form will save you many hours and a lot of frustration.

Researching a Topic

• Be sure to stay within the guidelines you are given by your teacher or professor. For example, if you are free to choose a topic but the general theme must fall under human biology, do not write your essay on plant photosynthesis.
• Stick with topics that are not overly complicated, especially if the subject is not something you plan to continue studying. There's no need to make things harder on yourself!

• Specialty books; these can be found at your local public or school library. A book published on your topic is a great resource and will likely be one of your most reliable options for finding quality information. They also contain lists of references where you can look for more information.
• Academic journals; these are periodicals devoted to scholarly research on a specific field of study. Articles in academic journals are written by experts in that field and scrutinized by other professionals to ensure their accuracy. These are great options if you need to find detailed, sophisticated information on your topic; avoid these if you are only writing a general overview.
• Online encyclopedias; the most reliable information on the internet can be found in online encyclopedias like Encyclopedia.com and Britannica.com. While online wikis can be very helpful, they sometimes contain unverified information that you should probably not rely upon as your primary resources.
• Expert interviews; if possible, interview an expert in the subject of your research. Experts can be professionals working in the field you are studying, professors with advanced degrees in the subject of interest, etc.

• Organize your notes by sub-topic to keep them orderly and so you can easily find references when you are writing.
• If you are using books or physical copies of magazines or journals, use sticky tabs to mark pages or paragraphs where you found useful information. You might even want to number these tabs to correspond with numbers on your note sheet for easy reference.
• By keeping your notes brief and simple, you can make them easier to understand and reference while writing. Don't make your notes so long and detailed that they essentially copy what's already written in your sources, as this won't be helpful to you.

• Sometimes the objective of your research will be obvious to you before you even begin researching the topic; other times, you may have to do a bit of reading before you can determine the direction you want your essay to take.
• If you have an objective in mind from the start, you can incorporate this into online searches about your topic in order to find the most relevant resources. For example, if your objective is to outline the environmental hazards of hydraulic fracturing practices, search for that exact phrase rather than just "hydraulic fracturing."

• Avoid asking your teacher to give you a topic. Unless your topic was assigned to you in the first place, part of the assignment is for you to choose a topic relevant to the broader theme of the class or unit. By asking your teacher to do this for you, you risk admitting laziness or incompetence.
• If you have a few topics in mind but are not sure how to develop objectives for some of them, your teacher can help with this. Plan to discuss your options with your teacher and come to a decision yourself rather than having him or her choose the topic for you from several options.

Organizing your Essay

• Consider what background information is necessary to contextualize your research topic. What questions might the reader have right out of the gate? How do you want the reader to think about the topic? Answering these kinds of questions can help you figure out how to set up your argument.
• Match your paper sections to the objective(s) of your writing. For example, if you are trying to present two sides of a debate, create a section for each and then divide them up according to the aspects of each argument you want to address.

• An outline can be as detailed or general as you want, so long as it helps you figure out how to construct the essay. Some people like to include a few sentences under each heading in their outline to create a sort of "mini-essay" before they begin writing. Others find that a simple ordered list of topics is sufficient. Do whatever works best for you.
• If you have time, write your outline a day or two before you start writing and come back to it several times. This will give you an opportunity to think about how the pieces of your essay will best fit together. Rearrange things in your outline as many times as you want until you have a structure you are happy with.

• Style guides tell you exactly how to quote passages, cite references, construct works cited sections, etc. If you are assigned a specific format, you must take care to adhere to guidelines for text formatting and citations.
• Some computer programs (such as EndNote) allow you to construct a library of resources which you can then set to a specific format type; then you can automatically insert in-text citations from your library and populate a references section at the end of the document. This is an easy way to make sure your citations match your assigned style format.

• You may wish to start by simply assigning yourself a certain number of pages per day. Divide the number of pages you are required to write by the number of days you have to finish the essay; this is the number of pages (minimum) that you must complete each day in order to pace yourself evenly.
• If possible, leave a buffer of at least one day between finishing your paper and the due date. This will allow you to review your finished product and edit it for errors. This will also help in case something comes up that slows your writing progress.

Writing your Essay

• Keep your introduction relatively short. For most papers, one or two paragraphs will suffice. For really long essays, you may need to expand this.
• Don't assume your reader already knows the basics of the topic unless it truly is a matter of common knowledge. For example, you probably don't need to explain in your introduction what biology is, but you should define less general terms such as "eukaryote" or "polypeptide chain."

• You may need to include a special section at the beginning of the essay body for background information on your topic. Alternatively, you can consider moving this to the introductory section, but only if your essay is short and only minimal background discussion is needed.
• This is the part of your paper where organization and structure are most important. Arrange sections within the body so that they flow logically and the reader is introduced to ideas and sub-topics before they are discussed further.
• Depending upon the length and detail of your paper, the end of the body might contain a discussion of findings. This kind of section serves to wrap up your main findings but does not explicitly state your conclusions (which should come in the final section of the essay).
• Avoid repetition in the essay body. Keep your writing concise, yet with sufficient detail to address your objective(s) or research question(s).

• Always use quotation marks when using exact quotes from another source. If someone already said or wrote the words you are using, you must quote them this way! Place your in-text citation at the end of the quote.
• To include someone else's ideas in your essay without directly quoting them, you can restate the information in your own words; this is called paraphrasing. Although this does not require quotation marks, it should still be accompanied by an in-text citation.

• Except for very long essays, keep your conclusion short and to the point. You should aim for one or two paragraphs, if possible.
• Conclusions should directly correspond to research discussed in the essay body. In other words, make sure your conclusions logically connect to the rest of your essay and provide explanations when necessary.
• If your topic is complex and involves lots of details, you should consider including a brief summary of the main points of your research in your conclusion.

• Making changes to the discussion and conclusion sections instead of the introduction often requires a less extensive rewrite. Doing this also prevents you from removing anything from the beginning of your essay that could accidentally make subsequent portions of your writing seem out of place.
• It is okay to revise your thesis once you've finished the first draft of your essay! People's views often change once they've done research on a topic. Just make sure you don't end up straying too far from your assigned topic if you do this.
• You don't necessarily need to wait until you've finished your entire draft to do this step. In fact, it is a good idea to revisit your thesis regularly as you write. This can save you a lot of time in the end by helping you keep your essay content on track.

• Computer software such as EndNote is available for making citation organization as easy and quick as possible. You can create a reference library and link it to your document, adding in-text citations as you write; the program creates a formatted works cited section at the end of your document.
• Be aware of the formatting requirements of your chosen style guide for works cited sections and in-text citations. Reference library programs like EndNote have hundreds of pre-loaded formats to choose from.

• Create a catchy title. Waiting until you have finished your essay before choosing a title ensures that it will closely match the content of your essay. Research papers don't always take on the shape we expect them to, and it's easier to match your title to your essay than vice-versa.
• Read through your paper to identify and rework sentences or paragraphs that are confusing or unclear. Each section of your paper should have a clear focus and purpose; if any of yours seem not to meet these expectations, either rewrite or discard them.
• Review your works cited section (at the end of your essay) to ensure that it conforms to the standards of your chosen or assigned style format. You should at least make sure that the style is consistent throughout this section.
• Run a spell checker on your entire document to catch any spelling or grammar mistakes you may not have noticed during your read-through. All modern word processing programs include this function.

• Note that revising your draft is not the same as proofreading it. Revisions are done to make sure the content and substantive ideas are solid; editing is done to check for spelling and grammar errors. Revisions are arguably a more important part of writing a good paper.
• You may want to have a friend, classmate, or family member read your first draft and give you feedback. This can be immensely helpful when trying to decide how to improve upon your first version of the essay.
• Except in extreme cases, avoid a complete rewrite of your first draft. This will most likely be counterproductive and will waste a lot of time. Your first draft is probably already pretty good -- it likely just needs some tweaking before it is ready to submit.

Community Q&A

• Avoid use of the word "I" in research essay writing, even when conveying your personal opinion about a subject. This makes your writing sound biased and narrow in scope. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0
• Even if there is a minimum number of paragraphs, always do 3 or 4 more paragraphs more than needed, so you can always get a good grade. Thanks Helpful 0 Not Helpful 0

• Never plagiarize the work of others! Passing off others' writing as your own can land you in a lot of trouble and is usually grounds for failing an assignment or class. Thanks Helpful 12 Not Helpful 1

You Might Also Like

• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/general_writing/common_writing_assignments/research_papers/choosing_a_topic.html
• ↑ https://libguides.mit.edu/select-topic
• ↑ https://www.indeed.com/career-advice/career-development/research-objectives
• ↑ https://www.hunter.cuny.edu/rwc/handouts/the-writing-process-1/organization/Organizing-an-Essay
• ↑ https://www.lynchburg.edu/academics/writing-center/wilmer-writing-center-online-writing-lab/the-writing-process/organizing-your-paper/
• ↑ https://www.mla.org/MLA-Style
• ↑ http://www.apastyle.org/
• ↑ https://writing.wisc.edu/Handbook/PlanResearchPaper.html
• ↑ https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa6_style/apa_formatting_and_style_guide/in_text_citations_the_basics.html
• ↑ https://opentextbc.ca/writingforsuccess/chapter/chapter-12-peer-review-and-final-revisions/
• ↑ https://openoregon.pressbooks.pub/wrd/back-matter/creating-a-works-cited-page/

About This Article

The best way to write a research essay is to find sources, like specialty books, academic journals, and online encyclopedias, about your topic. Take notes as you research, and make sure you note which page and book you got your notes from. Create an outline for the paper that details your argument, various sections, and primary points for each section. Then, write an introduction, build the body of the essay, and state your conclusion. Cite your sources along the way, and follow the assigned format, like APA or MLA, if applicable. To learn more from our co-author with an English Ph.D. about how to choose a thesis statement for your research paper, keep reading! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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Research Essays: Overview

The further you go in college, the more research you will do, and the more research essays you will write. Being able to collect and synthesize research into our own writing are among the most important skills we learn in college. Finding and using research sources are skills that you will use throughout your professional and personal lives. For this reason, it’s important that you learn early in college to successfully compose an academic research essay.

Composing a complex and thoroughly researched essay provides opportunities for you to develop your critical thinking skills. No research essay can be successful without careful consideration of how evidence fits together into a cohesive whole. Writing an effective research essay also enhances our credibility as writers and communicators. Once you’re able to connect the research dots in order to make logical points about some larger significance, then you are better equipped to understand the world around you as well as help others understand the world around them, too.

Academic research essays are formal essays that engage with complex questions, research, and issues. When you write a research essay, you will go beyond just talking about a topic and transition to making informed claims about a topic. Readers expect that an academic research essays will have a clear focus, address a significant issue, include insightful research evidence, and explore the implications of the issue being addressed.

Before you begin writing a research essay, however, you need to conduct some research. The below chapters will help you better understand and navigate the research process:

• Starting Your Research Process
• Search Strategies
• Evaluating Information
• The Ethics of Information

Key Features

A singular focus and clear perspective.

Many writers enter college believing that broad, generalized topics are easier to research and write about: this could not be farther from the truth. Choosing a broad topic gives you, as well as your reader, no clear direction. You will find yourself aimlessly sifting through thousands of search results, struggling to pull disparate sources together into a logically organized essay. These challenges can be avoided by deciding on a singular focus and clear perspective early in the process.

Developing a Singular Focus and Clear Perspective

Imagine you are interested in animal conservation. That’s a good start, but far too broad of a topic for a research essay. From this initial interest, you might:

• Identify a specific type of animal. Let’s go with lions.
• Identify a specific type of lion. Let’s choose African lions.

At this point, you have a singular focus: African lions. But you’re not done. African lions is still too broad for a research topic. You need a clear perspective. From here, you might:

• Identify a serious threat to the lions. Let’s go with illegal hunting.
• Develop a perspective on the illegal hunting of African lions. Let’s try the impact of illegal hunting on African lion populations.

Now you would have a topic with singular focus and clear perspective that is researchable and will be much easier to organize into an effective essay.

As you develop your own research essay topic, use the above walkthrough to help develop a singular focus and clear perspective.

Formal Writing Style

While some of the writing you do in college will be more informal, such as personal essays or online discussions, academic research essays require us to adopt a formal writing style as we engage with complex questions, research, and issues. If you write your research essay the way you write text messages or how you chat with your friends, your readers will find your essay to be much less credible. In order to be taken seriously, you want your writing to come off as professional and authoritative rather than casual and underdeveloped.

Informative Tone and Objective Stance

While you will write argumentatively at various times throughout your college career, your purpose when writing an academic research essay is typically to inform, and this means that your stance should be objective. Since your goal is to inform, you will need to make clear claims about why readers need to know this information. As you write a research essay, you may provide new information on a known subject, provide historical context, clear up misconceptions, introduce the audience to something unknown, or develop a profile of a person, place, or object. Even though you should remain objective, research essays are usually written for a specific audience and purpose, so it’s your job to define the purpose and decide what kinds of information your audience needs and how best to present that information.

Credible Evidence That Suits Your Purpose

Without taking the necessary time to seek out and collect credible evidence about your topic, your research essay is unlikely to successfully inform readers. Academic research essays should rely almost exclusively on evidence in each section and paragraph, and the credibility and relevance of that evidence should be made clear to your reader. It’s your job to find not just any evidence related to your topic, but the evidence that suits your purpose for your audience. Your evidence, the information you use to support your main points, will most likely include a mix of sources from the college’s library collection as well as credible materials from the internet. Also keep in mind that you will, and should, find many more sources during your research process than you ultimately use in your essay. The first sources we find are rarely the best sources to use. It’s your job to identify which sources are are most suited for your topic and purpose.

A Logical Structure

Research essays need to be logically organized with a clear structure that creates connections between the different parts of your essay. When organizing a research essay, you will need to make careful rhetorical choices about the order in which you introduce ideas, define key terms, provide background information, and address key issues for your audience. Readers expect that research essays will guide them through the information logically, and your structure will be how you ensure that readers understand how topics and subtopics relate to your main focus.

As we write research essays, it’s vital that we use a detailed citation process in order to demonstrate to our readers where our supporting evidence comes from and why it’s credible. This process will involve citations at the end of your essay, but also, and just as importantly, in-text citations throughout your essay. Using in-text citations and signal phrases is necessary to successfully guide readers through the information you have collected in your essay. Without in-text citations, readers are completely lost as to where the information came from, why it’s credible, and how it connects to the main topic.

Drafting Checklists

These questions should help guide you through the stages of drafting your research essay.

• How will you develop a singular focus and clear perspective on your topic?
• What are some subtopics or related ideas you might need to learn more about during your research?
• In other words, who do you want to share this information with? And why should they care about your research?
• Are there key terms or concepts you will need to define or describe?
• Where should try to find this evidence?
• Why should your audience care about this evidence?
• Why those sources and not others?
• How will you use those sources in your essay?
• What subtopics might you cover throughout your essay?
• How might your start your essay?
• How might you end your essay?

Writing and Revising

• Does your title or intro paragraph effectively establish your focus and perspective?
• Have you clearly made connections between your topic and subtopics?
• Have you presented your research in the best way to guide readers through the information?
• Does your conclusion offer readers intriguing final takeaways to consider?
• Would your readers be confused at any point?
• Would readers find your tone and style to be professional and authoritative? Or too casual and informal?
• Have you avoided using any slang or other informal language that would detract from your credibility?
• Have you written your essay from an objective stance that avoids using personal opinions or arguing a position?
• Have you created correct works cited entries for all your sources?
• Have you used signal phrases and in-text citations to integrate sources into your essay?
• Would readers question the credibility or relevance of any of your sources?

Sources Used to Create this Chapter

Parts of this chapter were remixed from:

• First-Year Composition: Writing as Inquiry and Argumentation , by Jackie Hoermann-Elliott and Kathy Quesenbury, which was published under a CC-BY 4.0 license.

Starting the Journey: An Intro to College Writing Copyright © by Leonard Owens III; Tim Bishop; and Scott Ortolano is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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12.1 Creating a Rough Draft for a Research Paper

Learning objectives.

• Apply strategies for drafting an effective introduction and conclusion.
• Identify when and how to summarize, paraphrase, and directly quote information from research sources.
• Apply guidelines for citing sources within the body of the paper and the bibliography.
• Use primary and secondary research to support ideas.
• Identify the purposes for which writers use each type of research.

At last, you are ready to begin writing the rough draft of your research paper. Putting your thinking and research into words is exciting. It can also be challenging. In this section, you will learn strategies for handling the more challenging aspects of writing a research paper, such as integrating material from your sources, citing information correctly, and avoiding any misuse of your sources.

The Structure of a Research Paper

Research papers generally follow the same basic structure: an introduction that presents the writer’s thesis, a body section that develops the thesis with supporting points and evidence, and a conclusion that revisits the thesis and provides additional insights or suggestions for further research.

Your writing voice will come across most strongly in your introduction and conclusion, as you work to attract your readers’ interest and establish your thesis. These sections usually do not cite sources at length. They focus on the big picture, not specific details. In contrast, the body of your paper will cite sources extensively. As you present your ideas, you will support your points with details from your research.

Writing Your Introduction

There are several approaches to writing an introduction, each of which fulfills the same goals. The introduction should get readers’ attention, provide background information, and present the writer’s thesis. Many writers like to begin with one of the following catchy openers:

• A surprising fact
• A thought-provoking question
• An attention-getting quote
• A brief anecdote that illustrates a larger concept
• A connection between your topic and your readers’ experiences

The next few sentences place the opening in context by presenting background information. From there, the writer builds toward a thesis, which is traditionally placed at the end of the introduction. Think of your thesis as a signpost that lets readers know in what direction the paper is headed.

Jorge decided to begin his research paper by connecting his topic to readers’ daily experiences. Read the first draft of his introduction. The thesis is underlined. Note how Jorge progresses from the opening sentences to background information to his thesis.

Beyond the Hype: Evaluating Low-Carb Diets

I. Introduction

Over the past decade, increasing numbers of Americans have jumped on the low-carb bandwagon. Some studies estimate that approximately 40 million Americans, or about 20 percent of the population, are attempting to restrict their intake of food high in carbohydrates (Sanders and Katz, 2004; Hirsch, 2004). Proponents of low-carb diets say they are not only the most effective way to lose weight, but they also yield health benefits such as lower blood pressure and improved cholesterol levels. Meanwhile, some doctors claim that low-carb diets are overrated and caution that their long-term effects are unknown. Although following a low-carbohydrate diet can benefit some people, these diets are not necessarily the best option for everyone who wants to lose weight or improve their health.

Write the introductory paragraph of your research paper. Try using one of the techniques listed in this section to write an engaging introduction. Be sure to include background information about the topic that leads to your thesis.

Writers often work out of sequence when writing a research paper. If you find yourself struggling to write an engaging introduction, you may wish to write the body of your paper first. Writing the body sections first will help you clarify your main points. Writing the introduction should then be easier. You may have a better sense of how to introduce the paper after you have drafted some or all of the body.

Writing Your Conclusion

In your introduction, you tell readers where they are headed. In your conclusion, you recap where they have been. For this reason, some writers prefer to write their conclusions soon after they have written their introduction. However, this method may not work for all writers. Other writers prefer to write their conclusion at the end of the paper, after writing the body paragraphs. No process is absolutely right or absolutely wrong; find the one that best suits you.

No matter when you compose the conclusion, it should sum up your main ideas and revisit your thesis. The conclusion should not simply echo the introduction or rely on bland summary statements, such as “In this paper, I have demonstrated that.…” In fact, avoid repeating your thesis verbatim from the introduction. Restate it in different words that reflect the new perspective gained through your research. That helps keep your ideas fresh for your readers. An effective writer might conclude a paper by asking a new question the research inspired, revisiting an anecdote presented earlier, or reminding readers of how the topic relates to their lives.

Writing at Work

If your job involves writing or reading scientific papers, it helps to understand how professional researchers use the structure described in this section. A scientific paper begins with an abstract that briefly summarizes the entire paper. The introduction explains the purpose of the research, briefly summarizes previous research, and presents the researchers’ hypothesis. The body provides details about the study, such as who participated in it, what the researchers measured, and what results they recorded. The conclusion presents the researchers’ interpretation of the data, or what they learned.

Using Source Material in Your Paper

One of the challenges of writing a research paper is successfully integrating your ideas with material from your sources. Your paper must explain what you think, or it will read like a disconnected string of facts and quotations. However, you also need to support your ideas with research, or they will seem insubstantial. How do you strike the right balance?

You have already taken a step in the right direction by writing your introduction. The introduction and conclusion function like the frame around a picture. They define and limit your topic and place your research in context.

In the body paragraphs of your paper, you will need to integrate ideas carefully at the paragraph level and at the sentence level. You will use topic sentences in your paragraphs to make sure readers understand the significance of any facts, details, or quotations you cite. You will also include sentences that transition between ideas from your research, either within a paragraph or between paragraphs. At the sentence level, you will need to think carefully about how you introduce paraphrased and quoted material.

Earlier you learned about summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting when taking notes. In the next few sections, you will learn how to use these techniques in the body of your paper to weave in source material to support your ideas.

Summarizing Sources

When you summarize material from a source, you zero in on the main points and restate them concisely in your own words. This technique is appropriate when only the major ideas are relevant to your paper or when you need to simplify complex information into a few key points for your readers.

Be sure to review the source material as you summarize it. Identify the main idea and restate it as concisely as you can—preferably in one sentence. Depending on your purpose, you may also add another sentence or two condensing any important details or examples. Check your summary to make sure it is accurate and complete.

In his draft, Jorge summarized research materials that presented scientists’ findings about low-carbohydrate diets. Read the following passage from a trade magazine article and Jorge’s summary of the article.

Assessing the Efficacy of Low-Carbohydrate Diets

Adrienne Howell, Ph.D.

Over the past few years, a number of clinical studies have explored whether high-protein, low-carbohydrate diets are more effective for weight loss than other frequently recommended diet plans, such as diets that drastically curtail fat intake (Pritikin) or that emphasize consuming lean meats, grains, vegetables, and a moderate amount of unsaturated fats (the Mediterranean diet). A 2009 study found that obese teenagers who followed a low-carbohydrate diet lost an average of 15.6 kilograms over a six-month period, whereas teenagers following a low-fat diet or a Mediterranean diet lost an average of 11.1 kilograms and 9.3 kilograms respectively. Two 2010 studies that measured weight loss for obese adults following these same three diet plans found similar results. Over three months, subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet plan lost anywhere from four to six kilograms more than subjects who followed other diet plans.

In three recent studies, researchers compared outcomes for obese subjects who followed either a low-carbohydrate diet, a low-fat diet, or a Mediterranean diet and found that subjects following a low-carbohydrate diet lost more weight in the same time (Howell, 2010).

A summary restates ideas in your own words—but for specialized or clinical terms, you may need to use terms that appear in the original source. For instance, Jorge used the term obese in his summary because related words such as heavy or overweight have a different clinical meaning.

On a separate sheet of paper, practice summarizing by writing a one-sentence summary of the same passage that Jorge already summarized.

Paraphrasing Sources

When you paraphrase material from a source, restate the information from an entire sentence or passage in your own words, using your own original sentence structure. A paraphrased source differs from a summarized source in that you focus on restating the ideas, not condensing them.

Again, it is important to check your paraphrase against the source material to make sure it is both accurate and original. Inexperienced writers sometimes use the thesaurus method of paraphrasing—that is, they simply rewrite the source material, replacing most of the words with synonyms. This constitutes a misuse of sources. A true paraphrase restates ideas using the writer’s own language and style.

In his draft, Jorge frequently paraphrased details from sources. At times, he needed to rewrite a sentence more than once to ensure he was paraphrasing ideas correctly. Read the passage from a website. Then read Jorge’s initial attempt at paraphrasing it, followed by the final version of his paraphrase.

Dieters nearly always get great results soon after they begin following a low-carbohydrate diet, but these results tend to taper off after the first few months, particularly because many dieters find it difficult to follow a low-carbohydrate diet plan consistently.

People usually see encouraging outcomes shortly after they go on a low-carbohydrate diet, but their progress slows down after a short while, especially because most discover that it is a challenge to adhere to the diet strictly (Heinz, 2009).

After reviewing the paraphrased sentence, Jorge realized he was following the original source too closely. He did not want to quote the full passage verbatim, so he again attempted to restate the idea in his own style.

Because it is hard for dieters to stick to a low-carbohydrate eating plan, the initial success of these diets is short-lived (Heinz, 2009).

On a separate sheet of paper, follow these steps to practice paraphrasing.

• Choose an important idea or detail from your notes.
• Without looking at the original source, restate the idea in your own words.
• Check your paraphrase against the original text in the source. Make sure both your language and your sentence structure are original.
• Revise your paraphrase if necessary.

Quoting Sources Directly

Most of the time, you will summarize or paraphrase source material instead of quoting directly. Doing so shows that you understand your research well enough to write about it confidently in your own words. However, direct quotes can be powerful when used sparingly and with purpose.

Quoting directly can sometimes help you make a point in a colorful way. If an author’s words are especially vivid, memorable, or well phrased, quoting them may help hold your reader’s interest. Direct quotations from an interviewee or an eyewitness may help you personalize an issue for readers. And when you analyze primary sources, such as a historical speech or a work of literature, quoting extensively is often necessary to illustrate your points. These are valid reasons to use quotations.

Less experienced writers, however, sometimes overuse direct quotations in a research paper because it seems easier than paraphrasing. At best, this reduces the effectiveness of the quotations. At worst, it results in a paper that seems haphazardly pasted together from outside sources. Use quotations sparingly for greater impact.

When you do choose to quote directly from a source, follow these guidelines:

• Make sure you have transcribed the original statement accurately.
• Represent the author’s ideas honestly. Quote enough of the original text to reflect the author’s point accurately.
• Never use a stand-alone quotation. Always integrate the quoted material into your own sentence.
• Use ellipses (…) if you need to omit a word or phrase. Use brackets [ ] if you need to replace a word or phrase.
• Make sure any omissions or changed words do not alter the meaning of the original text. Omit or replace words only when absolutely necessary to shorten the text or to make it grammatically correct within your sentence.
• Remember to include correctly formatted citations that follow the assigned style guide.

Jorge interviewed a dietician as part of his research, and he decided to quote her words in his paper. Read an excerpt from the interview and Jorge’s use of it, which follows.

Personally, I don’t really buy into all of the hype about low-carbohydrate miracle diets like Atkins and so on. Sure, for some people, they are great, but for most, any sensible eating and exercise plan would work just as well.

Registered dietician Dana Kwon (2010) admits, “Personally, I don’t really buy into all of the hype.…Sure, for some people, [low-carbohydrate diets] are great, but for most, any sensible eating and exercise plan would work just as well.”

Notice how Jorge smoothly integrated the quoted material by starting the sentence with an introductory phrase. His use of ellipses and brackets did not change the source’s meaning.

Documenting Source Material

Throughout the writing process, be scrupulous about documenting information taken from sources. The purpose of doing so is twofold:

• To give credit to other writers or researchers for their ideas
• To allow your reader to follow up and learn more about the topic if desired

You will cite sources within the body of your paper and at the end of the paper in your bibliography. For this assignment, you will use the citation format used by the American Psychological Association (also known as APA style). For information on the format used by the Modern Language Association (MLA style), see Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” .

Citing Sources in the Body of Your Paper

In-text citations document your sources within the body of your paper. These include two vital pieces of information: the author’s name and the year the source material was published. When quoting a print source, also include in the citation the page number where the quoted material originally appears. The page number will follow the year in the in-text citation. Page numbers are necessary only when content has been directly quoted, not when it has been summarized or paraphrased.

Within a paragraph, this information may appear as part of your introduction to the material or as a parenthetical citation at the end of a sentence. Read the examples that follow. For more information about in-text citations for other source types, see Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” .

Leibowitz (2008) found that low-carbohydrate diets often helped subjects with Type II diabetes maintain a healthy weight and control blood-sugar levels.

The introduction to the source material includes the author’s name followed by the year of publication in parentheses.

Low-carbohydrate diets often help subjects with Type II diabetes maintain a healthy weight and control blood-sugar levels (Leibowitz, 2008).

The parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence includes the author’s name, a comma, and the year the source was published. The period at the end of the sentence comes after the parentheses.

Creating a List of References

Each of the sources you cite in the body text will appear in a references list at the end of your paper. While in-text citations provide the most basic information about the source, your references section will include additional publication details. In general, you will include the following information:

• The author’s last name followed by his or her first (and sometimes middle) initial
• The year the source was published
• The source title
• For articles in periodicals, the full name of the periodical, along with the volume and issue number and the pages where the article appeared

Additional information may be included for different types of sources, such as online sources. For a detailed guide to APA or MLA citations, see Chapter 13 “APA and MLA Documentation and Formatting” . A sample reference list is provided with the final draft of Jorge’s paper later in this chapter.

Using Primary and Secondary Research

As you write your draft, be mindful of how you are using primary and secondary source material to support your points. Recall that primary sources present firsthand information. Secondary sources are one step removed from primary sources. They present a writer’s analysis or interpretation of primary source materials. How you balance primary and secondary source material in your paper will depend on the topic and assignment.

Using Primary Sources Effectively

Some types of research papers must use primary sources extensively to achieve their purpose. Any paper that analyzes a primary text or presents the writer’s own experimental research falls in this category. Here are a few examples:

• A paper for a literature course analyzing several poems by Emily Dickinson
• A paper for a political science course comparing televised speeches delivered by two presidential candidates
• A paper for a communications course discussing gender biases in television commercials
• A paper for a business administration course that discusses the results of a survey the writer conducted with local businesses to gather information about their work-from-home and flextime policies
• A paper for an elementary education course that discusses the results of an experiment the writer conducted to compare the effectiveness of two different methods of mathematics instruction

For these types of papers, primary research is the main focus. If you are writing about a work (including nonprint works, such as a movie or a painting), it is crucial to gather information and ideas from the original work, rather than relying solely on others’ interpretations. And, of course, if you take the time to design and conduct your own field research, such as a survey, a series of interviews, or an experiment, you will want to discuss it in detail. For example, the interviews may provide interesting responses that you want to share with your reader.

Using Secondary Sources Effectively

For some assignments, it makes sense to rely more on secondary sources than primary sources. If you are not analyzing a text or conducting your own field research, you will need to use secondary sources extensively.

As much as possible, use secondary sources that are closely linked to primary research, such as a journal article presenting the results of the authors’ scientific study or a book that cites interviews and case studies. These sources are more reliable and add more value to your paper than sources that are further removed from primary research. For instance, a popular magazine article on junk-food addiction might be several steps removed from the original scientific study on which it is loosely based. As a result, the article may distort, sensationalize, or misinterpret the scientists’ findings.

Even if your paper is largely based on primary sources, you may use secondary sources to develop your ideas. For instance, an analysis of Alfred Hitchcock’s films would focus on the films themselves as a primary source, but might also cite commentary from critics. A paper that presents an original experiment would include some discussion of similar prior research in the field.

Jorge knew he did not have the time, resources, or experience needed to conduct original experimental research for his paper. Because he was relying on secondary sources to support his ideas, he made a point of citing sources that were not far removed from primary research.

Some sources could be considered primary or secondary sources, depending on the writer’s purpose for using them. For instance, if a writer’s purpose is to inform readers about how the No Child Left Behind legislation has affected elementary education, a Time magazine article on the subject would be a secondary source. However, suppose the writer’s purpose is to analyze how the news media has portrayed the effects of the No Child Left Behind legislation. In that case, articles about the legislation in news magazines like Time , Newsweek , and US News & World Report would be primary sources. They provide firsthand examples of the media coverage the writer is analyzing.

Avoiding Plagiarism

Your research paper presents your thinking about a topic, supported and developed by other people’s ideas and information. It is crucial to always distinguish between the two—as you conduct research, as you plan your paper, and as you write. Failure to do so can lead to plagiarism.

Intentional and Accidental Plagiarism

Plagiarism is the act of misrepresenting someone else’s work as your own. Sometimes a writer plagiarizes work on purpose—for instance, by purchasing an essay from a website and submitting it as original course work. In other cases, a writer may commit accidental plagiarism due to carelessness, haste, or misunderstanding. To avoid unintentional plagiarism, follow these guidelines:

• Understand what types of information must be cited.
• Understand what constitutes fair use of a source.
• Keep source materials and notes carefully organized.
• Follow guidelines for summarizing, paraphrasing, and quoting sources.

When to Cite

Any idea or fact taken from an outside source must be cited, in both the body of your paper and the references list. The only exceptions are facts or general statements that are common knowledge. Common-knowledge facts or general statements are commonly supported by and found in multiple sources. For example, a writer would not need to cite the statement that most breads, pastas, and cereals are high in carbohydrates; this is well known and well documented. However, if a writer explained in detail the differences among the chemical structures of carbohydrates, proteins, and fats, a citation would be necessary. When in doubt, cite.

In recent years, issues related to the fair use of sources have been prevalent in popular culture. Recording artists, for example, may disagree about the extent to which one has the right to sample another’s music. For academic purposes, however, the guidelines for fair use are reasonably straightforward.

Writers may quote from or paraphrase material from previously published works without formally obtaining the copyright holder’s permission. Fair use means that the writer legitimately uses brief excerpts from source material to support and develop his or her own ideas. For instance, a columnist may excerpt a few sentences from a novel when writing a book review. However, quoting or paraphrasing another’s work at excessive length, to the extent that large sections of the writing are unoriginal, is not fair use.

As he worked on his draft, Jorge was careful to cite his sources correctly and not to rely excessively on any one source. Occasionally, however, he caught himself quoting a source at great length. In those instances, he highlighted the paragraph in question so that he could go back to it later and revise. Read the example, along with Jorge’s revision.

Heinz (2009) found that “subjects in the low-carbohydrate group (30% carbohydrates; 40% protein, 30% fat) had a mean weight loss of 10 kg (22 lbs) over a 4-month period.” These results were “noticeably better than results for subjects on a low-fat diet (45% carbohydrates, 35% protein, 20% fat)” whose average weight loss was only “7 kg (15.4 lbs) in the same period.” From this, it can be concluded that “low-carbohydrate diets obtain more rapid results.” Other researchers agree that “at least in the short term, patients following low-carbohydrate diets enjoy greater success” than those who follow alternative plans (Johnson & Crowe, 2010).

After reviewing the paragraph, Jorge realized that he had drifted into unoriginal writing. Most of the paragraph was taken verbatim from a single article. Although Jorge had enclosed the material in quotation marks, he knew it was not an appropriate way to use the research in his paper.

Low-carbohydrate diets may indeed be superior to other diet plans for short-term weight loss. In a study comparing low-carbohydrate diets and low-fat diets, Heinz (2009) found that subjects who followed a low-carbohydrate plan (30% of total calories) for 4 months lost, on average, about 3 kilograms more than subjects who followed a low-fat diet for the same time. Heinz concluded that these plans yield quick results, an idea supported by a similar study conducted by Johnson and Crowe (2010). What remains to be seen, however, is whether this initial success can be sustained for longer periods.

As Jorge revised the paragraph, he realized he did not need to quote these sources directly. Instead, he paraphrased their most important findings. He also made sure to include a topic sentence stating the main idea of the paragraph and a concluding sentence that transitioned to the next major topic in his essay.

Working with Sources Carefully

Disorganization and carelessness sometimes lead to plagiarism. For instance, a writer may be unable to provide a complete, accurate citation if he didn’t record bibliographical information. A writer may cut and paste a passage from a website into her paper and later forget where the material came from. A writer who procrastinates may rush through a draft, which easily leads to sloppy paraphrasing and inaccurate quotations. Any of these actions can create the appearance of plagiarism and lead to negative consequences.

Carefully organizing your time and notes is the best guard against these forms of plagiarism. Maintain a detailed working bibliography and thorough notes throughout the research process. Check original sources again to clear up any uncertainties. Allow plenty of time for writing your draft so there is no temptation to cut corners.

Citing other people’s work appropriately is just as important in the workplace as it is in school. If you need to consult outside sources to research a document you are creating, follow the general guidelines already discussed, as well as any industry-specific citation guidelines. For more extensive use of others’ work—for instance, requesting permission to link to another company’s website on your own corporate website—always follow your employer’s established procedures.

Academic Integrity

The concepts and strategies discussed in this section of Chapter 12 “Writing a Research Paper” connect to a larger issue—academic integrity. You maintain your integrity as a member of an academic community by representing your work and others’ work honestly and by using other people’s work only in legitimately accepted ways. It is a point of honor taken seriously in every academic discipline and career field.

Academic integrity violations have serious educational and professional consequences. Even when cheating and plagiarism go undetected, they still result in a student’s failure to learn necessary research and writing skills. Students who are found guilty of academic integrity violations face consequences ranging from a failing grade to expulsion from the university. Employees may be fired for plagiarism and do irreparable damage to their professional reputation. In short, it is never worth the risk.

Key Takeaways

• An effective research paper focuses on the writer’s ideas. The introduction and conclusion present and revisit the writer’s thesis. The body of the paper develops the thesis and related points with information from research.
• Ideas and information taken from outside sources must be cited in the body of the paper and in the references section.
• Material taken from sources should be used to develop the writer’s ideas. Summarizing and paraphrasing are usually most effective for this purpose.
• A summary concisely restates the main ideas of a source in the writer’s own words.
• A paraphrase restates ideas from a source using the writer’s own words and sentence structures.
• Direct quotations should be used sparingly. Ellipses and brackets must be used to indicate words that were omitted or changed for conciseness or grammatical correctness.
• Always represent material from outside sources accurately.
• Plagiarism has serious academic and professional consequences. To avoid accidental plagiarism, keep research materials organized, understand guidelines for fair use and appropriate citation of sources, and review the paper to make sure these guidelines are followed.

Writing for Success Copyright © 2015 by University of Minnesota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

• USC Libraries
• Research Guides

Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Paper

• 4. The Introduction
• Purpose of Guide
• Design Flaws to Avoid
• Independent and Dependent Variables
• Glossary of Research Terms
• Reading Research Effectively
• Narrowing a Topic Idea
• Broadening a Topic Idea
• Extending the Timeliness of a Topic Idea
• Academic Writing Style
• Applying Critical Thinking
• Choosing a Title
• Making an Outline
• Paragraph Development
• Research Process Video Series
• Executive Summary
• The C.A.R.S. Model
• Background Information
• The Research Problem/Question
• Theoretical Framework
• Citation Tracking
• Content Alert Services
• Evaluating Sources
• Primary Sources
• Secondary Sources
• Tiertiary Sources
• Scholarly vs. Popular Publications
• Qualitative Methods
• Quantitative Methods
• Insiderness
• Using Non-Textual Elements
• Limitations of the Study
• Common Grammar Mistakes
• Writing Concisely
• Avoiding Plagiarism
• Footnotes or Endnotes?
• Further Readings
• Generative AI and Writing
• USC Libraries Tutorials and Other Guides
• Bibliography

The introduction leads the reader from a general subject area to a particular topic of inquiry. It establishes the scope, context, and significance of the research being conducted by summarizing current understanding and background information about the topic, stating the purpose of the work in the form of the research problem supported by a hypothesis or a set of questions, explaining briefly the methodological approach used to examine the research problem, highlighting the potential outcomes your study can reveal, and outlining the remaining structure and organization of the paper.

Key Elements of the Research Proposal. Prepared under the direction of the Superintendent and by the 2010 Curriculum Design and Writing Team. Baltimore County Public Schools.

Importance of a Good Introduction

Think of the introduction as a mental road map that must answer for the reader these four questions:

• What was I studying?
• Why was this topic important to investigate?
• What did we know about this topic before I did this study?
• How will this study advance new knowledge or new ways of understanding?

According to Reyes, there are three overarching goals of a good introduction: 1) ensure that you summarize prior studies about the topic in a manner that lays a foundation for understanding the research problem; 2) explain how your study specifically addresses gaps in the literature, insufficient consideration of the topic, or other deficiency in the literature; and, 3) note the broader theoretical, empirical, and/or policy contributions and implications of your research.

A well-written introduction is important because, quite simply, you never get a second chance to make a good first impression. The opening paragraphs of your paper will provide your readers with their initial impressions about the logic of your argument, your writing style, the overall quality of your research, and, ultimately, the validity of your findings and conclusions. A vague, disorganized, or error-filled introduction will create a negative impression, whereas, a concise, engaging, and well-written introduction will lead your readers to think highly of your analytical skills, your writing style, and your research approach. All introductions should conclude with a brief paragraph that describes the organization of the rest of the paper.

Hirano, Eliana. “Research Article Introductions in English for Specific Purposes: A Comparison between Brazilian, Portuguese, and English.” English for Specific Purposes 28 (October 2009): 240-250; Samraj, B. “Introductions in Research Articles: Variations Across Disciplines.” English for Specific Purposes 21 (2002): 1–17; Introductions. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; “Writing Introductions.” In Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide. Peter Redman. 4th edition. (London: Sage, 2011), pp. 63-70; Reyes, Victoria. Demystifying the Journal Article. Inside Higher Education.

Structure and Writing Style

I.  Structure and Approach

The introduction is the broad beginning of the paper that answers three important questions for the reader:

• What is this?
• Why should I read it?
• What do you want me to think about / consider doing / react to?

Think of the structure of the introduction as an inverted triangle of information that lays a foundation for understanding the research problem. Organize the information so as to present the more general aspects of the topic early in the introduction, then narrow your analysis to more specific topical information that provides context, finally arriving at your research problem and the rationale for studying it [often written as a series of key questions to be addressed or framed as a hypothesis or set of assumptions to be tested] and, whenever possible, a description of the potential outcomes your study can reveal.

These are general phases associated with writing an introduction: 1.  Establish an area to research by:

• Highlighting the importance of the topic, and/or
• Making general statements about the topic, and/or
• Presenting an overview on current research on the subject.

2.  Identify a research niche by:

• Opposing an existing assumption, and/or
• Revealing a gap in existing research, and/or
• Formulating a research question or problem, and/or
• Continuing a disciplinary tradition.

3.  Place your research within the research niche by:

• Stating the intent of your study,
• Outlining the key characteristics of your study,
• Describing important results, and
• Giving a brief overview of the structure of the paper.

NOTE:   It is often useful to review the introduction late in the writing process. This is appropriate because outcomes are unknown until you've completed the study. After you complete writing the body of the paper, go back and review introductory descriptions of the structure of the paper, the method of data gathering, the reporting and analysis of results, and the conclusion. Reviewing and, if necessary, rewriting the introduction ensures that it correctly matches the overall structure of your final paper.

II.  Delimitations of the Study

Delimitations refer to those characteristics that limit the scope and define the conceptual boundaries of your research . This is determined by the conscious exclusionary and inclusionary decisions you make about how to investigate the research problem. In other words, not only should you tell the reader what it is you are studying and why, but you must also acknowledge why you rejected alternative approaches that could have been used to examine the topic.

Obviously, the first limiting step was the choice of research problem itself. However, implicit are other, related problems that could have been chosen but were rejected. These should be noted in the conclusion of your introduction. For example, a delimitating statement could read, "Although many factors can be understood to impact the likelihood young people will vote, this study will focus on socioeconomic factors related to the need to work full-time while in school." The point is not to document every possible delimiting factor, but to highlight why previously researched issues related to the topic were not addressed.

Examples of delimitating choices would be:

• The key aims and objectives of your study,
• The research questions that you address,
• The variables of interest [i.e., the various factors and features of the phenomenon being studied],
• The method(s) of investigation,
• The time period your study covers, and
• Any relevant alternative theoretical frameworks that could have been adopted.

Review each of these decisions. Not only do you clearly establish what you intend to accomplish in your research, but you should also include a declaration of what the study does not intend to cover. In the latter case, your exclusionary decisions should be based upon criteria understood as, "not interesting"; "not directly relevant"; “too problematic because..."; "not feasible," and the like. Make this reasoning explicit!

NOTE:   Delimitations refer to the initial choices made about the broader, overall design of your study and should not be confused with documenting the limitations of your study discovered after the research has been completed.

ANOTHER NOTE: Do not view delimitating statements as admitting to an inherent failing or shortcoming in your research. They are an accepted element of academic writing intended to keep the reader focused on the research problem by explicitly defining the conceptual boundaries and scope of your study. It addresses any critical questions in the reader's mind of, "Why the hell didn't the author examine this?"

III.  The Narrative Flow

Issues to keep in mind that will help the narrative flow in your introduction :

• Your introduction should clearly identify the subject area of interest . A simple strategy to follow is to use key words from your title in the first few sentences of the introduction. This will help focus the introduction on the topic at the appropriate level and ensures that you get to the subject matter quickly without losing focus, or discussing information that is too general.
• Establish context by providing a brief and balanced review of the pertinent published literature that is available on the subject. The key is to summarize for the reader what is known about the specific research problem before you did your analysis. This part of your introduction should not represent a comprehensive literature review--that comes next. It consists of a general review of the important, foundational research literature [with citations] that establishes a foundation for understanding key elements of the research problem. See the drop-down menu under this tab for " Background Information " regarding types of contexts.
• Clearly state the hypothesis that you investigated . When you are first learning to write in this format it is okay, and actually preferable, to use a past statement like, "The purpose of this study was to...." or "We investigated three possible mechanisms to explain the...."
• Why did you choose this kind of research study or design? Provide a clear statement of the rationale for your approach to the problem studied. This will usually follow your statement of purpose in the last paragraph of the introduction.

IV.  Engaging the Reader

A research problem in the social sciences can come across as dry and uninteresting to anyone unfamiliar with the topic . Therefore, one of the goals of your introduction is to make readers want to read your paper. Here are several strategies you can use to grab the reader's attention:

• Open with a compelling story . Almost all research problems in the social sciences, no matter how obscure or esoteric , are really about the lives of people. Telling a story that humanizes an issue can help illuminate the significance of the problem and help the reader empathize with those affected by the condition being studied.
• Include a strong quotation or a vivid, perhaps unexpected, anecdote . During your review of the literature, make note of any quotes or anecdotes that grab your attention because they can used in your introduction to highlight the research problem in a captivating way.
• Pose a provocative or thought-provoking question . Your research problem should be framed by a set of questions to be addressed or hypotheses to be tested. However, a provocative question can be presented in the beginning of your introduction that challenges an existing assumption or compels the reader to consider an alternative viewpoint that helps establish the significance of your study. 
• Describe a puzzling scenario or incongruity . This involves highlighting an interesting quandary concerning the research problem or describing contradictory findings from prior studies about a topic. Posing what is essentially an unresolved intellectual riddle about the problem can engage the reader's interest in the study.
• Cite a stirring example or case study that illustrates why the research problem is important . Draw upon the findings of others to demonstrate the significance of the problem and to describe how your study builds upon or offers alternatives ways of investigating this prior research.

NOTE:   It is important that you choose only one of the suggested strategies for engaging your readers. This avoids giving an impression that your paper is more flash than substance and does not distract from the substance of your study.

Freedman, Leora  and Jerry Plotnick. Introductions and Conclusions. University College Writing Centre. University of Toronto; Introduction. The Structure, Format, Content, and Style of a Journal-Style Scientific Paper. Department of Biology. Bates College; Introductions. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; Introductions. The Writer’s Handbook. Writing Center. University of Wisconsin, Madison; Introductions, Body Paragraphs, and Conclusions for an Argument Paper. The Writing Lab and The OWL. Purdue University; “Writing Introductions.” In Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide . Peter Redman. 4th edition. (London: Sage, 2011), pp. 63-70; Resources for Writers: Introduction Strategies. Program in Writing and Humanistic Studies. Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Sharpling, Gerald. Writing an Introduction. Centre for Applied Linguistics, University of Warwick; Samraj, B. “Introductions in Research Articles: Variations Across Disciplines.” English for Specific Purposes 21 (2002): 1–17; Swales, John and Christine B. Feak. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Skills and Tasks . 2nd edition. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press, 2004 ; Writing Your Introduction. Department of English Writing Guide. George Mason University.

Writing Tip

Avoid the "Dictionary" Introduction

Giving the dictionary definition of words related to the research problem may appear appropriate because it is important to define specific terminology that readers may be unfamiliar with. However, anyone can look a word up in the dictionary and a general dictionary is not a particularly authoritative source because it doesn't take into account the context of your topic and doesn't offer particularly detailed information. Also, placed in the context of a particular discipline, a term or concept may have a different meaning than what is found in a general dictionary. If you feel that you must seek out an authoritative definition, use a subject specific dictionary or encyclopedia [e.g., if you are a sociology student, search for dictionaries of sociology]. A good database for obtaining definitive definitions of concepts or terms is Credo Reference .

Saba, Robert. The College Research Paper. Florida International University; Introductions. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina.

Another Writing Tip

When Do I Begin?

A common question asked at the start of any paper is, "Where should I begin?" An equally important question to ask yourself is, "When do I begin?" Research problems in the social sciences rarely rest in isolation from history. Therefore, it is important to lay a foundation for understanding the historical context underpinning the research problem. However, this information should be brief and succinct and begin at a point in time that illustrates the study's overall importance. For example, a study that investigates coffee cultivation and export in West Africa as a key stimulus for local economic growth needs to describe the beginning of exporting coffee in the region and establishing why economic growth is important. You do not need to give a long historical explanation about coffee exports in Africa. If a research problem requires a substantial exploration of the historical context, do this in the literature review section. In your introduction, make note of this as part of the "roadmap" [see below] that you use to describe the organization of your paper.

Introductions. The Writing Center. University of North Carolina; “Writing Introductions.” In Good Essay Writing: A Social Sciences Guide . Peter Redman. 4th edition. (London: Sage, 2011), pp. 63-70.

Yet Another Writing Tip

Always End with a Roadmap

The final paragraph or sentences of your introduction should forecast your main arguments and conclusions and provide a brief description of the rest of the paper [the "roadmap"] that let's the reader know where you are going and what to expect. A roadmap is important because it helps the reader place the research problem within the context of their own perspectives about the topic. In addition, concluding your introduction with an explicit roadmap tells the reader that you have a clear understanding of the structural purpose of your paper. In this way, the roadmap acts as a type of promise to yourself and to your readers that you will follow a consistent and coherent approach to addressing the topic of inquiry. Refer to it often to help keep your writing focused and organized.

Cassuto, Leonard. “On the Dissertation: How to Write the Introduction.” The Chronicle of Higher Education , May 28, 2018; Radich, Michael. A Student's Guide to Writing in East Asian Studies . (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Writing n. d.), pp. 35-37.

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2.6 SELF-REFLECTION: What Makes a Good Academic Research Essay?

Take a minute to think about what we have discussed in class and what you already know. Then write a paragraph to answer these questions:

What makes a good academic research essay? Describe it. What does it require?  What do you have to do? What is expected?

Synthesis Copyright © 2022 by Timothy Krause is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License , except where otherwise noted.

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• 17.1: Unit 3 – Research Essay
• 17.2: Research Essay Requirements

Teaching the Research Paper Part 1: Introducing the Research Paper and Preparing Students for the Assignment

There are three things every teacher should do before taking their students to the computer lab to research information for their research papers: teach the difference between reliable and unreliable sources, check to make sure every student has a self-generated research question, and help prepare students with key phrases and words to search.

Whenever I begin teaching the research paper , I always share with my students the story of how I wrote my Master’s thesis paper. It was a 50 page paper with 50 different sources.

I don’t do this to toot my own horn. I don’t do this to scare my students away from post-secondary education. I don’t do this to make the students feel like their research assignment is petty and small. I do this so that I can explain the process of research to them and so that they know I was once in their shoes.

So how exactly do you write a 50-page research paper that has 50 unique, credible sources? One source at a time.

Teaching the Research Paper: 3 Critical Steps to Take

Teaching the research paper: find credible sources.

When teaching the research paper to my secondary ELA students, I first show them about research and credible sources. Before students can even begin looking for their sources, they have to know how to distinguish between reliable and unreliable sources. Being able to do so is the first step in finding a reliable source.

Once I feel my students have a firm understanding of the sources they will be looking at, we then dive into the research topic, and the students select their issues related to the main topic.

Teaching the Research Paper: Create Questions

One of the critical parts of teaching the research paper to students is having them come up with their self-generated research questions. To do this, I encourage students to work collaboratively and talk about their research topics.

Students can work in small groups to see what their peers would like to know about that matter.

Working in small groups first provides extra support for EL and struggling students. From there, students come up with their questions to answer. There is also a graphic organizer in my Research Paper Writing resource that is especially helpful during this process.

Teaching the Research Paper: Brainstorm Key Words

Once students have a self-generated question, it is time to get students to think about keywords and phrases they will use in their search for sources. All too often I see students typing precise, wordy questions into a search engine. This only creates frustration for the students as well as the teacher.

Taking half a class to discuss keywords and phrases helps students tremendously, and it even speeds up the research process because students can find credible sources a lot easier. When teaching keywords and phrases to my students, I encourage them to type no more than four words into the search engine. I tell them that they must think of the most important words directly related to their topic.

To help students think about keywords and phrases they can use in the search engine, have them think about hashtags for their research topic. This fun, easy, and engaging strategy will get students thinking about what to research and what is explicitly related to their subject.

Teaching the Research Paper: A Research Paper Writing Instructional Unit

Take the stress out of teaching your students how to write a research paper with this complete research writing unit ! This comprehensive and complete research paper writing unit will help you teach your students how to write a research paper. Now available in print + digital!

This step-by-step resource teaches your students the eight steps of research writing, and it includes every single thing you could need for a successful research writing unit! Plus, it is updated for 9th edition MLA!

The editable teaching presentation (which comes in both PowerPoint and Google Slides®) is ideal for direct instruction and includes multiple days of guided instruction! The research writing presentation introduces students to the eight steps for completing a research project: selecting topics, generating questions, brainstorming, researching and gathering credible information, organizing and outlining, writing the first draft, peer editing, and finalizing the paper.

Research Paper Teaching Unit

Take the stress out of teaching your students how to write a research paper with  this complete research writing unit ! This comprehensive and complete research paper writing unit will help you teach your students how to write a research paper. Now available in print + digital!

Read more about teaching the research paper

Read more about research in the classroom with Part 2 which covers research paper topics and Part 3 which includes using Google Apps for research.

THANK YOU! I've had to sit through some painfully tedious COLLEGE classes because so many students aren't learning this in K12 that we're required to take classes on things like how to do a search. I greatly appreciate those of you who are teaching these important skills!

Is there a part 2?

Hi Deena, Thank you for reaching out. Yes. There is a part 2 and a part 3. I will link them to this post!

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ENGL001: English Composition I

Research writing and argument.

When we write at the college level, we consider more than just the method of writing. The method includes our grammar, punctuation, and vocabulary. Writing in college is rhetorical, which means we consider how the reader will interpret your text. Who will read what you write? Why will he or she read it? What do you hope they gain from reading it? How do you present it to them? All of these elements work together to make up what we call "the rhetorical situation".

Specifically, the rhetorical situation asks you to consider your context. To do this, think about who you are writing for (your audience) and why you are writing to them (your purpose).

All Writing is Argumentative

This chapter is about rhetoric – the art of persuasion. Every time we write, we engage in argument. Through writing, we try to persuade and influence our readers, either directly or indirectly. We work to get them to change their minds, to do something, or to begin thinking in new ways. Therefore, every writer needs to know and be able to use principles of rhetoric. The first step towards such knowledge is learning to see the argumentative nature of all writing.

I have two goals in this chapter: to explain the term rhetoric and to give you some historical perspective on its origins and development; and to demonstrate the importance of seeing research writing as a rhetorical, persuasive activity. As consumers of written texts, we are often tempted to divide writing into two categories: argumentative and non-argumentative. According to this view, in order to be argumentative, writing must have the following qualities. It has to defend a position in a debate between two or more opposing sides; it must be on a controversial topic; and the goal of such writing must be to prove the correctness of one point of view over another.

On the other hand, this view goes, non-argumentative texts include narratives, descriptions, technical reports, news stories, and so on. When deciding to which category a given piece of writing belongs, we sometimes look for familiar traits of argument, such as the presence of a thesis statement, of "factual" evidence, and so on.

Research writing is often categorized as non-argumentative. This happens because of the way in which we learn about research writing. Most of us do that through the traditional research report, the kind which focuses too much on information-gathering and note cards and not enough on constructing engaging and interesting points of view for real audiences. It is the gathering and compiling of information, and not doing something productive and interesting with this information, that become the primary goals of this writing exercise. Generic research papers are also often evaluated on the quantity and accuracy of external information that they gather, rather on the persuasive impact they make and the interest they generate among readers.

Having written countless research reports, we begin to suspect that all research-based writing is non-argumentative. Even when explicitly asked to construct a thesis statement and support it through researched evidence, beginning writers are likely to pay more attention to such mechanics of research as finding the assigned number and kind of sources and documenting them correctly, than to constructing an argument capable of making an impact on the reader.

Arguments Are Not Verbal Fights

We often have narrow concept of the word argument. In everyday life, argument often implies a confrontation, a clash of opinions and personalities, or just a plain verbal fight. It implies a winner and a loser, a right side and a wrong one. Because of this understanding of the word argument, the only kind of writing seen as argumentative is the debate-like position paper, in which the author defends his or her point of view against other, usually opposing points of view.

Such an understanding of argument is narrow because arguments come in all shapes and sizes. I invite you to look at the term argument in a new way. What if we think of argument as an opportunity for conversation, for sharing with others our point of view on something, for showing others our perspective of the world? What if we see it as the opportunity to tell our stories, including our life stories? What if we think of "argument" as an opportunity to connect with the points of view of others rather than defeating those points of view?

Some years ago, I heard a conference speaker define argument as the opposite of "beating your audience into rhetorical submission". I still like that definition because it implies gradual and even gentle explanation and persuasion instead of coercion. It implies effective use of details, and stories, including emotional ones. It implies the understanding of argument as an explanation of one's world view.

Arguments then, can be explicit and implicit, or implied. Explicit arguments contain noticeable and definable thesis statements and lots of specific proofs. Implicit arguments, on the other hand, work by weaving together facts and narratives, logic and emotion, personal experiences and statistics. Unlike explicit arguments, implicit ones do not have a one-sentence thesis statement. Instead, authors of implicit arguments use evidence of many different kinds in effective and creative ways to build and convey their point of view to their audience. Research is essential for creative effective arguments of both kinds.

Definitions of Rhetoric and the Rhetorical Situation

The art of creating effective arguments is explained and systematized by a discipline called rhetoric. Writing is about making choices, and knowing the principles of rhetoric allows a writer to make informed choices about various aspects of the writing process. Every act of writing takes places in a specific rhetorical situation. The three most basic and important components of a rhetorical situations are:

• Purpose of writing
• Intended audience, 
• Occasion, or context in which the text will be written and read

These factors help writers select their topics, arrange their material, and make other important decisions about their work.

Before looking closely at different definitions and components of rhetoric, let us try to understand what rhetoric is not. In recent years, the word "rhetoric" has developed a bad reputation in American popular culture. In the popular mind, the term "rhetoric" has come to mean something negative and deceptive. Open a newspaper or turn on the television, and you are likely to hear politicians accusing each other of "too much rhetoric and not enough substance". According to this distorted view, rhetoric is verbal fluff, used to disguise empty or even deceitful arguments.

Examples of this misuse abound. Here are some examples.

A 2013 Washington Post article, "GOP Tries Pushing Back against 'War on Women' Rhetoric", by Nia-Malika Henderson describes a comment made by former Republican presidential candidate and Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee during the Republican National Committee annual winter meeting. Huckabee suggested that some women "believe that they are helpless without Uncle Sugar coming in and providing for them a prescription each month for birth control because they cannot control their libido or their reproductive system without the help of the government". Some Democrats pointed to Huckabee's statement as proof that the Republican party was waging a "war on women". However, in the article, Chelsi Henry, a Republican woman stated, "What war on women? That is just political rhetoric". The word "rhetoric" in this context implies a strategy to deceive or distract.

Another example is the title of the now-defunct political website, Spinsanity: Countering Rhetoric with Reason. The website's authors state that "engaged citizenry, active press and strong network of fact-checking websites and blogs can help turn the tide of deception that we now see". What this statement implies, of course, is that rhetoric is "spin" and that it is the opposite of truth.  Here, perhaps, is the most interesting example. The author of the video below, posted on Youtube, is clearly dissatisfied with the abundance of "rhetoric" in Barack Obama's 2008 campaign for the White House.

What is interesting about this clip is that its author does not seem to realize that she is engaging in rhetoric as she is criticizing the term. She has a purpose, which is to question Obama's credentials; she is addressing an audience which consists of people who are perhaps considering voting for Obama; finally, she is creating her video in a very real context of the heated battle between Senators Obama and Clinton for the Presidential nomination of the Democratic Party.

Rhetoric is not a dirty trick used by politicians to conceal and obscure, but an art, which, for many centuries, has had many definitions. Perhaps the most popular and overreaching definition comes to us from the Ancient Greek thinker Aristotle. Aristotle defined rhetoric as "the faculty of observing in any given case the available means of persuasion" (Ch.2). Aristotle saw primarily as a practical tool, indispensable for civic discourse.

Elements of the Rhetorical Situation

When composing, every writer must take into account the conditions under which the writing is produced and will be read. It is customary to represent the three key elements of the rhetorical situation as a triangle of writer, reader, and text, or, as they are represented on this image, as communicator , audience , and message .

Figure 1.1. Source: St. Edward's University

The three elements of the rhetorical situation are in a constant and dynamic interrelation. All three are also necessary for communication through writing to take place. For example, if the writer is taken out of this equation, the text will not be created. Similarly, eliminating the text itself will leave us with the reader and writer, but without any means of conveying ideas between them, and so on.

Moreover, changing on or more characteristics of any of the elements depicted in the figure above will change the other elements as well. For example, with the change in the beliefs and values of the audience, the message will also likely change to accommodate those new beliefs, and so on.

In his discussion of rhetoric, Aristotle states that writing's primary purpose is persuasion. Other ancient rhetoricians' theories expand the scope of rhetoric by adding new definitions, purposes, and methods. For example, another Greek philosopher and rhetorician Plato saw rhetoric as a means of discovering the truth, including personal truth, through dialog and discussion. According to Plato, rhetoric can be directed outward (at readers or listeners), or inward (at the writer him or herself). In the latter case, the purpose of rhetoric is to help the author discover something important about his or her own experience and life. The third major rhetorical school of Ancient Greece whose views have profoundly influenced our understanding of rhetoric were the Sophists. The Sophists were teachers of rhetoric for hire. The primary goal of their activities was to teach skills and strategies for effective speaking and writing. Many Sophists claimed that they could make anyone into an effective rhetorician. In their most extreme variety, Sophistic rhetoric claims that virtually anything could be proven if the rhetorician has the right skills. The legacy of Sophistic rhetoric is controversial. Some scholars, including Plato himself, have accused the Sophists of bending ethical standards in order to achieve their goals, while others have praised them for promoting democracy and civic participation through argumentative discourse. What do these various definitions of rhetoric have to do with research writing? Everything!

If you have ever had trouble with a writing assignment, chances are it was because you could not figure out the assignment's purpose. Or, perhaps you did not understand very well whom your writing was supposed to appeal to. It is hard to commit to purposeless writing done for no one in particular.

Research is not a very useful activity if it is done for its own sake. If you think of a situation in your own life where you had to do any kind of research, you probably had a purpose that the research helped you to accomplish. You could, for example, have been considering buying a car and wanted to know which make and model would suite you best. Or, you could have been looking for an apartment to rent and wanted to get the best deal for your money. Or, perhaps your family was planning a vacation and researched the best deals on hotels, airfares, and rental cars. Even in these simple examples of research that are far simpler than research most writers conduct, you as a researcher were guided by some overriding purpose. You researched because you had a purpose to accomplish.

How to Approach Writing Tasks Rhetorically

The three main elements of rhetorical theory are purpose, audience, and occasion. We will look at these elements primarily through the lens of Classical Rhetoric, the rhetoric of Ancient Greece and Rome. Principles of classical rhetoric (albeit some of them modified) are widely accepted across the modern Western civilization. Classical rhetoric provides a solid framework for analysis and production of effective texts in a variety of situations.

Good writing always serves a purpose. Texts are created to persuade, entertain, inform, instruct, and so on. In a real writing situation, these discrete purposes are often combined

The second key element of the rhetorical approach to writing is audience-awareness. As you saw from the rhetorical triangle earlier in this chapter, readers are an indispensable part of the rhetorical equation, and it is essential for every writer to understand their audience and tailor his or her message to the audience's needs.  The key principles that every writer needs to follow in order to reach and affect his or her audience are as follows:

• Have a clear idea about who your readers will be.
• Understand your readers' previous experiences, knowledge, biases, and expectations and how these factors can influence their reception of your argument.
• When writing, keep in mind not only those readers who are physically present or whom you know (your classmates and instructor), but all readers who would benefit from or be influenced by your argument.
• Choose a style, tone, and medium of presentation appropriate for your intended audience.

Occasion is an important part of the rhetorical situation. It is a part of the writing context that was mentioned earlier in the chapter. Writers do not work in a vacuum. Instead, the content, form and reception of their work by readers are heavily influenced by the conditions in society as well as by personal situations of their readers. These conditions in which texts are created and read affect every aspect of writing and every stage of the writing process, from topic selection, to decisions about what kinds of arguments used and their arrangement, to the writing style, voice, and persona which the writer wishes to project in his or her writing.

All elements of the rhetorical situation work together in a dynamic relationship. Therefore, awareness of rhetorical occasion and other elements of the context of your writing will also help you refine your purpose and understand your audience better. Similarly having a clear purpose in mind when writing and knowing your audience will help you understand the context in which you are writing and in which your work will be read better.

One aspect of writing where you can immediately benefit from understanding occasion and using it to your rhetorical advantage is the selection of topics for your compositions. Any topic can be good or bad, and a key factor in deciding on whether it fits the occasion. In order to understand whether a particular topic is suitable for a composition, it is useful to analyze whether the composition would address an issue, or a rhetorical exigency when created. The writing activity below can help you select topics and issues for written arguments.

To understand how writers can study and use occasion in order to make effective arguments, let us examine another ancient rhetorical concept. Kairos is one of the most fascinating terms from Classical rhetoric. It signifies the right, or opportune moment for an argument to be made. It is such a moment or time when the subject of the argument is particularly urgent or important and when audiences are more likely to be persuaded by it. Ancient rhetoricians believed that if the moment for the argument is right, for instance if there are conditions in society which would make the audience more receptive to the argument, the rhetorician would have more success persuading such an audience.

Figure 1.2. Kairos. Source: Ancient Greek Cities

For example, as I write this text, a heated debate about the war on terrorism and about the goals and methods of this war is going on in the US. It is also the year of the Presidential Election, and political candidates try to use the war on terrorism to their advantage when they debate each other. These are topics of high public interest, with print media, television, radio, and the Internet constantly discussing them. Because there is an enormous public interest in the topic of terrorism, well-written articles and reports on the subject will not fall on deaf ears. Simply put, the moment, or occasion, for the debate is right, and it will continue until public interest in the subject weakens or disappears.

Rhetorical Appeals

In order to persuade their readers, writers must use three types of proofs or rhetorical appeals. They are  logos , or logical appeal;  pathos , or emotional appeal; and  ethos , or ethical appeal, or appeal based on the character and credibility of the author. It is easy to notice that modern words logical , pathetic , and ethical are derived from those Greek words. In his work Rhetoric, Aristotle writes that the three appeals must be used together in every piece of persuasive discourse. An argument based on the appeal to logic, or emotions alone will not be an effective one.  Understanding how logos , pathos , and ethos should work together is important for writers who use research. Often, research writing assignments are written in a way that seems to emphasize logical proofs over emotional or ethical ones. Such logical proofs in research papers typically consist of factual information, statistics, examples, and other similar evidence. According to this view, writers of academic papers need to be unbiased and objective, and using logical proofs will help them to be that way. Because of this emphasis on logical proofs, you may be less familiar with the kinds of pathetic and ethical proofs available to you. Pathetic appeals, or appeals to emotions of the audience were considered by ancient rhetoricians as important as logical proofs. Yet, writers are sometimes not easily convinced to use pathetic appeals in their writing. As modern rhetoricians and authors of the influential book Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student (1998), Edward P.J. Corbett and Robert Connors said, "People are rather sheepish about acknowledging that their opinions can be affected by their emotions" (86).

According to Corbett, many of us think that there may be something wrong about using emotions in argument. But, I agree with Corbett and Connors, pathetic proofs are not only admissible in argument, but necessary (86-89). The most basic way of evoking appropriate emotional responses in your audience, according to Corbett, is the use of vivid descriptions (94). Using ethical appeals, or appeals based on the character of the writer, involves establishing and maintaining your credibility in the eyes of your readers. In other words, when writing, think about how you are presenting yourself to your audience. Do you give your readers enough reasons to trust you and your argument, or do you give them reasons to doubt your authority and your credibility? Consider all the times when your decision about the merits of a given argument was affected by the person or people making the argument. For example, when watching television news, are you predisposed against certain cable networks and more inclined towards others because you trust them more?  So, how can a writer establish a credible persona for his or her audience? One way to do that is through external research. Conducting research and using it well in your writing help with you with the factual proofs ( logos ), but it also shows your readers that you, as the author, have done your homework and know what you are talking about. This knowledge, the sense of your authority that this creates among your readers, will help you be a more effective writer.  The logical, pathetic, and ethical appeals work in a dynamic combination with one another. It is sometimes hard to separate one kind of proof from another and the methods by which the writer achieved the desired rhetorical effect. If your research contains data which is likely to cause your readers to be emotional, it data can enhance the pathetic aspect of your argument. The key to using the three appeals, is to use them in combination with each other, and in moderation. It is impossible to construct a successful argument by relying too much on one or two appeals while neglecting the others. Consider two recent examples of fairly ineffective use of the three appeals. In the beginning of April 2008, two candidates for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, Senators Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama began airing campaign television ads in  Pennsylvania ahead of their party's primary presidential election in that state. You can see both ads below.

Clinton's ad is called "Scranton" and it is heavy on pathos , or emotional appeal. It invokes very warm childhood memories which, the ad's creators hoped, would show Senator Clinton's "softer side" thus persuading more people to vote for her. The purpose of the ad is to stir emotion, and it does it rather well. The problem with this approach is, however, that it does not tell voters much about the concrete steps and activities Senator Clinton would undertake if elected. The ad is rather thin on the logical appeal, and this, in turn, affects Clinton's ethos or credibility.

Barack Obama's ad is called "One Voice", and is calling on his supporters to "change the world".

While this is certainly a worthy cause, it is not clear from this ad how exactly Obama – still a senator at the time – intended to change the world once elected. The reason for this lack of clarity is the heavy emphasis on the pathetic appeal at the expense of logos . If you followed the presidential campaign of 2008, you would know that the call for change which is so clear in this ad was Obama's main slogan, a statement that became a large part of his ethos , or persona as a politician and as a rhetorician. This ad succeeds in highlighting that part of Obama's political persona once again while, probably intentionally, under-emphasizing logos .

Research Writing as Conversation

Writing is a social process. Texts are created to be read by others, and in creating those texts, writers should be aware of not only their personal assumptions, biases, and tastes, but also those of their readers. Writing, therefore, is an interactive process. It is a conversation, a meeting of minds, during which ideas are exchanged, debates and discussions take place and, sometimes, but not always, consensus is reached. You may be familiar with the famous quote by the 20th century rhetorician Kenneth Burke who compared writing to a conversation at a social event. In his 1974 book "The Philosophy of Literary Form", Burke writes,

Imagine that you enter a parlor. You come late. When you arrive, others have long preceded you, and they are engaged in a heated discussion, a discussion too heated for them to pause and tell you exactly what it is about. In fact, the discussion had already begun long before any of them got there, so that no one present is qualified to retrace for you all the steps that had gone before. You listen for a while, until you decide that you have caught the tenor of the argument; then you put in your oar. Someone answers; you answer him, another comes to your defense; another aligns himself against you, to either the embarrassment of gratification of your opponent, depending upon the quality of your ally's assistance. However, the discussion is interminable. The hour grows late, you must depart. And you do depart, with the discussion still vigorously in progress (110-111).

This passage by Burke is extremely popular among writers because it captures the interactive nature of writing so precisely. Reading Burke's words carefully, we will notice that the interaction between readers and writers is continuous. A writer always enters a conversation in progress. In order to participate in the discussion, just like in real life, you need to know what your interlocutors have been talking about. So you listen (read). Once you feel you have got the drift of the conversation, you say (write) something. Your text is read by others who respond to your ideas, stories, and arguments with their own. This interaction never ends!  To write well, it is important to listen carefully and understand the conversations that are going on around you. Writers who are able to listen to these conversations and pick up important topics, themes, and arguments are generally more effective at reaching and impressing their audiences. It is also important to treat research, writing, and every occasion for these activities as opportunities to participate in the on-going conversation of people interested in the same topics and questions which interest you.  Our knowledge about our world is shaped by the best and most up-to-date theories available to them. Sometimes these theories can be experimentally tested and proven, and sometimes, when obtaining such proof is impossible, they are based on consensus reached as a result of conversation and debate. Even the theories and knowledge that can be experimentally tested (for example in sciences) do not become accepted knowledge until most members of the scientific community accept them. Other members of this community will help them test their theories and hypotheses, give them feedback on their writing, and keep them searching for the best answers to their questions. As Burke says in his famous passage, the interaction between the members of intellectual communities never ends. No piece of writing, no argument, no theory or discover is ever final. Instead, they all are subject to discussion, questioning, and improvement.  A simple but useful example of this process is the evolution of humankind's understanding of their planet Earth and its place in the Universe. As you know, in Medieval Europe, the prevailing theory was that the Earth was the center of the Universe and that all other planets and the Sun rotated around it. This theory was the result of the church's teachings, and thinkers who disagreed with it were pronounced heretics and often burned. In 1543, astronomer Nikolaus Copernicus argued that the Sun was at the center of the solar system and that all planets of the system rotate around the Sun. Later, Galileo experimentally proved Copernicus' theory with the help of a telescope. Of course, the Earth did not begin to rotate around the Sun with this discovery. Yet, Copernicus' and Galileo's theories of the Universe went against the Catholic Church's teachings which dominated the social discourse of Medieval Europe. The Inquisition did not engage in debate with the two scientists. Instead, Copernicus was executed for his views and Galileo was sentenced to house arrest for his views.  Although in the modern world, dissenting thinkers are unlikely to suffer such harsh punishment, the examples of Copernicus and Galileo teach us two valuable lessons about the social nature of knowledge. Firstly, Both Copernicus and Galileo tried to improve on an existing theory of the Universe that placed our planet at the center. They did not work from nothing but used beliefs that already existed in their society and tried to modify and disprove those beliefs. Time and later scientific research proved that they were right. Secondly, even after Galileo was able to prove the structure of the Solar system experimentally, his theory did not become widely accepted until the majority of people in society assimilated it. Therefore, new findings do not become accepted knowledge until they penetrate the fabric of social discourse and until enough people accept them as true.

Conclusions

In this chapter, we have learned the definition of rhetoric and the basic differences between several important rhetorical schools. We have also discussed how to key elements of the rhetorical situation: purpose, audience, and context. As you work on the research writing projects presented throughout this book, be sure to revisit this chapter often.

Everything that you have read about here and every activity you have completed as you worked through this chapter is applicable to all research writing projects in this book and beyond. Most school writing assignments give you direct instructions about your purpose, intended audience, and rhetorical occasion. Truly proficient and independent writers, however, learn to define their purpose, audiences, and contexts of their writing, on their own. The material in this chapter is designed to enable to become better at those tasks.  When you receive a writing assignment, it is tempting to see it as just another hoop to jump through and not as a genuine rhetorical situation, an opportunity to influence others with your writing. It is certainly tempting to see yourself writing only for the teacher, without a real purpose and oblivious of the context of your writing.  The material of this chapter as well as the writing projects presented throughout this book are designed to help you think of writing as a persuasive, rhetorical activity. Conducting research and incorporating its results into your paper is a part of this rhetorical process.

Works Cited

Aristotle. "Rhetoric". Aristotle's Rhetoric. June 21, 2004. April 21, 2008. Burke, Kenneth. The Philosophy of Literary Form. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1941. Clinton, Hillary. "Scranton". Youtube. April 7, 2008. April 21, 2008. Corbett, Edward, P.J and Connors, Robert. Classical Rhetoric for the Modern Student. Oxford University Press, USA; Fourth edition, 1998. Fritz, Ben et al. "About Spinsanity". Spinsanity. 2001-2005. April 21, 2008.

Henderson, Nia-Malika. "GOP tries pushing back against 'war on women' rhetoric".  Washington Post . Washington Post, 24 Jan 2014. Web. 27 Jan. 2014. 

Obama, Barack. "One Voice". Youtube. April 8, 2008. April 21, 2008. Papakyriakou/Anagnostou, Ellen. Kairos. Ancient Greek Cities. 1998. April 21, 2008. MBROWDE. "The Rhetorical Triangle". Image.  Rhetoric in the 21st Century: The Changing Language of Digital Spaces . St. Edward's University, 11 Feb 2013. Web. 27 Jan 2014. wafer157. "Obama Rhetoric". Youtube. February 27, 2008. April 21, 2008.

Academic Essay Writing Made Simple: 4 types and tips

The pen is mightier than the sword, they say, and nowhere is this more evident than in academia. From the quick scribbles of eager students to the inquisitive thoughts of renowned scholars, academic essays depict the power of the written word. These well-crafted writings propel ideas forward and expand the existing boundaries of human intellect.

What is an Academic Essay

An academic essay is a nonfictional piece of writing that analyzes and evaluates an argument around a specific topic or research question. It serves as a medium to share the author’s views and is also used by institutions to assess the critical thinking, research skills, and writing abilities of a students and researchers.  

Importance of Academic Essays

4 main types of academic essays.

While academic essays may vary in length, style, and purpose, they generally fall into four main categories. Despite their differences, these essay types share a common goal: to convey information, insights, and perspectives effectively.

1. Expository Essay

2. Descriptive Essay

3. Narrative Essay

4. Argumentative Essay

Expository and persuasive essays mainly deal with facts to explain ideas clearly. Narrative and descriptive essays are informal and have a creative edge. Despite their differences, these essay types share a common goal ― to convey information, insights, and perspectives effectively.

Expository Essays: Illuminating ideas

An expository essay is a type of academic writing that explains, illustrates, or clarifies a particular subject or idea. Its primary purpose is to inform the reader by presenting a comprehensive and objective analysis of a topic.

By breaking down complex topics into digestible pieces and providing relevant examples and explanations, expository essays allow writers to share their knowledge.

What are the Key Features of an Expository Essay

Provides factual information without bias

Presents multiple viewpoints while maintaining objectivity

Uses direct and concise language to ensure clarity for the reader

Composed of a logical structure with an introduction, body paragraphs and a conclusion

When is an expository essay written.

1. For academic assignments to evaluate the understanding of research skills.

2. As instructional content to provide step-by-step guidance for tasks or problem-solving.

3. In journalism for objective reporting in news or investigative pieces.

4. As a form of communication in the professional field to convey factual information in business or healthcare.

How to Write an Expository Essay

Expository essays are typically structured in a logical and organized manner.

1. Topic Selection and Research

• Choose a topic that can be explored objectively
• Gather relevant facts and information from credible sources
• Develop a clear thesis statement

2. Outline and Structure

• Create an outline with an introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion
• Introduce the topic and state the thesis in the introduction
• Dedicate each body paragraph to a specific point supporting the thesis
• Use transitions to maintain a logical flow

3. Objective and Informative Writing

• Maintain an impartial and informative tone
• Avoid personal opinions or biases
• Support points with factual evidence, examples, and explanations

4. Conclusion

• Summarize the key points
• Reinforce the significance of the thesis

Descriptive Essays: Painting with words

Descriptive essays transport readers into vivid scenes, allowing them to experience the world through the writer ‘s lens. These essays use rich sensory details, metaphors, and figurative language to create a vivid and immersive experience . Its primary purpose is to engage readers’ senses and imagination.

It allows writers to demonstrate their ability to observe and describe subjects with precision and creativity.

What are the Key Features of Descriptive Essay

Employs figurative language and imagery to paint a vivid picture for the reader

Demonstrates creativity and expressiveness in narration

Includes close attention to detail, engaging the reader’s senses

Engages the reader’s imagination and emotions through immersive storytelling using analogies, metaphors, similes, etc.

When is a descriptive essay written.

1. Personal narratives or memoirs that describe significant events, people, or places.

2. Travel writing to capture the essence of a destination or experience.

3. Character sketches in fiction writing to introduce and describe characters.

4. Poetry or literary analyses to explore the use of descriptive language and imagery.

How to Write a Descriptive Essay

The descriptive essay lacks a defined structural requirement but typically includes: an introduction introducing the subject, a thorough description, and a concluding summary with insightful reflection.

1. Subject Selection and Observation

• Choose a subject (person, place, object, or experience) to describe
• Gather sensory details and observations

2. Engaging Introduction

• Set the scene and provide the context
• Use of descriptive language and figurative techniques

3. Descriptive Body Paragraphs

• Focus on specific aspects or details of the subject
• Engage the reader ’s senses with vivid imagery and descriptions
• Maintain a consistent tone and viewpoint

4. Impactful Conclusion

• Provide a final impression or insight
• Leave a lasting impact on the reader

Narrative Essays: Storytelling in Action

Narrative essays are personal accounts that tell a story, often drawing from the writer’s own experiences or observations. These essays rely on a well-structured plot, character development, and vivid descriptions to engage readers and convey a deeper meaning or lesson.

What are the Key features of Narrative Essays

Written from a first-person perspective and hence subjective

Based on real personal experiences

Uses an informal and expressive tone

Presents events and characters in sequential order

When is a narrative essay written.

It is commonly assigned in high school and college writing courses to assess a student’s ability to convey a meaningful message or lesson through a personal narrative. They are written in situations where a personal experience or story needs to be recounted, such as:

1. Reflective essays on significant life events or personal growth.

2. Autobiographical writing to share one’s life story or experiences.

3. Creative writing exercises to practice narrative techniques and character development.

4. College application essays to showcase personal qualities and experiences.

How to Write a Narrative Essay

Narrative essays typically follow a chronological structure, with an introduction that sets the scene, a body that develops the plot and characters, and a conclusion that provides a sense of resolution or lesson learned.

1. Experience Selection and Reflection

• Choose a significant personal experience or event
• Reflect on the impact and deeper meaning

2. Immersive Introduction

• Introduce characters and establish the tone and point of view

3. Plotline and Character Development

• Advance   the  plot and character development through body paragraphs
• Incorporate dialog , conflict, and resolution
• Maintain a logical and chronological flow

4. Insightful Conclusion

• Reflect on lessons learned or insights gained
• Leave the reader with a lasting impression

Argumentative Essays: Persuasion and Critical Thinking

Argumentative essays are the quintessential form of academic writing in which writers present a clear thesis and support it with well-researched evidence and logical reasoning. These essays require a deep understanding of the topic, critical analysis of multiple perspectives, and the ability to construct a compelling argument.

What are the Key Features of an Argumentative Essay?

Logical and well-structured arguments

Credible and relevant evidence from reputable sources

Consideration and refutation of counterarguments

Critical analysis and evaluation of the issue 

When is an argumentative essay written.

Argumentative essays are written to present a clear argument or stance on a particular issue or topic. In academic settings they are used to develop critical thinking, research, and persuasive writing skills. However, argumentative essays can also be written in various other contexts, such as:

1. Opinion pieces or editorials in newspapers, magazines, or online publications.

2. Policy proposals or position papers in government, nonprofit, or advocacy settings.

3. Persuasive speeches or debates in academic, professional, or competitive environments.

4. Marketing or advertising materials to promote a product, service, or idea.

How to write an Argumentative Essay

Argumentative essays begin with an introduction that states the thesis and provides context. The body paragraphs develop the argument with evidence, address counterarguments, and use logical reasoning. The conclusion restates the main argument and makes a final persuasive appeal.

• Choose a debatable and controversial issue
• Conduct thorough research and gather evidence and counterarguments

2. Thesis and Introduction

• Craft a clear and concise thesis statement
• Provide background information and establish importance

3. Structured Body Paragraphs

• Focus each paragraph on a specific aspect of the argument
• Support with logical reasoning, factual evidence, and refutation

4. Persuasive Techniques

• Adopt a formal and objective tone
• Use persuasive techniques (rhetorical questions, analogies, appeals)

5. Impactful Conclusion

• Summarize the main points
• Leave the reader with a strong final impression and call to action

To learn more about argumentative essay, check out this article .

5 Quick Tips for Researchers to Improve Academic Essay Writing Skills

Use clear and concise language to convey ideas effectively without unnecessary words

Use well-researched, credible sources to substantiate your arguments with data, expert opinions, and scholarly references

Ensure a coherent structure with effective transitions, clear topic sentences, and a logical flow to enhance readability 

To elevate your academic essay, consider submitting your draft to a community-based platform like Open Platform  for editorial review 

Review your work multiple times for clarity, coherence, and adherence to academic guidelines to ensure a polished final product

By mastering the art of academic essay writing, researchers and scholars can effectively communicate their ideas, contribute to the advancement of knowledge, and engage in meaningful scholarly discourse.

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Home — Essay Types — Research Essay

Research Essay Examples

In the realm of academia, selecting the right research essay topics is the foundation of a successful research project. These topics encompass a broad spectrum of contemporary issues, offering ample opportunities for in-depth analysis and exploration. Choose a subject that resonates with your interests and aligns with your academic goals, and you'll be on your way to crafting a compelling research essay that contributes valuable insights to your chosen field of study.

For instance, when exploring research essay topics, consider seeking out research topic essay examples related to your chosen subject. Examining well-crafted research essays can provide valuable insights into effective research methodologies, structure, and writing styles, helping you refine your own research and writing skills. These examples serve as guides and sources of inspiration as you embark on your academic exploration and contribute to the body of knowledge in your field.

To further assist your research journey, consider seeking out research essay examples related to your chosen topic. Examining well-crafted research essays can provide valuable insights into effective research methodologies, structure, and writing styles, helping you refine your own research and writing skills. These examples serve as guides and sources of inspiration as you embark on your academic exploration and contribute to the body of knowledge in your field.

Research Topics to Write About

When choosing research essay topics, it is important to consider your own interests and expertise. You should also make sure that there is enough information available on the topic to support your research. Here are some research topics that you may want to write about:

History and Society

• The rise and fall of empires
• The causes of revolutions
• The impact of colonialism on indigenous peoples
• The role of women in history
• The history of civil rights movements

More myriad of interesting US history topics on the blog

Literature and Art

• The influence of technology on art
• The role of the artist in society
• The relationship between art and politics
• The evolution of different literary genres
• The interpretation of famous works of art

Biology Research Topics

• The impact of climate change on biodiversity
• Genetic engineering in agriculture
• Neuroplasticity and learning
• Microbial ecology of the human gut
• Evolutionary origins of human behavior

For more biology research topics , check out our blog where you'll discover even more intriguing ideas and research directions in this fascinating science!

Business and Economics

• The impact of globalization on the world economy
• The challenges of income inequality
• The future of the workplace
• The ethics of business
• The role of government in the economy

Psychology and Education

• The nature of intelligence
• The causes of mental illness
• The effectiveness of different teaching methods
• The role of technology in education
• The importance of early childhood education

Choosing a Research Essay Topics

Choosing a research topic should combine personal interest with feasibility and potential contribution. Align your curiosity with your field of study, narrowing down to a specific, manageable question. Ensure sufficient credible sources exist for your research, and consider if you can realistically complete it within constraints. Evaluate your topic's originality and importance. Consult advisors for guidance, and be open to adapting your focus as needed. Remember, finding the right topic is an iterative process, so explore and refine as you go.

The craft of writing a compelling research essay is both an art and science. Such essays are foundational to academia and the broader professional landscape. By examining solid research essay examples , writers can gain insights into structuring their own work more effectively.

Research essays play a pivotal role in academic and professional circles. Their structure, backed by clarity and robust evidence, holds the power to influence, inform, and educate readers. With a well-written research essay example in hand, students and professionals alike can better understand their role and significance.

In addition to traditional research essays, another important genre is proposal essays. These essays outline plans for future research or projects, providing a framework for addressing specific issues or questions. By carefully crafting a proposal essay , writers can effectively communicate their objectives, methods, and anticipated outcomes, garnering support and funding for their endeavors.

What is Research Essay Example

A research essay is a type of academic writing that involves an in-depth investigation into a specific topic or question. It requires the writer to gather and analyze relevant information, present arguments, and draw conclusions based on their research findings. Here’s an example of a research essay in PDF :

This research essay sample provides an example of how to structure and discuss a topic while incorporating research findings and analysis. Remember that the specific format and requirements for research essays may vary depending on the academic institution or guidelines provided by your instructor.

What Makes a Good Research Essay

1️⃣ Structure of a Research Essay

A standard research essay comprises three main segments:

• Introduction : Presents the topic and posits a thesis
• Body : Delves into arguments, evidence, and analysis
• Conclusion : Wraps up the discussion and revisits the thesis

Let’s proceed with the structure guidelines for a research essay, which should encompass the following sections:

This research essay structure is designed to guide your writing process and ensure that your arguments are presented logically and persuasively while maintaining objectivity and integrity in your research.

2️⃣ Importance of Citing Sources

Citing your sources isn’t merely a formality; it lends credibility to your arguments and respects the original authors’ contributions. Through accurate citations, a research essay example can also avoid plagiarism and uphold academic integrity.

10 Expert Tips to Craft the Perfect Research Essay Example

Research essays require finding, evaluating, and integrating source material to support an analytical thesis. This process demands care and effort. Use these tips to write top-quality research essays.

• Start with a Clear Thesis Statement. Your thesis acts as the guiding star of your essay. For instance, a compelling research essay example would kick off with a concise and debatable thesis, immediately grabbing the reader’s attention.
• Use Reliable Sources. Quality over quantity always holds. Ensure your sources are credible. Perusing research paper examples can offer insights into sourcing reputable references.
• Organize Ideas with an Outline . Outlining can serve as a roadmap, guiding you through your essay’s journey. Many sample research essay structures emphasize the importance of a coherent flow of ideas.
• Draft with Clarity and Precision . Your words should clearly convey your message. Keeping examples of research essays as benchmarks can ensure your content is both clear and impactful.
• Incorporate Multiple Points of View. A comprehensive essay considers various perspectives. This not only strengthens your argument but also makes for a more rounded research essay example.
• Use Transition Words for Flow. Transition words act as the glue between your ideas. For instance, a research paper example might employ words like ‘however,’ ‘moreover,’ and ‘consequently’ to ensure smooth navigation.
• Ensure Proper Formatting . Consistency in formatting – be it APA, MLA, or Chicago – is essential. A polished research essay example adheres strictly to formatting rules, enhancing readability.
• Edit and Revise Multiple Times. Perfection comes with revision. Always iterate and refine your draft.
• Seek Peer Reviews . Fresh eyes can spot overlooked errors or provide new perspectives. Feedback can also enhance the quality of your research paper example.
• Reference Research Paper Examples . By studying multiple research paper examples and examples of research essays, you can understand common structures, styles, and tones in the field.

Over-generalization, neglecting counterarguments, or providing superficial evidence are common pitfalls in research essays. Always consult diverse research paper examples to understand and sidestep these mistakes.

Research Essay Writing Checklist

By following this checklist, you can better prepare yourself to critically evaluate research essay examples in a way that is aligned with your research goals and standards.

Be sure to review your grading rubric carefully, and consider studying at least one freely available research essay example. This will aid you in comparing the given guidelines with your specific task as you embark on the writing process.

Using these research and writing strategies will boost essay quality. Crafting a well-structured research essay is pivotal for academic and professional success. By harnessing the power of sample research essay resources and various research paper examples, anyone can elevate their writing and convey their arguments compellingly.

Additionally, writers can also benefit from exploring other genres of essays. Unlike research essays, which focus on presenting evidence and analysis, personal narrative essays allow writers to share personal experiences, reflections, and insights. These essays offer a unique opportunity for self-expression and storytelling, enabling writers to connect with readers on a deeper emotional level.

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How do you write a research essay?

Just like any research paper that a college student encounters, you must follow the classic pattern of “Introduction - Thesis - 3 Body Paragraphs - Conclusion”. Some cases may differ, depending on what you have been asked to do, yet a research paper is the one where you must synthesize available information and make a strong argument regarding the main topic or subject of your research. Check our research paper example to see how the sources and evidence are incorporated and mixed with the author’s opinion. Remember about formatting and style requirements in terms of indents and the spaces.

What is a research essay?

Unlike reflective or comparative writing, the research essay will always contain a strict academic structure. An example of a research paper usually represents writing with a thesis statement that makes a proposal, assumption, or uses a strong argument about some scientific idea. It is usually not written in the first person since an author must combine various resources, include quotations, and implement evidence to support certain ideas. The presence of focus on the ideas and the analysis of information is what makes it stand apart from the author-based essay writing.

What is an example of research?

In short, research always implements a certain methodology. While there is no universal formula that would explain what does the research mean in writing, it is sufficient to say that research must contain a topic, strong thesis statement (or an argument), a list of reliable sources, a counter-argument paragraph (if relevant) and the conclusion where information is summed up and stated in a clearer or simpler way. Check our college research paper example to examine the structure in practice and see the key differences when compared to the usual college essay papers.

How do I choose a research topic?

Select a topic that interests you and is relevant to your field of study. Ensure it's specific enough to be manageable but broad enough to find sufficient research material.

What's the structure of a research essay?

Typically, it includes an introduction, literature review, methodology, results, discussion, and conclusion. However, structure may vary depending on the assignment or guidelines.

What's the purpose of the introduction?

The introduction introduces your topic, provides context, and states your research question or thesis. It should engage readers and set the stage for your essay.

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3.4.1: Assignment- Persuasive Research Essay

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In order to apply and extend the skills and techniques you've learned in this section on argumentation, research, and research writing, you will write an essay which synthesizes research on an arguable topic to create a well-informed and rhetorically impactful argument.

Your task is to write an argumentative essay which takes a position on a topic, supports that position using credible sources, addresses counterarguments, and rebuts those counterarguments. Here's a more detailed breakdown:

1. Choose a Topic

Using the idea generation activities in Chapter Eight, identify a path of inquiry that is open-ended, focused, and—most importantly—interesting to you.

2. Write a Proposal

Before beginning your research, identify your path of inquiry (research question) and your working thesis—this is your research proposal. Keep in mind, this is not set in stone, but is rather a starting point. Your proposal should be no fewer than 250 words. Consult the discussion of research proposals in Chapter Eight for guidelines.

3. Research and Write an Annotated Bibliography

Using multiple resources (your school’s library, Google, Google Scholar, and beyond), identify the different perspectives on your topic. Consider:

• What conversation already exists about this topic? Are you saying something new, or aligning with existing viewpoints?
• Who are the authorities on this topic? What stance do they take? Who is weighing in?
• What aspects of this topic make it arguable?
• What other issues is this debate connected to? Try to gather a diversity of sources in order to catch the contours of a complex conversation. Be sure to document your research along the way to save yourself a headache when you begin your annotated bibliography.

You should compile any sources you seriously consult (even if they do not seem useful at the time) in a bibliography using a citation style appropriate to your class. Then, you will evaluate them in the form of an annotated bibliography. Each annotation of roughly 100 words should:

a) briefly summarize the source,

b) attend to its use-value, and

c) consider its credibility and place in the ongoing conversation.

Your annotated bibliography is a research tool; you are not obliged to use all of the sources from this portion of the project in your essay. You may include any sources you've encountered for your annotated bibliography, even if you don't plan on using all of them as evidence in your essay.

4. Write, Re-research, Revise, Revise, Revise!

a. Write a first draft of your essay; this can be an outline, mind-map, draft, or hybrid of pre-writing. This will help you organize your ideas and research so your instructor knows you’re on track to write a successful final draft. Although a rough draft does not need to hit all these points, your final draft will include:

• Your question and your stance
• Justification for your stance, including sources
• Opposing/varying stances, including sources
• Your response to other stances
• An ultimate conclusion on your topic Note: this is not an outline or prescription, but a set of recommended subtopics.

b. Using feedback from your instructor, your peers, and the Writing Center—as well as new ideas you discover along the way—revise your first draft as many times as possible until it is ready to submit.

Your essay should be thesis-driven and will include evidence in the form of quotes, paraphrases, and summaries from sources to support your argument.

Before you begin, consider your rhetorical situation:

Guidelines for Peer Workshop

Before beginning the Peer Workshop and revision process, I recommend consulting the Revision Concepts and Strategies Appendix. In your Peer Workshop group (or based on your teacher's directions), establish a process for workshopping that will work for you. You may find the flowchart titled "Establishing Your Peer Workshop" useful.

One Example of a Peer Workshop Process

Before the workshop, each author should spend several minutes generating requests for support (#1 below). Identify specific elements you need help on.

Here are a few examples:

I'm worried that my voice is being overwhelmed by other voices in the conversation. How do you think I can foreground my ideas?

Do you think my conclusion is convincing? What do you think my call-to-cation should be?

Do you see anywhere that I could better cultivate pathos ?

During the workshop, follow this sequence:

1. Student A introduces their draft, distributes copies, and makes requests for feedback. What do you want help with, specifically?

2. Student A reads their draft aloud while students B and C annotate/take notes. What do you notice as the draft is read aloud?

3. Whole group discusses the draft; student A takes notes. Use these prompts as a reference to generate and frame your feedback. Try to identify specific places in your classmates’ essays where the writer is successful and where the writer needs support. Consider constructive , specific , and actionable feedback. What is the author doing well? What could they do better?

• What requests does the author have for support? What feedback do you have on this issue, specifically?
• Identify one “golden line” from the essay under consideration—a phrase, sentence, or paragraph that resonates with you. What about this line is so striking?
• Ideas, Content, and Focus
• Structure Style and Language
• Depth, Support, and Reflection
• What resonances do you see between this draft and others from your group? Between this draft and the exemplars you’ve read?

4. Repeat with students B and C.

After the workshop, try implementing some of the feedback your group provided while they’re still nearby! For example, if Student B said your introduction needed more imagery, draft some new language and see if Student B likes the direction you’re moving in. As you are comfortable, exchange contact information with your group so you can to continue the discussion outside of class.

GOVT 2305 - Sinegal - Summer 2024: Assignments and Their Requirements

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Electric recycling of Portland cement at scale

• Cyrille F. Dunant   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0001-5176-4439 1   na1 ,
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Cement production causes 7.5% of global anthropogenic CO 2 emissions, arising from limestone decarbonation and fossil-fuel combustion 1 , 2 , 3 . Current decarbonation strategies include substituting Portland clinker with supplementary materials, but these mainly arise in emitting processes, developing alternative binders but none yet promises scale, or adopting carbon capture and storage that still releases some emissions 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 . However, used cement is potentially an abundant, decarbonated feedstock. Here we show that recovered cement paste can be reclinkered if used as a partial substitute for the lime–dolomite flux used in steel recycling nowadays. The resulting slag can meet existing specifications for Portland clinker and can be blended effectively with calcined clay and limestone. The process is sensitive to the silica content of the recovered cement paste, and silica and alumina that may come from the scrap, but this can be adjusted easily. We show that the proposed process may be economically competitive, and if powered by emissions-free electricity, can lead to zero emissions cement while also reducing the emissions of steel recycling by reducing lime flux requirements. The global supply of scrap steel for recycling may treble by 2050, and it is likely that more slag can be made per unit of steel recycled. With material efficiency in construction 9 , 10 , future global cement requirements could be met by this route.

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Environmental impacts and decarbonization strategies in the cement and concrete industries

Concrete is the most used material on the planet, after water, and is responsible for approximately 7.5% of total anthropogenic CO 2 emissions 1 , 2 , 3 .

The two main strategies deployed to date to reduce emissions from Portland cement production are fuel switching (using fossil gas, municipal waste or biofuels instead of coke and petcoke) and increased use of substitution materials, such as fly ash and slag. However, these strategies cannot lead to zero emissions. Moreover, the two most common substitution materials, ground-granulated blast furnace slag and fly ash are themselves by-products of primary steel production and coal power stations, both of which are highly emitting and therefore must be phased out in the transition to zero emissions. There has been a recent surge of interest in ternary blends with calcined clay and limestone (commonly known as LC 3 ) 4 . Nevertheless, it could be difficult to achieve substitution levels greater than 50% as these blends still require Portland clinker for activation 5 . Meanwhile, alternative clinkers or binder systems to replace Portland clinker are under development, but none so far can be made at scale without significant emissions 6 , 7 , 8 . Carbon capture and storage could potentially be applied to cement making 11 , 12 but current projects attempt the capture of the process emissions only, without storage 13 .

Most emissions associated with concrete arise in the production of Portland cement, about 40% from fuel combustion and about 60% from limestone decarbonation. Both sources are hard to abate. High-temperature processes are not easily electrified, no alternative cement chemistry can be produced at a comparable scale and no natural source of un-carbonated calcium is available in the required quantities.

A widely deployed high-temperature electric process is the electric-arc furnace (EAF) used for recycling steel. This recycling occurs in two stages. First, scrap is melted and oxidized to remove dirt, carbon and phosphorus. Then, in a ladle furnace, sulfur is removed, and the steel is alloyed. In both steps, a flux is introduced to protect the steel from air, provide the required basicity, protect the lining and the graphite electrodes and increase energy efficiency. This flux is made from limestone–dolomite in a decarbonation process with the same process emissions as Portland cement 14 .

A widely available high-volume source of decarbonated calcium is found in the hydrated cement paste embedded in used concrete. It has been known for a long time that it is possible, in principle, to reclinker hydrated cement paste (HCP) 15 . However, there are several challenges to applying this process in a conventional kiln when a large fraction of hydrated cement paste is used. The presence of sulfates (added as set retardant during production) increases the belite content of the reclinkered cement at the expense of highly reactive alite 16 . Furthermore, sulfates are volatile and will condense in cooler parts of the kiln system, causing operational difficulties 17 . Nonetheless, there exist commercial offerings of cement made with partly replaced raw meal (such as Holcim GeoCycle). Separately, cement recovered from used concrete can contain a high fraction of chlorides that, if retained, would exclude the use of reclinkered cement in reinforced applications 18 .

Recovered cement paste (RCP) is not commercially available at scale at present. Separating paste from the aggregates in concrete has been a niche but active area of research and development 19 , 20 , driven not by the prospect of using the cement paste but by the possibility of recovering high-quality aggregates that have much higher commercial value than those produced from crushing concrete demolition waste 21 . The value of the improved recovered aggregates is not at present high enough to cover the extra cost of processing, so RCP is currently landfilled. However, the know-how and the technologies required to produce RCP at scale exist 22 . Recently, interest in RCP has grown because of interest in using it in a carbon mineralization process 23 , 24 , and start-up companies have been launched to sell specialist grinding equipment 25 . Thus, a nascent market for RCP now exists.

Here we report an innovation that arises from the combination of the above observations: electric cement recycling at scale. In the process shown in Fig. 3e , and described in the patent application 26 for Cambridge Electric Cement (CEC), the emitting lime flux used in steel recycling is replaced by recovered cement paste that has already been decarbonated so will release no further process emissions, although it may require small adjustment with lime. The paste is reclinkered as it is fluxed into a slag. The higher temperature of the EAF (compared with cement kilns) both maintains as gas the sulfates and chlorides that held back earlier reclinkering trials and favours the production of alite over belite. The slag is cooled and ground to produce a conventional Portland clinker in an all-electric process, which, with a decarbonized grid, has neither process nor combustion emissions. This approach will in parallel reduce the emissions of steel recycling by reducing the need for flux production. Both steel recycling slags can be made cementitious by this approach, with the ladle slags being closer to cement composition. However, in this paper, we focus on the EAF (oxidizing) slags as their volume is larger.

In the context of steel recycling, fluxes are the minerals added to the steel and slag is the resulting viscous layer floating on top of the molten steel. In this paper, we aim to demonstrate that with the right composition of flux based on hydrated or recovered cement paste, the slag, when cooled rapidly, becomes clinker, the artificial mineral that, after grinding and blending, can be made into cement.

To evaluate the proposed new process route, 28 slags were produced from flux derived from cement paste both prepared for this purpose and recovered from demolition waste. Lime, alumina and silica were added to the fluxes. The composition of a selection of these slags is given in Table 1 , with the full set specified in the  Supplementary Information . The slags were processed in induction furnaces over clean steel with various crucibles and oxidizing conditions. In an industrial EAF, oxidation and reduction occur in a controlled sequence: these effects are tested separately here. The slags were air-cooled: at this scale, cooling rates of 10–20 K s −1 at least are achieved, which is fast enough to stabilize alite. The slags were then ground and characterized. Some of the slags with compositions matching conventional clinker listed in Table 2 were blended and used to make mortar bars.

The diffractograms of selected slags are shown in Fig. 1 . The diffractograms of all slags close to from the alite-forming zone (Fig. 1a , yellow) have the main peaks of cementitious phases typical of Portland cement: alite (C 3 S), belite (C 2 S) as well as C 4 AF, and tricalcium aluminate (C 3 A). In general, the phases present are those predicted in the thermodynamic CaO–SiO 2 –Al 2 O 3 –Fe 2 O 3 system (Fig. 1a ). Rietvield refinement indicates that alite and belite together account for more than 70% of the products in most of the slags made in the zone in which commercial cement kilns operate (indicated by the narrow yellow region in Fig. 1a in which Al 2 O 3 is below 6%). For reference, Portland cement should normatively contain 66.7% by mass of alite and belite 27 . Using this criterion, our process route can make Portland clinkers over a fairly wide zone. In the belite-forming zone (Fig. 1a , orange region), ghelenite is also sometimes observed. Ghelenite (C 2 AS) is the dominant species in the ghelenite zone (Fig. 1a , pink region). The effective lime-to-silica ratio ( Methods ) is an excellent predictor of the silicate phases that will form (Fig. 1b ).

a , Ternary diagram pair presenting the oxide composition of the slags studied in the SiO 2 –CaO–Al 2 O 3 and SiO 2 –CaO–Fe 2 O 3 systems measured using XRF. Every oxide composition was analysed by X-ray diffraction, and the resulting crystallographic composition is shown as a pie chart. Right, a detail of the SiO 2 -CaO-Al 2 O 3 ternary diagram on the left. b , Percentage of gehlenite in the slag and the fraction of alite over total alite and belite in the tested systems both as a function of ( C / S )*, the available lime-to-silica ratio for the formation of silicate phases. The method for calculating ( C / S )* is given in the Methods . The grey shaded region represents the range of C / S for which both Alite and Belite can form. c , Diffractograms and phase compositions of selected slags produced in this work. γ, C 2 S-γ; β, C 2 S-β; m, C 3 S-monoclinic; g, ghelenite; a, C 3 A cubic; c, graphite; and q, quartz. d , Comparison between the tested slags and compositions reported in the literature. The literature used to create this figure is given in Supplementary Table 3 . Med., medium; Com., commercial; a.u., arbitrary units.

The X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analysis of selected slags is provided in Table 1 (for full results, see Supplementary Table 1 ). The oxide composition of the resulting slags does not differ markedly when using carbon or magnesium crucibles (Supplementary Fig. 1 ) indicating that over clean steel, there is no significant exchange of species between the slag and the melt. Early experiments performed with an aluminium oxide lining exhibited significant aluminium leaching (Supplementary Fig. 1 ) and were therefore abandoned. The contamination inherent to steel scrap used in commercial operations would introduce silica and alumina to the slag: the same final compositions would then be reached by adding more lime (CaO) to the flux.

RCP contains a higher proportion of SiO 2 than HCP, almost certainly derived from aggregates still attached to the paste (Fig. 1a ). Assuming that feedstock cement has the composition of the CEM I we used as a control, the RCP would contain 52% HCP and 48% impurities. Once corrected by adding lime to have the right balance of calcium and silica (Table 3 ), it reclinkers as well as pure hydrated paste.

The metallurgical function of EAF oxidizing slags is to allow the dephosphorization of steel while limiting sulfur in the melt. The slag compositions we tested overlap with those reported in the literature (Fig. 1d ) and have the appropriate chemistry. To verify their suitability for EAF operations, slags of typical composition were used, and the resulting steel composition was tested but using a considerably larger flux-to-steel ratio than would be practical in present-day furnace designs (roughly 9:30 compared with 1:30). Despite these unfavourable conditions, only very small amounts of sulfur transferred into the steel (Table 4 ). In steel-making, following further desulfurization, so far most alloys have a sulfur concentration of less than 0.05% (ref.  28 ), which can be achieved easily from the values reported in Table 4 . This confirms that the basic slags produced from the proposed process can be used in EAFs to de-phosphorize steel.

The cement setting time was measured using calorimetry at 240–280 min (Fig. 2a , ±20 min after 29 , the middle point between the dormant period trough and the peak of the silicate hydration peak). Mortars made with the cements were fairly easy to place with small additions of superplasticizer required for the slags made in graphite crucibles (GC80) and for LC 3 mixes. No early setting or flash setting was observed. No bleeding was observed (Fig. 2d , second from the left). On demoulding, the samples were inspected and no defects were found (Fig. 2d , third from the left). All cements, both pure and those blended with calcined clay and limestone, exhibited similar strength development to those made with commercial clinker despite being undersulfated (Supplementary Fig. 2 ), and containing a fraction of contaminants probably introduced when the crucible was scraped during tapping (Fig. 1c ). The relationship between strength development and heat release (Fig. 2a,c ) for both our new clinker and a conventional commercial clinker was similar. Higher belite content is associated with lower early strength, whereas higher alite relates to higher early age strength (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Table 2 ). The improved performance of commercial cement (compared with that made from commercial clinker) is because of finer grinding 30 (Fig. 2b ). With commercial grinding equipment the clinker produced with the new process is likely to have the same grindability as commercial clinkers (Fig. 2b ).

a , Instantaneous and cumulative heat released by high- and medium-alite cement and high-C 3 A cement produced with the new process, commercial clinker ground in the same conditions and commercial cement produced with the commercial clinker shown for reference. b , Cumulative and frequency plots of the particle size distributions of the cements used for the strength tests. c , Strength evolution of cements produced using the new process, both as pure cements and LC 3 blends. d , Slag as poured from the furnace, fresh and hardened mortar bars; sample after compression failure. Med., medium; Com., commercial; gyp., gypsum.

Together, these results demonstrate the production of Portland cement by reclinkering HCP or RCP on a bed of molten steel. The slags arising from the new flux have the right composition for their metallurgical function. The mineralogy of the output can be tuned as in any conventional kiln, and high-quality clinker can be produced.

Figure 3a confirms the emissions saving from electric cement recycling and anticipates production costs comparable with those of present-day cement that are dominated by the price of fuel and SCMs 31 . All processes are electrified, and both the extra costs and total power requirements of the new process are dominated by heating old concrete before crushing. This is currently required to separate a clean stream of RCP but will be optimized in future. With a decarbonized grid, the only emissions of co-production arise from the small remaining requirement for lime flux, and these would be allocated between the two materials by negotiation. The amount of lime flux required in EAFs depends on the steel scrap feedstock and the furnace design. Clean steel requires less flux to bind residue from the steel, but more to create enough slag to cover the electrodes. All such flux could be replaced with RCP to produce cement. By contrast, although less clean steel requires less flux to cover the electrodes, more is needed to bind with unwanted silica to ensure high slag basicity required for steel quality. In this case, adding RCP to the flux would not reduce lime use but would still produce additional mass of clinker without increasing the emissions of steel recycling. Therefore, Fig. 3a distinguishes the emissions savings from a typical reduction in lime use and those from avoiding conventional cement production. The fact that operating expenses are much greater than capital or labour costs, suggests that the market viability demonstrated here for the UK will translate to other countries.

LC 3 -50 is 50% clinker, 30% calcined clay, 15% limestone and 5% gypsum; CEC is the process described in this paper. a , Emissions are estimated based on global data, whereas costs are estimated for the UK. The four recipes for electric cement (CEC) use global average or future zero emissions electricity, with or without blending with calcined clay and are compared with ordinary Portland cement and LC 3 -50. Full details of the sources and calculation of these estimates are provided in the  Supplementary Information . b , Representation of the range of concrete compositions and the outcomes of separation (W is water). c , Historical and projected cement and clinker production worldwide, implied RCP availability assuming a 50-year lifetime for buildings (left); global cement-related emissions under a range of scenarios (right); the potential supply of RCP is greater than that which could be used in EAFs but production could be increased if new dedicated EAFs are built to produce cement. d , The current material flows and industrial operations for the production of bulk construction materials. e , The material flows anticipated if the process described in this paper is deployed at scale in the UK and all arising steel scrap is recycled domestically. cem., cement; decarb, decarbonized.

The overall supply chain reconfiguration is extensive (compare Fig. 3d,e ), but every change can be economically viable. Figure 3d draws on current estimates of mass flows in the UK: steel demand is around 15 Mt yr −1 , mainly from imports, leading to around 10 Mt yr −1 of scrap, most of which is currently exported 32 ; cement demand is around 13 Mt yr −1 , requiring clinker production of around 9 Mt yr −1 (ref.  33 ). Total construction and demolition waste is around 68 Mt yr −1 (refs.  34 , 35 ), most of which is concrete. A conservative estimate is that 4–4.5 Mt of RCP could be produced with a 60% collection rate. The data in Fig. 3e assume that scrap steel volumes approach annual demand to reach 14 Mt yr −1 and that all UK steel scrap is recycled domestically, following the expansion of EAF capacity. This defines the total capacity for electric cement production. In this study, experiments used 5–30% of the steel mass as the input flux mass. EAFs can operate now with up to 20–30% slag. Although this could be increased, higher values are at present considered undesirable as slag is a waste by-product now, so the figure assumes a slag-to-steel ratio of 1:7, or 14%.

All processes, norms, practices and habits in the construction industry are centred around Portland cement. Therefore, it would be difficult for any new material to replace it, unless it had considerable advantages. As Portland cement is made from the most abundant elements in the crust of Earth, it is unlikely that any potential substitute could be cheaper or available in equivalent volume. Despite its requirement for high temperatures, the present production of Portland cement is already energy-efficient, exploiting molten iron and aluminium oxide phases to transport ions. Therefore, the only practical avenues for decarbonizing cement production depend on altering the range of allowable compositions, using new SCMs or changing the process by which cement is produced. Recycling Portland cement as proposed here saves the process emissions and the bulk of the energy required for production 36 .

The proposed industrial symbiosis needs careful development: both steel-making and clinkering processes require careful chemical tuning but as steel is more expensive, its requirements would dominate decision-making. Substituting RCP for lime flux should make no marked change to the steel quality or the air pollution created during the EAF process, so the existing regimes of exhaust scrubbing should remain appropriate. In co-production with steel, cement would have a higher iron content because of rheological requirements for slags. However, our experiments show that the cement composition can be tuned with additions of lime to target-optimized blends. The cement produced using this new process can have a higher alite fraction than previously published results 15 or commercial clinker (Fig. 1b ).

Figure 3e suggests that about 2.2 Mt of the new clinker could be produced in the UK annually in co-production with steel. If this is blended with calcined clay, it could make about 4.5 Mt of LC 3 -50 cement. This could meet the final demand when combined with the strategies of material efficiency. In particular, avoiding overdesign 9 , extending life and increasing the use 10 could deliver the services with less than half of total cement production. However, the total production of the electrically recycled cement in the UK will not be limited by RCP availability. EAF operators could choose to produce more slag than what is produced now, which might also increase the quality of steel production. The increase in costs would be offset by new revenue from the recycled cement. If EAF operators find this commercially attractive and double the amount of slag produced with each batch of steel, the overall output of this process in the UK could be as much as 10 Mt.

Figure 3c expands this analysis to look at the global potential scale of the new process. In the present work, we have assumed that electrically recycled cement will initially be made in co-production with recycled steel, to minimize new capital investments. If global EAF capacity expands as anticipated and all resulting slag is processed into LC 3 cements, this would lead to around 1.4 Gt of electric cement and 2 Gt of CO 2 abatement. However, if additional dedicated EAFs are installed and used solely for the electrical production of cement over a constant volume of steel, we estimate that global production of the new cement could be as much as 2.4 Gt leading to emissions abatement of 3 Gt compared with a scenario with no abatement. This represents an 80% abatement of sectoral emissions otherwise expected in 2050. The total potential is constrained not only by EAF capacity but also by the quality of RCP separation and the contamination of steel scrap.

This study demonstrates that using existing industrial-scale equipment it is possible to recycle Portland cement into Portland cement in an all-electric process. The process can be operated as co-production with steel recycling or for the exclusive production of cement using an EAF with a small untapped pool of molten steel. The process is fundamentally a material substitution within existing processes, equipment and standards, and so it could scale rapidly. It creates the first zero-emissions alternative to existing cement production, to our knowledge, which accounts for 7.5% of the present anthropogenic emissions.

We have prepared cement pastes and mortars for demonstrating the process as well as blending cements for characterization and to make mortar.

To prepare HCP, cement provided by Tarmac (CEM I 52.5N) was used with a water-to-cement ratio of 0.6 at room temperature. The oxide composition of the original cement is given in Extended Data Table 1 , which also specifies the oxide composition of the other additions used to create the fluxes in these trials. The cement was kept in sealed containers and cured for 6 months to ensure it was almost fully hydrated. The blocks of cement pastes were then fired at 500 °C in a muffle furnace. The final loss on ignition was 13.7%. Recovered paste was obtained from the dust collector of the concrete processing plant of Day Aggregates. It was not subject to any treatment.

The raw meal flux was prepared using homogeneously mixed powders crushed to less than 5 mm in size.

Several steel sources were used: high-purity steel (electrolytic iron flake from Willian Rowland, lot no. 16M-134), steel ingots and steel balls (composition measured by optical emission spectroscopy is given in Extended Data Table 2 ).

The ground clinkers were blended with calcium sulfate dihydrate (gypsum) in powder form (VWR Chemicals, AnalaR NORMAPUR) to make cements. The amount of gypsum was adjusted to allow measurement of the effect of gypsum addition on early age reactivity (Fig. 2a and Supplementary Fig. 2 ). The mortars were prepared following EN 196-1, using standard sand (Société nouvelle du littoral) at a water-to-binder ratio of 0.5. Limestone calcined clay cements (LC 3 ) were prepared by blending clinker (50%) with 30% metakaolin (supplied by Imerys), 15% ground limestone and 5% calcium sulfate dihydrate. The mix proportions are given in Extended Data Table 3 . The addition of some superplasticizers (Masterglenium 51, Master Builders) was necessary to ensure workability for some mixes, particularly with the LC 3 blends.

Three furnaces of different sizes and operating conditions were used.

A small-size magnesium oxide crucible (MO2) of 100 mm height and 50 mm diameter, under inert conditions (flushed with argon) was used with 500 g high-purity steel and 100 g powder of raw meal flux. The flux was loaded on top of the steel, which was heated up to 1,650–1,750 °C and held for 15 min. The slag was stirred once using a steel rod during the heating cycle and was tapped out on a 20-mm thick steel plate. The slag samples were slightly oxidized during the mixing and tapping out process.

A medium-size graphite crucible (GC80) of dimensions 300 mm height and 100 mm diameter loaded with 12 kg iron balls and 2 kg raw meal powder was heated in reducing conditions (due to the leaching of carbon from the crucible), in an induction furnace powered by three-phase 50 Hz electricity, generating single phase output power of 112 kW, 1,200/600 V and 220/440 A at 2–3.3 kHz. The furnace is equipped with a 750-l capacity water tank for cooling, operated between 2.8 bar and 6.2 bar pressure, providing IP54 degree of protection. The flux was loaded on top of the steel and heated to 1,650–1,750 °C. During the process, it was stirred with long steel rods. After holding at this temperature for 15 min, the slag was tapped off using steel rods to scrape it into a steel box. The slag was spread on the box to ensure fast cooling. After the slag was tapped off, new flux was added, repeating the entire process. Typically, three to five different slags were produced from each of the melts.

A large-size induction furnace with alumina lining (AL250) from Capital Refractories with a Coral GR9 lining made of 80–90% aluminium oxide and 10–20% magnesium oxide was used in mildly oxidizing conditions. The furnace is powered by a three-phase 295 kVA, 415 V, 50 Hz power supply, generating an output of 250 kW and 1,000 Hz. The AL250 had 700 mm height and 300 mm diameter and was loaded with 200 kg steel ingot and 10 kg raw meal powder. First, steel was allowed to melt and then flux was added on top. The furnace was heated up to 1,650–1,700 °C for about 30 min. The slag was tapped into a steel box for cooling.

After cooling, the slags were crushed to less than 5 mm to allow for the removal of steel residuals using magnets. Furthermore, the slag from the small furnace (MO2) was ground in a planetary ring mill for 30–60 s, and the slags from the other two furnaces were ground in a ball mill with steel balls as charge. The ball mill was operated for 3 h at 16 rpm, with charge-to-feed-mass ratio of 1:7. The raw meal was prepared using different materials to cover a range of flux composition. Further details of raw meal blending are given in Table 3 .

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) analyses were performed with a Rigaku ZSX Primus IV XRF spectrometer, using the quantitative Fluxana Raw calibration application. Lithium borate was used as the flux in the bead-making process. The sample-to-flux ratio was 1:10. All samples were fired in a muffle furnace before bead making. The heating profile was as follows: set point 900 °C, heating rate: 3 °C min −1 , hold time: 5 h.

X-ray diffraction was performed with a Bruker D8 advance spectrometer with cobalt anode (Co Kα 1  = 1.789 Å) operated at 35 kV and 35 mA. A cobalt source was preferred over copper to minimize the fluorescence from Fe–K edge emissions. The samples were front-loaded and the scan range was 5–70° 2 θ with a step size of 0.02° 2 θ and a time per step of 0.5 s. Each measurement took around 30 min. The Rietveld analysis to quantify the crystalline phase content was performed using Topas Academic v.7 software. The lattice parameters and crystallite size were allowed to refine, whereas the atomic positions were not refined. The amorphous content of the two highly amorphous samples was determined by the external standard method using corundum as the standard. Determining the amorphous content of other clinkers was difficult as a McCrone mill was not available, and it is crucial to mill the particle down to low fineness to ensure the amorphous content is measured appropriately 37 .

Optical emission spectroscopy measurements were performed with an Amtek Spectrolab S.

The mortars were mixed according to the provisions of EN 196-1. The mix proportions are given in Supplementary Table 3 . The surface of the mortar was smoothed using a trowel, the mortars were covered with a plastic wrap and left to set for 24 h. At 24 h, the mortars were demoulded and put to cure under water in a room of temperature 23 ± 2 °C.

For strength testing, the samples were taken out of the water and wiped. The bars were cut using a diamond saw into 40 mm cubes. The cubes were loaded in compression, as per EN 196-1, with the casting surface on the side and a loading rate of 2,400 N s −1 . The peak load ( L ) and the area of the cube ( A ) were recorded, and the compressive strength ( F c ) on days 2, 7 and 28 was reported as

( C / S )* is the ratio relevant for the formation of calcium silicates. It is calculated from the CaO, SiO 2 , Al 2 O 3 and Fe 2 O 3 content from XRF, as well as FeO and metallic iron (Fe) and the free lime content determined from X-ray diffraction (XRD). The total Fe 2 O 3 content in slag is determined from

All the Fe 2 O 3 is then assumed to form C 4 AF. The CaO required for the formation of C 4 AF is

And the CaO required to form C 3 A from the residual Al 2 O 3 is

Then ( C / S )* is

Negative values of ( C / S )* indicate that no alite or belite can form. However, the amount of lime, alumina and silica in the system determines the amount of ghelenite formed.

Data availability

All data from the experiments reported in this paper are contained in the tables of the main paper and Supplementary Information .

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Acknowledgements

This work was supported in part by EPSRC (grant EP/S019111/1, UK FIRES and grant EP/W026104/1, Cambridge Electric Cement) and Innovate UK (grant G116761, Cement2Zero).

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These authors contributed equally: Cyrille F. Dunant, Shiju Joseph, Rohit Prajapati, Julian M. Allwood

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Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge, UK

Cyrille F. Dunant, Shiju Joseph, Rohit Prajapati & Julian M. Allwood

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C.F.D. designed the overall programme of trials and with J.M.A. conceptualized the paper, designed the detailed experimental trials, conducted analysis and wrote the text and Supplementary Information . S.J. and R.P. contributed to the experimental design, performed experimental work and analysis and contributed to editing of the text.

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Correspondence to Cyrille F. Dunant or Julian M. Allwood .

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C.F.D. and J.M.A. are named in the patent associated with the process described in this paper 26 and are founder-directors of the company Cambridge Electric Cement, which has been created to promote the use of the patent.

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Dunant, C.F., Joseph, S., Prajapati, R. et al. Electric recycling of Portland cement at scale. Nature 629 , 1055–1061 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07338-8

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Received : 23 February 2023

Accepted : 20 March 2024

Published : 22 May 2024

Issue Date : 30 May 2024

DOI : https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-024-07338-8

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