5 Tips On How To Organize Research Papers

Do not index

You’ve chosen a research topic and uncovered a wealth of sources, and now it’s time to start writing your paper. But then, you open your folders and realize you didn’t organize your research. You’re hit with panic as you open random files, hoping to find something that makes sense. If only you had spent a little time upfront organizing those research papers to streamline the writing process.

Learning how to organize research papers is essential to developing research skills. Not only will it help relieve the stress that comes with writing academic papers, but it will also help you produce better work. This article will show you how to organize your research to improve your writing skills and create more straightforward and efficient papers, summaries, and articles with AI.

Unriddle's AI research assistant can help you achieve these objectives and improve your research skills. This powerful tool can quickly read and organize your research, so you don’t have to. Next, it helps you write better by making the connections between your sources and your writing explicit.

What Is A Research Paper?

Research papers come in all shapes and sizes. The one constant to this genre of writing is that they are an objective way to explore a topic. A research paper is an expanded essay that presents your interpretation, evaluation, or argument on a particular subject. When writing an essay, you use everything you know and have thought about a subject.

When you write a research paper, you build upon what you know about the subject and deliberately attempt to discover what experts know. A research paper involves surveying a field of knowledge to find the best possible information. And that survey can be orderly and focused if you know how to approach it.

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How Do I Structure My Research Papers

1. The Title: Your Research Paper's First Impression

Your research paper's title is its first impression, so make it count. It should be specific enough to indicate the focus of your study and attract the reader’s interest. A good title often includes the study's variables and the population being examined.

2. The Introduction: Get Ready to Hook Your Readers

The introduction of your research paper is where you’ll prepare your readers for what they can expect to find in your study. Start with a hook to grab their attention, then introduce your research topic and explain why it’s essential. Next, provide some background information to help readers understand the scope of your study before narrowing your focus to your specific research objectives. Finally, include your thesis statement, which will serve as a summary of your findings.

3. The Literature Review: An Overview of Existing Research

In the literature review, you’ll detail existing research relevant to your study. This section is essential because it helps establish your research's foundation. In this part of the research paper, you’ll summarize scholarly articles and other credible sources to identify trends in the literature, areas that require further investigation, and how your study will contribute to the existing body of knowledge.

4. The Methodology: How Did You Conduct Your Research?

The methodology section of a research paper explains how you conducted your research. This part of a research paper is important for establishing the validity of your study. In this section, you’ll detail the techniques you used to collect data, including whether you employed qualitative or quantitative methods. You’ll also describe your research design (e.g., experimental, correlational, etc.) and provide information about any materials or participants involved in your study.

5. The Results: What Did You Find?

In the results section of a research paper, you’ll report the findings of your study. This part of a research paper is often presented using objective language and may include tables, graphs, and other visuals to help illustrate the data. You should also identify any patterns or trends in the data while remaining impartial. Avoid concluding this section; instead, reserve that for the discussion.

6. The Discussion: What Do Your Results Mean?

The discussion section of a research paper is where you’ll interpret the findings of your study. This is one of the most critical parts of a research paper because it explains the significance of your research. In this section, you’ll summarize the results and then explore how they relate to your original hypothesis and the existing literature. You can also identify any research limitations and suggest areas for future studies.

7. The Conclusion: Finishing Your Research Paper

A research paper's conclusion is similar to an essay's conclusion in that it summarizes the main points of your study. In this section, you’ll restate your thesis, the significance of your research, and any practical applications.

8. The Reference Page: Where You Credit Your Sources

The reference page (or bibliography) is where you’ll list all the sources you cited in your research paper. Properly crediting outside sources is essential for avoiding plagiarism and lending credibility to your work. The reference page should be formatted according to the citation style specified by your instructor.

5 Tips On How To Organize Research Papers

1. Crafting an Effective File Management System

Establish a file management system to categorize your research literature. At first, it’s not necessary to create a narrow filing system. Instead, focus on sorting papers into broad areas of your field. Once you get deeper into your own research, you can narrow down your filing system to reflect your specific needs. Here are some methods to get you started:

Don’t waste your time on engaging but not useful papers

In your research, what’s the most essential part of a particular paper? If you find that section first, you won’t have to pay attention to other sections of that paper.

What is the argument behind your research?

Make notes on that information, and then throw everything else away.

Create multiple folders

Create a file containing related topics if you’re using a computer. Bind the related articles together if you would like to print out papers. In other words, keep related things together!

Color code your research papers.

To organize notes and articles, assign colors to each subtopic and use highlighters, tabs, or font colors.

Organize your literature chronologically.

Even in a short period, you might have missed overarching themes or arguments if you hadn’t read them previously. It’s best to organize your research papers chronologically.

If you want to do all this simultaneously, use a reference manager like Zotero or Mendeley.

2. The Importance of File Renaming

Rename files according to your strategy when organizing research articles on your computer. Taking this step will save you time and confusion as your research progresses. For example, organizing your research articles by the last names of the lead authors will simplify your citation and referencing process since you have to cite the names of the researchers everywhere. The articles will also be easier to find because they’ll be lined up alphabetically by any researcher’s name you can remember.

3. Using Keywords Wisely

Keywords are the most critical part of sorting. It’s easy to forget to move a paper to a specific file sometimes because you’re overwhelmed. But you can tag a paper in seconds. Don’t forget to develop a better keyword system when organizing research papers, especially if you use a reference manager. My reference manager, for instance, allows me to view all the keywords I have assigned in the main window, making life much easier.

4. The Benefits of Creating Annotations

When reading literature, it is very important to create your annotations. The best thing to do is summarize each section of the article/book you read that interests you. Don’t forget to include the essential parts/arguments/quotes you liked.

5. Why You Should Write Your Own Notes

If you decide to read the whole paper, write your summary. The reason is that 95% of your reading will be forgotten after a certain period. When that happens, you may have to reread the paper if you do not take notes and write my summary. By writing my summary,

I will likely memorize the basic idea of the research paper. Additionally, I can link to other similar papers. In this way, I can benefit from the knowledge I gain from reading research papers. After reading a paper, make sure to ask these questions:

Why is this source helpful for your essay?

How does it support my thesis?

Keep all the relevant information in one place to refer to it when writing your thesis.

5 Must-Have Tools For Organizing Research Papers

1. Unriddle AI: Research Papers Made Easy

Unriddle AI lets you read faster and write better. You can quickly find info in documents, simplify complex topics, take notes, and write with the power of AI. Thousands of researchers and students trust Unriddle from the classroom to the boardroom. Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand info.

Unriddle understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to relevant things you’ve read and written about. Highlight text and Unriddle will show you the most relevant sources from your library using AI. Never lose a citation again. Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documents in real-time and much more!

Read faster & write better — try Unriddle for free today.

2. Zotero: The Open-Source Citation Manager

Zotero is a free desktop and web citation manager with extensive tools to add, organize, and share your citations. It is straightforward to use and has features comparable to those of paid citation managers on the desktop version. All accounts have access to collaborative group libraries. The Zotero Connector browser extensions allow you to add citations to your library with one click and are available for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, and Edge.

Zotero uses your computer's storage to save citations, sync data across devices, and back it up using cloud storage. The app also allows you to take notes and edit PDFs. Zotero offers 300 MB of free cloud storage and paid storage upgrades.

Pros

Relatively easy to learn

all features come with the free version, and all software upgrades are free

collaborative group libraries

add citations with one click with Zotero Connector

open-source software.

Cons

Requires desktop/laptop application to use all features

Only 300 MB of free cloud storage

No first-party mobile app for Android

No professional customer support services

3. Mendeley: The Researcher's Best Friend

Mendeley is a free reference manager that can help you store, organize, note, share and cite references and research data: Automatically generate bibliographies Collaborate easily with other researchers online Easily import papers from other research software Find relevant papers based on what you're reading Access your papers from anywhere online.

Pros

The web and desktop applications have a slick interface that is great for people who are not as computer-savvy

Mendeley is available in almost anything, including a Chrome web extension, bookmarklets for other browsers, and a mobile app.

Search tools based on what you have already added to your working citation library.

Cons

Cannot correctly cite government publications

Does not support Google Docs

Annotations made in Mendeley are not exported with your PDF files.

There are no accessibility features or screen reader compatibility (although it does allow system ease of access features like magnification and high contrast text).

4. Connected Papers: Visualizing Research Literature

Connected Papers is a unique visual tool that helps researchers and scientists find, explore, organize, and understand academic papers relevant to their field through interactive graphical representations.

Pros

Intuitive visual representation of academic literature

Time-saving tool for literature discovery and exploration

Supports various scientific fields

Helps identify essential papers and research trends.

Cons

Limited to 5 graphs per month on the free plan

Relies on the accuracy and coverage of the Semantic Scholar database

May not capture all nuances of paper relationships.

5. Research Rabbit: Follow the Right Cited Paper Trail

Research rabbit is a tool that makes you go down the rabbit hole. Like Connected papers, you can visualize networks of papers and co-authorships. Enter a paper of choice and get all its relevant papers. Click on this newly generated list of associated papers to see another list of relevant papers. Then, continue the process forever.

Pros

It uses artificial intelligence to help researchers save time and improve the quality of their research.

It allows researchers to visualize papers and discover author networks using interactive graphs. It offers personalized digests of the latest papers related to the user's collections.

It is accessible for researchers forever.

It supports citation management and article summarization.

Cons

It may not cover all the relevant sources or databases for a specific research topic.

It may be unable to handle complex or ambiguous queries or provide accurate summaries of long or technical papers.

It may not be compatible with some citation styles or formats.

It may need more user reviews or feedback to evaluate its reliability or usability.

It may not offer enough customization or personalization options for users' preferences or needs.

Complete Step-by-Step Guide On How To Use Unriddle's AI Research Tool

Here is a step-by-step guide on how to use Unriddle. I’ve also copied it below :)

From here, it's pretty simple.

Unriddle helps you read, write and learn faster.

Interact with documents via AI so you can quickly find and understand info.

Then start writing in a new Note and Unriddle will show you relevant content from your library as you type.

Get started by uploading a document.

Or read on for the full rundown.

Interact with documents

When you upload a document, Unriddle generates an AI assistant on top of this data.

Click 'New' in the right sidebar and then select 'Upload' to get started.

Use this assistant to answer specific questions about the text, summarize content and simplify jargon.

The trick is to be super clear about what you want.

If you're summarizing a research paper, for example, instead of saying “Summarize” or “Summarize this research paper”, say something like “Explain this research paper to me in simple terms. What method did the researchers use? What did they find? Why does it matter?”.

The second prompt will produce a much better overview of the paper because we're giving the AI more hints about what we want.

Automatic relations

Unriddle grasps the context behind each Note and Document in your library and automatically links them based on meaning.

Let's say you have a collection of nuclear physics papers in your library.

When you start writing a note about The Manhattan Project, simply mentioning "The Manhattan Project" will prompt Unriddle to find the connection between this note and the nuclear physics papers.

Even if you didn't explicitly mention the research papers, Unriddle's knowledge of Oppenheimer, his work, and the significant relevance of these papers means it understands the connection and automatically links them together.

In short, Unriddle shows you relevant content from your library at the exact moment you need it, even if you haven't explicitly mentioned it.

Citing your sources

Writing is hard when you have a ton of sources to track.

So we made it easy.

Highlight some text, click ‘Cite’ and you’ll see items from your library that contain information related to the selection of text you just highlighted as determined by our AI.

When you select an item Unriddle inserts a link into highlighted text that, when clicked, takes you to the referenced item.

Writing with AI

Click ‘New’ in the sidebar and hit ‘Note’ to open up a new note.

Here you’ll find all the text formatting options you’re used to and more.

Type ‘++’ to generate text based on the context of what’s already written.

Highlight text and click ‘Ask AI’ to open up the AI menu where you’ll find options to improve, expand, summarize and explain.

You can type custom prompts too!

Finally, you can open any note in a pane on the right side of the screen while interacting with documents. Just click the orange pencil icon at the top of the chat window.

Adjust the model, temperature and response length in the Setting sidebar.

Click the cog icon in the top right corner of the screen and look for "Chat Settings".

These apply across all documents but you can easily flip between them regardless of settings at the time of upload.

Model: the machine learning model used to generate responses.

Temperature: the amount of creative license you give to the AI.

Max length: the maximum number of words generated in a response.

Got feedback or questions? Send us an email and we'll get back to you within a day.

— Naveed

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How To Search For Research Articles Easily

When you aim to start reading research articles, your advisor and lab mates are great resources. They can point you to critical articles in your area of research. This method is fast, as it gets you reading quickly. The downside is that you are limited to what these individuals already know about your field.

Read A Review Paper First

Starting your search by reading a review paper in your field is also a suitable method. Review papers summarize what’s known about a particular topic and point out gaps in knowledge that can be explored further. They also provide a comprehensive list of references that can be used to identify critical research articles in the area. After reviewing, you can find and read the most relevant articles in the references.

Searching by Keywords

The next step in finding research articles is using scientific databases and search engines to search relevant literature using keywords. I primarily use Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus for these searches. Searches can be done by entering the keywords, subject area, and document type (e.g., review articles) and sorting by relevance.

Start to read from the most cited papers in your field. If you are interested in a specific researcher’s publications, you can follow them on Google Scholar, and you’ll be notified when they publish new articles. Lens.org is another good resource for searching, analyzing, and managing patent and scholarly data.

Subscribing to RSS Feeds

Subscribing to RSS feeds is another good way to keep up with recent research. Various apps, such as Researcher, Feedly, and Academia, can send notifications when new research papers of interest come out. Pick your favorite topics or journals to follow and get your daily feeds about research topics. You can even track when a paper is cited. These tools suit scientific literature, but you can use them for hobbies, favorite magazines, etc.

Following Blogs

Following blogs can be helpful, as well. As a chemistry student, I follow some of the ACS (American Chemical Society) and RSC (The Royal Society of Chemistry) blogs and blogs written by researchers and professors. If you are looking for something interesting to read, follow Retraction Watch. You’ll find the research articles retracted for fraud, ethical violations, and many other reasons there. Some stories can be pretty interesting.

Listening to Podcasts

Listening to podcasts can be an excellent way to broaden your knowledge. Usually, the content is less technical, and you can learn some basics about topics you are unfamiliar with.

Read Faster & Write Better With Unriddle for Free Today

Unriddle is an AI research assistant that helps students and researchers organize, analyze, and write about their research. Unriddle generates a customizable AI assistant on top of any document so you can quickly find, summarize, and understand information.

Unriddle AI understands the meaning behind your writing and automatically links you to sources you’ve read and written about. Highlight text, and Unriddle AI will show you the most relevant sources from your library. Generate text with AI autocomplete to improve and expand your writing, with suggestions based on the context of your work. Step into a collaborative workspace where everyone can contribute and chat with the same documents in real-time and much more!