“Writing is hard. It requires us to use multiple parts of the brain in an improbable symphony of high-strain effort. Our hippocampus summons relevant facts; the prefrontal cortex tries to organize them. A brain region known as Broca’s area helps us to narrate in a familiar inner voice; our verbal working memory stores and manipulates the narration as we transfer it to the page. Meanwhile, our brain recruits our spatial working memory, which evolved to track our location in physical space, to orient our words within a whole.” [Newport, Cal. “What Kind of Writer is ChatGPT?” Annals of Inquiry. The New Yorker, October 3, 2024]
This quote reveals why the simple act of writing is actually a complex endeavor that requires multiple parts of our brains to manage specific tasks all at the same time. Taking this into consideration, the purpose of this this guide is to help college students write a research paper for classes taught in the social and behavioral sciences. It is intended to ease the anxiety you may have about how to develop a quality research paper by describing how each section should be prepared and structured as well as introducing strategies for thinking about how to write effectively and with confidence.
See also: Organizing Your Social Sciences Research Assignments.