This PPT is about the most common errors we commit during writing a research paper

1. Dr Meenu Pandey
Professor & Head
Department of Humanities
LNCT,Bhopal
pmeenu91@gmail.com
9893987434

2. RESEARCH
 Discipline of Research –
Basic Science / Applied Science or Social
Sciences
 Nature of research-
Qualitative or Quantitative
 Type of Research –
Historical /Survey /Experimental /Descriptive

3. Elements of Any Research Paper
Take the time to clearly outline your research paper before you
begin to write, keep in mind what each section needs to
accomplish
 Title
 Abstract
 Introduction
 Reviews of Literature
 Objective/s
 Hypothesis/es
 Methodology (Sample/Sample Size/Tools / Data Analysis)
 Result Analysis
 Conclusion
 Implementations

4. COMMON ERRORS IN WRITING
A RESEARCH PAPER
LETTING YOUR DEADLINE SLIP
(PROCASTINATION)
 You never mean to do it, but somehow deadlines often
creep up out of nowhere.
 For big research papers, try making a timeline in your
planner.
 Schedule dates that you’d like to have certain tasks
completed (such as your outline and first draft),
 and maintain your progress.

5. LETTING YOUR DEADLINE SLIP
(PROCASTINATION)
“Chunking.”
 “You may be able to divide some of your research
tasks up into small chunks which can be tackled
whenever you have a little spare time. For
example, if you take photocopies of materials you
need to read.” Be sure to not wait until the last
minute to ask for help with things you should
have begun long ago, though.

6. BEING AFRAID TO ASK FOR HELP
 Everyone struggles with research paper writing
now and again.
 Professors, Advisors and Librarians will all be
eager to help you or give advice where they can.
Don’t hesitate to contact your professor if you’re
not sure how to get started or how to progress
with your paper; they’re there to help you.
 Schedule a meeting and bring along some of the
work you’ve done so far.

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

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

9. LIMITATIONS OF THE STUDY ARE
NOT ACKNOWLEDGED
One must mention the delimitations of
the study.
It is like outer most boundary of your
research.
Your discussion section tells readers what
your study is all about.
Including limitations shows a thorough
evaluation of your methods and result.

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

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

12. INCREMENTAL EXTENSION OF THE
AUTHOR’S PREVIOUS WORK
(SELF- PLAGIARISM)
 Where the author extended his own work,
published just a few months/years ago.
 The problem with that paper was that the
author just made a few minor changes before
submitting it as a new paper.
 A new paper should present on a same topic
should present at least 30 to 40 % new content
and there should be a significant difference
with the previous work.

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

14. DELETE ANY PARAGRAPH
WITHOUT CONSIDERING IT’S
IMPORTANCE IN A PAPER
 When asked to reduce size of paper ,this is the most
common practice.

15. PROOFREADING AND UNREADABLE
PAPERS
A paper should be well-written and the
author(s) proofread it before submitting
it.
 Some times we come across some
unreadable paper that look like they were
automatically translated by Google.
 (This is a guaranteed reject.)

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

17. THE RESEARCH QUESTION IS NOT
ANSWERED
Because the discussion section allows for
the most freedom, it also can be the most
difficult section to write. Before you start
this section, go back to your research
question and think about how you want
to answer it. Revisit your research
question frequently while writing the
discussion.

18. NOT USING PROPER CITATION
 If you use someone’s exact words, wrap that
thing in quotes and put a bow on top of it with a
proper internal citation.
 If you paraphrase, you still have to put the bow
on it – but you can leave the wrapping paper at
home.
 When writing a paper, it is recommended to add
a few newer references in your paper to show
that you are aware of the newest research.

19. NOT USING PROPER CITATION
 Several reviewers check the dates of the
references when evaluating a paper. For
example, I have read a paper recently where
all references where from before 2016. This is
a bad sign, since it is unlikely that nothing has
happened in a given field since 2016.
 Follow proper style of Citation for your
bibliography and Reference section.
 APA Style ,MLA Style, Chicago Style

20. POOR ORGANIZATION /
PARAGRAPHS SHOULD FLOW
NATURALLY
It is important that the various parts of
the research papers are connected by a
“flow”.
 What I mean is that when the reviewer is
reading your paper, each section or
paragraph should feel logically connected
the previous and next paragraphs.

21. FIGURES/CHARTS THAT DO NOT
LOOK GOOD OR ARE TOO SMALL
 About charts, it is important to make them look
good.
 Besides, a second mistake is to make the charts or
figures so small that they become unreadable.
 If the reviewer prints your paper to read it, he
should be able to read the text without using a
magnifying glass.
 Moreover, it should not be expected that the
reviewer will read the PDF version of your paper
and can zoom in.

22. FIGURES THAT ARE IRRELEVANT
 In some papers, authors put a lot of figures
that are irrelevant.
 For example, if a figure can be summarized
with one or two lines of text, it is better to
remove it.

23. POOR GRAMMAR
&
IMPROPER USE OF LANGUAGE
 Take help of your teacher/guide or subject
expert or colleague at any point in your writing,
especially when you’re polishing and finalizing
your research paper.
 Confirm about proper use of correct Spellings,
Punctuation marks ,Capitalization
 Proper use of grammar should be there.

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

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

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

27. A RESEARCH PAPER IS NOT
“CONNECT THE QUOTES”
 Some students/ researchers believe that a
research paper is 30-40% quotations – and
they simply connect commentary between
each additional quote. That’s not the way
research papers work.
 Good research papers should synthesize
material.
 Use original quotes sparingly, and avoid the
temptation to play connect the quotes.

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

29. THANK YOU