Composing A Medical Research Paper: Structure And Functions

A medical research paper may be a new experience for many medical students. During undergraduate school, most students have to write papers in their history, biology, economics or other classes. Although medical writing is very similar to the other sciences, it has certain style and research requirements. Before writing this style of paper, students should make sure that they understand what is expected of them.

In some classes, the professor will choose what the student should write about. Other teachers will let students pick any topic in a broad subject area. If the student gets to choose their topic, they should begin brainstorming immediately. The student should take a brief survey of the available research to make sure that they can adequately write about a given topic. In addition, they should look up potential background information and other sources.

Students can be amazing writers, but they will not get a good score on their research paper if they do not actually do the research. For students to demonstrate the quality of their work, they need to carefully track all of their sources. As the student opens up a new source, they should immediately write down all of the bibliographical information. Beneath this information, they can list any statistics, data or page numbers that they plan on using. Later on, these notes will be invaluable in creating the bibliography.

A medical essay is really like any other type of writing; students should make an outline. With an outline, students can decide in advance where they will use specific pieces of the research. They can organize their argument into a logical, coherent order. In addition, students can use their outline to prevent writer's block. Since the student always knows the exact topic that will come next, they never have to worry about what they plan on writing. To make the writing process even easier, some students will write the complete introduction and conclusion in their outline. This helps students to figure out where their argument starts as well as where it will ultimately end.

Almost every research paper is going to require an abstract. This portion of the document is intended to summarize the entirety of the text in just one paragraph. In addition, keywords will be listed below the summary. These keywords will be used to organize the document in academic databases, so the student should carefully consider which keywords that they want to use.