Writing a 20 page research paper or essay may be challenging for every student, turning a potentially exciting project into a real disaster. At one point, the paper seems to be totally undoable, taking too much effort and time for someone who has other subjects as well. This is why many students prefer to refer for help to the experts, ordering such long papers on academic assistance websites. However, if you decided to do this work on your own, try to use the tips below to be sure that you would succeed in your writing process.

 

Tip #1: Have enough time for preparation

If you have decided to cope with the assignment without any help, make sure that you have enough time to do it. While it is still possible to write a 10-page essay in one day, it is almost unreal to cover the research paper twice as big. Ideally, you should start preparing for the project on the very same week when you have received the assignment: just formulate the topic and the research question, take some notes and think about the way you will develop your arguments. In such a way, you will create a basis for your paper without any pressure, so once the deadline comes, you will know what to write about.

 

Tip #2: Choose an appropriate topic

Don’t choose the regular essay topic for a paper as long as 20 pages as you won’t have enough information to use. Instead, try to stick to the specific aspect of the broad topic: it will help you to utilize the paper length efficiently while adding points to you as a starting researcher. At the same time, while choosing the topic, be sure that it is widely discussed in the academic field so that you could find enough sources to rely on. 

 

Tip #3: Do a profound research

You will definitely not have enough ideas to use in the 20 page paper, so don’t rely on your fantasy and vision of the problem. Instead, spend some time in the library or on the Internet, searching for suitable literature that you would be able to use. It will make the writing process a lot easier as you will have the ready arguments that you can use, which additionally will improve the credibility of your essay. Therefore, try to find as many relevant sources as you can, trying to use the most suitable parts of them in the research.

 

Tip #4: Don’t try to fool your professor

Some students try to meet the requirement of 20 pages by easy hacks, like expanding the spacing, broadening the fields of the document, using the large fonts, or even pictures. In addition, they try to put a lot of direct quotes or even block citations to write as little as possible. Indeed, with such tricks, you will definitely expand the length of your essay; however, you will definitely not receive a high mark for such a work as your professor will not be satisfied by such an approach to studying.

 

Tip #5: Divide the paper into subsections and write each as a separate essay

This approach will help you to solve several problems at once. First, it is psychologically easier to write a short essay rather than a long one: you will feel much less pressure because of that. Secondly, you will be able to divide your work into parts and write in batches without the necessity to return to everything you have written previously, as each of your section will have a separate topic. Finally, all you will have to do after completing your part is to combine all of them, adding an introduction and conclusion.