When handling academic writing assignments, the length of a paper is among the top factors to consider. Failure to meet the length requirements often leads to penalties, including deducting a percentage of the marks, which puts the student at a disadvantage.
You might be asking yourself the appropriate length of a typical research paper. Yours is not an isolated case. Most students will ask for the optimal length of their term or research paper, especially in rare cases when the instructor/professor only gives instructions but the length limits.
When writing our research paper guide, we indicated that research papers are complex assignments that require keen planning, in-depth research, and organized presentation. Failure to meet the optimal length could mean you have under-explored a topic, and if you surpass the optimal length, you would over explored a concept or topic. The goal is to write a balanced research paper that considers all the rubric requirements and shows that you are aware of the edge cases or instructions.
Research papers contain critical analysis of evidence related to the topic, interpretation of findings, and recommendations. To do this, you should know your length limits to plan the paper well.
The standard length of a research paper depends on many factors, such as the topic, assignment instructions, scope of the research, number of sources, type of research paper, purpose of the research paper, and the complexity of the topic.
The standard length of a typical research paper is 4,000 – 6,000 words, which translates to 14 pages to 21 pages. However, you will not be surprised to see short research papers of around 1600 words and long papers above 10,000 words.
In terms of pages, a research paper should be between 15 and 50 pages long. However, some short papers have between 6 and 14 pages, which counts as short research papers.
Usually, the best way to get ideas about the required length is through the instructions or consult with your professor or instructor. By standard, research papers exploring complex issues or research topics will handle many issues together, making them have long arguments and many paragraphs, which makes them longer research papers.
A research paper is a collection of many parts, including a cover page, abstract, introduction, main body, conclusion, references, and appendices. If you are writing a scientific research paper, you must adhere to the IMRAD format, including the literature review, methodology, results/findings, analysis, and discussion sections. Therefore, the parts of your research paper will determine how long it will be.
Another factor is the complexity of the topic. If you are handling a complex research topic, expect it to be longer than a specific topic. The logic is simple; a specific topic needs a few paragraphs, while complex topics need more paragraphs to account for the arguments and counterarguments. By extension, the subject of your research paper will also dictate the length. If it is complex, you end up writing a long research paper than if it is easy.
The scope or extent of your findings will also determine how long your typical research paper is. If you have findings that require in-depth interpretation and analysis, you end up with a longer paper.
Therefore, the factors that determine the optimal length of a research paper include:
In terms of academic writing tasks, research papers rank higher than essays. A research paper has more parts compared to an essay that might only have three major parts. Besides, research papers contain a refined analysis and interpretation of evidence to back up the arguments.
The research paper introduction is a little in-depth and longer than an essay because it contains the hook, background statement (problem and purpose statement), thesis statement, and a signpost of what to expect in the subsequent paragraphs.
A research paper has a methodology section that details the research process, the data collection methods, and the data analysis approach.
It also has a literature review section exploring what other authors/researchers have presented about a topic. The literature review explores the past studies published in scholarly peer-reviewed articles to identify the research gaps and provide a rationale for the research.
The results section comprises all the findings of your research. In the discussion, you expound on the findings based on what is in the literature and make meaning out of the findings. Besides, you get to make conclusions and recommendations for future studies.
You can outline if you know the length of each part of a paper. See our detailed systematic guide on the research paper outline. For a term paper, ensure that you accurately present facts. Omitting any part of the research paper will have you looking for ways to make your paper longer, which only screams a lack of preparedness.
If your instructor or professor needs you to include an abstract, ensure it is between 200 and 300 words long. It should be clear, precise, and coherent to make it relatable to the readers. Some research papers will require an executive statement; ensure you write about the same length as the abstract.
The introduction of a research paper should be 15-20% of the word count, while the conclusion should be 10-15%.
In terms of word count, a typical research or term paper should have these percentages:
This estimates the length of a scientific or experimental research paper. Other research papers, such as cause-and-effect, interpretive, compare-and-contrast, argumentative, persuasive, or definition, will have length requirements tagged to the introduction, main body, and conclusion. In this case, the introduction is 10-15%, the main body 70-80%, and the conclusion 10-15% of the word count.
A good research paper has all its parts accounted for by the writer. A research paper contains evidence-backed arguments, which means referring to other scholarly sources. As a rule of thumb, one should cite materials where they get ideas, thoughts, or direct quotes. Automatically, this means using in-text citations and a list of the references consulted when writing the paper.
Although one would wonder how long the references page should be, the truth is that there is no length limit. However, it solely depends on the number of references you used in your paper. For lengthy papers, you might use more sources, which means that the references page will be longer compared to when you are dealing with a shorter paper that needs a few sources.
For your term paper to make scholarly sense, stick to the relevant scholarly sources. When listing the sources, adhere to the formatting requirements as per APA, MLA, Harvard, Chicago, Turabian, Bluebook, ASA, AMA, etc.
The reference page has no length limit; the number of references determines it. Do not berserk on sources; only use what is necessary to make a good paper that flows well.
The length of a term paper depends on the instructions and academic level. High school and college research papers range between 5 and 12 pages. However, at the undergraduate and graduate (master’s and Ph.D.), the papers can be as long as 15 pages to 100 pages. English research papers, for instance, are always 6-8 pages at the high school or college level. At the graduate level, you will write at least 15 pages for the same.
Graduate-level research papers are longer compared to undergraduate levels. In most cases, they entail in-depth analysis of complex issues, more citations, more elaboration, and more examples. Therefore, it is typical to see graduate-level papers with fewer than eight pages. Graduate papers range from seven to 20 pages, depending on the subject.
A standard research paper has five paragraphs for a short paper. This accounts for the introduction, three body paragraphs, and conclusion. Long papers have more than five paragraphs. A typical research paper paragraph should be 100-150 words.
A five-page research paper is about 1375 to 1500 words long for a double-spaced page and 2750 to 3000 words for a single-spaced paper. It should take you less than 6 hours to write a 5-page paper, or at least that is what our expert paper writers do.
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