A Beginner’s Guide to Starting Research Paper Publication

How to Start Publishing Research Papers?

Your first paper should ideally be a review paper. Writing a review paper helps you gain a foundational understanding of what is happening in your research domain. Gradually, you will start to identify the direction you should pursue.

By working on a review paper, you will also develop insights into the subdomains of your subject. These skills will later serve as the foundation for your higher studies or even your professional career.

I have shared one of my review papers. The topic is “AI in Journalism,” but the concepts explored in this paper can also be applied to fields like journalism, English, mass communication, sociology, political science, and even broader disciplines.

You don’t need to read the entire paper at this stage. Just download it, observe the format, and go through the section headings. That alone will give you a solid idea of how a research paper is structured.

After doing this, start thinking about what you can work on within your own domain.

If possible, open a Word document and write down any ideas that come to mind for your first paper.

If your ideas feel incomplete, you can ask tools like Gemini, Claude, Grok, or ChatGPT for help.

This is the first stage: Topic Selection.

If you have multiple topic ideas, that’s completely fine. Start working on any one of them. You can always explore others later. But don’t waste too much time trying to pick the “perfect” topic—just begin with one.

Written by:
Manjurul Ahsan
Assistant Professor, University of Oklahoma