Writing a research paper takes anywhere from a couple days to a couple years. It primarily depends on whether you’re writing a paper for a class assignment, or if you’re writing for publication based on original research. The former can be completed in a few days, while the latter can take months or years.

Research Papers for classes

It generally takes about 20 to 40 hours of work for a 20 page, double spaced research paper. This is not including research time or editing time; just the writing time.

Adding in the research and editing time can take the paper writing process from a few days to a couple weeks. Some students like to cram this into a couple 16-hour days, while others prefer a more relaxed pace of working on it over a few weeks.

Doing your research and gathering your sources ahead of time will drastically speed up the writing process. See below for more tips to keep your paper writing time to a minimum.

Research Papers for a Journal Publication

On the low end, it takes 2 months, more commonly 6 to 12 months to write a research paper for publication in a journal. Then, you have to factor in the actual timeline from submission to publication.

The publication process has many steps. It starts with the article submission, then peer review. It’s very common to have a rejection or two in the process. You may be asked to redo certain parts of an experiment, to gather new data, or to otherwise do more work. Then re-submitting the paper, and finally (hopefully) acceptance into a journal.

The submission process can take anywhere from 3 to 12 months. Some of this is not entirely in your control. For example, a peer reviewer (referee) might drop out of the peer review process, and the journal may have to assign it to a new referee, which takes time.

Before you start writing, it’s a good idea to carefully review the submission guidelines for your target publication. Journals have very specific criteria for what’s accepted. For example, here’s the start of Nature’s submission guidelines:

From start to finish, from the day you write your first word to the day an article is published in a journal, can be as long as two years, or as short as 4 months.

How to write your paper in less time

Why are some people able to knock out papers in a few days, while others take weeks or months?

A lot of it comes down to the methodology. By having a good methodology, you can dramatically cut down on the writing time.

Here are a few ways to make writing your paper faster and easier:

Skim and search intelligently

If you want to write quickly, it’s impossible to read all the papers and books from start to finish. Instead, use “CTRL+F” liberally.

Start by reading the abstracts of the relevant literature. Then, use your computer’s search function to search through papers for keywords related to your paper. Go deeper on the parts of the paper that are more relevant to what you’re working on.

Of course, you should go deep on the papers that are most relevant to you. One great way to do that is to listen to research papers. That way, you can listen to research papers in your spare time.

Read the full article at Listening’s Blog