Nerdify Reviews 7 Ways to Structure Your Lengthy Paper

Nerdify
4 min readMay 12, 2021
Nerdify Reviews

You might be thinking that you do not know what to write next or how to start with your assignment, yet sometimes our flow of available homework assignment ideas becomes too much and our college efforts turn into a lengthy paper. Our Nerdify reviews crew often faces this problem in our writing, which is why we turn to a good structure and the most important points that help us to follow the golden academic rule that is known as “one body paragraph — one great idea”. Sometimes it is not possible to fit all you would like to include, yet it only means that you have to think about choosing a good structure that is both clear and readable.

  • Make your introduction part 10% of the total word count. While it is not an obligatory rule, your introduction part should not be more than 10% of your total amount. Our Nerdify reviews experts also recommend using a good hook that will catch the attention of your audience. This way you can make your introduction shorter and make people wait for what comes next. This simple academic writing trick helps to diminish the number of words that come before your thesis part.
  • Outline your thesis statement in advance. Speaking of the thesis, most students use it as the main argument, which is quite right, yet we use a different method at the Nerdify reviews by writing a list of the possible thesis statement ideas and looking for some good sources as the next measure. This way we can have a draft of our thesis that becomes adjusted when the paper is already finished. It is only natural to introduce some changes or add information while in progress (especially with the lengthy papers), which is why you must adjust your thesis accordingly and edit those parts that are not related.
  • Start each body paragraph with a topic sentence. It is an old rule that is often ignored. You should come up with a list of topic sentences. They are what helps your audience to see what comes next. It is like the movie preview that lets you discover what the episode is about when you read a certain phrase. For example, when you write about Middle School Psychology, you can say “Behavioral patterns in middle school children based on cognitive games showed that it helps to improve speech” and things like that. Just make your ideas clear and introduce them right away.
  • Include statistics and references in each paragraph. Unless you deal with a complex dissertation structure, you can include statistical data and various information in each body paragraph. This way you can use your auxiliary parts as evidence without making your paper lengthy. Some bits can be references as quotes, while the rest may be omitted since it relates to additional research. You can mention the key facts or talk about related works without reciting them all.
  • Proofread your paper to avoid repetitions. According to our nerdy types at Nerdify reviews, the most important part of structuring your lengthy paper is learning how to proofread things and act like a skilled movie director. Start by reading your paper aloud and see what flows smoothly and what makes you re-read it again and again. While it does not have to be simple and sound like a great novel, your paper must be logical and have transition words between body paragraphs to make things work. These words are not useless because they help to switch between important ideas and keep your style dynamic and clear.
  • List your ideas from the most to the least important ones. Start by choosing those ideas that matter to you the most. Think about why they are important and mention them in your paper. Try to explain your vision in simpler terms and simply talk it out to see whether it sounds confident and convincing. The key is to keep your audience inspired and show that you have done some research and added new things to the scientific community. Do not just make a boring list of things or recite your textbook because it won’t add anything valuable in most cases. You must learn, so explore your ideas and edit the best parts!
  • Do not introduce anything new in your conclusion part. We always hear about this rule when we are told to write a typical college assignment. Some of us tend to miss the introduction part at all or keep it way too large. The golden medium is to talk about your thesis in different terms and avoid the introduction of any new ideas. It is very easy to fall into this trap by coming up with something innovative, yet it must be avoided or left for your next college paper.

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