Choose a topic. This may be assigned to you, or you may be given a list to choose from. You may also be allowed to choose from any topics you like. Look for a topic that will have plenty of research available but is not so broad that you cannot cover it adequately. For example, a paper about "The history of the United States," would be much too broad, while "The history of American Indian tribes in South Texas" might have just the right amount of information available.
Start your research. This is not your comprehensive research; it is simply an overview to determine the main topic, or thesis, of the paper. Read overviews in your textbook, encyclopedias and other texts available at your library or online. Write your thesis statement in one or two sentences and focus the rest of your research on that idea.
Conduct your research. Find anything you can on the topic that relates to your thesis. Take good notes about your research. Use note cards or a word processor program on your laptop. Make sure to include where you found each piece of information, including the name of the book, the author and the page number.
Organize your notes in the order in which you wish to cover those topics in your paper and use that to create an outline. The outline will guide how the rest of the paper is written. Create the outline by listing the main topics in the order you wish to address them. Then list each relevant point about each topic under subcategories that you list under the main topics.
Use the outline as the basis for your research paper. Write a rough draft based on the flow of your outline and the information in your notes. Revise the draft as necessary and complete the final draft. Add a list of citations that provide the sources of your information in the format specified by your professor.