Instructing students how to structure their essays is relatively easy. Essays should generally follow some fairly well established rules. The form is not as rigid as the sonnet or the haiku, but it does exist, and it is usually an achievement, not an embarrassment, to stay within it. Research, in contrast, must be messy.
Every research paper is a unique experience for which there can be no hard and fast rules.
In fact, I would suggest, the key to a good research paper is the successful management of bewilderment. I cannot guide you to bewilderment, but I can provide some hints on how to find it. The first step in managing bewilderment is knowing what to look for. I suggest that you seek a mood, a moment of confusion. Whether you leap from your chair and shout incomprehensible half-sentences at your roommate, or simply furrow your brow, at some point you should hit a fact or pattern that is noticeably more interesting than other things you have learned, for the simple reason that it does not fit with what you thought you knew.