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Drafting Your Outline

Drafting Your Outline. What to do in the next week!. How long will my research paper be?. Approximately 10 pages, double-spaced, does not include cover sheet and Works Cited Page Font (Times 12)

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Drafting Your Outline

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  1. Drafting Your Outline What to do in the next week!

  2. How long will my research paper be? • Approximately 10 pages, double-spaced, does not include cover sheet and Works Cited Page • Font (Times 12) • Please do not use a document cover/folder for this assignment. Just staple it together and turn it in.

  3. How do I organize a research paper? You will need to make some decisions about how to best organize your information. The following are some guidelines for you to follow.

  4. Decide Where to State Your Main Point • Introduction or Conclusion? What’s best for your paper? • Introduction – readers feel no suspense about your claim. You make a contract with you reader as to what they will learn from your paper and you don’t let her down! • You hand over control to your reader

  5. Decide Where to State Your Main Point • In the conclusion – You keep control of the paper. You say to your reader: “Follow me through this report and consider every item that I offer. In the end, I will reveal my conclusion.” • You force your readers to figure out where your evidence is leading them, as they would in a murder mystery.

  6. Introduction • Write a brief context • Succinctly state your research question • State why it’s important • Write the answer that you discovered (if you know it! You may not have or discover an answer until you’ve written the paper! Or…your outline)

  7. Sample Introduction • First-born middle-class Caucasian males are said to earn more, stay employed longer and report more job satisfaction. (context) • But no studies have looked at recent immigrants from Southeast Asia to find out whether they repeat that pattern. If it doesn’t hold, we have to understand whether another does, why it is different, and what its effects are (question)

  8. Sample Introduction (cont.) • Because only then can we understand how patterns of success and failure in ethnic communities differ from those in European communities. (why it’s important) • The predicted influence seems to cut across ethnic groups, particularly those from Vietnam, though it partly depends on how long a family has been here and their economic level before they came. (hypothetical answer)

  9. Organizing the body of your report • Sketch necessary background, definitions and conditions • What must your readers know and understand before they can understand the substance of your argument. • Do not let this dominate your paper – it’s like summarizing a play or novel when writing an essay. • 1-2 pages.

  10. Organizing the body of your report Find the best order for your reasons and evidence • Reason First, then evidence to support it. Repeat this throughout your paper.

  11. Organizing the body of your report In what order do I write my reasons? Try different combinations – think ‘storyboard’ – what do you think will be most effective? You can always cut, paste and revise if you see a better strategy. Don’t get hung up here.

  12. Organizing the body of your report • Old to New – reader prefer to move from what they know to what they don’t. Start with what is familiar to your readers, then move to the unfamiliar

  13. Organizing the body of your report Some guidelines for organizing your reasons (cont.) • Shorter and Simpler to Longer and More Complex – start with what’s easier to understand and move to the more complex • Uncontested to More Contested – start with the less controversial reasons. What will your reader accept more readily.

  14. Organizing the body of your report • Locate acknowledgments and responses – Try to acknowledge and respond to the most important questions and objections where you think your readers will raise them.

  15. Organizing the body of your report • You may need to summarize the other, more accepted argument that opposes your claim. • You may briefly acknowledge another argument while making a point – but finish your point first! Then, go back and respond to the other argument. • If your paper offers a solution at the end, you may write about other solutions – refuting each one of them until you offer your solution at the very end

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