Research Paper Outline
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OutlineAssignmentandTemplate31.docxOutline Assignment and Template
Before you draft your Argumentative Research Essay, you will organize your main ideas and relevant source material in an outline, which will help you craft a more effective piece.
This outline is worth 100 points, or 10% of your course grade, so it's an important assignment. Through this outline, you will develop skills for essay organization, source integration, and MLA documentation.
Once your outline is complete, you will meet with me for a one-on-one conference to discuss your planned paper’s focus, organization, and source integration/documentation.
Assignment Guidelines
Follow the template below.
Include a clear, detailed thesis that states your argument and your major reasons.
Follow the thesis with topic sentences that help you create an organized, logical body paragraph development.
Support all claims with specific evidence. Integrate at least four credible sources, to include short quotes and paraphrases WITH MLA in-text citations.
Close with a Works Consulted page, which should document all of your source material in 8th edition MLA format.
Please use the following template:
1. Thesis Statement. Your thesis statement should state your argument and its major reasons clearly. This organizes the scope and direction of your paper.
· Example: Despite claims that eliminating gun-free zones would protect children more, schools should always be gun-free zones in order to foster safe spaces for children, maintain healthy learning environments, and mitigate the risks of gun users without proper school training.
· Based on this thesis, I expect the author to address the other side of the argument in their first body paragraph and then lay out their argument in the following paragraphs (Body Paragraph 2: Safe Spaces for Children; Par 3: Healthy Learning Environments; 4: Mitigating Risks). This thesis offers a clear, specific idea of the argument and its major reasons.
· Please review the Thesis Basics Handout from Module 1: Reading Assignments
2. Body Section (you will have multiple parts to this section). The body of your paper will first address the background information necessary in understanding the scope of your paper. From there, you may decide to move into the counterargument (opposing viewpoints of your argument), and finally you should focus on each main idea of your argument individually. Each part (background, counterargument, and main ideas will have their own topic sentences and evidence for support).
· Topic Sentence. Create an opening sentence where you present an overview of why this topic is relevant in modern society, which will orient your reader to the context of your topic and its importance. Subsequent topic sentences should address the counterargument and the main ideas of your argument.
· Examples with Analysis. Here, include any source material to guide your reader into the topic and through your argument. As you plan your outline, pull multiple specific examples from your sources to use in your paper to make sure you're fully illustrating your topic sentence point. Make sure you add analysis after each example to show WHY it matters to prove the point.
· In-text citations. Be sure to include the author’s name and page number where you found the information. This will make including them in your paper much easier. Example: (Jones 97). If no author, use the title of the work; if no pages are listed, include the paragraph number. Example: (“Title” par. 12).
· Linking Sentence. Include a statement that links back to the main idea of this section or connects to the next main idea.
3. Conclusion. For the actual research paper, you will need a full conclusion paragraph that reiterates the argument and provides the reader with the overall significance of this issue. You may not be ready to complete a conclusion at this point, but you can restate your main ideas here and list some other ideas of how to make this relevant to your audience.
