Research paper part 1

Soc 3: Social Problems Prof. Finnigan

Recommended Approach for Outlining the Research Paper (Part 1) for Soc 3

The outline assignment is designed to help you focus on your paper’s substance before

you start thinking about rhetoric or style. The research paper for Soc 3 may differ from papers

you’ve written for other courses. For this project, you should value substance over style. Clarity,

logical organization, and strong use of evidence are the most important qualities. Emotive or

stylistic writing may be compelling to read, but these elements should not interfere with (or

replace) effectively educating the reader.

This document offers one approach to outlining part 1 of your paper. This approach may

differ from strategies you’ve learned in other courses. Though you’re free to use whatever

strategy you like, the steps below tend to produce papers that best match the assignment’s

criteria. For this assignment, you do not need to include “attention grabbers” or transition

sentences in your outline.

Step 1: List the questions from the Research Paper (part 1) Outline assignment to start your

outline. (Style is less important than substance—feel free to use Roman numerals, letters, or

bullet points.)

Step 2: Using the information from your annotated bibliography, convert the questions to

statements (using full sentences). These statements will eventually become topic sentences for

the body paragraphs of your research paper.

Step 3: Based on these main statements, formulate your thesis statement at the top of the

outline. It’s ok if the thesis statement is two sentences. The thesis statement should briefly

define the social problem, the most prominent claimsmakers about the problem, and the

problem’s most important causes and/or consequences.

Step 4: Add relevant details and supporting evidence for each main statement in the outline

(using full statements). Be sure to include in-text citations for each factual statement.

Claimsmmakers opinions about an issue should also have citations.

Step 5: If you find gaps in the supporting evidence for each of your main statements, conduct

further research to fill those gaps. This is very common! Also, some sources from the annotated

bibliography may not fit into your outline. You don’t need to force everything from the

annotated bibliography into your research paper. The annotated bibliography was designed to

give you a broad knowledge base to get started on the paper, not to be your definitive list of

references for the entire project.

Soc 3: Social Problems Prof. Finnigan

Step 6: If needed, rearrange your outline to improve its clarity and logical flow. The most

effective organization will likely depend on your topic and supporting points. For example,

papers on problems like the gender pay gap or racial health disparities might not need two

separate sections describing the problem and who it affects—the problems are already

(partially) defined by who they affect. Also, papers on these topics may focus mainly on their

causes rather than consequences.

Step 7: Create the bibliography (automatically with Microsoft Word or SciWheel, if possible).