ENG/102

quiqcylemarwus

appendix_k.doc

Home >English homework help >ENG/102

Appendix K

ENG/102 Version 4

Associate Level Material

Appendix K

Organizing Your Research Paper

Once you have researched sources and taken notes, you must complete the following steps in the research process:

1. Ensure your research is complete.

2. Refine your thesis statement.

3. Organize your research effectively.

4. Strategize to create a compelling way to draw readers into your argument.

5. Write a rough draft.

6. Utilize feedback to revise your paper.

This stage of the research process may prove to be both frustrating and exciting as you begin to construct your paper.

Ensuring Your Research Is Complete

At this point, you must decide whether you have enough research and whether your research is complete. To make this decision, ask yourself the following questions:

· Do I have the required number and types of sources listed in the assignment?

· Have I met the word-count requirement for my paper?

· Do I have adequate support to defend each of my main points and to support my thesis?

· Have I used logical reasoning and other persuasive tactics such as statistics and examples?

· Do I have sources that explain opposing viewpoints? Have I effectively countered these viewpoints?

· Are at least 80% of the notes I have taken written in my own words? (No more than 20% of your paper should consist of direct quotations.)

Even if you answer yes to all of these questions, you may still find yourself with gaps in your paper.If so, you should complete more research.

Refining Your Thesis Statement

After all the research is gathered, you may find your position on the topic has changed. You could change your mind and argue the other side of your topic, or perhaps you want to maintain the same point of view but alter the direction of your paper somewhat. At this time, you need to revisit your thesis statement and revise it according to your paper’s new direction.

Reread your thesis statement. Your thesis statement needs to be a claim (your position) about the paper’s topic and include the answer to the questions how or why. Every idea in your paper should prove or support your thesis. If this is not the case, you must revise your thesis. Consider the following thesis statements in their initial forms and in their final forms:

Initial. Outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries is not helping the American economy.

Final. Outsourcing American jobs to foreign countries has a negative effect on America because it removes jobs, money, and resources from the economy.

Initial. More needs to be done about child abuse.

Final. The government should mandate longer prison terms for abusers to better protect children.

Although the final thesis statements are more challenging than the original ones, the revised theses might also be refined after additional research.

Organizing Information Effectively

An outline provides general descriptions of the information that will appear in your paper. The outline serves the following purposes:

· It is organized logically to convey the strongest possible argument.

· It provides a visual picture of the structure of your paper.

· It helps show relationships between and among ideas.

In order to create an outline, gather your prewriting as well as all the information you want to include in the paper. Normally, you outline only the body paragraphs for your essay. Include your thesis statement at the top of the outline to ensure you include only the support that defends or proves your thesis.

You can organize your supporting evidence in different ways, including the following:

· Logical. This method is the most common way to organize a research paper. The information in your paper should be organized in a way that seems understandable to your readers, with examples and support to validate each point. You might discuss the history of an issue, for example, followed by a discussion of current problems and a proposed solution.

· Chronological. If your paper follows a series of steps (1, 2, 3), then your paper should be organized chronologically. If your paper argues that more people should consider adoption, for example, you may want to organize the paper according to the steps one takes in order to complete an adoption.

· Order of importance. If you want your audience to read your most compelling evidence first, place it near the front; on the other hand, if you want your reader to remember your most compelling evidence, place it near the end. This order places information in your paper in an order that seems most compelling to your argument.

No matter which order you choose, you must include examples and support for each argument. If you make a claim or statement, you must defend it.

Creating a Sentence Outline

For this course, you must create a full-sentence outline. A sentence outline is an outline in which every point in the outline is a complete and grammatically correct sentence rather than a phrase or simple topic.

Depending on the length and detail of your paper, your outline may include many more points and subpoints (also referred to as headings and subheadings) than the following example shows. You must include all your source examples as well as your arguments and counterarguments. Your sentence outline may appear similar to the following:

I. Main point 1 in a complete sentence.

A. Subpoint 1 in a complete sentence.