How to Write a Research Paper - Part 4

SO FAR, I'VE OUTLINED A PROCESS for collecting notes and quotes which takes advantage of word-processors and the internet instead of relying on hand-written note cards.

"The shape of the outline should not be based on some pre-conceived plan, but should grow naturally from your research."

At the same time, this approach is designed to work from the bottom up, building a thesis from the research, instead of researching support for a thesis.

In steps one and two you've learned how to collect notes as paragraphs instead of cards, keeping your bibliographic information with each note, so that you can feel free to move them around and still know exactly where the information came from.

Step three can be started while you're collecting those notes:

3. As you record your notes you can also be recording the sub-questions as you uncover them.
   
   If your word-processor has an outline function (most do), you can start organizing some of your notes and sub-questions as you type them in.
   
   If it doesn't, you can still create an outline—remember, the important thing is the structure, not the numbering. You can create a perfectly good outline by indenting paragraphs, even if you don't number or letter them.
   
   Try to relate every piece of information to the main question, or a sub-question, or a sub-sub-question, etc. as you go along. This will help you keep track of how the ideas are unfolding and related to each other. It will help you to see where you need further research, and it will help you to avoid making extensive notes about things that don't ultimately belong in your paper.
   
   For example, using just the information from last time:
   1. What are the various positions on abortion?
   2. 1. When do people think life begins?
      2. How do people think the law and morality should relate?
      3. 1. According to their official website, Planned Parenthood takes the position that, "Decisions about childbearing should be made by women, their families, and their doctors — not by politicians." (http://www.plannedparenthood.org/issues-action/abortion-issues-5946.htm)
4. Before long you'll find that you have a fairly complete picture of the information available on your question. The structure of your growing outline will have shown you which holes you need to fill in, and you will have hunted down information on those points.
   
   You will also want to add summaries of the information in each group of notes, explaining how it answers the question they come under. Doing this as you go along will help you to structure your outline, and understand your topic better.
   
   By now, you probably know what your thesis is going to be, if you didn't have to turn in a sort of general non-committal one already.
   
   It's also time to look at the structure of your growing outline and see if it needs any tweaking. Maybe some of the sub-questions need rewriting, based on the information you've gathered. Maybe a piece of information under one sub-question actually applies better to another.
   
   Move things around, if you need to. Rewrite anything that needs to be clearer, or better put.
   
   If your teacher requires you to turn in an outline, you are now ready to write it. Just make a copy of the file under a different name, rewrite each of the questions as topics or statements or whatever your teacher requires, and delete the notes. (Make absolutely certain that you are doing this in a copy, not in the original research file—you don't want to delete all that hard work!)
5. Once you've finished the outline, or if the teacher didn't require one, you're ready to write your paper.
   
   You can relax now, because the paper is almost written. You already have, in the form of your question outline, most of the work done.
   
   The overall structure of your outline should look something like this:

The actual number of questions, sub-questions, sub-sub-questions, etc. should be determined by your notes and the nature of your main research question. The shape of the outline should not be based on some pre-conceived plan, but should grow naturally from your research.

One sub-question might have sub-subs, sub-sub-subs, all the way down to sub-sub-sub-sub-subs, or further. Another might only have notes and a summary. It all just depends on what you learn in the research process.

The summaries don't have to provide absolute answers. They should only say as much as the research supports. So, to use our ongoing example, if you're addressing the question of when life begins, it's perfectly all right to come to the conclusion that people disagree. You don't have to prove one side or the other. Sticking with exactly what the research shows will actually strengthen your final conclusion.

On the other hand, you don't want to leave gaping holes in your research. If a question breaks down naturally into three sub-questions, you had better research all three, not just the one or two you're most interested in.

On to step six. You're almost there...