Students who know how to prepare an outline for a standard expository
essay know how to prepare an outline for a research paper. Both
the standard "five-paragraph essay" and the research paper are built
on the thesis-plus-support plan. Thus, their outlines are very similar.
Moreover, just as students can develop an informal essay outline
from a working thesis and use it to guide their essay development,
students can develop a research paper outline from a working thesis
and use it to guide their research paper development.
What a research paper outline is
The research paper outline is a ordered of points the writer plans
to make in order to prove the thesis statement.
Since an essay is relatively short, experienced writers can get
by without writing an outline. However, even experienced writers
are more efficient and productive if they work from an outline for
research paper development. The outline nails down the plan and
keeps writers from getting sidetracked.
The outline is concerned only with the body paragraphs. The introduction
and conclusion paragraphs are not mentioned in the outline.
Functions of outline's working thesis
The outline for research paper development (as opposed to an outline
for research paper presentation) outlines the working thesis.
The working thesis is a statement of what the writer thinks the
research will show. It represents an educated guess. In research,
there's no penalty for an incorrect initial guess. A "wrong"
working thesis is just as useful as a "right" one as far
as guiding the research goes.
A working thesis does two things for the research paper writer:
it narrows the scope of the topic and provides keywords for research.
For example, examine this working thesis:
Pride and Prejudice
accurately portrays the social entertainments enjoyed by the moderately
well-off English middle class of Austen's day.
The working thesis restricts the topic of Pride and Prejudice
to a far narrower focus. In addition to the book title, it suggests
entertainment and middle class as search terms to
be combined with the novel title.
Working thesis & working outline
A working outline for research paper development builds on the
working thesis by listing proofs that the writer expects to find
in support of the working thesis.
The working thesis for Pride and Prejudice given above might
be developed with these points, all of which students know from
reading the novel:
The practice of inviting others in one's
social circle to dine was accepted practice among moderately well-off
English middle class of Austen's day.
The practice of spending the social season
in London was accepted practice among moderately well-off English
middle class of Austen's day.
The practice of holding dances in homes
was accepted practice among moderately well-off English middle
class of Austen's day.
To develop this outline, students would be required to discuss
incidents in the novel that show these social entertainments. That
activity uses students' prior knowledge.
Then they would have to show from other reputable sources that
the types of entertainment were common among moderately well-off
English middle class of Austen's day. That's where the research
comes in.
Why all the points are sentences
If students don't use full sentences to plan their research papers,
they tend to research topics. They end up with piles of notes,
often simply copied from sources, but with no idea of how the material
fits with other bits.
The act of writing a sentence reveals relationships between ideas.
If students cannot put their ideas in a sentence, they do not actually
understand their material.
By requiring students to work with complete sentences at the planning
stage of their research papers, you enable them to self-assess.
If they don't understand their material at the planning stage, they
still have time enough to get help before they have to write their
papers.
A working outline can be informal
A working outline doesn't need to use Roman numerals or any of
the other trappings of formal outlines. All it really needs is a
standardized system of indenting.
The outline template shows the indents prepackaged in a fill-in
form. Once students know how to do the outlining, however, they
can build their own working outline for research paper development
in a word processing file simply by indenting the A, B, C-level
material 1 tab and the supporting 1, 2, 3-level material 2 tab.
Formalizing the working outline
Preparing a formal outline to submit with the final paper is mainly
a matter of removing materials from the informal working outline
and giving the remaining material a good editing.
Published June-15-2010;updated 19-Aug-2010
