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How To Create A Research Paper Outline
Apr. 12th, 2005 12:18 am(lit 101 for postmodernists that can't get a clue)
All outlines require a thesis. A thesis cannot be in the form of a question. A thesis must be an actual statement of some opinion. That you can prove. A thesis should be able to be distilled into one sentence (that sentence may require expansion, which will constitute your paper, but really, for a 10 page paper? One sentence is *plenty*). Remember, this is the concept you are going to prove with the rest of your discussion, so make it something that's worth proving.
( click for more outline bitching )
The main things NOT to do:
Don't try and write two papers to make it long enough. If your thesis is too simple to be 10 pages, simply ask "why" again. Don't add in random "free association" and expect someone to grade it like it makes sense. Also, don't turn in an outline that isn't an outline. We've all got copies of a word processing program, and all the current word processing programs have the ability to create sophisticated outlines. Easily.
Also, if you're infatuated with theory, know it before you try to spout it. Don't have some bullshit idea that you're going to do a postmodern feminist reading of the story but then have no definition of postmodern feminism, include no conclusion about what your reading implies, and for gods sake don't sit there and tell me that you don't want to do a psychological reading and then proceed to talk about the self and other. Hello - self and other? It is a psychological construction, dammit. And if you want to use it differently, go find some other theorist to back you up that it's not. I doubt you'll find one, but sure, try. I'm willing to admit there's a lot of theory out there I haven't read. But, most of all, don't be an annoying prissy girl who tells me she doesn't have "enough time" to re-write her outline so that it's ... intelligible. Because honey, just because you look up to her doesn't mean you're the next Octavia Bulter.
The sad part is that I'm a postmodernist myself. And she made me disgusted with postmodernists. Bleh.
All outlines require a thesis. A thesis cannot be in the form of a question. A thesis must be an actual statement of some opinion. That you can prove. A thesis should be able to be distilled into one sentence (that sentence may require expansion, which will constitute your paper, but really, for a 10 page paper? One sentence is *plenty*). Remember, this is the concept you are going to prove with the rest of your discussion, so make it something that's worth proving.
( click for more outline bitching )
The main things NOT to do:
Don't try and write two papers to make it long enough. If your thesis is too simple to be 10 pages, simply ask "why" again. Don't add in random "free association" and expect someone to grade it like it makes sense. Also, don't turn in an outline that isn't an outline. We've all got copies of a word processing program, and all the current word processing programs have the ability to create sophisticated outlines. Easily.
Also, if you're infatuated with theory, know it before you try to spout it. Don't have some bullshit idea that you're going to do a postmodern feminist reading of the story but then have no definition of postmodern feminism, include no conclusion about what your reading implies, and for gods sake don't sit there and tell me that you don't want to do a psychological reading and then proceed to talk about the self and other. Hello - self and other? It is a psychological construction, dammit. And if you want to use it differently, go find some other theorist to back you up that it's not. I doubt you'll find one, but sure, try. I'm willing to admit there's a lot of theory out there I haven't read. But, most of all, don't be an annoying prissy girl who tells me she doesn't have "enough time" to re-write her outline so that it's ... intelligible. Because honey, just because you look up to her doesn't mean you're the next Octavia Bulter.
The sad part is that I'm a postmodernist myself. And she made me disgusted with postmodernists. Bleh.
