HOW TO RESEARCH A PAPER: PREPARING TO WRITE
Why Your Paper Needs a Theme
Before you begin to write, you need to have narrowed your topic to a theme, to have fully researched that theme, and to have organized your research according to your writing outline.
As you prepare to write, keep the limitations of your theme and of your research in mind. Be sure to confine your writing to these limits. Avoid the temptation to go beyond your theme, or you may end up back at the broad topic with which you started. Let your theme guide your paper. Don’t attempt to record in your paper everything on which you took notes. Just because you have read something doesn’t mean that it belongs in your paper. Look carefully at your outline. It should have excluded peripheral material that turned up in your notes. As you write, ask yourself, "Does what I am writing belong in my paper? Is it part of my outline?" If the material isn’t in your outline, then don’t write about it. (Or, if necessary, change your outline to include it.) Then ask yourself, "Does what I am saying belong in this part of my paper, or should it be in some other part?" Be sure that your notes are organized according to your outline or you will be putting material in the wrong place, and your paper will not be logically developed.
Adapting Your Writing Outline
If you have not already done so, review your notes now and arrange them according to the section of your outline (and the section of your paper) that they most directly refer to. Now, finally, you are prepared to write. The goal of your writing should be to:
By the time you begin to write, your writing outline may look different than it did when you first put it together. There is nothing wrong with that. The effort to match research to your outline usually leads either to further research (if you don’t have documentation for part of the outline) or to expansion of the outline (if you find important documentation for a relevant point that was not originally included). If you discover that your sources make an important point that you had not intended to cover, you must make room for it in your outline so that it appears in your paper. Another reason for changing an outline is finding material that differs strongly with one of the points you had intended to make. Always make room in your paper for counterevidence, that is, for points made by authors that disagree with part (or all) of your interpretation of the theme. Having done so, be sure to explain why you believe the evidence in support of your interpretation is stronger. You should not claim that your ideas are the only correct ones. You should show, however, that there are compelling reasons for your interpretation.