Ozyesilpinar 1
Eda Ozyesilpinar
Dr. Victor Vitanza
801
5 November 2014
Bridging the Gap: Connecting Aristotle to Islamic Philosophy Developed by Alfarabi
Introductory section: Provide a clear thesis statement to tell your reader what you are claiming in this paper. The function of an introductory paragraph/section is to prepare your reader for what you will discuss in your paper by giving background information or setting the stage for your topic in some other way. Strategies: Relate a story, Give important statistics, Ask a question to lead into your topic, Use a quote related to your topic, Make a comparison to clarify or illustrate. An Introduction should include: The main idea or general issue of your paper, What is the purpose of this paper?, Relevant context :Background information that is important for the reader to know in order to understand the main idea of the paper, A clear thesis: What are you claiming/arguing/asserting? There can be more than one paragraph in an introductory section.
What is a thesis statement?: A sentence, two sentences, or a number of sentences, which provide a focus for an essay. It will generally be found within the closing lines of the introductory paragraph/section of an essay, which means that a thesis statement can also occur in the second paragraph or even on a later page, depending on the length and complexity of your essay. The three functions of a thesis statement are: Narrows down the topic to a single idea; Names the topic and claims something about it; The thesis is not just your opinion, but introduces elements that explains your belief; Sets up your entire paper! Questions to consider about your thesis: Does it do more than just provide a fact?, Does it say something new, innovative, or interesting?, Could you be more explicit or specific?, Are you using broad generalizations to cover for a lack of knowledge? Address the issue/problem you are addressing, how you are planning to deal with this issue within your research by briefly explaining your methods and what you are hoping to achieve at the end of your research.
Literature Review/Dialogue-Conversation: Presents the conversation surrounding your topic in an objective manner. It is very significant for you to focus on the main ideas/perspectives being discussed within the conversation rather than providing summaries of your sources (you are not writing annotations at this point). Connect your sources, highlight multiple perspectives; emphasize counterargument; show the issue you are addressing to and why. The main purpose is to present the conversation/the dialogue your sources are having in response to one another. Your Research Matrix/Concept Maps should be very helpful here. There are various methods to organize your literature review. Choose the one that works best with the focus and scope of your research.
Chronological – group and discuss sources in order of their publication date
Thematic – discuss sources by theme, topic, important concepts, or major issues
Methodological – discuss and group sources based on methods of or approaches to research
General to specific – first discuss general material to provide context and background, and last discuss material most closely related to your study
Verbs to discuss literature:
•Defines
•Describes
•Emphasizes
•Explains
•Observes
•States
•Argues
•Asserts
•Contends
•Demonstrates
•Maintains
•Contradicts
•Criticizes
•Objects
•Opposes
•Refutes
•Adds
•Implies
•Proposes
•Suggests
•Concludes
•Claim
Additional resource:
Readdress the issue/problem you are addressing to: basically your argument. It is significant that you remind your reader what you have said and what you aim to do. Then present your Methods: Explain the methods you used to conduct your research, to collect data. There are many different ways you can write a method section, which depends on the type of research you are doing. Here are some resource you can use:
file:///Users/edaozyesilpinar/Desktop/chapter12.writing.pdf : page 272 the scheme for traditional research papers.
Results: After you present your methods, you need to present your results; If you have collected or incorporated quantitative data into your researched argument collected by different researchers (make sure to give credit), you need to present the findings objectively by using charts and graphs:.
In addition to presenting the findings of quantitative data, you also need to incorporate what you explored as a result of reviewing the overall conversation—presented in your literature review—in relation to the quantitative results you are presenting. So, for those of you who have quantitative data, the results section is going to be a combination presenting the findings of quantitative and qualitative (conversation in the literature review).
If you have not collected or incorporated quantitative data into your researched argument, the results section should focus on what you have explored after reviewing the overall conversation: qualitative data (conversation in your literature review).
Discussion: Then, the most important part of your research “Discussion” in where you present your own “oar” your own argument. Tell your reader where you stand in the conversation; how you are joining the discussion, what you are bringing into the table, own your argument. You should reflect on your result to show how those results support your argument and uses your sources; you can reflect on future research possibilities too.
Conclusion: The function of a concluding paragraph is to bring your paper to a strong and memorable close. This paragraph should follow logically from your thesis statement and body paragraphs.
More resources:
Works Cited
List all of your source in an alphabetic order and in correct MLA format.