Suggestions for writing a research paper

Josh Tenenberg, Autumn 2012

The theoretical principles

  1. Writing a research paper is to participate in the discourse of a cultural community
  2. The act of writing is facilitated by iterative loops of: getting ideas “out of the head” in some representational form, looking at this representation of ideas, talking about the ideas represented with others (using the representation as a guide), and reflecting on these ideas.

Concrete suggestions for writing

Preparation Phase:

  1. Identify the cultural community that you will read from and write for (these are usually but not always the same): audience
  2. Before writing, read what others have already written in this cultural community on your topic of choice. Read immersively. If you are not interested in reading on the topic, then you might have chosen the wrong topic.
  3. Read until you think that you have something to say. Respond, react, be opinionated: purpose.
  4. What you read is written in a culturally defined form (and the form varies from one community to another). You need to decode how to read for this community. Develop an explicit sense of how research is written by and for this audience, because it is how this audience will expect you to write.

Rumination Phase:

  1. List ideas or concepts related to the topic. Write phrases that will “index into your memory” (i.e. enough so that you will remember).
  2. Arrange these in space on paper or a whiteboard (you can cluster them, but this is not necessary), with a circle around each concept/idea.
  3. Draw lines between some of the circled concepts that represent relations between these, and label the lines.
  4. Looking at this concept map, determine what you think your point or thesis is. Write it down. This is often a struggle, and iterative. Refine the thesis. Play with it. Shape it. And perhaps you need to read more, especially if your concept map is sparse. You need a lot of ideas from your head.
  5. Talk through your concept map with someone. Is it coherent? Are there unconnected parts?
  6. Draw an argument tree from the concept map: thesis at the top, reasons (subtheses) below as subtrees, reasons for these below as smaller subtrees, etc. and evidence at the bottom.
  7. Convert your tree to an outline (i.e. linearize the three).
  8. “Weight” the sections and subsections: how much “work” does each have to do with respect to the entire argument. Do this in terms of number of pages or fractions of pages.
  9. Annotate each section (subsection, subsubsection, …) by writing one sentence to one paragraph by completing the sentence “At the end of reading this (sub)section the reader needs should understand that …” Do not complete the sentence “the reader needs to know what …” Using what will keep your ideas vague, using that will make your ideas concrete and specific.
  10. Talk through this outline with someone, and have them read through it as well. Encourage critique and suggestions. What don’t they understand? Is it a coherent “story” from beginning to end? Are there gaps? Change your annotation, add/delete sections, reorder, until you have a coherent story. Depending on the size of the final paper (which is determined by context), you will have between one and four papers for your sized, annotated outline.

Drafting Phase:

  1. Draft the paper quickly, filling out each section in linear order. Write the intro first, and then rewrite it after the paper is completed.
  2. Rest
  3. Reread and revise.
  4. Have one or two people read and critique after telling them the audience.
  5. Reread and revise until you run out of time or believe that the additional gain will not be worth the additional time.