Writing a research paper
I can’t stress the University of Wisconsin-Madison website enough: https://writing.wisc.edu/handbook/assignments/planresearchpaper/
The tips are concise and fantastic.
I will stress the elements needed for your paper
Opening Vignette:
-You may choose to open your paper with an interesting story or piece of information you found to intrigue the reader. This is not required, but does provide a nice rhetorical flourish.
Introduction:
-Thesis: What’s the point of your paper? What are you arguing?
-The thesis should be either the first line of the introduction or the last line.
-Ideally, you are making a historical argument which demonstrates change over time.
-It should be very obvious that this is not a vignette.
2nd paragraph:
-Definitions/context. If you cannot find space in the intro to define key terms in your paper this is the place to do it.
3rd paragraph:
-historiography
-What did other scholars say about this topic?
-Be sure to summarize other scholars you’ve read.
-Reinforce why your thesis is a new (and hopefully better) way to tackle this topic.
Body paragraphs:
-Here is where you are getting into the research piece of the research project.
-Each paragraph should have a topic sentence that tells the reader what the focus of your paragraph will be.
-Each paragraph should have 2 or 3 pieces of information in it
Conclusion:
-DO NOT INTRODUCE NEW INFORMATION
-Summarize argument (thesis) for the reader
-Explain why you proved your thesis
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