SOC 513: Qualitative Research Methods

Outlining your paper

Start with a broad outline of your paper, aligned to the standards you'll be graded on.

A good tactic might be to outline your paper's sections early to keep yourself on task. For example, you can put placeholder sentences in each section of your paper, under a bright color or highlight to state what should be included in that section. These can be replaced with draft text later on, and will ensure that you don't accidentally miss an important piece of your assignment. 

For your assignment, you'll want to include:  

An Introduction that:

1. describes your research topic clearly along with 3-5 specific research questions (the specific questions you hope to answer through your paper), and
2. provides some sort of "hook" to get your reader's attention. This "hook" can be as simple as a statement about what you've found in the literature and how your research addresses a gap or niche that hasn't been covered in the same depth or angle from which you're approaching your topic.

A Literature Review that: 

1. describes the main debates or issues surrounding your topic (what has been said before about your specific topic, and how that past work informs the research questions you're pursuing), 
2. shows disciplinary contributions to the literature (make sure to include research from others in the same field as you, and explore their findings on similar and related topics), and 
3. examines how the past literature is connected to methodology, as discussed in your class. 

A Background section that: 

1. outlines the context for your case study (what exactly are you studying and how does it fit into the larger context of the literature you explained in your Literature Review?) and
2. explains why you chose this specific case study to answer your research questions and address your research topic. 

A Methods section that includes:

1. your Participants and the sampling method you chose to use (who you studied, where, how many, and why you chose that group, or [as is often the case for surveys] how that group selected themselves),
2. your Ethics Review process (your informed consent letter and any other human subjects-related material that was necessary to develop for the completion of your project),
3. your Methods (what you did, how you did it, and why you chose that method to gather data). Also include discussions of how you have organized and analyzed the data gathered through your chosen methodology, as well as lessons learned from this experience (i.e. is there something that could have been handled differently for potentially better or more robust results?)

A Results section that covers: 

1. what you found through your research (with data, quotes, graphs, and/or figures to back up these points), 
2. how your findings address your research questions, and
3. how your findings compare with the literature discussed in your Lit Review sections.

A Conclusion that:

1. restates your main research topic, 
2. synthesizes the main findings of your study in a clear manner while explaining their sighnificance, and 
3. addresses anything you feel is missing or could have been handled differently now or in the future, to improve this research. 

Writing and Editing Your Paper

At this point in your college career, I trust that you know how to write a paper, so I won't talk down to you or tell you something obvious. Instead, let me share a few resources that could be helpful at this state in your project: