Formulate
Senior Project
Research Paper
Outline
Research
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A
thesis statement in an essay is a sentence
that explicitly identifies the purpose of the
paper or previews its main ideas.
 A thesis is
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An assertion about your topic
An approach to your topic
A proposition to be examined
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A controlling idea that will determine what kind of
material you look for
Defined
A narrowed focus
Subject to change as research progresses
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 Many
writers think of a thesis statement as
an umbrella: everything that you carry along
in your essay has to fit under this umbrella,
and if you try to take on packages that don't
fit, you will either have to get a bigger
umbrella or something's going to get wet.
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
Begin formulating a thesis by
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Asking why?
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Asking how?
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Which president had the greatest negative impact on
foreign relations in the Middle East?
Asking when?
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What are the effects of violence on television on
children?
Asking which?
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How does rap music effect American society?
Asking what?

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Why does soccer appeal so strongly to sports fans in
Europe and Latin America?
When did suicide bombers become an important part of
terrorism?
Asking should?

Should the torture of terrorists be allowed by the
American government in order to gain information?
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Topic: Violence on television
What: What are the effects of
television violence?
Which: Which types of shows
are the most violent?
Topic: School uniforms
How: How do school uniforms
improve behavior?
Why: Why are school uniforms
a positive influence on grades?
Topic: The Assassination of JFK
When: When did Lee Harvey
Oswald begin his plan?
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Should: Should conspiracy
theories be investigated?
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How?
Why?
When?
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When?
What?
Should?
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 Although
a thesis may develop from one or
more questions, its final form should be a
declarative statement that requires
amplification.
 Now, take your questions and answer them.
Turn those answers into thesis statements.
What are the effects of television violence?
Television violence devalues the
importance of developing healthy
relationships.
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Violence on television desensitizes
children and makes violence more
acceptable in the real world.
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
A thesis statement is an assertion, not a statement
of fact or an observation.
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A thesis takes a stand rather than announcing a
subject.
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Fact or observation: People use many lawn chemicals.
Thesis: People are poisoning the environment with
chemicals merely to keep their lawns green.
Announcement: The thesis of this paper is the difficulty
of solving our environmental problems.
Thesis: Solving our environmental problems is more
difficult than many environmentalists believe.
A thesis statement is narrow, rather than broad. If
the thesis statement is sufficiently narrow, it can
be fully supported.

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Broad: The American steel industry has many problems.
Narrow: The primary problem if the American steel
industry is the lack of funds to renovate outdated plants
and equipment.
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
A thesis takes a stand rather than announcing a
subject.
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Announcement: The thesis of this paper is the difficulty
of solving our environmental problems.
Thesis: Solving our environmental problems is more
difficult than many environmentalists believe.
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
A thesis should not include:
 “The purpose of this paper is…”
 “My paper will discuss…”
 First person
A thesis statement is specific rather than vague or
general.
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Vague: Hemingway's war stories are very good.
Specific: Hemingway's stories helped create a new prose
style by employing extensive dialogue, shorter
sentences, and strong Anglo-Saxon words.

Avoid general or vague terms such as
 Important, interesting, always, it seems, good, bad
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 What
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An outline is a formal system used to think about
and organize your paper.
Use it
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is an Outline?
to see whether your ideas connect to each other
what order of ideas works best
whether you have sufficient evidence to support each
of your points.
Outlines can be useful for any paper to help you
see the overall picture.
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 There
are two kinds of outlines: the topic
outline and the sentence outline.
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The topic outline consists of short phrases. It is
particularly useful when you are dealing with a
number of different issues that could be
arranged in a variety of ways in your paper.
The sentence outline is done in full sentences.
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It is normally used when your paper focuses on
complex details.
The sentence outline is especially useful for this kind
of paper because sentences themselves have many of
the details in them.
A sentence outline also allows you to include those
details in the sentences instead of having to create an
outline of many short phrases that goes on page after
page.
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 Both
topic and sentence
outlines follow rigid formats,
using Roman and Arabic
numerals along with capital
and small letters of the
alphabet. This helps both you
and anyone who reads your
outline to follow your
organization easily. This is the
kind of outline most commonly
used for classroom papers and
speeches.
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
Make the Outline
1. Identify the topic. The topic of your paper is important. Try to sum
up the point of your paper in one sentence or phrase. This will help
your paper stay focused on the main point.
2. Identify the main categories. What main points will you cover? The
introduction usually introduces all of your main points, then the rest of
paper can be spent developing those points.
3. Create the first category. What is the first point you want to cover?
If the paper centers around a complicated term, a definition is often a
good place to start. For a paper about a particular theory, giving the
general background on the theory can be a good place to begin.
4. Create subcategories. After you have the main point, create points
under it that provide support for the main point. The number of
categories that you use depends on the amount of information that you
are going to cover; there is no right or wrong number to use.
 By convention, each category consists of a minimum of two entries. If
your first category is Roman numeral I, your outline must also have a
category labeled roman numeral II; if you have a capital letter A under
category I, you must also have a capital letter B. Whether you then go
on to have capital letters C, D, E, etc., is up to you, depending on the
amount of material you are going to cover.
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Identify the main categories
I. First main category
II. Second main category
III. Third main category
IV. Fourth main category
Thesis: Television violence devalues the importance of
developing healthy relationships.
I. Healthy relationships at home
II. Healthy relationships at school
III. Healthy relationships at play
IV. Healthy relationships at work
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Create subcategories
Thesis: Television violence devalues the importance of developing healthy relationships.
I. Healthy relationships at home
A. Parents
B. Siblings
C. pets
II. Healthy relationships at school
A. Classmates
B. Teachers
C. Administrators
III. Healthy relationships at play
A. Friends
B. Recreational Activities
C. Sporting events
IV. Healthy relationships at work
A. Coworkers
B. Supervisors
C. Competition
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Create subcategories
III. Healthy relationships at play
A. Friends
1. Same-sex friendships
2. Opposite sex friendship
B. Recreational Activities
1. Movies
2. Games
C. Sporting events
1. Team sports
a. Soccer
b. Football
2. Individual sports
a. Pool
b. Cross Country
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
Conventions of outlining
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Symbols
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Identification
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Topics should be consistent
Single Divisions
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Do not mix topic and sentence outlining
Consistency
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All headings on the same margin should be of the same
importance
Parallelism
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Roman and Arabic numerals
Can not have one topic or subtopic
Content-Rich Headings
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Do not include:
 Introduction
 Conclusion, etc.
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