Outlining your paper
The purpose of outlining your paper is first, so I can see what you intend to write about and so that I do not realize too late that your topic is not a strong one. It helps you improve the quality of your paper by defining your purpose and in writing an outline, it is likely that you will begin to brainstorm and explore and your ideas and options. Outlining your paper also helps you organize your ideas, separating the main ideas from the evidence that supports them. After writing your paper, revisiting your outline can also help you make sure that you have stayed on track and not strayed from what you intended.
There is no single format of an outline. An outline is just as the name implies – meaning that it is not necessarily written in sentences and paragraphs, rather in brief points, but with enough information for an external reader to understand. Included below is what should be in such an outline.
My topic: What is the specific topic you are going to study? What more general field does this topic fit into? How does this topic combine language and the internet and what is the significance of this topic to the study of language?
My Hypothesis: What main claim do I make about this kind of language use? What do I have to say that can be supported by evidence and by data that is related to this topic? The topic cannot be vague; it must be clear, specific and explicitly stated.
What’s in the introduction: Introduce your topic, and the relevant aspects of your topic. Include some foreshadowing as to how this paper will continue and how this topic is approached in the paper.
Methods and procedures: You must include details of what you did and how you did it: how you collected data, the tools you used, how many sites you visited, how you chose them, how often you collected data, the period of time over which data were collected, etc. Someone should be able to replicate what you did based on what you share. You also must discuss how you will analyze your data.
Literature review: You should list at least three main researchers that contribute to the study of this topic, b presenting the sources you will use as references. I expect you to present the ideas of two of these researchers and one direct quote, followed by correct referencing. This research should be clearly related to your topic and they should be relatively recent and/or important researchers in this field of study.
My Findings/results: Focus on two specific areas that you research will investigate. This research should be driven by the linguistic content – and not, for example, three different sites, each separately assessed. This section should be organized by topics that are related to language use. For example, I can look at the language of haters, but in doing so, I might focus on: a) the use of direct language, b) stereotypical and biased language and c) the use of inference and implication.
Discussion – TO DO – Discuss and develop points of particular interest, mention the short comings of my work, discuss directions that this research could continue in. My own opinion can be expressed here.
Conclusion – TO DO – Summarize what I have found out without rewriting what has been said; remaining objective, no details are presented; the findings of this research are compared to what was seen in the literature.
References
A minimum of three references much be included and you must abide by APA.