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RESEARCH IN PHILOSOPHY
4.  Getting Organized

Picture
Ok, so you have been faithfully reading books and articles for your paper.  You have also been creating note cards according to the method that we have described to you and may even have already accumulated a significant number of these cards on several different topics you hope to address in your paper.

You think that you are ready now to begin writing your research paper, right?  Guess again, buddy.

You actually still have a considerable amount of intellectual work to do before you ever get around to putting pen to paper or your fingers on the keyboard of your computer.  You still have to think through what you want to say in this paper of yours and how exactly you want to say it.  
Having a pile of note cards is all well and good, but unless you have taken the time to think through your plan for this paper, all you are going to do is produce a disorganized mess of unconnected thoughts and ill-considered opinions.   You may have some wonderful facts in your paper, but your paper will lack focus, and your ideas simply won’t hang together. 

On the other hand, if you have a well-conceived plan for your paper, it will be focused, intelligently argued, and logical in structure.   It will be the kind of paper that any college instructor would want to read, and you will probably receive a high grade for your efforts.

4.1  Thesis Statement

A thesis statement is not the same as a topic. A topic is the area upon which you will do your research; a thesis statement is the particular slant (position, point of view) that you are going to take on your topic.

When you settled on a topic, there was a problem or issue that interested you in some way. Your  thesis statement is your particular answer to that problem, your spin on that issue.

Let’s pretend that you have decided to do your paper on euthanasia. After some deliberation, you eventually narrowed down the area of your research to an investigation of active, voluntary euthanasia and finally settled on the topic of physician-assisted suicide. Your thesis statement should clearly and decisively specify your position on this topic. An acceptable thesis statement for a paper like this might be:
  • Physician-assisted suicide is always immoral since it violates both the physician’s oath as well as the patients duty to preserve his own life.
  • Since it is founded upon the voluntary consent f the patient, physician-assisted suicide must be viewed as morally acceptable.
  • Physician assisted suicide is acceptable only under the following specific conditions:...
As you can see from the above examples, your thesis statement should be concise (1-2 sentences), decisive (take a stand, damn it!), and should encapsulate the position of your entire paper.

The development of a  strong thesis is vital for the creation of an interesting paper. Nothing is more frustrating for a reader than not being able to understand where a writer is coming from because that writer is confused or just plain wish-washy. You thesis statement is your opportunity to make your position  clear even before you begin writing your paper.

4.2  Your Title

Like your thesis statement, your title represents an opportunity to tell readers from the onset what the unique" contribution that you are making to your topic. It is also an opportunity to lure your reader into you paper  before he even begins reading. A fascinating title makes an instructor want  to read your paper, even though he may have twenty others to get though that  very night. As the following examples indicate, a very boring
title can be turned into an interesting one if you take the time to try to  be a bit creative:
Boring:
Interesting:

Boring:
Interesting:

Boring:
Interesting:

Boring:
Interesting:
"Hobbes and Spinoza on Human Rights"
"Alternative Perspectives on Human Rights: Hobbes and Spinoza on  Rights as Power"

"Kierkegaard’s Use of Socrates in his Pseudonymous Works"
"Kierkegaard’s Socrates: Leaping Past the Reasonable"

"Cicero’s Adoption of Stoicism"
"A Tale of Two Ciceros: Searching for the Stoic Cicero"

"Augustine on Moral Order"
 "Singing a Song of Degrees: Augustine on the Harmony of Moral  Order."

4.3  Creating a Working Outline

Once you have your thesis statement written and you have complied a preliminary collection of      notes, you probably will want to create a very general working outline to  help determine the direction of your paper. Your working outline need not  be more than a few lines, and should indicate the major subdivisions of  your paper. 

Let’s pretend for a   moment that the topic of your paper is on Kierkegaard’s use of the  figure  of Socrates in his philosophical writings. Your working title is "Kierkegaard’s Socrates: Leaping Past the Reasonable." Your thesis for this paper might be something like the following: "In such   pseudonymous works as The Sickness unto Death and The Philosophical Fragments  Kierkegaard uses Socrates to represent a rationally based mode of religiousness. In attacking Socrates he is actually attempting to substitute this philosophical model of  religiousness with a more paradoxically grounded—and hence more distinctively Christian—model."

Your working outline for such a paper might look something like this:

Kierkegaard's Socrates: Leaping Past the Reasonable
I.  Introduction: Kierkegaard’s Ambiguous Use of Socrates in the Pseudonymous Works

II.  The Distinction Between Religiousness A (Philosophical Wisdom) and Religiousness B (Christian Faith) in the Concluding Unscientific Postscript

III.  Socratic Recollection vs. Christian Faith in the Philosophical Fragments

IV.  Sin-as-Ignorance vs. Sin-as-Defiance in the Sickness Unto Death

V.  Conclusion: Evaluating Kierkegaard’s Use of Socrates

Consider your working outline a preliminary vision of your paper.   As you continue reading on your topic, you may find it necessary to revise this outline to fit your new ideas on the subject. This is perfectly acceptable. Your working outline is a guide, and when any guide no longer is able to effectively lead you towards your goal (the clear defense of your thesis), it should be substituted for another guide that can.

Your working outline should be brief enough to provide some overall direction to your research.  As you continue to read and develop a more nuanced understanding of your subject, you'll probably find it helpful to expand this working outline into a more detailed final outline.  A final outline would typically include every major point that you will be making in your paper. 

4.4  Preparing Your Introduction

As you write your introductory paragraph(s), remember that your introduction is yet another vehicle to entice the reader to delve into your paper.  It might be helpful for you to remember that the Latin term for introduction is "exordium" which literally means "beginning a web." Your introduction should captivate the reader so that he is caught in the web of your writing. Try to find an interesting way to state your thesis to the reader so that he will both understand your project in writing the paper and will want to read further.

Here is an example of a weak and a strong introduction:

4.5  A Few Picky Matters

You are now at the stage in your research where you can actually start thinking about writing the body of your paper. Before you begin writing, however, there are a few points about the format of your paper that you should keep in mind:
  1. The paper upon which you will be printing should be white, 8 ½ - 11" paper of good quality.  
  2. The type that you use when printing any college paper should always be 12 point, Times New Roman.
  3. Papers should also always be double-spaced throughout.  
  4. Margins on all college papers should be 1".
  5. Paragraphs should be indented ½". Do not skip lines between paragraphs! 
  6. Block quotes should be double spaced and indented 1 inch from the left margin of your paper  [In Word:  Highlight the text that you would like to double indent and move the  buttons on the ruler bar ½ inch on the left.  If your ruler bar isn’t visible on the top of your screen, go to View > Ruler Bar].
  7. All college papers should be stapled in the top, left hand corner of the page (paper clips should be avoided since they can fall off). Do not put your paper in a binder or folder unless specifically told to by your instructor!
It will be in your own best interest to set the specification for your paper (type, spacing, margins, justification, and tabs) before you begin to write, so that you won’t have to worry about these issues later on. 

As you begin to write, you should also keep the following few rules in mind and try to observe them consistently throughout your entire paper:
  1. Foreign words and terms not used frequently in English should be put in italics.
  2. The first time you use a person’s name in your text, write it out fully [e.g., Immanuel Kant]. After that you need only to give the person’s last name (e.g., Kant)—unless, of course, you are referring to two or more persons with the same last name.
  3. Numbers from one to nine should be spelled out; for numbers 10 and above, use arabic numerals.
  4. Punctuation.  One space should be used after a period (.), a colon (:), a comma (,), or a semi-colon (;).
    No   spacing should be used before or after a dash (—).  [By the way, don’t be afraid to try to incorporate forms of punctuation like colons, dashes and semi-colons into your paper.  It may take a bit of practice to learn   how to use such "exotic" forms of punctuation like these, but your writing will benefit tremendously by   using them on occasion in a paper.  Check the on-line version of Elements
    of Style         for more information on proper use of punctuation in writing].
  5. Titles of books and journals should be put in italics; titles of articles should be placed in "quotation  marks."  
  6. The following abbreviations may be used only within parenthetical comments:  cf. = compare; e.g. = for   example; etc. = and so forth; i.e = that is; viz = namely;  vs. = versus.  APA advises paper writers to avoid   abbreviations when possible.
  7. Avoid gender bias when writing your paper (e.g., use "police officer" rather than "policeman" and  "he or   she" rather than "he" when the specific gender of the person in question is not relevant).
  8. When writing your paper avoid using slang (e.g., "a really cool illustration") and contractions (instead of   "it’s" use "it is").

4.6  Sample MLA Title and Text Pages

Cover pages are not used in MLA format.  Instead, first page headings are used and include (1) your name, (2) your instructor's name, (3) the course name, and (4) the date in the left hand margin, as shown in the example below:
Subsequent pages should include a header in the top right hand corner that includes your last name followed by the page number (Jones 2), as shown in the following example:
©  Michael S. Russo, 2002.  Updated  2011.  All of  the content on this webpage is copyright.  The materials on this webpage may not be modified, posted or transmitted without the prior consent of the author.  Permission is granted to print out copies for educational purposes and for personal use  only. No permission is granted for commercial use.
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