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Writing is recursive. A good writer constantly reconsiders the main ideas, organization, details, and style—while revising throughout the entire writing process.
To make the writing process simple enough to discuss, we break the process into four main categories: understanding the assignment, doing the research, deciding on the central idea, and writing the main parts. The “parts” we talk about are body sections, introductions, conclusions, and abstracts.
Understanding the assignment
It’s impossible to write a perfect paper if you don’t completely understand the assignment. Therefore, we provide resources and tips relating to understanding the topic.
We recommend "How Do I Make Sure I Understand an Assignment?" from Sweetland Center for Writing, University of Michigan. This article provides distinctions among common assignment goals and provides strategies for finding the goals of any written assignment. It may also help to check out the “Comments on Purpose” section on Student Resources.
If you’re in a rush, here’s a summary of key points from the article:
- There are three major assignment types: summary, analysis, and argument.
- Pay attention for words like “define” and “analyze.” They give hints about the assignment’s goals.
- Always ask “What does this essay really need to contain?”
The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created this short video about understanding assignments. Follow the instructions in the video to break down your prompt.
Once you understand the prompt, you need to decide what to write about. For help brainstorming what to write about, we recommend the SLC Writing Program, UC Berkeley.
Research
After understanding the assignment you’ll know better what you need to research. At this stage it’s important to remember principles and goals of information literacy. Ensuring credibility of the resources used is a primary goal of information literacy.
It’s important that when researching, you consider the credibility of the resources you’re using. Unreliable sources will send your audience a message that you are unreliable. This Tedx Talk breaks down how to identify a fake news article; the principles can be applied to any research.
Ask yourself the following questions:
- Who is this publication and are they credible?
- Who is the author? Do they have accessible information about them and are they a credible source?
- With both of these in mind, is this article/journal/website credible? If you have any doubt, then err on the safe side.
In addition, you’ll need to find enough sources with enough varying perspectives that you can build your own expertise and credibility.
The resources available on Hekman Library will prove useful in the research process. In particular, we recommend you use the following links on Hekman’s page:
Additional Resources Related to Research
- Yale College Writing Center: Eight Strategies for Using Sources.
- Colorado State University, WAC Clearinghouse: Evaluating Sources.
- Calvin University—What Not To Do: a document about what not to do while researching.
- Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL): Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing.
- The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison: Source documentation, with a guide to different citation manuals.
The central idea
Imagine that you’re meeting with your professor to talk about a paper and the professor asks, “So what’s the main point of your paper?” Your answer will depend on the assignment itself as well as your individual choices, but before you can write a final draft you must be able to answer the question.
There are two main types of central ideas we’ll cover: the thesis and hypothesis. Both try to answer the research (or main) question of a paper.
Before you consider developing the central idea for an assignment, you must consider genre. It would be inappropriate to include a thesis statement in a biology research paper, or to include a hypothesis in a book report. Often the assignment prompt or genre will indicate which of the two you should use.
Does your assignment call for a thesis or a hypothesis? If it calls for a thesis, explore the thesis resources below. If it calls for a hypothesis, scroll down and explore the hypothesis resources.
Thesis statements
A thesis is a concise, declarative and argumentative statement that summarizes the point of the paper. A thesis must be arguable and is usually one sentence. It’s usually stated in the introduction of the paper and is usually restated in the conclusion (although stated differently). The rest of the paper is an attempt to clarify and defend the thesis statement.
If you already have a thesis, you may want to refine it. For this we recommend The Writing Center, University of Wisconsin-Madison’s five-step practice for refining existing thesis statements. Pay close attention to steps three and four.
There isn’t just one way to write a thesis, but here are a few principles to cultivate:
- Answer the question you’re trying to answer. It may seem obvious, but this is the number one reason for a weak thesis.
- It must be debatable. “The Pope is the head of the Roman Catholic Church” is a weak thesis because nobody would debate it.
- A thesis doesn’t need the standard three prong high school model. It can have more or less.
- The main points of the body sections need to support the thesis.
- You don’t need to have the thesis finalized before writing. Experienced writers often change their theses.
Sometimes seeing what not to do can be equally helpful. Here is a list of what not to do with your thesis statement.
Here are examples of strong thesis statements:
- The New York Rangers are a more effective organization than the New York Islanders because their owner is more experienced, the players have played together longer, and the Rangers’ Henrik Lundqvist has the best save percentage in the NHL.
- It is evident that the goddess Asherah has West Semitic roots because of the linguistics involved with her name and her appearance in semitic mythology.
- In On Faith and Works, Cardinal Cajetan critiqued the Lutheran doctrine of justification through faith by accusing the Lutherans of misunderstanding the nature of faith, its role in salvation, and the concept of merit.
The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill created a useful document pertaining to thesis statements; the “How do I know if my thesis is strong?” section is useful while conceiving a thesis statement. It’ll guide you through a series of questions to ask yourself about your thesis statement.
Resources related to thesis statements
- The Department of English, University of Victoria: Examples of multiple ways a thesis can be weak and solutions to fix them.
- Writing at the University of Toronto (Margaret Procter, Writing Support): Check out the “Myths” section at the bottom of the page. This is helpful for reevaluating how we think about thesis statements.
- Center for Writing Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign: A helpful list of questions to ask about your thesis. The questions are followed by tips to help formulate a better thesis.
Hypothesis statements
A hypothesis is a statement about the research question that can be proved either true or false through experiments and data collection. Hypothesis statements are common in the natural and social sciences.
A strong hypothesis has three parts: the assumption, condition, and prediction.
The assumption: the explanation of the problem.
The condition: how the researcher conducts the experiment.
The prediction: what the researcher thinks will happen.
This video will assist you when constructing a hypothesis statement. Start at 0:16.
Other examples of effective hypothesis statements tend to focus on the “assumption”:
- There is a strong connection between political views and attitude to cohabitation. (From a student research report written for a sociology class. The test of the hypothesis was conducted through extensive survey data.)
- Chronic pain can be better understood by taking the pain sufferers’ perceptions of pain into account. (From a report of research in a nursing journal; the hypothesis was tested through interview data that was recorded and coded.)
- Audio enhancement [broadcasting nature sounds into a tiger enclosure to reduce behavior such as pacing] reduces signs of stress such as pacing in tigers. (From a student research report for an animal behavior class; the hypothesis was tested by observing a dn tracking behaviors in the tiger enclosure with and without audio enhancement.)
Resources Related to Hypothesis Statements
- Grand Canyon University, Center for Innovation in Research and Teaching: Basic understanding of hypothesis statements and how to make one.
- The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill: scroll until you see the sections “Hypothesis” and “Justify your hypothesis.”
Drafting parts of a paper
When you’ve a thesis or hypothesis to guide your work to its central point, and when you’ve enough detailed content to support and clarify that point, you’ll be ready to draft the special function parts of a paper: body sections, introductions, conclusions, and in some cases, abstracts.
Body sections
Body sections present the critical supporting points that back up the central point of a paper. Introductions may hook readers, but body sections keep papers alive.
For short papers, the body sections may appear as separate paragraphs in which the topic sentence (typically the first sentence in a paragraph) expresses the supporting point that advances the thesis.
For longer papers, a body section is typically identified by a heading (note all the headings in this web page). A heading identifies the key content of the body section that it heads. The in the beginning of the section, you usually find a topic sentence. In this body section on “body sections” the topic sentence is the first sentence after the heading.
The Purdue University Online Writing Lab (OWL) will assist you through the process of creating main point sentences.
Advice on body sections
- Use them to argue the thesis. If your topic sentences don’t argue in favor of the thesis, either the topic statement or the thesis needs to be changed.
- A topic sentence should summarize the purpose of its respective section.
- A topic statement should be backed up by evidence or examples.
If you’d like to consult additional resources, we recommend the Sweetland Center for Writing, University of Michigan. Go to the section on body paragraphs.
Visit the Rhetoric Center for further direction on body paragraphs!
Introductions
The introduction comes at the beginning of the paper and has two main jobs: to introduce the topic and state the central point (thesis or hypothesis).
MSU’s Writing Center’s blog hits the main concerns of an effective and interesting introduction. Make sure to check it out. It lists seven tips for writing introductions that in general you should prefer over other alternatives.
The most important of these points will be restated:
- Incorporate your thesis.
- Start broad, but get to your topic quickly. If you open with “since the beginning of time…” your introduction probably needs some work. This point was not clear in the article; make sure you get to your point early-on.
- Provide relevant background information without starting your argument.
- Convince the reader you’re worth reading. You don’t need decorative sentences, you just have to present the significance of your topic in a convincing way.
If you’re stuck and don’t know what to write for your introduction, this article from Writing at the University of Toronto (Leora Freedman and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre) will help. In particular, we recommend using the “How do I write an interesting, effective introduction?” section; it’s brief and covers the basics of a good introduction.
And sometimes seeing what not to do can be equally helpful. Here is a list of what not to do with your introduction.
Conclusions
Conclusions come at the end and are used to wrap up thoughts, summarize the paper, and/or to suggest a “what now?” question.
To clarify, a “what now?” approach entails explaining the significance of this information or calling for areas of future research. The “What now?” approach is refreshing because many papers use the summary method.
For further direction, this Shmoop video details several ways to conclude.
Resources Related to Conclusions
- University of Wisconsin: The “Should you summarize?” and “How do you start drafting a conclusion?” sections are particularly useful for creating your own conclusions.
- Writing at the University of Toronto (Written by Leora Freedman and Jerry Plotnick, University College Writing Centre): The “Some general advice about conclusions,” and “How do I write an interesting, effective conclusion?” sections will be helpful for practical advice on how to write strong and interesting conclusions.
- Calvin University—What Not to Do: Sometimes seeing what not to do can be just as helpful.
Abstracts
The primary purpose of an abstract is to introduce your research and to inform the readers about the paper’s content and conclusions. It does this so other researchers (professionals and students) can know whether or not your research will help their research.
Abstracts are unique to certain genres and function as a summary of your entire paper. Does your paper require an abstract? The assignment prompt may say whether an abstract is required; if it doesn’t, ask your teacher.
Most abstracts include the following types of information: introduction to the objective, a brief overview of the methods, results, and significant conclusions. This video by the University of Maryland, Baltimore Writing Center reliably guides us through what goes into most research abstracts.
In addition, sometimes seeing what not to do is helpful. For this, use Calvin University—What Not to Do: Abstracts.
However, we must concede: not all abstracts are the same. Though, thankfully, The University of Southern California Libraries created a resource on abstracts; it contains information about the four different kinds of abstracts. As the USC guide states, the informative abstract is the most frequent.
Helpful tips
- Keep it short; abstracts are extremely brief.
- Write it last. How could you introduce something before you write it?
- Cover the necessary sections.
- Prefer the past tense because you’re reporting on research already done.
- References aren’t usually in abstracts.
For further direction with abstracts see The Writing Center, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill or visit the Rhetoric Center!