Writing an Outline & Introduction

Writing an Outline:

Here are my suggestions that have helped students before you. First, you need to have (1) read 90% of the articles in your area and (2) that you have a meta-analysis in your area(s), or you risk having to redo your work. Once you have read the majority of articles in your area, you need to have 2-4 main points.  They need to be arguments, not just – review of literature.  So these main points need to be the hallmark of what you are trying to say in this paper.  You can think of each of these main points as being a 10 page paper. Here is a video to explain further:

Here is a good example:  “Contingent rewards have an effect on a person’s/employees level of intrinsic motivation.”  Not just review of intrinsic motivation – of course it has to be in there to explain what you are talking about, but it isn’t the argument you are making.  So one of your supporting points might be and explanation of intrinsic motivation theory.

Second, you need state the supporting evidence to each of the argument, in full sentence format, label the A, B and C. Here is an example for the above “Contingent rewards have an effect on a person’s/employees level of intrinsic motivation.”

A.    A decrease in perceived level of autonomy decreases intrinsic motivation.
B.    An increase in perceived ability to gauge competency increases intrinsic motivation.
C.    Measurement of intrinsic motivation is observable through both written and behavioral assessment.

For PsyCap papers, it tends to be:

  • Psycap is a motivational propensity comprised of four components

    • Hope

    • Self-Efficacy

    • Resilience

    • Optimism

  • Psycap is state like and forms a second order construct

    • State-like

    • Second order

  • Psycap is tied to important business outcomes

    • Attitudes

    • Behaviors

    • Performance

    • Other

      Writing an Introduction: This is done at several points.

For the proposal: 

You will need your problem and purpose statement, which should be about 1-2 paragraphs.  You can feel free to add a few additional paragraphs on the history of your topic here, labeled “Background”.

 For the defense: 

Chapter 1 will become an extended abstract of your study, about two pages, which will be written last, after you can summarize the results and discussion.  There is a template floating around out there with many sections of the first chapter.  You do not have to do this, per my discussions with copy editing.  I prefer that definition of terms be put in an appendix, if you choose to do them. 

 Looking ahead to Chapter 2: 

The first paragraph of Chapter 2 is a summary of your Chapter 1.  The second paragraph is the introduction to your main sections (should correspond with the titles of your main sections).  So if your main sections are PsyCap and Engagement, then your main two sections should be titled this way and the second paragraph should explain that you will be talking about both of them.  Last sentence of this second paragraph stating it explicitly. 

Files & Resources

Writing a Literature Review

As an overview, the lit review is a place where you demonstrate your expertise in the literature in the subjects you are working with.  This cannot be written until you have read 20-40 articles minimum in each subject.  If you are unfamiliar with how to do a literature search, please see the library resources section above.  If you are struggling with writing the lit review or a section of the lit review, you most likely have not read enough literature for the paper or that section.  You will "know" what to write once you have read enough of the literature.  The dissertation is a place where you demonstrate to the reader that you have a firm grasp of the historical and most current research, as well as an opportunity to educate your readers on the topic.  You should always address each topic as if the reader has no knowledge of the topic, being careful to define each term you use.  If you use acronyms, make them limited and be consistent.  Do not use an acronym until you have full defined the term.

Another obstacle that students face is that they try and make all the study decisions before they have written the lit review.  You should not discuss your current study, or the measures you are using, until the conclusion of the paper.  You don't want to start reviewing your study, before you have reviewed the literature thoroughly.  This may require a discussion of certain measures (the different kinds of EIQ measures, which has the most reliablity and validity, etc.), which is fine and appropriate, but leave the announcement of your decision until the conclusion.  This is because you want to discuss each topic in one place, and not scatter it throughout the paper in many places.

So when you are writing a section, be very disciplined about only writing about that topic.  If you have topics A, B and C - only discuss A in section A.  Only discuss B in section B.  It may be most appropriate to use section C to compare and contrast, or join or combine A and B.  Otherwise, your writing will be disjointed if you jump back and forth.  You can even help yourself by thinking of the lit review as 3 different 10 page papers and write them separately.  If you did a white paper in PD class, then you can think of these papers as similar to those.  The first or second paragraph of the lit review should explicitly say - A, B and C will be covered/discussed/reviewed.  Then, the only titles (besides intro, LR, methods, results, discussion) should be the subject of A, B and C.

Be disciplined in keeping authors out of the sentence.  Instead of "Thompson found", write "Research has found, (Thompson, 2013)".  Better yet, substitute "research" for the actual finding and keep it the subject of your paper.  Also, when proofing your paper, skim and notice any paragraphs over 6 sentences - you probably have more than one theme and need to break that large paragraph into two smaller paragraphs, each with their own theme.  Always begin each section with an introduction of the topics you will be discussing, and discuss them in that order.

One of the most helpful things you can do is to read any of my research articles AND read one of my former student's dissertation.  This will give you a really clear picture of what good academic writing looks like and what I will be expecting.  Set time aside before you turn in each draft, and review your own work for content and also by using the writing rubric below.  Using the rubric on yourself greatly speeds up my ability to get the paper back to you.  Make sure you familiarize yourself with the list of writing rules - you can easily eliminate an extra revision or two by doing these things on the first draft and sticking to them.

Last, make sure that you study APA writing, citations, tables and figures.  You should also examine the copy editing manual.  I no longer make a lot of these edits, as they are very time consuming.  However, you time in copy editing will be determined by how well you meet those standards.  Your chair and your committee will appreciate you adhering to these as well.

Before You Turn In Your First Draft & Outline

 

1.)    Review the paper marking the outline to make sure you stuck to it, or if you changed it, change the outline to reflect this.  I will be doing this check as well so I will need the most updated outline.

2.)    Review your paper according to the rubric (this can save you 3-6 editing turn arounds)– big obvious things that let me know you didn’t do this step:

a.      Each paragraph one theme, 3-5 sentences; visually scan your paper for this – only one theme to a paragraph

b.      No authors in sentences, put in citations at the end of sentences instead

c.       Explicitly state main points at beginning of each section and beginning of paper; follow through on these.  Check your second and third sections …. Did you continue to do this?  Did you do this for the sub-sections?

d.      Spelling & Grammar - My spell check and grammar check light up like a Christmas tree when I open your document

Files & Resources

APA Resources from Writing Center