S. Graves - Geography

Writing Lab- Part B - Effective Writing Strategies

Writing and Thinking Effectively

Background: One of the biggest problems plaguing students is how to translate their interest in a specific topic into a viable or workable research question. Without a viable research question, student papers tend to turn into a flood of unruly facts, assertions and ideas that dance around a common theme. The best way to address the problem of the unruly and wayward research paper is to get organized and stay organized. The keys to organized, disciplined writing are clearly formulated research questions and clearly written thesis statements or hypotheses, and a logically presented argument.

This assignment is designed to help you discipline your thinking and by disciplining your writing. Disciplined writing forces you to think with clarity and to organize your ideas. By forcing your compositions to follow the guidelines set out below, you will find your writing more forceful and your readers more persuaded of your brilliance.

Open the moodle quiz (new window) that accompanies this component of the Writing Lab and continue reading below.

Goal:

Students will compose essays and research papers that are logical, easy to read and conform to expected standards for expository and persuasive compositions.

Objectives:

Students formulate a workable thesis statement from a research question.
Students construct a framework of a thesis driven research article.
Students write a concise and effective introductory paragraph.
Students write concise topic sentences.
Students construct a framework of an effective concluding section/paragraph.

Assignment:

In this portion of this assignment, you will read through some helpful tips on picking a topic, constructing viable research questions, constructing useful topic sentences and constructing useful outlines from those topic sentences. You will answer several questions regarding the list of "tips", and then you will be asked to demonstrate what you've learned by constructing a working hypothesis and a quality thesis statement. You will also construct a topic sentences outline.

Part 1: Picking a Topic

Picking a topic generally isn't that difficult. Frequently your instructor will narrow it down for you, but in some of your upper division courses, you may be given a great deal more latitude. If this is the case, I first suggest you find a research topic based on your interests. A student might be interested in music, or sports, fashion, cars, the environment, or social issues. Any of those can lead to a research question focused on their subject of interest. Also, if a student has some familiarity with a topic, the research process may be sped along and fundamental mistakes, such as might be made by a neophyte, can be avoided.

BUT..and this is VERY IMPORTANT... , not all topics are equally easy to research from a geographic perspective. Spatial questions can be posed about nearly any topic, but some topics seem nearly incapable of producing a suitable research question. Ask your instructor if you can't find something, but don't try to create questions that can't be answered. Topics must be feasible and feasibility is frequently a matter of data availability. Making your own data (surveys, etc.) can be frustrating and challenging.

THE SECOND, and probably best, way to find a research topic is to FIRST find a source of data about something interesting and then ask questions of the data that you have found. Data is EVERYWHERE, but students often don't interpret it as data. Some data sources are obvious, like that produced by government agencies. Governments produce and publish an enormous amount of data, and much of it useable to geographers. However, few people consider the geographic aspects of much of this data and therefore veritable gold mines of research questions are left untouched. There are other sources of data, like newspapers, websites, polls,

The landscape itself (what you see as you drive around) is another rich data source that even geography students forget to think of as data. As you drive around town or campus, you may wonder to yourself why many things are as they are. This is a research question and the landscape (buildings, cars, signs, bus stops, etc.) is a data set that can be queried, mapped and analyzed. They may lend insight into questions that are not obvious.

Physical geography students sometimes have success applying their field collection techniques to gather data as well, but in order to do this in a one semester 490 course, you must be ready to collect data in the first weeks of the course.

In summary, research topics are ideal if they are 1) interesting to the researcher and 2) yield a workable research question. Secondly, there is loads of data out there capable of yielding many research papers. Most of the time, it is smartest to find the data first and then ask interesting questions of the data. If you have time and expertise, then you may consider gathering your own data. Make sure you consult at length with faculty before you begin your own data collection effort.

Answer questions in Moodle about picking a topic.

Easy questions huh? It will be interesting to see how many of you heed this simple advice when you write your senior thesis paper.

Part 2: Writing thesis statements, research questions and hypotheses

There are several important organizing tools used by authors of research (and students who write good papers). Chief among them are the 1) research question(s), 2) the thesis statement and the 3) hypothesis. Almost all research projects have a research question, or multiple research questions and a thesis statement. Papers written from a social scientific or scientific perspective will also have a hypothesis. Let's start with the research question.

Research Questions
Most of the time research is a product of human curiosity. Why does something happen? Does this or that happen? Is there a patten to this phenomena? These are research questions. Research questions are what drives the research process. Formulating a research question is the first step you must take before you move on to writing a thesis statement and/or a hypothesis. Sometimes others form research questions for you. You can frequently find research questions at the end of research papers in a paragraph that might be labeled, "The Call for Further Research" paragraph. Many authors include such calls in a paper because answering a research question often generates new questions or sub-questions or alternative versions of the original question.

The research question is generally broader in scope than the hypothesis or thesis statement. You might want to think of it as the "big picture" or the "so what?" question that drives the thesis statement and/or the hypothesis. In many research papers, the research question is introduced in the very first paragraph or two, before the thesis statement or hypothesis.

Many writers expose their research question as a means of explaining why they are doing their research. It is the motivation for the research in many instances.

Thesis Statements
Once you have a research question in mind, you will probably very quickly begin forming a thesis statement. The thesis statement is, in many ways, the answer to your resarch question. It is the argument that you are going to make as you try to prove that you have successfully answered your research question. Crafting a good thesis statement is perhaps the most important organizational tool at your disposal as a writer. A good thesis statement, if you pay attention to it, will focus your writing and allow you to sucessfully defend your opinion and answer your research question.

If you do not take great care in constructing your thesis statement, your paper has a much greater chance of becoming unruly, difficult to construct and even worse to read. Good thesis statements require special care to make sure they are viable before you make a commitment to them. A good thesis statement is like the North Star was to ancient travelers...it provides constant direction if you USE IT.

Once you have written a thesis statement and you are satisfied that it will help you answer your broader research question, you may begin the research process. You should try to keep your thesis statements constantly in mind as you do your research and write your papers. You should constantly monitor yourself to make sure you don't stray too far from the question you are answering or the point you want to make. However....

If you find that you can not defend your thesis statement, you may want to consider revising it. Perhaps you find that it easier to argue a different point, or that you were wrong in the first place; it is OK to come up with a new thesis statement. Go back and rewrite your thesis statement to match what you are really arguing. I have heard professors suggest that the introduction, which contains your thesis statement, should be the last thing you write. Presumably the logic behind this suggestion is that it is easier to tell your readers where you are going after you've taken that road yourself.

Hypotheses
All students seem to know that a hypothesis is, "an educated guess", but few seem to get beyond that simplistic understanding. Many students are hopelessly confused about how to create and use a hypothesis in their work. A better definition of a hypothesis might be an "explanation that can be tested". Hypotheses, as we use them in geography, generally involves setting up a test to see if your prediction comes true.

Here are a few things to keep in mind about hypotheses. First, a hypothesis must be testable. Second, the test must allow for the possiblity of a false return, i.e. coming out the opposite of what you predicted. Third, the result of the hypothesis must inform your thesis statement...they must be tied together. The results of your hypothesis testing may support your argument, undermine your argument...or do neither, but it must be transparent how the thesis statement and the hypothesis are related. Fourth, the hypothesis must be very carefully worded so that it may serve as a precise guide to guide the testing for you and your audience. Sloppy, overly broad hypotheses are useless.

What happens sometimes is that, in the course of building or testing a hypothesis, students find that they are actually testing something other than what they initially thought they were testing. If that is the case, students must adjust the test to make it properly address the question under consideration, or change the question to fit the test that works....but you do this at your peril, becuase if you change the test too much, then you may not be able to tie the test to your argument or your research question.

IT IS IMPORTANT to note that changing the hypothesis to confirm your prediction is a type of academic dishonesty if it is done inappropriately. It is perfectly acceptable to find out that your prediction was wrong after testing it with a hypothesis. That happens all the time in the sciences and no professor should mark you down if your test was good and your logic was sound. You can also come up with a new test and a new hypothesis, but you must be careful not to bias your results. When hypothesis testing doesn't turn out as you expected, or even if it turns out exactly as you expected, the real strength of your research lies in explaining why the results of your hypothesis are important to the resolution of the research question.

Keep in mind that testable hypotheses are often narrowly focused because they are tend to be small scale experiments or statistical tests. No matter the results, hypothesis tests are rarely capable of answering the big issues presented by the research question, nor can they always offer definitive support for your thesis statement.

Finally, it is worth noting that a hypothesis is not necessary in all research papers, but most social science and science papers use a hypothesis. Students who use a hypothesis in their research papers seem to have a much easier time writing the paper as well because they hypothesis forces additional structure into the paper. Papers that don't use a hypothesis are essay-style, and from a humanities perspective. Such papers are perfectly legitimate in geography, but seem to present challenges to students because hypothesis-free papers require the student to self-discipline their writing.

The preceding paragraphs are a vastly shortened refresher on writing papers, and certainly not the definitive guide. So, you spend some time consulting some other online guides to effective writing. Open this link to on-line reference guides to research questions, hypotheses and theses statements. Spend 10-20 minutes looking over the definitions and suggestions made by others about structuring research, writing good hypotheses and thesis statements. Then move on to the questions/tasks in Moodle.

Answer questions in Moodle about research questions, hypotheses and thesis statements.

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Geography 300