Drafting background sections – For a change of pace during the Information Collection and Refinement phases of your research, try working on your reference list or begin drafting part of the background section for your paper. For example, if you are researching strategies to decrease teen smoking, you might draft a paragraph describing the prevalence of teen smoking in Canada over the past few decades.
Write a discovery draft – To clarify your ideas and begin synthesizing the information you have found, you might find it helpful to write a discovery draft at this point. To get started, try pretending that you are writing a two-hour open-book essay exam on your topic. At the end of this process, you may have a better sense of your central argument (thesis) and of how your paper might unfold. Remember, though, that a discovery draft is just that—a tool for discovery and exploration. You will still have a lot of work to do to get to a good first draft.
Refine your tentative thesis – If you began your research with a tentative thesis, now is the time to refine that thesis in light of the research you have done so far. For some excellent advice and some good examples on writing thesis statements, see the material developed by Dr. Margaret Proctor at U of T.
Develop a tentative outline – As you begin to synthesize the information you’ve collected, you will need to develop a plan or outline for your research paper. If you have been visually mapping out your ideas and evolving resarch findings, you can simply add numbers to your map to indicate the sequence in which you plan to present the information and arguments within your paper. Then, if you like, you can transfer that sequence into a formal outline format. For an example, see the USU website.
Develop a (topic) sentence outline – Take your outline a step further by developing opening sentences for the topic sections listed in your outline. See the UNB Writing Centre site for an example of a traditional outline and a corresponding sentence outline. As the site notes, a sentence outline helps you to test your arguments and to clarify their relationships. A sentence outline can also help to ensure that your final paper is effectively focused and structured.
