Organizing a Longer Essay From Various Sources, including Lester and Lester Jr. Axelrod and Cooper

After the Questions and the Research, then what? Okay, so now you’ve thought about what questions you want to answer and you’ve spent some time in the library finding out what there is to find out about your topic and trying to answer your questions. What next? Well, based on what you’ve found, you need to think about what kind of organization seems most appropriate for organizing and presenting your findings.

The Options: The Whole Paper Comparison/Contrast Analysis Problem Solving Definition Cause/Effect Narration Explaining Concepts Evaluation

Comparison/Contrast Does your topic have two sides, two people, two locations, two positions, two times to compare in terms of positive and negative issues? Are there similarities and differences that you can look at? This offers you several organizational possibilities: – Examine A, Examine B, Compare and Contrast A and B – Compare A and B, Contrast A and B, Discuss the central issues – Discuss issue 1 of A and B, Discuss issue 2 of A and B, Discuss issue 3 of A and B

Analysis Is there some analytical or theoretical principle that explains the way something works that you can apply to your topic? For example, – Can you use postcolonial theory to analyze Heart of Darkness? – Can you use a legal case to analyze a cultural or social trend? – Could you use a psychological theory, say the pecking order, to explain people’s behavior in your dorm? Here’s a guide for organizing an analysis essay: – Define, explain, and defend the theory or principle you’re working with. – Discuss or explore your topic by applying the theory to it. Principle X is _____. Principle X is valuable because _____. By applying Principle X, we can understand topic x as conclusion based on analysis.

Problem Solving Does your topic present you with a problem that needs to be solved? – How should we police or monitor the border? – How should schools be integrated? – Is multicultural education a worthwhile political agenda? Here is an organizing strategy for problem solving: – Introduce the problem – Present your solution – Argue directly for your solution – Counterargue, addressing readers’ objections, questions and preferred solutions

Definition Is the product of your questioning and research a new concept or term that needs to be defined in order to understand the issue under consideration? – What is multiculturalism? – What is the Federal Housing Administration? – What is a Doppelganger? Here’s an organizational strategy for defining a term: – Describe what your term is – Analyze the word’s roots – Compare your term to something it is not – Give an example or two of your term

Cause/Effect In your research did you discover something that needs to be explained of the connection between actions and results? – Women get fewer advanced degrees in Math and Science than men because they are socially conditioned to believe that they are inferior to men in these areas – Because the Federal Housing Administration discriminated against African Americans in the 50’s they have suffered economic inequalities ever since Organizational Strategies: – Detail the sequence of proposed causes or effects – Discuss other writers’ alternative causes or effects, refuting, evaluating or accepting them – Consider readers’ objections to your proposals

Narration Maybe your questions and research have lead you to believe that you have some experiences in your own life that will provide you with information that will be pertinent to the issue. Or, maybe someone you’ve interviewed has a story to tell that you think is useful for thinking about the topic in a new way. Organizational Strategies: – Chronologically – Begin in the middle and use flashbacks to establish beginning – Begin at the end and circle around to the beginning

Explaining Concepts Did your research lead you to a major idea or principle that needs to be explained? – How did the idea of race come into being? – What is virtual reality? – What’s the difference between altricial and precocial? There are lots of ways to explain what something is. Here are some organizing ideas that you’ll probably want to combine in order to explain a concept: – Definition – briefly state the meaning of the concept – Classify and divide – group related information about a concept into two or more discrete groups, label them, or divide the concept into parts and consider each part separately – Compare and contrast with a similar concept – Narrate a process presenting procedures or sequences of steps as they unfold over time – Illustrate by giving examples, relating anecdotes, listing facts and details, and quoting sources – Report causes or effects as they relate to a concept

Evaluation Perhaps your research has lead you to the point at which you want to take a stand on an issue, make a judgment call about something. – America hasn’t lived up to the declarations made in the Declaration of Independence about “freedom, liberty and justice for all.” – Colleges in Colorado are seriously under funded and in danger of collapsing. Here are some organizing strategies for evaluative essays: – Present the subject – what is being judged? – Assert an overall judgment – Give reasons and support for your judgment – Counterargue – acknowledge other people’s different evaluations and discuss why you disagree