Because of the infinite variety of approaches that can be taken and combined in a research paper, you may find you need to combine aspects from different structural models. 

 

Introduction

 

The Q-and-A

Paragraph 1: The Question

• Orientation
• Evidence
• Analysis
• Question/Problem1

Paragraph 2: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 3: The Answer

• Terms
• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes:

• When to use: when your essay is built around analyzing a single text or topic. 
• Create a section break after the first paragraph. 
• Your literature review may very well be more than one paragraph.
• After the end of the introduction, create a section break, and start the body of the essay.

 

The Surface Reading / Closer Reading

Paragraph 1: The Literature Review

• Orientation
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 2: The Closer Reading

• Response (i.e., Question/Problem)
• Terms
• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes: 

• When to use: when there’s a commonly accepted interpretation in a field that you’re going to oppose/complicate/develop; when you don’t have any fancy methodology (it’s just a straightforward close reading).
• After the end of the introduction, create a section break, and start the body of the essay.

 

The New Phenomenon

Paragraph 1: Question/Problem 

• Orientation
• Textual Evidence
• Analysis
• Question/Problem1

Paragraphs 2-?: The Literature Review 

• Text Statement
• Historical Evidence
• Historical Citations
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 3: The Thesis

• Terms
• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes:

• When to use: when the text(s) and/or topic you’re addressing is so new that there hasn’t been any scholarly work on it.
• Your first paragraph should identify the text(s) you’re looking at and the question(s)/problem(s) you’re addressing.
• Create a section break after the first paragraph. 
• Since there hasn’t been any scholarship on your text(s), your literature review should address the tradition your topic grows out of / is the latest example of.
• In your literature review, the presentation of Historical Evidence (the things in the past that happened) and Historical Citations (scholars interpreting those things from the past) will be interwoven.
• Structure the literature review chronologically based on the Historical Evidence, peppering in Historical Citations as relevant. 
• It’s likely that this literature review will be longer than one paragraph, since there’s so much content to cover. Treat it like a body section.
• Your Question/Problem2 should address how this new phenomenon you’re addressing is different or may alter the conversations scholars are having about this tradition. 
• After the end of the introduction, create a section break, and start the body of the essay.

 

The Abstract

Paragraph 1: The Argument

• Text Statement
• Question/Problem1
• Critical Citation(s)
• Question/Problem2
• Method Statement
• Thesis Statement

Paragraph 2: The Roadmap

• Evidence
• Stakes

 

Notes

• When to use: when using lots of quantitative analysis (data, statistics, charts); when adopting a scientific rather than humanistic voice.
• One sentence per element, except…
• Maybe two sentences for Thesis.
• Maybe two-to-four sentences for Evidence.
• After the Roadmap Paragraph, create a section break and start the body of the essay.
• Since there’s not a full literature review in the introduction, make one of your body sections (early in the essay) a literature review.

 

The Exemplar

Paragraph 1: Exemplar Paragraph

• Orientation
• Textual Evidence
• Analysis

Paragraph 2: Thesis Paragraph

• Thesis
• Stakes 

Paragraph 3: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citation(s)
• Question/Problem2

 

Notes:

• When to use: when there’s a perfect, easy-to-understand illustration of your argument that can be covered in a paragraph.
• In the opening paragraph, instead of developing a question/problem, make a point.
• That point can then be extrapolated into your thesis.
• Include a section break after the Thesis Paragraph.
• Because you’ve already delivered your Thesis, your literature review should state at the beginning how your argument advances the scholarly conversation. 
• After the Literature review, create a section break and start the body of the essay.
• Because this introduction doesn’t identify the driving Question/Problem of the essay, make the first paragraph of the body a Question/Problem Paragraph: Orientation, Textual Evidence, Analysis, Question/Problem1

 

The Cannonball

Paragraph 1: The Thesis

• Thesis
• Stakes 

Section 2: Question/Problem

• Orientation
• Textual Evidence
• Analysis
• Question/Problem1

Section 3: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citation(s)
• Question/Problem2

Section 4: The Method

• Method
• Theoretical Citation(s)
• Terms

 

Notes:

• When to use: when you know that it’s going to take you multiple paragraphs to cover your question/problem, literature review, and/or method.
• Your first sentence is your thesis. 
• Create a section break after the first paragraph. 
• Since you immediately stated your thesis, you’ve got more leeway to develop the framing material in multiple paragraphs: your readers will stick with you because they know where it’s all going. 
• Because you’ve already delivered your thesis, your Question/Problem paragraphs can state at the beginning how your argument resolves the driving question. 
• Similarly, your literature review should state at the beginning how your argument advances the scholarly conversation. 
• In your essay, create a section break between each of these four sections.

 

The Stakes First

Paragraph 1: What’s at Stake

• Orientation to Stakes
• Evidence for Stakes
• Analysis for Stakes
• Question/Problem for Stakes

Paragraphs 2-?: Literature Review for the Stakes 

• Critical Citation(s)
• Question/Problem2 

Paragraph 3: Method / Thesis

• Method / Text Statement
• Thesis

Paragraph 4: Question/Problem

• Orientation
• Textual Evidence
• Analysis
• Question/Problem1

Paragraph 5: Literature Review for the Text

• Critical Citation(s)
• Question/Problem2

 

Notes:

• When to use: when you want to emphasize the implications of your argument; when writing a presentist essay.
• Start by laying out the Question/Problem that your Thesis is the answer to: not the problem in your text that needs interpretation, but a bigger-picture problem. That’s what’s at stake in this essay.
• That topic just introduced in the first paragraph then receives a literature review in the second: what previous scholarship has been done on that big-picture topic?
• Note that this introduction will have two literature reviews—one for the level of the stakes, and one for the level of the text. 
• The key sentence is the Method / Text Statement at the start of Paragraph 3. This is where you explain that the Question/Problem for Stakes can be resolved by turning to your text and argument. 
• Then deliver your Thesis. 
• Create a section break after your Thesis. 
• Next, establish your Question/Problem1 (why your text needs interpretation), since you haven’t yet done that. 
• Now provide a literature review of previous scholarship related to that Question/Problem1.
• Then create a section break and begin the body of the essay.

 

The Comparative Essay

Paragraph 1: The Situation

• Orientation to Text 1
• Orientation to Context 1
• Orientation to Context 2
• Orientation to Text 2

Paragraph 2: The Question

• Evidence from Text 1
• Evidence from Text 2  
• Analysis
• Question/Problem

Paragraph 3: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 4: Method and Thesis

• Method
• Terms
• Thesis

 

Notes:

• When to use: when using some shared feature of two texts to discuss some larger similarity or difference in context.
• Create a section break after the second paragraph, and another after the thesis.
• A comparative essay usually gives equal weight to both texts.
• In the body of the essay, don’t jump back and forth between your two texts in a single paragraph. It’s too disorienting for your reader to introduce new evidence and new analysis from two different texts all at once.
• Instead, cover your first text in full in a large section, then shift over to covering your second text in full in its own large section. That second large section may refer back to the analyses you did earlier. 

 

The Lens Essay

Paragraph 1: The Question

• Orientation Related to Target Text
• Evidence Related to Target Text
• Analysis Related to Target Text
• Question/Problem Related to Target Text

Paragraph 2: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 3: The Lens

• Method
• Theoretical Citations
• Terms

Paragraph 4: The Thesis

• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes:

• When to use: when you want to use one text (usually philosophical or theoretical) to explain what’s going on in another text usually (usually historical or artistic). 
• Create a section break after the first paragraph, and another after the thesis paragraph. 
• You can think of one of your texts as the “target text”—the thing being interpreted—and the other as a “helper text” that’s allowing you to do your interpretation.
• In all likelihood, the two texts involved in the essay will not receive equal weight (the target text will receive more attention, the helper text less).
• If it will take you more than one paragraph to provide an overview of your “helper text,” shift that material down to the start of the body of the essay. Still give a sentence or two in the introduction to your method, but then go straight into your thesis, saving the substance of your “helper text“ for the body. 
• In the body of the essay, as you unpack your “target text,“ you should return to specific ideas and rotations from your “helper text“ to enhance your analysis.

 

The Test-a-Theory Essay

Paragraph 1: The Prevailing Theory

• Orientation related to the Theory
• Evidence related to the Theory
• Analysis related to the Theory
• Question/Problem related to the Theory

Paragraph 2: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 3: The New Data Set

• Method
• Orientation to the Data Set

Paragraph 4: The New Theory

• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes: 

• When to use: when you want to use a new example or data set to challenge and older, established theory; when you want to develop a new, better theory. 
• If you fully endorse the theory at hand, don’t write a test a theory essay; write a lens essay that uses that theory to unpack evidence.

 

The Historicist Essay

Paragraph 1: The Question

• Orientation Related to Target Text
• Evidence Related to Target Text
• Analysis Related to Target Text
• Question/Problem Related to Target Text

Paragraph 2: The Literature Review

• Text Statement
• Critical Citations
• Analysis
• Question/Problem2

Paragraph 3: The Context

• Method Statement
• Orientation to Historical Text(s)
• Terms

Paragraph 3: The Answer

• Thesis
• Stakes

 

Notes: 

• When to use: when contextualizing a text in the circumstances that produced it will reveal a new understanding not available when simply looking at that text in isolation.
• Be sure to identify your “target text”—the thing being interpreted—and the “helper text(s)” being used to enhance your interpretation.

 

Conclusion

Paragraph 1: Your Argument

• Counter
• Response
• Argument

Paragraph 2: What’s at Stake

• Method/Text for the Implications
• Orientation for the Implications
• Evidence for the Implications
• Analysis for the Implications
• Question/Problem for the Implications

Paragraph 3-?: Literature Review for the Implications

• Critical Citations for the Implications
• Analysis of those Critical Citations
• Question/Problem2 for the Implications

Paragraph 4: Implications, Part I (The Idea)

• The Argument of the Implications

Paragraph 5: Implications, Part II (The Illustration)

• Evidence and Analysis supporting the Argument of the Implications

 

Notes: 

• Transition from the end of the body into the start by addressing the most compelling counter argument to your thesis.
• Responding to that counter – showing the error of his ways, describing how your position is ultimately more satisfactory – sets you up to synthesize together the totality of your main argument. Remember that an argument statement is different from a thesis statement: The thesis is a short, accessible, easy to understand, one or two sentence statement of your central idea; the argument is a summary of all the thinking and evidence that support your thesis, written out in a full paragraph.
• Transition from your argument to your implications by describing how the ideas presented in your argument bring with them the power to elucidate other things. That’s what you describe in the key sentence on your Method/Text for the Implications. 
• Your text for the Implications  is the topic thing being interpreted in your conclusion, which should be different the text Dash the thing being interpreted Dash in the overall essay. Your method for the implications is your description of how you’re using your argument to interpret that new text for the implications.
• Note that, if you spent significant time in the introduction developing what’s at stake, you don’t need to rehash that material in the conclusion. 
• After explaining how that you’re going to use your argument to interpret text your applications right a short question problem statement for the text of your implications. A little orientation, a little evidence, a little analysis, and then the question/problem that will be resolved by looking through the lens of your argument.
• Next comes Part I of your implications – the Idea. This is where you see rise your argument into abstract terms that are not bound to the specifics of the text from which it came. 
• Part II of your implications— The illustration –returns to some concrete examples to show your the idea in action.