E-4:
Virtual Worlds
Harvard Extension School
Mondays 7:35-9:35pm EST, Fall 2007
Berkman Center Conference Room and Live Webcast on Berkman Island
Instructor: Rebecca Nesson
Final Paper Detailed Outline
Total Points: 50
Due Date: December 3, 12:00
noon EST
In this assignment you will develop a detailed outline of your final paper.
Brainstorming
This assignment is the first step in developing the argument that you will make in your final paper. As a result, it is one of the most challenging steps: it is the step in which you have to decide what you think about your topic and why. Before you get started on this week's work, let's review what is already done as a result of your podcast and your topic worksheet:
- You have already selected a topic or a question that your paper is going to address.
- You have already identified some good resources for how you are going to learn more about this topic and hopefully have spent some time exploring those resources so that you have a pretty good idea of the complexity of your topic.
- You have already identified the different points of view about your topic and created an empathic statement of the problem/issue/question that stakeholders in that question should agree is fair.
The next step is to start to get an idea of what arguments you want to make. Before you constrain yourself to any particular structure for writing it down and before you try to make yourself write any full sentences, just take some time to think and jot down your ideas. Use a blackboard or a big piece of paper or a text file and try not to edit yourself -- just put down anything that you think of that seems related to your topic or the argument that you think you might want to make about your topic. Perhaps try to think about the following questions to get started:
- Do I have an intuition or direction that I am leaning on this question? If so, what is it? And what persuaded me to that opinion? If not, what are the different sides of the issue that are keeping me divided?
Your brainstorming can take any form that feels comfortable for you. It can be a bunch of notes, it can be pages of text. It is for you and you will not be handing it in. For me, I often find it helpful to just try to start writing without worrying about what I'm writing. Usually the first few pages that I scribble turn out to be useless, but after getting into it for say, 20 minutes, some good ideas start to end up on the page.
The Thesis
The most important part of your detailed outline is your statement of your thesis. Now that you've got some ideas down in the brainstorming phase, open a text file or word processing file that will contain your detailed outline. At the top, write "Thesis statement:". After the colon you will write the only well-crafted full sentence that needs to appear in this detailed outline -- your thesis. The thesis statement of your paper should be a one-sentence statement of the argument that you will be making in the rest of the paper. It should state a clear, non-trivial position. It is this position that you will try to persuade your reader of as he/she reads the rest of your paper. It should not be more than one sentence long. Although it is only one sentence, it is probably the most important sentence of your whole paper, so take your time thinking about what you want to argue and crafting the sentence that explains it to the reader. Of course you will be able to revise your thesis as we go along in the paper-writing process, but having a strong thesis to work from can make everything else go more easily.
The Rest of the Outline
For the rest of the outline you may want to use the outline setting in Microsoft Word or just do an outline style yourself. The key thing is that you do not need to be writing full sentences at all and it is better to avoid spending any time on crafting sentences or worrying about if you have chosen exactly the right word.
Your outline should include at least the following sections:
- Introduction -- Your introduction will be only one paragraph in your paper, most likely ending with your thesis statement that you've already written. Here you want to include a very small lead up to the thesis that allows the reader to understand both what you are arguing and why it is important. In your outline, all you want to do is include a few bullet points that indicate what you might say to contextualize your thesis for the reader and to show the reader the broader implications or importance of the topic.
- Background -- In this section you should have bullets or sub-sections that explain the issue and the points of view of the stakeholders. It is where the empathic argument you have constructed in your podcast will be incorporated into your paper.
- Arguments (1,2,3,... perhaps more) -- There should be at least 3 sections that are devoted to arguments that support your thesis. Each argument should be a reason why your thesis is correct. Each argument should be supported by clear, well-documented evidence or reasoning. If there are counter-arguments to an argument, these should be presented and rebutted. Remember that here we are just looking for a sketch, not all the argumentation. So state the argument in a few words and list the evidence, the counter arguments, etc. as briefly as possible too. You will also want to give some thought to the order in which you place your arguments sections. The flow of the paper will depend on this, and this is a good time to try moving around the order of things before you've spent time developing the transitions that you'll use in the actual text of the paper.
- Conclusion -- Your conclusion should be a small part of your paper, not a place for introducing many new ideas. However, it is the place where you want to remind your reader or connect your reader to the larger significance of what you've proved in the paper. In your outline this may consist of just a few bullet points of what you'd like to emphasize for your reader as they finish reading.
Please turn in your completed outline (including your thesis statement) by email to e4staff@gmail.com. Do not turn in your brainstorming notes.