Writing a Research Paper: A Comprehensive Guide from Choosing a Topic to Finding Models, Slides of Sociology

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Toward a Paper

Steps toward writing up your project

First Step: A Topic

• Something interesting
• Something that looks like a social movement
• Something related to social movements
• Something that will sustain your interest for fifteen weeks
• Something that other people (experts, notably, social movement scholars) might find interesting

Step Three: A Literature

• What do the experts have to say
  • About my topic?
  • About my question?
• Do the required reading help?
• Can I find any scholarly analysis?
• Are there organizational records or persons I can interview?

Step Five: Organizing

• Knowing when to stop look for new material
• Knowing how to focus
  • This is where questions help
  • This is where it helps to limit attention to
    • Time
    • Place
    • Actors
    • Actions
    • Specific problems or lessons to be learned