Organizing a Paper
Photo credit: https://memegenerator.net/instance/57442475
Imagine this: you're in class, taking a test, when the principal comes in and says your parents are here. You go to meet your parents, but suddenly you're in your house, and you're getting stared down by a cyborg and Chris Hemsworth. This is normal; these are your parents. They ask why you cut class, then ground you. You go to your room, which opens onto a racetrack from Mario Kart, and now you're in the race of your life...
That would be a perfectly typical dream; however, it wouldn't make any sense in real life, for reasons I hope are obvious (Chris Hemsworth is already married). In the same way, a paper doesn't make any sense if it jumps around with no transition or changes directions out of nowhere, as do most dreams--i.e., if the paper is unorganized.
Organizing a paper is the most difficult part of writing for many people. Reordering ideas, working through transitions, and nailing down the framing make up about 90% of my total revisions for any given piece. Mastering these things can earn you some serious brownie points in your papers, both with the teacher and with the reader.
Ordering Ideas
It's pretty rare that your subject tells you exactly what order things should go in, but it does happen. History papers often go in chronological order (e.g., the dinosaurs died first, and later we entered the age of YOLO). Instructional papers usually go in order, too (Step 1: Make cookies. Step 2: Eat cookies. Step 3: Repeat without regrets.). For other subjects, you're going to have to figure out how to group your topics and what order they go in all on your own.
As far as grouping, related things go together. Simple. How they're related is up to you. Maybe you group things together that happen in the same geographic area or time period. Maybe you group like testimonies together, then have contradicting ones later. Maybe you group SpongeBob memes with other SpongeBob memes. Usually people don't struggle much with actually grouping the information because our brains are awesome and separate things into groups anyway. Go, psychology!
Figuring out what order to put those groups in? That's harder. The order you choose for your topics has to both make sense and flow as smoothly and effortlessly as Squidward's ballet.
Those are big shoes to fill. If he were wearing shoes, I mean. Plus there would be four of them, assuming he doesn't wear shoes on his hands-feet. So there would be many shoes to fill as well as large ones, if there were any shoes at all.
Okay, enough with the shoes.
There are a whole bunch of different ways to organize a paper. Some possibilities:
General to specific--start out broad, then narrow your focus
Cause and effect--start out with the cause(s), then move to the effects (when the subject allows)
Analysis--focus on each item one at a time. (Usually used when the topics are equally important and independent of one another. Their order is completely interchangeable.)
Decreasing importance--start out with your biggest point, then the other points, then your least important point last
Increasing importance--start out with your weakest points, saving your biggest point for last (I don't recommend using this one because sometimes people stop reading before they get to your big point).
You can also use a more unstructured approach. Make a list of the subjects you plan to cover, and for each one, ask the question, "What do people need to know to understand this?" You might find that one of your topics has a lot of background information that needs to go with it, or that one of your more complicated ideas involves some of the other topics. Doing it this way helps protect you from the dangers of over explaining things. For each subject, explain only as much as people need to know to understand what you're talking about. Adding a lot of unnecessary details can muddy things and make it unclear what this section is about. Whichever method you use, it all comes down to clarity. Choose an order that makes the subject as clear as possible.
Sometimes, having an outline can help you figure out what order is best. Many teachers encourage (and some require) an outline for big papers because they give you a road map to go off of, and it's easier to rearrange bullet points than whole paragraphs. Outlines allow you to see all of your topics at once, which can help understand where they fit in relation to one another. (For an example of how to write an outline, go here.) Despite all their benefits, though, outlines aren't for everyone.
Some people have to write the entire paper before they can focus on whether the order they've got is the best one. I rarely use an outline, which means less work ahead of time but more work after the fact (not only do I have to rearrange the ideas and paragraphs, I also have to re-write the transitions so that everything connects together). You can also do partial or informal outlines. Sometimes I write a few ideas on a sticky note, and that's my entire outline. It may vary from project to project whether or not you use one. You'll have to experiment to see what works best for you.
Transitions
The platypus is one of the few venomous mammals.
Vampire bats aren't insectivores.
There is a logic to these statements. Believe it or not, they are connected. The platypus is one of the few venomous mammals. Most other venomous mammals are insectivores, with the exception of the vampire bat, which is venomous but not an insectivore.
The reason the first two sentences didn't make much sense is because they had missing information. There was no transition, and so no reason to believe that the two topics were related.
Transitions are super important in writing. Without them, the paper won't flow, which will make reading it feel like standing on a rolly chair that's missing a wheel, or like watching the live action movie adaptation of Avatar: The Last Airbender. The point of a transition is to show the relationship between two ideas; maybe they're agreeing on something, or disagreeing, or happening at the same time, or making a conclusion. Whatever they're doing, they're related. You can think of transitions as the Bat signal--they say "something just happened" (a crime) and "something else is going to happen" (Batman is a-coming).
Transitions can connect anything. Longer transitions might appear between sections in a paper, while shorter ones connect paragraphs. They even appear within paragraphs. For example, using for example is a transition. Alternatively, using alternatively is a different kind of transition. I could go on.
Some different kinds of transitions (shamelessly stolen from UNC's Writing Center website):
(The original looked boring, so I made it blue and added a fez guy.)
If your teacher says something like "This sounds choppy," or "Weird flow," or "I'm not following your train of thought," you probably need to work on your transitions.
Some people make sure that their thoughts are connected by beginning each sentence with the last word from the preceding sentence. Example:
Kanye West bought a tiger. Tigers are notoriously gassy creatures, partially due to their diet. Their diet consists of [Idk, meat?]. [Idk, meat?] is expensive, which shouldn't be a problem for Kanye. Kanye is a bajillionaire or something, but despite his wealth, people tend not to like him because of his ego. His ego will most likely drive his tiger to eat him eventually.
Doing this isn't sustainable for an entire paper, but it can be a good place to start if you notice a place where the ideas seem a little jumbled.
(Just because I'll never get tired of that picture of Patrick.)
Reading a paper out loud can really help locate where the transitions need work. Listen for places that sound forced, then try adding some of the signalling phrases from the chart above to add connectivity. For more phrases and examples of how to use them, check out this website.
Once your transitions are solid, you can focus on your framing--how you start the piece, and how you end it.
Framing
Framing can mean a lot of different things, but for now we'll focus on how it applies to the introduction and conclusion. You can think of framing as a way to tie things together. It provides additional structure and organization to any kind of piece, academic or otherwise.
Framing is most evident in the introduction and conclusion. Many people wait to write these parts last because they like to know where exactly the paper is going first, but you'll have to figure out what works best for you. The introduction opens the piece and says, "Hi, nice to meet ya." (It might also say "Hi, I'm gonna learn you a thing", "Hi, I hate your guts", or "Yoo-hoo, big summer blowout", depending on the nature of the piece.)
In a research paper, the introduction often talks about background information or what we already know about the subject. The conclusion might refer back to these ideas before going on to summarize what we learned in the rest of the paper and talk about why it matters.
Those are the most basic elements of the intro and conclusion, but they aren't the only things that can go into them. There are lots of ways you can kick things off with a bang to grab people's attention. Some cool ways to start off a paper:
A story (Once upon a time, there was a fifteen-year-old boy who dropped out of high school and created Tumblr and got $$$$$$$$.)
A quote ("Always remember that you are absolutely unique. Just like everyone else" --Margaret Mead.)
An interesting fact (Brains are squishy like Jello before you treat them with formaldehyde.)
A question (Why should Benedict Custardbath be supreme ruler of the universe? I'm glad you asked.)
You can bring any of these things back for the conclusion. Giving your story or fact or whatnot a mention at the end wraps up the paper nice and pretty and gives it a sense of continuity. You can even touch on these things in the body of the paper, if you're feeling spunky.
Connecting the beginning to the end like this is part of what gives a piece its framing, but there are other ways to improve framing, as well. You can use some of these elements in the introduction but not the conclusion, or vice versa, and including different sections, images, lists, charts, or anything other than the normal text can also work into the framing. In these blog posts, the sections and GIFs are part of the framing. Whatever combination of techniques you use, the important part is that they fit into the frame well and give the piece more depth and organization.
Having a strong frame, well-ordered ideas, and solid transitions can lift your piece from nightmare status to an actual academic paper. At the very least, it'll make the nightmare less scary.
References:
"Elements of an Effective Introduction." English 101. N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
Gillett, Rachel. "11 Wildly Successful People Who Dropped out of High School." Business Insider. Business Insider, Inc, 27 Sept. 2015. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
"How to Structure & Organize Your Paper." University of Washington, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
"How to Write an Outline for a Paper." John B. Cade Library. Southern University, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
Mack, Jared. "How to Start a Narrative Essay - 16 Awesome Hooks." Kibin. N.p., 07 Sept. 2015. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
Mead, Margaret. "Margaret Mead Quotes." BrainyQuote. Xplore, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
"Suggestions For Organizing and Writing Papers." N.p., n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
"Transitions." The Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill. UNC-Chapel Hill, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
"Venomous Mammal." Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation, n.d. Web. 31 Oct. 2016.
