Basic structure of a paper

All papers have three components:

I. Introduction
   **Introductory paragraph or two (also called the "organizing theme")
     lays out what you will do, why, and why it's important. Look at
     the paper like an upside-down funnel: Start with general overview,
     then taper down with increasing focus and precision as you 
     develop it. 
   
II. Body: This is where you develop ideas in your introduction. Put
in some subjections. For example, after the introduction, you can
have headers such as:
   **Methodology (where you explain in detail where you get data, why,
     and how). For the final paper, you go into great detail.  You 
     describe for several pages what your data source was, why you 
     selected it, and other issues related to how and why you obtained 
     your data.  This includes how you recorded and stored it.

   **Ethical issues (if there are any--if not, skip this section or
     if short, summarize in the methodology section

   **Review of the Literature: All papers at some point draw from other
     research on a similar topic. This is where you summarize the
     key points of what you've read as they relate to your study

   **Findings/data (this has many different names, but it's where you
     present your material. There are often subheads in this section,
     as we'll explain

   **Weaknesses of the research (explained in class--this can be
     omitted, but if there are problems with logic or data, it
     can be explained here)

   **Directions for future research: How could other researchers build
     on what you found?

There is no magic formula for addressing these. Some people have
sub-headers labeling each issue, others create new subheads or
combine sections. What's important is that you address these
issues in your final paper.

III. Conclusion: "Bringing it all back home." A conclusion should NOT
     be more than a page, give or take a bit. You put nothing new
     in the conclusion. It's where you summarize and tie things 
     together

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