Writing an analytic paper

So, you've decided to write an analytic paper. That means you are seeking to explore or describe a certain problem, incident, or group. Since you have your topic in hand, you need to find some good sources to start off with. One place to start, which is often decried as a horrible source, but is often a good jumping point, Wikipedia.

You can start off by searching Wikipedia for some relevant articles. Skim over the articles and, more importantly, look at the cited sources. Those sources, if they are credible sites and articles, can be a great place to begin feeling out this field. Read some of those sources to get a general idea of what you will be looking for.

I would recommend getting a notebook to keep with you to jot down your notes and thoughts as you're reading these articles. You don't need to write absolutely everything down, but I would recommend that you write the name of the article before any of your notes in order to keep it all organized.

While reading these first articles, see if you can identify certain areas in the articles that are not totally clear or are completely left out. There is no article in existence that explains absolutely everything there is to know about any particular subject matter, so you should be able to come up with a few things that you can research to expand upon. Write these down!

Chances are, you have other concerns while you are writing this paper, be they other classes, work, children, parents, or flesh-eating bacteria, so the likelihood that you will remember without any memory aid every clever question you ask about each article is slim to none.

Once you have finished these first articles about the subject (make sure you do save these sources), take the list of questions and areas of expansion and use those to search for new sources with more "academic" search engines. If you attend a college or university, you most likely have access to academic articles and journals either via the campus library, or online. If you aren't sure how to use the online system and want to, ask a librarian in the campus library for help.

Other possible academic search engines include Google Scholar, LexisNexis, JSTOR, and EBSCO. Make sure that you only look at works that have been peer reviewed. If a work is peer reviewed, then it usually has a reasonable methodology and reasonable conclusions that can be derived from the results of the experiment. That does not mean that the work is flawless.

As you go through your second round of sources, be sure to highlight key points that are relevant to your paper topic as well as the weaknesses of the article. For example, if the researcher collected data from only college students (as many do) then the findings may not be generalizable to the rest of the population. There are a variety of different problems that a study may have, and if you want your paper to be very good, you need to consider both the strengths and the weaknesses of your sources. And, as you did with the first round of articles, think about your second round: what questions come up after reading these articles? What else could someone conduct research on in this area?

At the end of the paper, discuss some of the more interesting questions that come up after examining all of these sources. For example, if the article explains that people tend to spend more money when they're feeling very happy, then you might hypothesize that a society will likely experience higher shopping rates during times of great triumph and patriotism (which would presumably, make most people feel happy). Suggesting hypotheses at the end is the ultimate goal of the paper, so make sure you think about it!

If you want to be successful without completely burning yourself out, then pace yourself with your thesis work. Really allow yourself to digest information, and while you're not reading and jotting down notes, try to observe things happening around you as you think about what you've read. You may have some eureka moments while you're out in the world as opposed to sitting at your desk surrounded by notes and books. Reading lots and lots is great, but giving yourself the chance to observe and think is absolutely necessary! It may also give you some additional information to discuss in your paper.

Examining literature or collecting data?

Now that you have thought about which type of research you are the most interested in conducting, you need to decide which type of research paper you will pursue.

There are two broad types of papers, one in which you review literature, and one in which you collect your own data. Even for a paper in which you are collecting your own data, you will still need a literature review to support your hypothesis and to justify your topic of interest, but you do not necessarily need to collect your own original data in order to investigate and write about a topic.

There are many different ways to test your thesis, some of which require oversight of an Institutional Review Board (IRB), which will be discussed later on.

Theses using literature references:

Analytical paper - Exploratory or Descriptive- You go into this paper with a broad topic in mind without a specific hypothesis that you are testing for and providing evidence in support of. To use the example in the previous post, you may be interested in writing about which types of communities have higher rates of retail spending, but you have not come to a conclusion as to what type of community you expect will have higher rates of retail spending.
(Some additional advice on writing analytical papers will be provided later on)

Argumentative paper - Causal- Start reading about the subject first to develop your hypothesis that you will provide evidence for in the literature you have read. So, to continue with the example, you might find after reading several sources, that capitalistic and individualistic communities tend to have the highest rates of retail spending. You will then argue your point and draw conclusions about the how and why of this topic using the sources you have found as well as anything else you might find after you come up with your hypothesis.
(Additional advice on writing argumentative papers will be provided later on)

Source describing what these papers are: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/types.html

Case Study - Descriptive or Causal- Similar to the two above, but in this case, we're talking about a source that is written about a specific individual, group, or occurrence. These are frequently used in the social sciences, so sorry to those in the hard sciences, but these don't usually apply to you. Case studies tend to offer much more detailed information (qualitative data) as opposed to statistical or numerical information (quantitative data). So, for this type of study, you might look at one event during which retail spending drastically increased/decreased in a population after some big event took place.

Theses involving data collection:

Observations - exploratory or descriptive - There are two basic types of observations, a Natural Observation, and a Laboratory Observation. You may collect both quantitative and qualitative data. You may count the number of shopping bags each person you observe is carrying or how many times each person walks into a particular store (quantitative) as well as which store each of the shopping bags are from or what kind of shoes each person is wearing (qualitative).

• As you might have guessed, a natural observation will take place out in the field (not literally a field, it just means "out in the world"), wherever you want to observe some phenomenon. You might go to the mall, the library, or some other public place to observe people, animals, or whatever else. You do not usually need to get approval from the IRB to do this type of study, as long as where you follow the proper ethical guidelines for conducting research (for human observation, not for animal observation).

• A laboratory observation, as you also may have figured out, will take place in a controlled environment that is not in the field. You will almost always need IRB approval for this because you will be placing animal or human subjects into an artificial environment which must follow ethical guidelines. The steps for gaining IRB approval will be discussed later on.

More in-depth advice on conducting observations will be provided later on!

Experiments - causal
There are three types of experiments that you may conduct depending on certain constraints and needs.

First, some basic terminology:

• Independent variable (IV)- This is what the researcher changes in order to observe differences in the
• Dependent variable (DV)- This is what is affected by the Independent variable.

(For example: you might want to see how sleep affects test performance. You could change the amount of sleep that someone might have before a test (IV) and the score of the test would be the DV.)

• Control variable- The researcher will keep certain things the same for all treatment groups. This ensures that you do not have as many confounds in your study.
• Control group- In true experiments, the researcher will have at least one group which does not receive any treatment. This allows the researcher to measure the effect of the IV on the DV.

Non-experiment - Yeah, I know what you're thinking, this is the dumbest name for an experiment, and truthfully, as the name suggests, this isn't really an experiment. The only thing truly experimental about this type of study is the terminology used. In this case, you assume that something is the IV and that something else is the DV. You will not have a control group. You expose your subjects to the IV(one level - meaning, there aren't different degrees of the IV) and measure the DV.

Quasi-experiment - Randomization is not used, and this is what sets this type of experiment apart from a true experiment. Usually, the quasi-experimental model uses participant-matching (to be discussed later on). In this case, you may have a pre-test for your experimental group and your control group, the experimental group is exposed to the IV and the contorl group is not, and then you give both a post-test.

True experiment - Random sampling and randomization are usually employed. Subjects are selected at random, and then placed into treatment or control groups at random. There may be one or more levels of the IV in addition to the control group. This usually includes a pre-test and post-test, but may only include a post-test (and the decision of whether to include a pre-test or not will be determined based on certain constraints).

So, what's the deal? Why might you use a quasi-experiment instead of a true experiment? It all depends on the population you're looking at. Participant-matching is when you take all of the subjects in a sample group and pair them up based on their similarity on some important traits. For example, it's usually a good idea, when testing for the effect of some drug on running ability, to pair participants up based on their current health status. To not do this runs the risk that one group is healthier or has a better running ability already than the other group. Obviously, if you are doing a laboratory experiment (takes place in a controlled environment), you will have the option to do one or the other, but in a natural experiment (takes place in the field), you probably won't have the option to use a quasi-experiment.


So now, it's time to chew on this information and decide what the best option for you is! Up next, I will discuss the literature options in greater detail and offer some advice on doing those, so stay tuned!

Deciding what type of paper to write

Now that you have a topic, you need to figure out a good way to investigate your topic, and whether or not you will be collecting your own data, or referencing data from other studies. But first, what kinds of data will you be using; there isn't just one type of data, and you need to decide which type or what combination of the two types you are the most interested in looking at. It will be difficult to decide this right off the bat, but read this and mull it over for a while!

There are two types of data:
Qualitative data - these are usually details that are not given a numerical value. For example, you might decide to conduct several interviews about shopping behavior in individuals. You will use quotations, details, and examples in order to support your hypothesis or to provide additional information.
Quantitative data - this is numerical information that is frequently used to calculate statistical information. You might decide to survey several people to find out how much they usually spend in a week. You will use that information to support your hypothesis and to draw conclusions.

In addition to the two types of data, there are different ways in which you can go about analyzing your topic.

And three types of research:
Exploratory research - No hypothesis. The goal is to gather information about a problem, incident, or group and to suggest hypotheses. There is no clearly defined problem in this case. A question might be: is Facebook addictive? There may be a problem (Facebook is probably addictive) or there may not be a problem (Facebook is probably not addictive). You will go out and find information about this subject, namely addictions and Internet usage, and apply these to Facebook. At the end you will suggest a hypothesis (based on the literature, Facebook may be addictive, so further research should be conducted to test this). This is very weird for some people to write since the hypothesis actually comes at the very end of the paper, after you have discussed the findings in the literature or in your observations.

Descriptive research - Hypothesis not required. The goal is to use information to describe a problem, incident, or group. You will not be explaining why you found what you found. For example, you might want to describe the shopping habits of a community. You may use anecdotes, statistical data, and other information to explain who were you looking at in this study (which individuals/groups), what were people buying, how often, and when during the month. This kind of study tends to be a factual one, but does not offer any cause and effect relations.

Causal research - This is the more well-known type of study. Here, you will do a literature review, come up with a hypothesis, and find evidence supporting your hypothesis. Here, you seek to find a cause and effect relation. You want to explain why some behavior might be occurring. For example, you may hypothesize that women are more likely to spend more money and time in retail stores than men (Super original, I know). The cause effect relation in this case may be that being a woman increases the likelihood of spending more time and money in retail stores.

If you're asking yourself, "Well, I don't know which one to do. Which option is the easiest?" then I hate to break the news to you, but none of the options are necessarily "the easiest" to do. You need to determine which of the three research options appeals to you the most. Once you have thought about what type of research you want to conduct, the next step will be to decide between a literature-based paper and one that involves data collection. Stay tuned!

Picking a topic

Of course, you can't have a thesis without, well, a thesis, so be sure to think about your topic good and hard before you even think about anything else. If you aren't sure where to start, write out your thoughts in a chart or diagram. If you are in a university program, then the general area of your thesis is already determined.

If you are in a high school independent study program, or you're writing a thesis as a way to boost your application for graduate school, you must first determine whether you want to work in the hard sciences or in the social sciences. Ask yourself the following questions: Are you interested in examining people? animals? chemical reactions? biological reactions? astronomy? physics? and so on and so forth until you have settled on a field of interest.

Chances are, your field is too large and broad to tackle all at once, so think about with part of your field, or which sub-field, you're interested in. Once you have it down to a sub-field, start thinking about your general interests - I guarantee you that most of your interests can actually be studied in an academic fashion.

It is absolutely essential to pick a topic that is interesting and stimulating to you; if it's not interesting to you, it probably won't be a great paper. This should be a subject that you can stay up until 3am working on without wanting to throw yourself off a cliff. Remember - whatever topic you pick, you will be eating, breathing, and sleeping, so make sure you really really like it.

After you've thought of something you're interested in, think about how it ties into your field. How does it connect? Is there some aspect of your interest that overlaps with your academic field?

Here is an example of topic selection process:

Hard sciences or social sciences?

People? Yes
Animals? No
Chemistry? No
Biology? No
Astronomy? No
Physics? NO!

Social sciences

Psychology or Sociology?

Individuals? No
Groups? Yes
Individuals and groups ? No
(as in, how any one person in a group may respond to the group)

(Note: If you are interested in historical events, you can actually combine History with Sociology and Psychology to make Psychohistory - stay out of the shower!- and Sociohistory. The nice thing about History is that it can be combined with pretty much any other field. Though most fields can be combined together to come up with some really neat academic fields, I won't spend too much time on that.)

Sociology

Areas of interest?

Shopping

Where is there overlap?

When does the average amount of shopping increase in a society?
How does shopping differ based on types of societies (individualistic vs. communistic)?
Which groups in a population shop the most often?

Do any of these ideas sound interesting to you?

Yes - Which groups in a population shop the most often?

Following this, you should be able to figure out what topic you will be happy with. Remember to keep your topic somewhat narrow; if the topic becomes too broad, the thesis will become very complicated and confusing, potentially compromising the quality of the paper.

Once you have selected your topic, the next step is to decide how you will go about studying your topic. Stay tuned for the next installment!