A guide to writing a theoretical research paper PDF

Preview

Summary

a guide to writing a theoretical research paper by Lajos Brons1 Introduction: What is a theoretical research paper? In a theoretical research paper the author supports her claim without relying on experiments2, surveys, interviews, or other kinds of new data. Instead, the argument depends entirely o...

Description

a guide to writing a theoretical research paper by Lajos Brons1

Introduction: What is a theoretical research paper? In a theoretical research paper the author supports her claim without relying on experiments2, surveys, interviews, or other kinds of new data. Instead, the argument depends entirely on “theoretical” research in available scholarly literature (books, articles in scientific journals, and so forth).3 Theoretical research papers are a very common type of assignment. When an undergraduate student has to write a paper for a course, it is almost always a theoretical research paper. There are no fundamental differences between disciplines when it comes to theoretical research papers. 4 There are small differences in style and differences in quotation and reference styles, but those are minor

1 Version of May 2, 2019. 2 With an exception of thought experiments, although those are rare in most disciplines. 3 “ Theoretical” does not mean that the paper cannot rely on experimental data or other kind of empirical research, but just that any empirical research the paper relies on has already been published and wasn’t done by the author herself for this paper. 4 Neither are there fundamental differences with regards to empirical papers.

1

differences. This guide ignores such differences and focuses on the aspects of the writing process that all (good!) theoretical research papers have in common, regardless of discipline.

Getting started Hanako has just been told that she has to write a paper for some course she is taking. Usually there are some restrictions with regards to the type of topic, but we’ll assume here that Hanako is completely free to choose any topic she likes. Hanako owns a dog, Ponta, and she recently learned that dogs see in black and white. She was wondering how we know that dogs cannot see colors, and what it actually means to be able to see colors. Of course, she knows that “cones” in the eye have something to do with it, but that biological fact doesn’t really tell her anything about what it means to see colors. How do we know that some animals can see colors? Because they respond differently to different colors? But color is just light, and some plants can also respond to light. Sunflowers turn towards the sun, for example, and we don’t say that sunflowers can see the sun. So just responding to color, or just being able to discriminate colors (in the way that sunflowers can discriminate light and dark), doesn’t seem to be enough  — there must be more to it. But what could that be? When we see colors, we see them as certain colors: we see red, and blue, and green, and so forth. We have color categories. Certainly sunflowers don’t have categories. Maybe that is the difference? But do animals have categories? And if they don’t, does that mean that they cannot see colors? Hanako has her topic. She can now do some initial research and write a research plan. Usually it is a good idea to do some initial research before writing a research plan, but if you have no idea where to start, it may be better to write a rough research plan so your teacher can help to put you in the right direction for initial research.

2

Initial research The purpose of initial research is just to familiarize yourself with your topic. Introductory textbooks and encyclopedias (such as Wikipedia) are usually the best sources for this, but there may be other sources as well (your teacher might have suggestions). The sources you use for initial research normally don’t end up in the final paper. (References to Wikipedia are almost never acceptable, and references to other encyclopedias and textbooks might also be unacceptable. Ask your teacher to be sure.) Your aim in doing initial research is twofold. Firstly, you aim to learn more about your topic: the relevant terminology, the main theories, and so forth. This should help you to refine your question or argument. Secondly, you are looking for sources. If you find a reference to some article or book that makes a point that matters to your argument (or your question), make a note to remind yourself to look up that book or article, and see whether you can use it to support your argument. After doing some initial research you should be able to write a research plan. If you get stuck doing initial research because you cannot find much that relates to your topic, then it is often a good idea to make a rough research plan, and ask your teacher for help in finding more literature.

Research plan A research plan explains two things: (1) the topic of your research, and (2) how you are planning to do that research. Everything else is fluff and is usually better avoided. There are — roughly speaking — two kinds of research plan depending on whether the initial research has led to an argument or is still in the question stage. If Hanako’s research is still in the question stage her research question would be: Can animals see colors? She would then summarize her considerations with regards to that question. The research plan briefly explains what her initial ideas and considerations have taught her about the 3

ability to see colors — namely that categorization plays a role — and that, therefore, the answer to her research question depends on the ability of animals to have categories. Next, she explains what she is going to do (i.e. research) to figure out whether animals have categories. If Hanako’s initial research has led her to conclude that animals cannot see colors, then her research plan states that claim —  Animals cannot see colors — and she summarizes her argument in support of that claim. (Seeing colors requires categories. Animals don’t have categories. Therefore, animals don’t see colors. Or something similar.) She identifies the parts of her arguments that require further support and explains how she is going to try to find that support.

Framework for a QUESTION-based research plan 1) Research question. (What do you want to know?) 2) Initial considerations. (Summarize what you already know about the topic and how this matters in answering the research question.) 3) Plan. (Explain your approach in finding out what you need to know to answer your research question, or — in other words — to fill the gaps in your knowledge that you have identified in outlining your initial considerations.)

Framework for an ARGUMENT-based research plan 1) Main claim. (What is the conclusion of your argument going to be?) 2) Support. (Summarize the argument that supports your main claim. Identify the loose ends in your supporting argument.) 3) Plan. (Explain how you intend to look for support for the loose ends in your argument.) In either case, your research plan should fit on one or two pages. (Usually one is enough.)

4

Arguments The term “argument” has come up a few times above, and thus far I assumed that you know what an argument is, but the notion of an argument is so important that it is probably a good idea to refresh your memory. An argument consists of a claim and its support. The claim is the conclusion of the argument; the support is the “evidence” you have for that claim. Often the support for your final claim consists of further claims, and those further claims require further support. Papers consist of a main argument (i.e. the main claim and its support) and various secondary arguments offering support for the claims that function as support for the main argument. In long and complex arguments, there can be very many such layers. You could — and should be able to — draw a tree structure with your main claim as the trunk, its support as the main branches, support for the support as smaller branches, and so forth. Any argument “ends” in two ways. At the one end is the conclusion; at the other end are all the supporting claims that are not further supported themselves. The main purpose of a research plan is to identify the ends of the second kind, and especially the ends that need further support, the aforementioned “loose ends”. Loose ends are claims in support of your argument that aren’t supported themselves, but that need to be supported. If your argument depends on the claim that the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan because it wanted access to the Indian Ocean, but you offer no support for that claim, then that is a loose end, and loose ends need to be fixed. You need to find support for that claim. This doesn’t go on indefinitely, of course. If your loose ends are self-evident, or if you have good sources (i.e. references) to back up your claims, then they are no longer loose ends.

Hanako’s argument: Version 1 If we assume that Hanako’s main claim is that animals cannot see colors, then her argument can be summarized as follows: 5

1) The disposition of sunflowers to turn their head towards the sun suggests that sunflowers can discriminate between dark and light. 2) But we don’t claim that sunflowers see the sun or see the difference between dark and light. 3) Therefore, a mere ability or disposition to discriminate is insufficient for seeing a difference. 4) And therefore, a mere ability to discriminate between colors is insufficient for seeing colors. 5) Seeing colors means seeing a difference between colors, and recognizing that certain color shades are categorized as being a certain color. 6) However, animals cannot categorize colors in this sense. 7) And therefore, animals cannot see colors. 2 It was mentioned above that arguments have tree-like 1 structures and it is often helpful to draw such a tree to 3 clarify (to yourself) how exactly your argument works. Drawing such a tree also makes it clear where the ends 4 of your argument are, and which of those ends are the loose ends that need further support. 5 6 The diagram to the right shows Hanako’s argument. The main claim (i.e. the final conclusion of her 7 argument) is (7) and follows from (5) and (6). (5) follows from (4), (4) from (3), and (3) from (1) and (2) together. The diagram makes it very clear where the ends of the argument are: (1), (2), and (6). (1) and (2), seem rather obvious, however, so Hanako decides that those two claims don’t need any further support. (6) is another matter, however. (6) is the claim that animals cannot categorize colors, and that claim certainly needs further support, so that is where Hanako needs to focus her attention: she needs to find evidence or an argument for (6). That is not all, however. Hanako also needs to check whether her argument itself is as good as she thinks it is. Does (7) really follow from (5) and (6)? Does (5) really follow from (4)? And so forth. X follows from Y if it

6

cannot be the case that X is false if Y is true. So, if (5) and (6) are true, does that mean that (7) must be true as well? It seems so, but notice that much depends on the phrase “in this sense” in (6). If animals cannot categorize colors in the sense intended in (5), then indeed the conclusion follows. Hanako needs to ask herself the same question about the other parts of her argument. The main weakness is the inference from (4) to (5). (4) says that the ability to discriminate is insufficient, and (5) says that what is needed in addition is the ability to categorize, but it isn’t actually shown that categorization is indeed the additional ingredient needed. Of course, sunflowers don’t categorize light and dark, while we do, so there is indeed such a difference, but Hanako hasn’t shown that it is this difference that makes the difference, or in other words, that it is indeed categorization rather than something else that is needed in addition to discrimination. For convenience we’ll assume in the following that Hanako doesn’t spot this weakness in her argument, however.5

Research After the research plan has been approved, the real research begins. That research, of course, follows the plan part of the research plan. Why else would you make a research plan? In case of Hanako, her research plan identified the main loose end in her argument: she needs to show that animals cannot categorize colors (in the right sense), so that is what she is focusing her research on. In general, all research is aimed at tying up the loose ends identified in the research plan, and/or answering the open questions identified in the research plan. Often this results in further loose ends and further questions,

5 Perhaps, it is not a serious weakness and Hanako could offer an argument in support of the inference of (5) from (4), but that would make the example unnecessary complicated, so we’ll ignore that hypothetical argument.

7

and of course, those need to be tied up or answered as well. The research is finished when there are no more loose ends and no more questions that need an answer. If you have drawn a tree of your argument (like Hanako), then it is a good idea to add the new branches that you find in your research. That way, it is always clear which parts of your argument are OK and which parts need further work (i.e. futher research).

Hanako’s argument: Animal categorization As mentioned, Hanako needs to support her claim (6) that animals cannot categorize colors (in the right sense), so she reads some articles and/or books about what categories are, how categories are formed, what it means to have categories, and what animals can and cannot do in this respect. She concludes from her research that having a category requires you to have adjacent categories as well — you cannot have a category of “red” without having categories of “yellow” and “blue”, for example. Furthermore, she concludes that you cannot have the concept of a category without having the concept of a mistake. If mistakes are impossible, then that is not categorization, but some kind of automatic or physical process. And having the concept of a mistake, finally, requires language. We’ll ignore any problems in Hanako’s argument. It is the example that matters; not the content of that example. If we number the different parts of the argument resulting from Hanako’s research, this is what we get: 8) Categorizing something requires having the concepts of the category as well as the adjacent or competing categories. 9) Having a concept of a category means knowing what belongs in that category, and understanding that any categorization may be wrong (or mistaken). 10) Because if mistakes are impossible, then that would be an example of some kind of physical distinction rather than of categorization. 11) Therefore, having a concept of a category requires having the concept of a mistake. 8

12) Having the concept of a mistake requires understanding the difference between truth and falsehood, between reality and mere appearance. 13) Understanding the difference between truth and falsehood requires language. 14) But animals do not have language. 15) And therefore, animals cannot understand the difference between truth and falsehood. 16) And thus, animals cannot have the concept of a mistake. 17) Animals cannot have the concept of a category. 18) Animals cannot categorize. 6) Therefore, animals cannot categorize colors.

Hanako’s argument: Version 2 If we add the new branches, (8) ~ (18), to the tree diagram showing Hanako’s argument, we get the following: 10 13 14 9 1

12 11

2 3

8

4

15 16

17 18

5

6 7

9

The new ends of the argument are (8), (10), (12), (13), and (14). Hanako needs to check which of these need further support, but also whether all the steps in her argument are really valid — whether (18) really follows from (8) and (17), and so forth. Let’s assume that Hanako decides that she can support all the apparent loose ends of her argument.6 If you have been paying attention you probably have spotted a major problem for Hanako’s argument: she has forgotten about the phrase “in this sense” in the original version of (6). If the new part of her argument (8~18) is right, then she can show that animals cannot categorize colors, but remember that the part of the argument that she already had (1~7) depended on the claim that animals cannot categorize colors in the sense intended in (5). It is not clear whether her argument establishes that. Let’s assume that Hanako doesn’t notice this, however, and that she decides that her argument is fine, that she can sufficiently support everything, and thus that her research is done. She can now make an outline of her paper.

Outline An outline of a paper describes how the final paper will lay out its argument. To write a good paper, you need a good outline, and to make a good outline, you need to understand how your argument works. The best way to do that is to draw a tree diagram of your argument as Hanako did in the examples above. There are two ways of making an outline. Sometimes you can take a colored pen or pencil and just draw a natural path through your argument, but this only really works in simple, straightforward arguments with very few branches. In case of Hanako’s argument, this would not be a good approach. The other way is to divide your arguments into chunks first. You can do this by identifying the main intermediate conclusions. 6 In case of this argument, she could turn to the work of Donald Davidson for support for most of her loose ends.

10

In case of Hanako’s argument, the intermediate conclusions are (5) and (6) or (18). (5) is the claim that seeing colors requires categorization, (6) is the claim that animals cannot categorize colors, and (18) is the more general claim that animals cannot categorize. The conclusion of her paper will be that it follows from (5) and (6) that animals cannot see colors. The other two main parts of her argument are the part that establishes (5) and the part that establishes (18), because if she can show (18), then (6) obviously follows. So, Hanako draws a box around (5) and everything above it in her tree diagram and marks it “section 2”. Similarly, she draws a box around (18) and everything above it and marks it “section 3”. section 3 13

10 9 section 2 1 2

12 11

3

8

4

14 15

16 17

18 5

6 7

conclusion

Hanako can now make her outline: Section 1 — introduction. Section 2 — the argument that seeing colors requires the ability to categorize colors. Section 3 — the argument that animals cannot categorize. 11

Section 4 — conclusion: animals cannot categorize and therefore cannot

categorize colors; seeing colors requires categorizing colors; therefore, animals cannot see colors. Often an outline contains a bit more detail than this, but if you have a tree diagram of your argument, and if you have notes about every part of your argument (with the relevant references, quotations, evidence, and whatever else you need), then this is sufficient. (But strictly speaking, your tree diagram is then part of your outline.)

Claim-based versus review-based papers Some research papers are even easier to divide into sections than Hanako’s. Hanako’s paper is centered on a claim (namely, that animals cannot see colors) and her whole argument focuses on that one claim. This is a common kind of paper, but review-based papers are at least as common. In a review-based paper a conclusion is reached by comparing and assessing a number of different theories or explanations. For example, if your topic is the effects of 19th and early 20th century colonial policies on the economies of the colonies, then you would compare different theories on this topic, assess their strengths and weaknesses, look for evidence for each of them, and so forth. A review-based paper normally has a different section for each theory or explanation discussed, and a conclusion that summarizes the results of all those sections, often leading to an overall judgment on which theories/explanations are better and which are worse. In case of such a paper, your argument tree would have a major branch for each theory, and all of those branches would be at...