Writing in the Social Sciences: Part 2

(for undergraduate students, doctoral students, & university scholars)

Study Notes, provided by Ricardo D. Stanton-Salazar, Ph.D.

www.stanton-salazar.com

December 14, 2018

Table of Contents

Social Organization of a Social Science Research Paper  Eastern Illinois University The Department of Sociology & Anthropology Research Paper Writing Guide 

Sociology 194: Writing Social Science Research John Kaiser, PhD, UC Berkeley

Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article

By Howard S. Becker   (Chapter 8) www (Complete chapter on the www.)

Summary Notes of Book

Insights on the Basics of Writing a “Statement of the Problem.” 

 What are the key characteristics of a statement of the problem?

Writing a Good Social Science Paper UCSD

Subject Content Editing (SCE) (Social Sciences) Professional Editing

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

LITERATURE REVIEW

HYPOTHESES: If and when hypotheses are presented, are they well articulated?

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

(Qualitative Research):

ANALYSIS OF DATA 

Social Organization of a Social Science Research Paper  Eastern Illinois University The Department of Sociology & Anthropology  Research Paper Writing Guide  m3.

https://www.eiu.edu/sociology/docs/ResearchPaperWritingGuide.pdf   

ORGANIZATION The paper should be well organized. Subheadings can be quite useful in organization. For example:   

Introduction.  Introduce your topic and

·     define or operationalize the major concepts you will use. Make it clear to the reader how you are using the major concepts, and always assume that the reader knows nothing about your topic.   

Theoretical Orientation. Identify the theory you are using and briefly explain/develop the theory in two or so pages. Ideally, the theory section of the paper should be divided into two parts.  

·     The first part should articulate the basic components of the theory, fully referenced.  

·     In the second part of the theory section, you should explain or demonstrate how the particular theory you selected is relevant to/compatible with the development of your topic.   

Main body of paper (with additional subheadings if desired)   

Summary and Conclusions. Have a developed conclusion, even if only a page. Do not just leave the end of the paper hanging. The summary briefly reviews the basis for the conclusions.   While these subheadings are generic, yours should be specifically tit led to fit your paper topic. Subheadings succinctly identify the subject matter that follow and may force you to become more cognizant of your paper’s organization. If used properly subheadings will convey a certain maturity about your paper and contribute to the reader’s comprehension of your paper’s development and direction. 

A well-organized paper must al so embody other characteristics. First, sources/references used must be coherently integrated. Using one before going to a new source (i.e., exhausting sources sequentially with no cross-referencing or integration of sources) is typically an indication of a shallow research effort. Second, transitions between sections and often between paragraphs must be developed or the paper will not flow and will lack coherence.      

Sociology 194: Writing Social Science Research John Kaiser, PhD UC Berkeley

[This would be similar to a research proposal; where the study hasn’t been conducted yet. This is different from writing a journal article, where the study has already been conducted, and conclusions drawn.]

[No reference to a “Statement of the Problem”] [Nor to any “thesis” or “hypothesis”]

You will choose a topic, formulate a question, and follow through with the research required to answer it.

·     This involves doing a literature review and designing a project using a method, such as participant observation, interviews, or surveys to answer your question.

·     The actual data collection involved will be minimal, because this course focuses on research processes and writing. Think of the paper as a research proposal based on a small pilot study. In other words, you will use primary sources (data you generate) and secondary sources (date that other scholars generated) to determine how you would answer your research question based on the preliminary results you obtain. You are free to choose the topic of your paper , albeit within parameters that we will discuss in class . I en courage you to study something that you find both fascinating — or at least interesting —and doable  

 Howard Becker:   Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article

Chapter 8 is available, not the entire book is not available

https://www.thesisscientist.com/docs/Articles/09c47b2b-1ece-4920-b61f-5a9d7d2faad5

[Writing my Introductory Sentences after I Finish the Body of my Text…]

[NOTE: In dissertations, the student follows a format that presents findings as they emerge in the results chapters; so Becker is mainly talking about journal articles.]

That is why people make outlines. Maybe working the whole puzzle out in outline will show you where you are going, help you catch all the implications, evade all the traps, and get it all to come out right. You will find the One Right Way. An outline can help you get started, even if it won't find the Way, but only if it is so detailed as to be the actual paper whose skeleton it pretends to be. That just gives you the same problem in a slightly different form.

Introductions raise the problem of unwanted implications in a specially difficult way. Everett Hughes told me, when I was still in graduate school, to write introductions last. "Introductions are supposed to introduce. How can you introduce something you haven't written yet? You don't know what it is. Get it written and then you can introduce it." If I do that, I discover that I have a variety of possible introductions available, each one right in some way, each giving a slightly different twist to my thought. I don't have to find the One Right Way.

[A Typical Evasive Maneuver]

One Right Way to say what I want to say; I have to find out what I want to say. But I can do that more easily after I have said it all and know pretty much what I mean than when I am writing the first sentence. If I write my introductory sentences after I finish the body of my text, the problem of the One Right Way is less compelling. Fearing commitment to the implications of an initial formulation also accounts for people beginning with the vacuous sentences and paragraphs so common in scholarly writing. "This study deals with the problem of careers'" or "Race, class, professional culture, and institutional organization all affect the problem of public education." Those sentences employ a typical evasive maneuver, pointing to something without saying anything, or anything much, about it.

[Becker argues against an inductive approach, preferring instead a deductive format,  introductions that state the findings and theses up front; this would mean writing an introduction last (or beginning with a less than precise intro, then coming back to rewrite.]

What about careers? How do all those things affect public education? People who make outlines do the same thing by making topic rather than sentence outlines. The minute you turn the topic headings into nonvacuous sentences, the problems the outline solved return. Many social scientists, however, think they are actually doing a good thing by beginning evasively.

[RSS: against “inductive reasoning” format]: They reveal items of evidence one at a time, like clues in a detective story, expecting readers to keep everything straight until they triumphantly produce the dramatic concluding paragraph that summarizes argument and evidence at once. They may do this out of a scientific prudery which forbids stating a conclusion before lay- ing out all the evidence (which ignores the excellent example of mathematical proofs that begin by stating the proposition to be proved).

[critique of survey research—concluding findings at the end]

Investigators frequently report survey research results this way. A table shows, for example, that class and racial prejudice are directly related. The next table shows that that is true only when you hold education constant. Further tables showing the effect of age or ethnicity complicate matters further, and so on down a long road of items before One Right Way whatever conclusion the assemblage warrants finally appears.

I often suggest to these would-be Conan Doyles that they simply put their last triumphant paragraph first, telling readers where the argument is going and what all this material will finally demonstrate. That flushes out the other reason for this caginess: "If I give the ending away at the beginning, no one will read the rest of what I've written." But scientific papers seldom deal with material suspenseful enough to warrant the format. If you put the paragraph that gives the secret away at the beginning, you can then go back and say explic- itly what each section of your work contributes to reaching that result, instead of having to hide its function in noncommittal prose.

[Prudence Rains (1971), the a study of unwed mothers]

Suppose you are reporting, as Prudence Rains (1971) did, the results of a study of unwed mothers. You could, in classical evasive style, begin your book like this:

"This study investigates the experiences of unwed mothers, with special attention to their careers, moral aspects of their situations, and the influence of social agencies."

Giving nothing at all away, that beginning would leave the reader with a collection of unrelated tokens to be exchanged later in the book (if the author delivers on the LO.U.) for sentences asserting real relationships between real entities. Fortunately, Rains did not do that. She wrote, in- stead, a model introduction, which explains exactly what the rest of the book then analyzes in detail. I quote it at length:

Becoming an unwed mother is the outcome of a particular sequence of events that begins with forays into intimacy and sexuality, results in pregnancy, and terminates in the birth of an illegitimate child. Many girls do not have sexual relations before marriage. Many who do, do not get pregnant. And most girls who get pregnant while unmarried do not end up as unwed mothers. Girls who become unwed mothers, in this sense, share a common career that consists of the steps by which they came to be unwed mothers rather than brides, the clients of abortionists, contraceptively prepared lovers, or virtuous young ladies. The most significant aspects of this career are moral ones, for sexuality, pregnancy, and mother- hood are matters closely linked to conceptions of feminine respectability and intimately connected to women's conceptions of themselves. Becoming an unwed mother is not simply a private and practical trouble; it is the kind of trouble that forces public accounting, raises retrospective questions, and, above all, calls into question the kind of person the unwed mother was and is. The moral career of an unwed mother is, in this sense, like the moral careers of other persons whose acts are treated as deviant, and whose selves become publicly implicated. Important, if not central, to the moral career of such a person are the social agencies with which he may come into contact as a result of his situation. Social agencies and institutions, whether geared to rehabilitation, incarceration, help, or punishment, provide and enforce interpretations of the per- son's current situation, of the past that led to it, and of the possibilities that lie ah.ead (Rains 1971, 1-2.).

That introduction, laying out the map of the trip the author is going to take them on, lets readers connect any part of the argument with its overall structure. Readers with such a map seldom get confused or lost.

[Evasive vacuous sentences (or introductions), however, are actually good ways to begin early drafts.]

LOOK: Evasive vacuous sentences, however, are actually good ways to begin early drafts. They give you some leeway at a time when you don't want or need to be committed, and most important, they let you start. Write one down and you can go ahead without worrying that you have put your foot on a wrong path, because you haven't really taken a step yet.

 Synopsis of book: https://www.brint.com/papers/writing.htm

Summary Notes of

Writing for Social Scientists: How to Start and Finish Your Thesis, Book, or Article

By Howard S. Becker ? Copyright, 1996, Yogesh Malhotra, Ph.D., All Rights Reserved

Chapter 1. Freshman English for Graduate Students

You don't have to write like a social scientist to be one.

"I habitually wrote manuscripts eight to ten times before publication (although not before giving them to my friends to read)." Must give up the one-draft method of producing papers.

How can you find out what readers will understand? You can give your early drafts to sample members of your intended audience and ask them what they think.

Verbose, redundant, or meaningless expressions should be avoided. Similarly, passive constructions, abstract nouns, should be avoided. Sociologists' inability or unwillingness to make causal statements similarly leads to bad writing.

Writings need not be a one-shot, all-or-nothing venture. It could have stages, each with its own criteria for excellence. An insistence on clarity and polish appropriate to a late version is entirely inappropriate to earlier ones meant to get the ideas on paper.

·     Worrying about rules of writing too early in the process could keep you from saying what you actually had to say. The only version that matters is the last one.

Scientific writings are a form of rhetoric, meant to persuade, and some forms of persuasion the scientific community considers okay and some illegitimate. You cannot write without using rhetoric and therefore you cannot evade questions of style.

You have already made many choices when you sit down to write, but probably don't know what they were. That leads, naturally, to some confusion, to a mixed-up early draft. But a mixed-up draft is no cause for shame.

·     Rather, it shows you what your earlier choices were; what ideas, theoretical viewpoints, and conclusions you had already committed yourself to before you began writing.

·     Knowing that you will write many more drafts, you know that you need not worry about this one's crudeness and lack of coherence. This one is for discovery, not for presentation.

The only job left -- even though you have just begun to write -- is to make it all clearer. The rough draft shows you what needs to be made clearer; the skills of rewriting and copy editing let you do it. Making your work clearer involves consideration of audience. Who is it supposed to be clearer to? Who will read what you write? What do they have to know so that they will not misread or find what you say obscure or unintelligible? The writing 'style' will depend upon the audience you are targeting.

If you start writing early in your research -- before you have all your data, for instance -- you can begin cleaning up your thinking sooner. Writing a draft without data makes clearer what you would like to discuss and, therefore, what data you will have to get.

Why different reviewers may give contradictory advice regarding the same issue? Both critics might be responding to the same confusion. Try to write so clearly that no one could misunderstand and make changes you didn't like. The author need not do what any of them (the critics) says, but should get rid of the confusion so that it will no longer be there to complain about.

Given the diversity of the "blind review," in the long run, authors seldom go unpublished simply because they have the wrong views or work in the wrong style. So many organizations publish so many journals that every point of view finds a home somewhere. But editors still reject papers or send them back with the instruction "revise and resubmit" because they are mixed-up -- because their authors write unclearly or misstate the problem they want to address.

Circle of Friends: More commonly, writers solve the problem of isolation by developing a circle of friends who will read their work in the right spirit, treating as preliminary what is preliminary, helping the author sort out the mixed-up ideas of a very rough draft or smooth out the ambiguous language of a later version, suggesting references that might be helpful or comparisons that will give the key to some intractable puzzle.

Some people cannot read things in an appropriate way. They fixate on small things -- sometimes just a word that could easily be replaced by one that avoids the problem -- and cannot think about or comment about anything else. Others, usually known far and wide as excellent editors, see the core problem and give helpful suggestions. Avoid the former. Search out the latter.

 Chapter 2. Persona and Authority

In the process of rewriting drafts, try to cut down the words without loosing the meaning of the work (make it more rich). Make it less pretentious, remove meaningless qualifications, combine sentences that repeat long phrases, and when the same thing is said in two ways in successive sentences, take out the less effective version.

Desire for "elitist" status is one reason why academics slip so easily into unintelligibility.... To overcome the academic prose you have first to overcome the academic pose.

Authoritativeness is not inherent in any piece of writing. These devices ("classier") work on an audience unfamiliar with the area. But it might be necessary to use the same devices to convince experts that you know what you are talking about.

Every style, then, is the voice of someone the author wants to be, or be taken for.

If you want to convince yourself that the time and effort spent getting your degree are worth it, that you are changing in some way that will change your life, then you want to look different from everyone else, not the same. That accounts for a truly crazy cycle in which students repeat the worst stylistic excesses the journals contain, learn that those very excesses are what makes their work different from what every damn fool knows and says, write more articles like those they learned from, submit them to journals whose editors publish them because nothing better is available (and because academic journals cannot afford expensive copy editing) and thus provide the raw material for another generation to learn bad habits from.

Chapter 3. One Right Way

Scholarly writers have to organize their material, express an argument clearly enough that readers can follow the reasoning and accept the conclusions. They make this job harder than it need be when they think that there is only One Right Way to do it, that each paper they write has a preordained structure they must find. They simplify their work, on the other hand, when they recognize that there are many effective ways to say something and that their job is only to choose one and execute it so that readers will know what they are doing.

Write introductions last. "Introductions are supposed to introduce. How can you introduce something you haven't written yet? You don't know what it is. Get it written and then you can introduce it." There could be a variety of possible introductions available, each one right in some way, each giving a slightly different twist to your thought. Fearing commitment to the implications of an initial formulation also accounts for people beginning with the vacuous sentences and paragraphs so common in scholarly writing.

"This study deals with the problem of careers" or "Race, class, professional culture, and institutional organization all affect the problem of public education."

Those sentences employ a typical evasive maneuver, pointing to something without saying anything, or anything much, about it.

Put your last paragraph first, telling readers where the argument is going and what all this material will finally demonstrate. That introduction, laying out the map of the trip the author is going to take them on, lets readers connect any part of the argument with its overall structure. Readers with such a map seldom get confused or lost.

Evasive vacuous sentences, however, are actually good ways to begin early drafts. They give you some leeway at a time when you don't want or need to be committed, and most important, they let you start. Write one down and you can go ahead without worrying that you have put your foot on a wrong path, because you haven't really taken a step yet. You just have to remember, when you have written the rest of what you have to say, to go back and replace these placeholders with real sentences that say what you mean.

Your last paragraph reveals to you what the introduction ought to contain, and you can go back and put it in and then make the minor changes in other paragraphs your new-found focus requires.

Write whatever comes into your head, as fast as you can type, without reference to outlines, notes, data, books or any other aids. The object is to find out what you would like to say, what all your earlier work on the topic or project has already led you to believe. Do 'freewriting."

·     That's why it is so important to write a draft rather than to keep on preparing and thinking about what you will write when you do start. You need to give the thoughts a physical embodiment, to put them down on paper.

Once you have your work on paper, you do know what you want to say and, once you have the different versions before you, you can easily see how trivial the differences are. We are committed, not by the choice of a word, but by the analysis we have already done. That's why it makes no difference how we begin. We chose our path and destination long before.

For students who get hung up trying to frame a dissertation topic, I ask them to write down, in no more than one or two sentences, one hundred different thesis ideas. Few people get past twenty or twenty-five before they see that they only have two or three ideas, which are almost always variations on a common theme.

Writers find the question of which-way-to-organize-it a problem, again, because they imagine that one of the ways is Right. They don't let themselves see that each of the several ways they can think of has something to recommend it, that none are perfect.

[RSS: Do this on a Word doc; ideas can be moved around, and given a heading.]

Organizing your ideas: Put each idea on a file card (word-processor paragraph). Sort your stack of cards into piles. Put the ones that seem to go together in one pile. Make a card on top of each one, a card that summarizes what all the cards in the pile say, generalizing their particulars. Lay the piles out in some order. Different ways of arranging them may emphasize different parts of your analysis. Something like a flowchart method.

Chapter 4. Editing by Ear

How do we edit by ear? Looking at a blank sheet of paper, or one with writing on it, we use what "sounds good" or "looks good" to us. We use heuristics, some precise, some quite vague.

Students find it difficult at first to understand why, having rewritten a sentence, I then rewrite it again, and even a third or fourth time. Why don't I get it right the first time? I say, and try to show them, that each change opens the way to other changes, that when you clear away nonworking words and phrases, you can see more easily what the sentence is about and can phrase it more succinctly and accurately. Every word and punctuation mark should be questioned. However long it takes, such detailed editing is worth doing. Each change makes things marginally clearer and cuts out a few words that probably weren't doing much work anyway. The unnecessary words take up room and are thus uneconomic. They cheat, demanding attention by hinting at profundities and sophistication they don't contain. Seeming to mean something, those extra words mislead readers about what is being said.

Some useful tips for style.

(a) Active/passive: Substitute active verbs for passive ones when you can. Sentences that name active agents make our representations of social life more understandable and believable.

(b) Fewer words: Scholarly writers often insert words and whole phrases when they don't want to say something as flatly as it first came to them. Sometimes we put those throat-clearing phrases in because the rhythm or structure of the sentence seems to require it, or because we want to remind ourselves that something is missing in the argument. An unnecessary word does no work. It doesn't further an argument, state an important qualification, or add a compelling detail. I find unnecessary words by a simple test. As I read through my draft, I check each word and phrase to see what happens if I remove it.

(c) Repetition: Don't repeat the same word within so-and-so many sentences. You may have to repeat words, but you shouldn't repeat words when you can get the same result without doing it.

(d) Structure/content: The thoughts conveyed in a sentence usually have a logical structure, stating or implying some sort of connection between the things it discusses. We can make our point more forcefully by going from one to the next in a way that shows how they are connected other than by following one another in a list.

(e) Concrete/abstract: Scholars have favorite abstract words which act as placeholders. Meaning nothing in themselves, they mark a place that needs a real idea. We also use abstractions to indicate the general application of our thought. When we squeeze long, windy phrases into more compact phrases, we make diffuse ideas sharply specific. When we use concrete details to give body to abstractions, however, we should choose the details and examples carefully.

(f) Metaphors: I usually cut such metaphors out of anything I am editing. All metaphors? No, only ones like the "tired metaphors" discussed above [which aren't serious about their ramifications]. The difference between the two kinds of metaphor lies in the seriousness and attention with which they are used. I don't mean how seriously authors take their subject, but how seriously they take the details of their metaphor. A metaphor that works is still alive. Reading it shows you a new aspect of what you are reading about, how that aspect appears in something superficially quite different. Using a metaphor is a serious theoretical exercise in which you assert that two different empirical phenomena belong to the same general class, and general classes always imply a theory. But metaphors work that way only if they are fresh enough to attract attention. If they have been used repeatedly enough to be clichés, you don't see anything new.

Writers need to pay close attention to what they have written as they revise, looking at every word as if they meant it to be taken seriously. You can write first drafts quickly and carelessly exactly because you know you will be critical later. When you pay close attention the problems start taking care of themselves.

Chapter 5. Learning to Write as a Professional

The main point is that no one learns to write all at once, that learning, on the contrary, goes on for a professional lifetime and comes from a variety of experiences academia makes available.

Rewriting - was fun, a kind of word puzzle whose point was to find a really good economical way to say something clearly, and not an embarrassing task whose necessity revealed my shortcomings. Maybe thinking of writing as an enjoyable game immunized me against the anxieties other people describe, but my relative lack of writing anxiety also had sociological roots.

Journal editorial jobs are usually one of the honors that come to people who have been in the business for a while.

A journal is supposed to come out regularly, every second month or quarterly. If you missed your deadline, you lost your turn in the printer's queue, people complained about their magazine being late, and the officers of the sponsoring organization wanted to know what was wrong. Better to come out on time. That did not mean that you published work you didn't think was good, but that you published work that was good, no matter what its breed: quantitative or qualitative. Every journal editor I have ever talked to has agreed that, whatever prejudices they secretly expected to implement on assuming office, they soon found the main thing was to get enough decent articles to fill the journal and get it out on time. Authors who think editorial prejudice accounts for their work being turned down or sent back to "revise and resubmit" are, for that reason, almost always wrong. When sociologists show me work they think has been turned down because of prejudice, it is almost always badly organized and badly written. The prejudices that do exist operate more subtly, as when the editor decides that one badly written, poorly organized piece is worth putting some special effort into, but not another. The lesson for people who do unpopular work is not that they can't get published but that they shouldn't expect editors to do their work for them. No one should, but some have a better chance of happening.

I learned the importance of subject matter and having something to say about it.

When I could, I wrote a new version of the parts that didn't work. If I couldn't, I didn't. In either case, I usually put the paper away again, for months or sometimes years. Some papers never get finished, but I hate to waste anything I write and never give up hope, not even on pieces no one likes.

When I get criticisms and comments, from friends or from editors who have rejected a paper, I assume that I have failed to make my points clearly enough to forestall the objections they make, and look for what I can do to meet the objections without changing my position, unless the criticism convinces me that the position requires changing.

I was always working on several generations of writing simultaneously: roughing out an initial draft of something new, rewriting initial drafts from an older project, making the final revisions in something ready for press. That is easier than it sounds. In fact, it makes every step of the process easier because when you get stuck on one job you can turn to another, always doing what comes easiest.

I became more willing than ever to write down any damn thing that came into my head, knowing by analogy with photographing that I could always weed out what I didn't like or couldn't use.

Since I followed that advice, a reader can get the gist of the book just by looking at the pictures and reading the captions. All this has increased my interest in the visual aspects of writing and bookmaking. I expect my new computer's ability to produce pictures and unusual typefaces to be a help with that.

Chapter 6. Risk

The whole chapter [which is about the perceived risks of writing (and being judged) of a young academic] needs to be read. Good view of one academic's insight into the risks of writing and not writing, of being judged by peers and by self.

Chapter 7. Getting It out the Door

I can draw the analogy to the completion of consulting project assignments. Starting from the scratch [or an interim stage], the consultant has to deliver a final product [as per the specifications] on or before an agreed deadline. Each consulting project is a 'new' assignment, which requires the common skill-base, yet entails understanding of the specific needs and idiosyncrasies of each different site [or client].

The tension between making it better and getting it done appears wherever people have work to finish or a product to get out: a computer, a dinner, a term paper, an automobile, a book. But no object ever fully embodies its maker's conception of what it could have been.

I like to get it out the door. Although I like to rewrite and tinker with organization and wording, I soon either put work aside as not ready to be written or get it into a form fit to go out the door. My temperament -- impatient, eager for frequent rewards, curious how others will respond to what I have said -- pushes me in that direction. Intellectual life is a dialogue among people interested in the same topic. You can eavesdrop on the conversation and learn from it, but eventually you ought to add something yourself. Your research project isn't done until you have written it up and launched it into the conversation by publishing it.

More generally, you can decide when to let your work out the door by deciding what part you want to play in the world in which work like yours is done.

Most of these activities require that someone get some writing done, some product out the door. The organization of scholarly disciplines does not require any particular person to do these jobs. If I don't write a definitive book on the subject, you will; if not you, someone else. If neither of us writes the book, we may suffer; but the field will not. We will not be promoted, but someone will eventually write it, if the material to write it from exists, and they will get promoted while we continue to teach the introductory course. Nevertheless, those activities open the doors through which our scholarly writing can be moved out.

Professionals orient themselves to the deadlines and constraints the disciplines create.

The scholarly world -- this is the other side of the ambivalence -- is also oriented toward the long run. In that mode, it does not need more of the same. It needs new ideas. But the old formats make it hard for a different idea to get a breath.

The individuals may suffer by virtue of which of the world's jobs they take on. If you take twenty years to write a book which then turns out not to be a major intellectual event, you will certainly suffer.

People assume, for instance, that taking more time is necessarily better than taking less time. After all, shouldn't thinking about a topic for a year produce better ideas and deeper understanding? Won't the extra time allow you to polish your prose so that it more accurately and elegantly expresses your improved thoughts? Of course these benefits will follow! The more time you invest, the greater your return.

But equating time spent and quality [of final product] may in fact be empirically false. More work may not produce a better product.

On the contrary, the more we think about it, the more we may introduce irrelevant considerations and inappropriate qualifications, insist on making connections that needn't be made -- until we bury the thoughts in Byzantine ornamentation. "More is better" is no more true than "less is better." Yes, writing needs reworking and thought. But how much? The answer should be sought pragmatically, not in fixed attitudes.

Scholars know that the subjects they write about involve so much that ought to be considered, so many connections between so many elements, so much of everything that it seems inconceivable that it can be given a rational order. But that's our business: to arrange ideas in so rational an order that another person can make sense of them.

We have to deal with that problem on two levels.

·     We have to arrange the ideas in a theory or narrative,

·     describe the causes and conditions that lead to the effects we want to explain,

·     and do it in an order that is logically and empirically correct.

Chapter 8. Terrorized by the Literature

A good way to prove your originality is to attach your idea to a tradition in which people have already explored the literature. Hitching your work to a well-explored scholarly star helps you to assure yourself that your work doesn't redo something already done. Writers should, of course, use relevant literature appropriately.

Science and humanistic scholarship are, in fact as well as in theory, cumulative enterprises. None of us invent it all from scratch when we sit down to write. We depend on our predecessors. We couldn't do our work if we didn't use their methods, results, and ideas. Few people would be interested in our results if we didn't indicate some relationship between them and what others have said and done before us.

Individual scientists don't make scientific revolutions. Those revolutions take a long time. Large number of people, working together, develop a new way of formulating and investigating the problems they are interested in, a way which finds a home in lasting institutions of scientific work. If making a scientific or scholarly revolution singlehandedly is our chief goal, we are bound to fail. Better to pursue the goals of normal science: to do a piece of good work others can use, and thus increase knowledge and understanding. Since we can attain those things in our own research and writing, we don't set ourselves up for failure by aiming at the impossible.

Are there effective ways to use the literature? Of course. For one thing, scholars must say something new while connecting what they say to what's already been said, and this must be done in such a way that people will understand the point. They must say something at least minimally new. Although the empirical sciences pay lip service to the idea of replicating results, they don't pay off for it. At the same time, as you approach total originality, you interest fewer and fewer people. Everyone is interested in the topics people have studied and written about for years, both because the topics are of great and continuing general concern and because they have been studied for so long.

The ideal scholarly contribution makes readers say:"That's interesting!" You must learn to connect your work to literature in just that way, to set your results in the context of accepted theories that make it unlikely.

If you are making a wood table, you needn't make all the parts yourself. You can take standard sizes and shapes, and standard components, and fit them into places you left for them, knowing that they were available. Similarly while making an argument, you needn't invent the whole thing. Other people have worked on your problem or problems related to it and have made some of the pieces you need. You just have to fit them where they belong. Like the woodworker, you leave space, when you make your portion of the argument, for the other parts you know you can get. You do that, that is, if you know that they are there to use. And that's one good reason to know the literature: so that you will know what pieces are available and not waste time doing what has already been done.

Is working that way plagiarizing or being unoriginal? I don't think so, although fear of such labels pushes people to desperate attempts to think of new concepts. If I need the idea for the table I'm building, I'll take it. It's still my table, even though some parts were prefabricated. In fact, I am so accustomed to working this way that I am always collecting such prefabricated parts for use in future arguments. I also collect modules I have no present use for, when my intuition tells me I will eventually find the use. I may not use these ideas in their original form. I may transform them in ways their parents wouldn't recognize or approve of, and interpret them in ways students of these thinkers will find incorrect. I will probably use them in contexts quite different from those in which they were first proposed, and fail to give due weight to theoretical exegeses which strive to discover the core meanings their inventors intended. My work may look like a patchwork quilt as a result.

[MHD]: What you want to say has a certain logic that flows from the chain of choices you made as you did the work. If the logic of your argument is the same as the logic of the dominant approach to the topic, you have no problem. But suppose it isn't. What you want to say starts from different premises, addresses different questions, recognizes a different kind of answer as appropriate. When you try to confront the dominant approach to this material, you start to translate your argument into its terms. Your argument will not make the kind of sense it made in its own terms; it will sound weak and disjointed and will appear ad hoc. It cannot look its best playing on opponent's game. And that phrasing puts the point badly, because what's involved is not a contest between approaches, after all, but a search for a good way to understand the world. The understanding you're trying to convey will lose its coherence if it is put in terms that grow out of a different understanding.

The literature has the advantage of what is sometimes called ideological hegemony over you. If its authors own the territory, their approach to it seems as natural and reasonable as your new and different approach seems strange and unreasonable. Their ideology controls how readers think about the topic. As a result, you have to explain why you haven't asked those questions and gotten those answers. Proponents of the dominant argument don't have to explain their failure to look at things your way.

The two approaches to investigating the same question [or problem] may not be totally divergent. They can be made to coincide (integrative approach). But in the eagerness to show that existing literature is wrong do not loose track of what your research was really about.

Chapter 9. Friction and Word Processors

The most important benefit of writing on a computer: how much easier it would be to think by writing. I habitually write an almost deliberately disorganized first draft -- whatever comes into my head -- hoping to discover the main themes I want to work on by seeing what comes out in that uncensored flow. I continue to write the second draft which puts those themes together in some more-or-less logical order. In the third draft, I cut words, combine sentences, rephrase ideas, and in the course of that get an even clearer idea of what I mean to say.

For me, it's meant learning to think modularly, learning to deal more than I ever did with small units of material I can put together and take apart in several ways to see how the result looks. Similarly, I edit extensively on the screen, skipping the stage of printing out a version and working on the paper copy that many people hang on to. That allows me to look at five different ways of saying the same thing before I decide on one. I may even line them up one under the other to compare them.

Sociological writers keep data around in various forms: notes on reading, field notes, summaries of results, ideas about how to organize materials, bibliographies, memos on this and that. Every scholar needs a system for organizing all this paper, and computer programs called "file managers" or "data bases" do something like that. (Becker, Gordon, and LeBilly 1984 discuss the criteria for computer systems to handle field notes and similar materials.)

  * * *

https://www.editage.com/insights/the-basics-of-writing-a-statement-of-the-problem-for-your-research-proposal

Insights on the Basics of Writing a “Statement of the Problem.” 

Research is a systematic investigative process employed to increase or revise current knowledge by discovering new facts. It can be divided into two general categories:

(1) Basic research, which is inquiry aimed at increasing scientific knowledge, and

(2) Applied research, which is effort aimed at using basic research for solving problems or developing new processes, products, or techniques.

The basics of writing a statement of the problem for your research proposal

Key takeaways:

• A statement of the problem is used in research work as a claim that outlines the problem addressed by a study.
• A good research problem should address an existing gap in knowledge in the field and lead to further research.
• To write a persuasive problem statement, you need to describe (a) the ideal, (b), the reality, and (c) the consequences.

The first and most important step in any research is to identify and delineate the research problem: that is, what the researcher wants to solve and what questions he/she wishes to answer. A research problem may be defined:

·     as an area of concern,

·     a gap in the existing knowledge, or

·     a deviation in the norm or standard that points to the need for further understanding and investigation.

Although many problems turn out to have several solutions (the means to close the gap or correct the deviation), difficulties arise where such means are either not obvious or are not immediately available. This then necessitates some research to reach a viable solution.

A statement of the problem is used in research work as a claim that outlines the problem addressed by a study. The statement of the problem briefly addresses the question: What is the problem that the research will address?

What are the goals of a statement of the problem?

The ultimate goal of a statement of the problem is to transform a generalized problem (something that bothers you; a perceived lack) into a targeted, well-defined problem; one that can be resolved through focused research and careful decision-making.

Writing a statement of the problem should help you clearly identify the purpose of the research project you will propose. Often, the statement of the problem will also serve as the basis for the introductory section of your final proposal, directing your reader’s attention quickly to the issues that your proposed project will address and providing the reader with a concise statement of the proposed project itself.

A statement of problem need not be long and elaborate: one page is more than enough for a good statement of problem.

What are the key characteristics of a statement of the problem?

A good research problem should have the following characteristics:

1. It should address a gap in knowledge.
2. It should be significant enough to contribute to the existing body of research
3. It should lead to further research
4. The problem should render itself to investigation through collection of data
5. It should be of interest to the researcher and suit his/her skills, time, and resources
6. The approach towards solving the problem should be ethical

What is the format for writing a statement of the problem?

A persuasive statement of problem is usually written in three parts:

Part A (The ideal): Describes a desired goal or ideal situation; explains how things should be.

Part B (The reality): Describes a condition that prevents the goal, state, or value in Part A from being achieved or realized at this time; explains how the current situation falls short of the goal or ideal.

Part C (The consequences): Identifies the way you propose to improve the current situation and move it closer to the goal or ideal.

Here is an example:

Example 1

Part A: According to the XY university mission statement, the university seeks to provide students with a safe, healthy learning environment. Dormitories are one important aspect of that learning environment, since 55% of XY students live in campus dorms and most of these students spend a significant amount of time working in their dorm rooms.

However,

Part B: Students living in dorms A B C, and D currently do not have air conditioning units, and during the hot seasons, it is common for room temperatures to exceed 80 degrees F. Many students report that they are unable to do homework in their dorm rooms. Others report having problems sleeping because of the humidity and temperature. The rooms are not only unhealthy, but they inhibit student productivity and academic achievement.

Part C: In response to this problem, our study proposes to investigate several options for making the dorms more hospitable. We plan to carry out an all-inclusive participatory investigation into options for purchasing air conditioners (university-funded; student-subsidized) and different types of air conditioning systems. We will also consider less expensive ways to mitigate some or all of the problems noted above (such as creating climate-controlled dorm lounges and equipping them with better study areas and computing space).

Here is a simple four-step guide to writing a statement of the problem:

Step 1 (Statement 1): Describe a goal or desired state of a given situation, phenomenon etc. This will build the ideal situation (what should be, what is expected or desired)

[RSS: Why is it a desired goal, or the ideal situation? What evidence or reasoning is behind this?]

Step 2 (Statement 2): Describe a condition that prevents the goal, state, or value discussed in Step 1 from being achieved or realized at the present time. This will build the reality or the situation as it is and establish a gap between what ought to be and what is.

Step 3: Connect steps 1 and 2 using a connecting term such as "but," "however," “unfortunately,” or “in spite of.”

Step 4 (Statement 3): Using specific details, show how the situation in step 2 contains little promise of improvement unless something is done. Then emphasize the benefits of research by projecting the consequences of possible solutions.

Here are some examples of how you can write a statement of the problem using the steps mentioned above:

Writing a Good Social Science Paper UCSD https://pages.ucsd.edu/~keferree/Writing%20a%20Good%20Social%20Science%20Paper.htm

A social science paper is an argument.  Something does not have to be wildly controversial to constitute an argument. A good argument simply states a position and supports it with evidence in a clear, logical fashion.  Some of the most important skills a student can learn in college are to write correctly, effectively, and even elegantly. The paper assignment for this course provides one opportunity to develop these skills, and we will read your papers with those objectives in mind.

[RSS: Deductive reasoning]

Thesis  / stated position; what you want to argue?

The thesis is a focused statement that clearly expresses your argument. It is an assertion that can be supported with evidence. It may help to focus your thesis if you remember: you are writing this paper in response to some question. 

What is the question? [“Statement of the Problem”]  What is your answer? [“Thesis”]

Evidence / Support for your thesis; the development of your argument.

Evidence can take many forms, including: theories, facts, figures, stories, or anticipating and refuting counter-arguments*. 

[A thesis statement can’t just emerge from the writer’s subjective positions (i.e., opinion or belief); it should come out of some body of evidence. One effective way is to use a thesis when advocating for a particular perspective or “interpretive framework” in comparison to another “interpretive or theoretical framework” (e.g., explaining why students from minority communities consistently do poorly in school).

There are three important points to remember when presenting evidence: 

1. Make sure the evidence supports your thesis.
2. Make it clear to the reader HOW the evidence supports your thesis.
3. Make sure your presentation of evidence is well organized.

*Anticipating and refuting counter arguments can be a more difficult way to defend a thesis, than simply presenting facts and figures, but it can also be very powerful. It applies better to some arguments than others, and should be employed carefully. 

To properly refute a counter argument you must:

1. Imagine an alternative explanation to your thesis.
2. Think of the evidence that this alternative explanation would need in order to be true.
3. show either that this evidence does not, or cannot logically, exist.

Be sure to avoid logical fallacies, which will weaken your argument:

Argument by assertion  (simply stating that something is true or obvious does not make it so.)

Begging the question    Make sure your argument actually provides evidence for your thesis. If the argument merely restates your thesis in different words, that is considered begging the question.

Ad hominem argument  Your argument should be based on logic or reason. Arguments that appeal to personal considerations are considered ad hominem. For example, showing that a particular argument was made by an individual you despise (e.g., Adolf Hitler, Osama bin Laden) does not in itself make the argument incorrect. (Example: Adolf Hitler and everyone in the Nazi party believed that the world was round, so obviously it must be flat.)

Context  The bigger picture; why this argument matters.

 Context helps the reader think about possible applications of your argument. What does your argument mean for some broader issue? Keep in mind that this context doesn’t have to be too broad. In fact, a more specific context is better than an overly general one. To use a biology analogy: if you argue that some treatment works, how would this treatment be applied? What diseases or conditions will be affected by this treatment? Phrased differently: If your argument is correct, what are the potential consequences if we pay attention to it? What are the potential consequences if your argument is ignored?

Grammar & Style   Yes, they matter.

Proper spelling and grammar are important because mistakes of this nature detract from your argument. Most word processing programs have corrective tools that should be used. For more complex grammar issues, Elements of Style by William Strunk, Jr. is accessible online at: www.bartleby.com/141/

Citations and a bibliography are important, so that the reader knows where you found your evidence, and that you are using it properly. In-text citations and bibliography should be presented in a consistent format (MLA, APA, Chicago, etc.). https://libraries.ucsd.edu/refshelf/refshelf-style.html has information on these options.

Organizational Model

Clear organization is essential for a good argument. Use your introduction to provide a kind of road map for the rest of your paper. Be sure to give the reader guideposts along the way, to help them follow your argument.

Introduction

1. General introduction to the context (not too general)

2. Thesis statement (don’t hide this for later)

3. Hints about evidence indicate the main points (x, y, z) that you will use to support your thesis. (you develop these points in the body)

4. Hints about context (to be developed in your conclusion)

Body

In this section you are laying out your evidence, the order in which you present your evidence must follow from the hints you gave in your intro (x, y, z)

X All the information pertaining to this point should be presented here. Make sure it is clear to the reader how this point relates to your thesis statement.

Y Likewise for this point

 To discuss more complex points, organize that section like a mini-argument. 

If Z has sub-points (1,2,3) it should be presented as follows:

Z introduction

Indication of 1, 2, 3,

Pull all these sub-points back together and remind reader how this relates to the thesis.

                                     Conclusion

1. Restatement of the argument

2. Placement of the argument in Context (this is the time to go beyond the argument you’ve outlined, and discuss its application/implications)

FROM: DOC: Professional Editing[RSS].docx (pp. 30 & 31)

 

5. Subject Content Editing (SCE) (Social Sciences)

With specific regard to social science, and more specifically, sociological writing, the author is engaged in an attempt to understand and explain the way that individuals and groups interact within a society, or within an institutional setting (e.g., the educational system, the school, the classroom). *UNC, Chapel Hill

Once again, if the editor has expertise in the author’s area of research, he/she can—with permission, offer commentary on the following areas:

[In the example here, the research is proposing what he or she is going to study.

e.g., dissertation study]

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM: The editor begins by examining whether the Statement of the Problem is clear and concise. Here, the editor wishes to ensure that the Statement is such that the reader is “pulled” into the study; that is, the reader is intrigued by the subject of the study and—quite quickly, understands the author’s motivation for pursing the research contained in manuscript. 

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK: With regard to the theoretical framework, the editor assesses:

· whether the author’s description of a theoretical framework is both clear, complete, concise, and accurate.

· whether the author’s thesis statements are clear and specific as possible.

· whether the author’s position on the topic and theses is clear and assertive.

LITERATURE REVIEW: With regard to the literature review, the editor:

· identifies methodological strengths and weakness of specific studies.

· assesses the effectiveness of notable quotations (whether used sparingly or too many).

· determines whether author identifies major trends or patterns in studies reviewed.

HYPOTHESES: If and when hypotheses are presented, are they well articulated?

DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY

(Qualitative Research): Qualitative research methods are used to answer questions about experience, meaning and perspective, most often from the standpoint of participants in the study. Qualitative research techniques include ‘small-group discussions’ for investigating beliefs, attitudes and concepts of normative behavior; ‘semi-structured interviews’, to seek views on a focused topic or, with key informants, for background information or an institutional perspective; ‘in-depth interviews’ to understand a condition, experience, or event from a personal perspective; and ‘analysis of texts and documents’, such as government reports, media articles, websites or diaries, to learn about distributed or private knowledge. https://academic.oup.com/humrep/article/31/3/498/2384737

Here, the editor can help determine whether the qualitative methodology is well articulated:

· Does the author clarify the reasons why qualitative methodology was necessary to investigate the topic and problem stated at the beginning of manuscript or article?

· Does the author provide sufficient detail of selected methodology used?

· Does the author discuss any limitations of selected methodology?

ANALYSIS OF DATA (Note: Some of the features of the type of editing reviewed here overlaps with the objectives found in “developmental editing.”)

Here, the editor can help determine:

·     whether the presentation of findings and analyses correspond to the intended topic of study and questions presented in the first part of manuscript.

·     When certain findings compel the author to offer a thesis, is there sufficient evidence to convince that reader that such a thesis is justifiable?

·     Does a clear point of view emerge from analyses?