Research Guides: Seminar Paper Research: Outline

Basic Article Structure

•Introduction

•Articulate your thesis, provide roadmap of sections that follow

•Background

•Lay the necessary foundation for your thesis

•Analysis

•Set out your arguments in support of your thesis

•Conclusion

•Briefly restate your conclusion; do not include anything new

Alternative Organization

•Introduction

•Articulate your thesis, provide roadmap of sections that follow

•Part I Background

•Lay the necessary foundation for your thesis

•Part II Identify problem

•Part III Argue for solution

•Set out your arguments in support of your thesis

•Conclusion

•Briefly restate your conclusion; do not include anything new

Problem/Solution Organization

1.Analyze the problem

a.Explain advantages and disadvantages of current approach

b.Explain the reasons change is needed

2.State your proposal

3.Explain its efficacy

4.Explain the weakness of alternative proposals

5.Conclude

Speech Regulation in School Example

Thesis: Off-campus speech should only be subject to school discipline if the speaker intends for the speech to reach campus, and the speech actually does reach campus, with some exceptions.

•Introduction – Supreme Court cases do not address this particular situation: speech that originates off-campus, but finds its way to campus through technology or a third party.

•Student Speech Protections (Background)

•Sub-divided into four Supreme Court cases

•Lower Court Treatment (Background)

•Sub-divided by approach

•Creating a Test for On-Campus/Off-Campus Speech (Analysis)

•(1) critique of tests already proposed

•(2) new suggested test

•Conclusion

Speech Regulation in School Example II

Thesis: Distinctions drawn by the Ninth Circuit--both between minority and majority groups, and between speech that amounts to psychological attacks on others and speech that does not--are inherently problematic in application. For these reasons, courts should formulate a better interpretation of Tinker's “rights of others” prong, such as one that would allow schools to regulate student speech only when it has the potential to spark a physical assault.

I.Overview of Schools’ Ability to Restrict Student Speech [background]

II.Ninth Circuit’s Decision in Harper: [background & analysis]

A. Analysis

B. Criticism [problem]

III.Alternative Interpretation of “Rights of Others” Prong

[solution]

IV. Conclusion

Published Outline Example

For published examples of outlines, look at tables of contents of student Notes. The following is from Joseph DeMott, Rethinking Ashe v. Swenson from an Originalist Perspective, 71 Stan. L. Rev. 411 (2019). Your initial outline need not be as concise or polished as the table of contents, but this is an idea of how to organize a scholarly article.