Organizing Your Analytical Paper

Estimated time to complete: 5-10 minutes

It is even more difficult to recommend an organization for an analytical paper than for a problem-solution paper. Your organization will be dictated by your content and your purpose in writing the paper. You know that an analytical paper generally answers a question beginning with “how” or “why.” Think about how many possible ways there are to do that—some are more effective than others.

• Are you trying to clarify what a common term means in a particular context? Then you will probably organize your paper primarily as an extended definition.
• Are you trying to understand how a new technology will fit into a particular field? You will probably need to do some historical analysis of that field and how it has accepted new technologies in the past, then consider how that new technology will change things in the near future, for better or worse.
• Are you trying to understand an exciting new technology? You’ll want to look at what its proponents promise it will do and then consider whether that tech will ever be capable of fulfilling that promise and what will happen (good and bad) if it does. That will probably mean asking yourself who the stakeholders would be, how they would benefit, how others might be hurt. You would also need to consider possible unintended consequences of the introduction of that technology.

Still, there are some fundamentals:

1) You must clearly describe and limit the phenomenon/phenomena you want to discuss.

• Define key terms and related terms
• Make it clear what you are NOT discussing

You may need to:

• limit the context (in Japan, before the advent of cell phones) or
• clarify some assumptions (e.g. decide to ignore the claims of climate change deniers or accept the expertise of Group X on a topic)

2) You will then explain that phenomenon, while also reassuring your readers that yours is the most logical explanation possible, given the existing evidence. To do that….

3)  You will need to examine other common and/or reasonable explanations [Your counterargument] and explain why they are incorrect [refutation] or only partially correct [concession].

 

Note: We have not provided sample outlines for problem-solution and analytical papers. When we did this in the past, it created problems because students believed they needed a certain number of explanations or solutions or a very specific order to their arguments. It is better to concentrate on making decisions about your organization based on the purpose of your paper and the clearest way to communicate your ideas to your audience.