Section Outline Template
Section Outline for [Project Name]
1. Introduction
1.1 Motivation Paragraphs: describe the broad social value that your narrow research project might produce. Use your paragraphs to funnel from a broad motivation to your narrow research topic. For example, indicate a broad problem, describe a narrow component of that problem, discuss how that narrow problem component is solved by your niche research field, and explain how your niche research field is enhanced by your specific research topic. After finishing these paragraphs, your reader should know your topic area, your research field, and the broad social impact you hope to address.
1.2 Background/Literature Review Section: describe the academic literature’s strengths and weaknesses. To begin, cite some exemplary articles to summarize the literature’s current progress in your research topic. Then introduce the weaknesses you will identify in subsequent paragraphs. For each weakness, describe a specific research area where that weakness exists, cite some key publications in that research area, describe those publication’s omissions, caveats, and limitations, and discuss how those shortcomings illustrate the weakness. Prioritize citing articles that you’ll reference in your Methods or Discussion sections. After finishing these paragraphs, your reader should see that the literature has made progress in your research topic area, but that it must overcome a few weaknesses if it hopes to progress further.
1.3 Research Question Paragraphs: use the literature weaknesses to synthesize a research gap, develop a research question, and—depending on your field—offer a hypothesis. The research gap describes what science does not yet know. The research question describes how you intend to fill that research gap. The hypothesis posits an answer to your research question. After finishing these paragraphs, the reader should know your research question and understand why that question has scientific novelty.
1.4 Closing Paragraphs: quickly reiterate the Introduction in reverse. Remind the reader how your research question fills the research gap and why filling that gap will improve science and society.
2. Methods
2.1 Summary Paragraphs: succinctly describe your whole experiment. First, repeat the research question and describe the experimental data you will produce to answer that question. Then, briefly explain each experiment stage—i.e., each of the Methods subsections—stating what was done and why. Finally, list the experiment’s main limitations, and describe how, despite the limitations, your experiment adequately answers the research question. After finishing these paragraphs, the reader should understand the basics of your experiment and agree that those methods are appropriate for answering the research question. Your more casual readers will quit the Methods section after these opening paragraphs, but a few readers will delve into the more detailed paragraphs ahead.
2.2 Experiment Stages Sections: elaborate each stage of the experiment—e.g., data, samples, apparatus, procedure, etc.—with its own subsection. For each stage, use your paragraphs to open with a brief summary, defend your choice of experimental technique, elaborate the technique’s different components, and transition to the next experiment stage—for example, discussing how the output data of this stage will be used as input data for the next stage. Remember to incorporate any Methods visuals you created in the last chapter. After reading these sections, the reader should thoroughly understand your experiment and support its appropriateness for answering the research question.
2.3 Limitations Section: divulge your experiment’s weaknesses. Describe the experiment’s main two or three limitations—e.g., assumptions, apparatus shortcomings, data uncertainties, etc. Then make these limitations inconsequential: explain why the experiment, despite its limitations, adequately answers the research question. If divulging weakness makes you feel uneasy, remember that all methods have their flaws; no experiment can explain the whole universe. An article without limitations feels opaque. But disclosing your experiment’s weaknesses creates transparency and credibility. You can, however, soften the limitations by discussing them in the middle of the Methods section’s story arc—a position of lower emphasis.
2.4 Closing Paragraphs: transition to the Results section. Briefly reiterate the whole experiment. Remind the reader how the experimental output data will yield findings that answer the research question.
3. Results & Discussion
3.1 Opening Paragraphs: tentatively answer the research question. Remind the reader of the research question, summarize the method, and describe how the experiment’s output data will answer the research question, generally. Then explain the main finding and hint at its limitations, caveats, and tangents. After finishing these paragraphs, the reader should perceive the main finding and how it answers the research question: this upfront knowledge prepares them for the detailed discussion ahead.
3.2 Findings Sections: elaborate each finding. Each of your main and supplementary findings deserves its own Results & Discussion section. Describe the main finding first; emphasize the main finding by placing it early in the Results & Discussion story arc and indulge your reader by answer the research question upfront. Then describe each supplementary finding, organizing them from broad to narrow: present the big-picture results first, and the nuanced experimental output data last. Title these sections with a short sentence rather than a vague phrase: for example, instead of “Gnomish Cardiovascular Impacts,” title the section “Gnomes’ pulses and breathing rates quicken.” Begin each findings section with objective facts: summarize the finding, explain how any supplementary findings relate to the main finding, and elaborate the finding with additional paragraphs and a figure or table. End each findings section with interpretative Discussion: compare your findings to the literature and apply your findings to answer the research question. If your field assigns Discussion its own section, relocate these discussion points there.
3.3 Conclusion Section: recap the article. The Introduction and Conclusion tell the same story; they describe the same research question, research gap, and broad motivations. The major difference between them: the Introduction tells that story via the literature while the Conclusion tells that story via the Results. Thus, the Conclusion follows the same progression as the Introduction, though in fewer words. Use your paragraphs to 1) reiterate the research question, 2) reiterate the limitations, 3) reiterate the main finding and how it answers the research question, 4) reiterate the supplementary findings, 5) explain the project’s application to broader scientific disciplines and research gaps, and 6) explain the project’s social benefit by applying the Results to the motivations given in the Introduction’s first two paragraphs.