2. Sorting Your Note Cards

 The first step after taking your notes is to organize
and sort your note cards. To do this, you should:
 Reread your cards and give each a heading (i.e. if you
are researching elephants you would want all the
cards about their infancy to be labeled “early life”, the
cards about habitat to be labeled “habitat”, etc.)
 Sort the cards in these groups, regardless of what
source they are from.
 Now, ask yourself these questions… Do I have too
much research on one area? Too little? Is it pertinent?

3. Sorting cont’d…

 If you have too much research, go through your cards
and decide which cards have the best info(don’t throw
away the cards that are “weak”, but move them to the
bottom of the pile).
 If you have too little research in any area, you will
need to supplement your research by getting another
source.
 If the card seems irrelevant, mark them with some sort
of code that tells you that you have deemed it
irrelevant (I always used a red X in the corner).

4. Create a Working
Outline
 Example:

 Lacrosse: Yesterday and Today
I. History of Lacrosse
A. Developed by Native Americans
1. A violent game called “baggataway”
2. Used to train warriors
B. Adopted by French Settler
1. Called Lacrosse
2. 1856-Montreal Lacrosse Club
3. 1860-rules standardized
II. How the Game is played
A. Teams
B. Rules
C. Equipment
III. Lacrosse Today
A. For both women and men
B. In high schools
C. In colleges
D. International lacrosse

5. Your Outline

 To create your outline, you should think about the 3
or 4 topics you are going to cover in your paper.
 Those will be your main headings (I, II, III)
 Under each of those topics, you will think of the
subtopics (A, B, C) that you will cover.
 If you want to delineate your subtopics further, you
will write them under (1, 2, 3)

6. For example:

 If you were writing about Native American Code Talkers,
(why they were so good at it):
 My outline would most likely have 3 or 4 main topics: Who
were the code talkers, what was code talking, and Why
were Native Americans so good at it and how did it help in
the World Wars.
 So those are my I, II, III and IV
 My subtopics would be under each topic…for I. Who were
the code talkers, my subtopics would be their tribes and
their languages
 For II What they did, I would have the subtopics
description of code talk and examples of times code was
used in both World Wars

7. Outline example, cont’d

 My topic III. Why they were so successful would have
the subtopics spoken as opposed to written language
and Unfamiliar languages
 My last topic IV would be: How did it help in the
World Wars

8. Writing your Thesis

 To start with a thesis statement is not written as a
question. Your thesis is actually the answer to a
question.
 So if you were researching the differences between
football fifty years ago to today, your thesis isn’t
“What are the differences between modern and old
football?”
 It would be something like: Over the past fifty years,
the professional sport of football has changed
significantly for the fans as well as the players.

9. Your thesis:

 It should not be personal or a belief statement.
 You should draft at least 2-3 different versions of
your thesis statement:
 With rising ticket costs, salaries and fame for players,
the sport of football has changed significantly for
players as well as its fans.
 Over the past fifty years, the sport of football has
changed from a sport that was open to all to one of an
elitist nature.

10. Some other examples of
theses:

 For thousands of disabled Americans, service dogs
improve the emotional, social and economic quality
of life.
 With as little as $500, a high school student can
create and staff a “drive-by” radio station, benefiting
both the students and the school in significant ways.

11. Some “bad” theses:

 The purpose of my paper is to write about how
strikes in sports have affected fans.
 How does the amount and kind of television that
teens watch influence their achievement in school?
 How do weather forecasters make weather
predictions?
 I believe that many young adult novels deal with
important issues that are helpful to their readers,
who most likely never see counselors.