Writing an Outline for a Research Paper

Writing an Outline for a Research Paper An outline is a plan of how you will arrange ideas in the most effective way possible. Information needs to be organized and must flow logically for readers to understand the point of your research paper. Many students skip outlining because they trust their ability to construct a strong body of work without one. This is rarely true for first-time writers or even experienced writers. The advantages of preparing an outline before writing include: You classify information beforehand; Consequently, you focus on expressing your ideas and using the right grammar and structures when you write the actual paper. Outlining saves time. You do the hard work of finalizing main points and supporting data and facts. All you need to do afterward is write it coherently. An outline reveals irrelevant or weak material. When you view the full plan and how ideas flow and complement each other, unnecessary points are clear to spot. Outlining allows you to select the most relevant sources and incorporate them in a way that strengthens your points. For these reasons, it is one of the most important steps in academic writing a good research paper. Some would argue it is the most important step. How to Construct an Outline Your outline is not set in stone. You can go back and change sections if you find new information or discover how to make better research. However, the elements of an outline are standard, and they separate the blueprint into an introduction, body paragraphs or sections, and a conclusion. Sections can be divided using headings and subheadings. Outline Content Your outline contains the main points of your research. These main points are the core of your paper, and outlining them puts everything in perspective. Change ideas if you notice the outline is not coherent or a particular section offers weak support. These characteristics ensure your outline gives a clear impression of the message you deliver to readers: Headings should match in terms of significance. For instance, all main headings should be the vital points that support your topic. Main headings should be a general theme of discussion. Subheadings are usually longer than main headings. They contain specific information to explore and expand on the general main headings. The grammatical structures of each level should match. For example, if one main heading is a noun (Communication in our example above,) then every other main heading should be a noun. The same applies to subheadings. This way, the focus of a paragraph is clear, and it prepares you for writing. Here are some examples of outlines with different levels. Your instructor could ask you to submit your outline with your paper. They may request a specific outline style too, such as MLA format. This requires attention to line spacings, tabs, margins, and other formatting issues.

successful marriages essays

successful marriages essays For any marriage to be successful there are certain changes a man and woman have to make. They have to be flexible and open and ready for new experiences and ways of living. Marriages can be successful or unsuccessful based on many different aspects of it. Four important concepts that are definitely part of the whole marriage life are: children, conflict resolution, outside influences, and communication. Children may be the biggest change to a married couple. From going from just the two people, doing whatever they want, whenever they want, to staying home and taking on the responsibilities of taking care of children is a big step. Gone is the freedom of leaving at the spur of the moment to catch that new movie that just came out, eating what they want, when they want, buying whatever they want, and sleeping in until noon. The average number of children for parents completing my survey was two. Everyone knows that raising children is very stressful, but because of the different ages of the parents, and the children, I could not get facts on which years were the toughest. Most parents whose kids are well into their 20s or so, say that the most stressful years for them were the teenage years. Children that are toddlers are said to be less stressful then when they were infants. It varies for everyone, and from my surveys I got no facts, just opinions. Children are a big responsibility and cause a lot of stress for parents. Out of 30 people, 96% say that their children have been a cause for an argument at least one time throughout their marriage. This could occur for many reasons; one being that it is very expensive to raise children and parents would have to agree on what is necessary for their children to have or things that are just nice to have. They must agree to what their priorities are a nd each partner would have to adjust. Also parents might feel differently about ways of disciplining their children, wh...

Planning for the East Coast Banks Future Term Paper

Planning for the East Coast Banks Future - Term Paper Example Where the teller/customers agents recorded a33% turn over whereas the assistant managers recorded the lowest turnover of 17%. This holds an indication that, the customer teller agents level, has got the highest percentage of employees leaving the bank and hence, signifying a labor shortage at the teller/customer agent level. Whereas, the assistant manager’s level indicated a 17% turnover, which implied that the employees at the level of assistant managers hardly left the bank, indicating a surplus in this positions (Ivancevich, 2006). I would embark on the Recruitment strategies as one of the techniques to curb the labor shortages in the East Coast Bank. It involves the process of attracting, screening and also selecting the competent individuals for the positions experiencing shortages within an organization. Recruitment is one of the key activities carried out by management in the attempt to secure an efficient workforce. Apart from curbing employee shortage, recruitment enables the top management to identify the potentiality of the labor market (Riley, 2012). Employee retention is another strategy that I would embark on to curb labor shortages. The hiring of employees constitutes only the first step. But creating awareness on the significance of employee’s retention is extremely essential. Costs that are linked to employees turnover include losing of customers together with damaged employee morale. Retention of the employees is thus, the ability of an organization to both attract and ensure retention of their workforce. A retention practice ensures a diverse workforce, where obstacles are eliminated, allowing workers to have a full participation at their places of work. This results in employee’s commitment and high productivity levels.

Lesson plan on critique Assignment Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Lesson plan on critique - Assignment Example Moreover, the activities listed in the lesson plan maximize the engagement of the students and assess the mastery of objectives by the students â€Å"Students are provided this time to begin reading the text and prepare questions†. Variety of activities that are in the lesson plan are all addressed to different styles of learning as well as providing enough time for the instructions â€Å"Students will watch this short five-minute extract from a documentary†. The lesson plan provides a clear evidence of insufficient, minimum information to the students and planning that is poor. To start with, the lesson plan lacks activities that are appropriate to reach the objectives concerning the lessons actual content. The lesson plan also has failed to provide enough time for learning to give more time for instruction versus the student’s independent learning and practice. There are insufficient ways of student’s assessment of the mastery of the objectives, and there are no questions listed that the teacher can use to elicit the attention and test the understanding of the students. The references and the sources of information’s are not listed adequately. The students assessment should be immediate and not done come the following day as outlined in the lesson

Choose one topic from list Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

Choose one topic from list - Essay Example In particular, small businesses in the European Union are characterised with a headcount of only 10-49 employees. Their earnings or balance sheet ranges from â‚ ¬10 million to â‚ ¬49 million. (Europa 2003) On the other hand, in the United States (US), the standards for small businesses set by the Small Business Administration Size Standards Office are rendered more specific. In terms of employment size, small businesses in the mining and manufacturing industries employ less than 500 workers, while those in the wholesale trade industry hire not more than 100 employees. Small enterprises for most retail and services industries in the US post annual receipt of about $6 million. (Small Business Administration 2002) Given the above characteristics, it can be seen that similarities of small businesses generally lie in the small employment size and low volume of sales per year. Small businesses also have limited amount of assets. As such, their capitalisation requirements are not as great and demanding as the financing required by large businesses. Financing for all types of businesses come in several forms. However, sources of funding are classified as either debt or equity. Utilisation of these primary funding sources depends upon the amount of capital required, nature of proposed investment and other terms that materially impact the financial position of businesses. Companies often used debt and equity in combination that would result in the maximisation of the value of the businesses. In order to raise the immediate financing need, owners of small businesses may opt to borrow funds from various sources. The main sources for debt financing include banks and other financial institutions (Lister & Harnish 1995). To defray the day-to-day expenses of their business, small business owners may consider availing of demand loan or utilising lines of credit. Demand loans usually have floating interest rate and are repaid within the year

Relationship Between Stress and Parenting Quality

Relationship Between Stress and Parenting Quality Coping as a Moderator Between Parents’ Stress and Parenting Quality Elizabeth K. Wilson Previous literature has shown that the quality of parenting is vulnerable to stressors such as daily hassles, financial hardship, and work-related stress, to name a few (Leinonen et al., 2002). Longer workdays for parents have been shown to create stress and decrease family interaction time (Lerner Galambos, 1991). Fathers’ work stress translates into negative feelings and more disciplinary parenting (Galambos et al., 1995) while mothers’ work stress causes them to withdraw from their children (Repetti Wood, 1997). Both parents have less closeness and are accepting of children when affected by stress (Galambos et al., 1995). Parents who are forced to work longer hours or multiple jobs because of financial situations face even more added stress. When experiencing financial hardship, parents make adjustments to living such as canceling family trips or postponing important family purchases, which makes them feel like a failure at providing for their family and creates wo rry (Conger Elder, 1994). This reflects on their parenting skills in the form of more hostile, punitive parenting behavior (Conger et al., 1992). There has been evidence of more disruptive family functioning when parents report having more daily difficulties (Repetti Wood, 1997). According to the Family Systems Perspective, matters at the individual level, such as parenting behavior or the impact of stress, fully understood only by considering the larger network of interdependent relationships within the family (Minuchin, 1985). The spillover hypothesis posits that behavior and affect of the same valence transfer directly from one situation or relationship within the family to another, such that negative interactions in one situation spillover as negative interactions in another (Nelson et al., 2009). Marital distress is related to disruptions in parenting and quality of parent-child relationship – both mothers and fathers were more likely to engage in hostile rather than authoritative parenting when under stress in the marriage (Conger Elder, 1994; Conger et al., 1992). Stress on parents in the workplace, in their relationships, and even inconveniences throughout the day will undoubtedly spillover into other aspects of their lives, especially parenting, but how do coping strategies modify this effect differentially for mothers and fathers? Coping is an attempt to alter our circumstances, or the way we perceive them, to make them seem more favorable so that we are able to make it through the situation with a more positive outlook (Lazarus, 1993). Coping is a resource that has been shown to buffer the negative effects of a stressful event (Gayman et al., 2014). Using active coping strategies, which involve facing the problem head-on, is thought to be a more adaptive way of dealing with stress, while avoidance coping is less adaptive. Emotion-focused coping is a type of coping that could be classified as active coping if one is changing his or her appraisal of a situation to a positive appraisal. This type of coping is seen more commonly in women than in men (Holohan Moos, 1987). Social withdrawal has been regarded as a type of coping mechanism in response to short-term stress. Social withdrawal could be something as simple as watching television and avoiding interactions with family members. Fathers have been shown to physically position themselves away from family members after a hard day at work. This type of coping mechanism is not recognizable as a type of coping strategy by the person using it, so it may not show up in self-report measures, but has been shown in previous studies that observed family interactions (Campos et al., 2009). Two main types of coping are approach and avoidant coping, also known as active and passive coping. Approach coping strategies are an attempt to alter or decrease the stressor and engage and control the stressful situation, whereas avoidant coping strategies are an attempt to avoid the stressor by emotionally and sometimes physically disengaging from the problem. Avoidant coping strategies can be manifested in the form of actually leaving the stressful situation or emotionally denying the situation and sometimes â€Å"emotionally escaping† the situation by distracting the mind with a television show or abusing substances (Shin et al., 2014). We posit that parents who utilize active, approach coping strategies will have less negative interactions with their children after a stressful event because of the buffer that this positive coping strategy provides. These parents will face their problems head-on and will be better able to separate these stressful events from a stressful event involving their children. On the other hand, parents who utilize passive, avoidant coping strategies will not have this buffer between stressful events and the interactions with their children. The negative coping strategy will actually perpetuate the spillover of stress onto parent-child interactions. Parents who use avoidant strategies, such as social withdrawal, do not deal with their stressors appropriately and instead avoid them. This negatively affects later interactions with their children because they still have stress built up that they have not dealt with. This stress â€Å"spills over† into their ability to parent effectively and positively. The ability to cope with stress and subsequently provide good quality parenting leads to positive outcomes for children. Parenting quality has important implications for children’s school involvement and language development. Parents who utilize avoidant coping strategies or social withdrawal coping strategies do not use the time they have to give quality parenting to their children, such as reading with them or getting involved in school activities. Instead, they psychically isolate themselves from the family, using what little time they have to be alone (Katz, 2002). As mentioned previously, when faced with stressors, parents tend to use more hostile than authoritative parenting, and more coercive than constructive parenting (Conger Elder, 1994; Conger et al., 1992), which could have serious implications for the child’s wellbeing. Hostile and aggressive parenting practices have been associated with attention and hyperactivity problems, conduct and aggression problems, and less prosocial behavior in children. On the other hand, constructive parenting has been associated with improved adjustment and lower level of antisocial behavior in children (Hadzic et al., 2013). The current study will examine the relationship between parents’ stress and parenting quality and the possible role of coping strategies as a moderator of this relationship. We hypothesize that coping will significantly moderate this link, with positive coping strategies buffering the negative effects of stress on parenting and negative coping strategies perpetuating these negative effects. The role of parent gender in coping strategies will also be examined. We expect that there will be significant gender differences, such that males will utilize more negative and avoidant strategies thus having a greater negative effect on their quality of parenting than females, whom we expect to utilize more positive and active coping strategies. If coping is shown to be a significant moderator of the relationship between stress and parenting quality, this finding could have serious clinical implications. Clinicians would benefit from focusing on improving coping strategies to help parents deal with stressors that spillover into parenting practices. Parents would benefit from utilizing positive rather than coping strategies.

An Analysis of Emily Dickinsons Poem, Because I Could Not Stop for Dea

In the poem â€Å"Because I could not stop for Death† by Emily Dickinson refers to death as a gentlemen who unexpectedly visits Dickinson to take her on a journey â€Å"towards eternity† (I. 24). It is very ironic that she considers death as a gentleman, but as we all know it is the total opposite. On the second stanza they both start the slow and peaceful journey. â€Å"We slowly drove, he knew no haste† (I. 5). We can see the tranquility of the scene in which they are. Dickinson here understands the seriousness of the situation in which she is, and she forgets about everything. â€Å"And I put away my labor and my leisure too, For his civility† She describes her struggle in life with the word â€Å"labor†, the word â€Å"leisure† as her freedom (I.6) and deaths kindness as â€Å"civility† (I.8)Stanza number three narrates her story from her childhood as â€Å"children strove† (I.9) followed by â€Å"the fields of Grazing grain† (I.11) and ending with â€Å"the setting sun† (I.12) This stanza talks and explains about how we all go through our life stages. The fourth stanza demonstrates how uncertain she is about her life. O...