Preparing for HW 3

 

Once we have received feedback on the RAP-Outline and revised it accordingly, we are ready to move to Layer 3.  This is where we begin drafting paragraphs!  

(This is the most exciting stage in my opinion, especially as we have already done a lot of the heavy lifting needed to build a good outline.)

 

We are now ready to build a skeleton draft: to start drafting paragraphs in our RAP-Outline. 

But before we do that, a quick overview on paragraphs: how to plan paragraphs in a section and how to structure each of these paragraphs.

 

18-minute video

 

 

 

Key Features of Regular Paragraphs

•  5-6 sentences.  (Special paragraphs, such as the takeaway paragraph, are shorter.)
• First sentence provokes a main question
• Other sentences, together, answer
• Connections between sentences are either visible or easy for most readers to guess
• Key terms are used consistently within the paragraph and across paragraphs (do not use different terms to speak about the same object).
• Once all paragraphs are written up, a storyline is visible in first sentences.  If you were to skim only the first sentences of most paragraphs, you would walk away with a good idea of the main points.

In business writing, it is recommended that regular paragraphs have the following properties.

True or False: Key terms are used consistently in this paragraph. 

The rest of the paper is organized as follows. In Section 2 we set up a very simple model. In Section 3 we present an extension of the framework allowing for an alternative understanding of informal contracts. Although the new framework introduces new and interesting effects, the basic intuition from the simple model in Section 2 still remains valid. In Section 4 we discuss the augmented model, while some of the technical details related to our extensions in Section 3 are provided in the Appendix.

How is this paragraph structured?

Gilbert (2001) argues that Z was a crucial cost-saving invention, which allowed artisans to experiment with new ideas. Lee (1998) makes the case that it sparked a burst of innovation by enabling a cross-national exchange of ideas at a scale not seen before.  Kowalski and Rao (2004) find an association between the spread of Z and rising wages and productivity.  However, Saidu (1999) finds no evidence of aggregate productivity growth associated with Z.  And Yılmaz (2001) similarly argues that the impact of Z at the national level was insignificant.  Thus, there is some difference of opinion among scholars about the extent to which Z sparked innovation.

This is an ascent: details build up to a main point. A sign that this may be happening, even if you didn't read every word, is that the last sentence begins with "Thus."

What are some issues with this paragraph?

The health plan must take state and federal legislation into account when choosing its providers. Many states have implemented laws that prohibit insurers from excluding qualified providers who are willing to accept the plans' terms and conditions. However, these regulations have been argued to remove the benefits of managed care, since they prevent plans from trading volume for lower provider prices. Perhaps for this reason they apply to hospitals in only seven states (in other areas they are largely limited to pharmacies). I have data covering two markets within these states; I find that plans are just as likely to exclude hospitals in these markets as elsewhere. I therefore assume that these regulations have no impact on plan decisions in the markets I consider. In addition, some states have implemented Essential Community Provider laws, which require insurers to contract with providers that offer "essential community services", such as public hospitals and teaching hospitals, and to contract with enough hospitals to serve the needs of the local population. I assume these regulations do not affect the decision of a plan to exclude any particular hospital since consumer demand forecasts would prevent it from dropping too many hospitals in any case.

Let us study how readers engage with a paragraph as they read it.

 

EXAMPLE 1

1st sentence: Social historians have hailed the movable type printing press as a revolutionary innovation.

 

Question provoked:

Rest of para: Braudel (1979a) identifies printing as one of three great technological revolutions observed 1400– 1800 (alongside advances in artillery and navigation). Gilmore (1952) states that printing drove “the most radical transformation in the conditions of intellectual life in the history of western civilization.” Eisenstein (1979) argues that printing created revolutionary new possibilities for “combinatory intellectual activity.” Roberts (1996) suggests the outcome was one “dwarfing in scale anything which had occurred since the invention of writing.”

 

 

Paper referenced: https://doi.org/10.1093/qje/qjr035 Links to an external site. Open access here:  https://www.eh.net/eha/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/dittmarb.pdf 

EXAMPLE 2

 

1st sentence: These changes in averages reflect more nuanced changes in the composition and characteristics of hotels and motels during this time

 

 

Question provoked: 

Rest of para: We are able to isolate these nuances using the more detailed data collected every five years in the Economic Census of the industry. Figure 3 shows the distribution of establishments by number of guest rooms, and by whether they are hotels or motels in 1963 and 1982. This figure shows an increase in the establishment share of motels relative to hotels, and particularly an increase in the share of larger motels during this time. For example, in 1963, only 7 percent of hotels and motels were motels with at least 50 rooms; in 1982, 28 percent were. In contrast, the share of hotels and motels with fewer than 25 rooms declined over this period from 50 percent to 30 percent. In sum, there was a shift from small motels and hotels to large motels during this time.

True or False?

In the para you have just seen (on hotels and motels), most readers easily find an answer to the question(s) provoked by the 1st sentence.

Let us start by planning paragraphs in a special section: the Introduction.  While other sections have a takeaway paragraph followed by regular paragraphs, the Introduction has a slightly different structure. 

 

26-minute video (You may have watched some of this in Layer 1)

 

You can think of the Introduction as having two parts, each with a different role:

• Part 1 of the Intro welcomes the reader in by positioning the paper: by showing what space it occupies in the literature.  Part 1 is short: it usually has 1-2 paragraphs. These paragraphs help readers see why it makes sense to write this paper. The paragraphs in Part 1 are also typically shorter than regular paragraphs (because readers are just warming up) and may have a slightly different structure from that of regular paragraphs.  

 

• Part 2 tells readers about the paper itself. It constitutes the bulk of the Introduction.  Readers infer that they have segued into Part 2 when the writer switches from talking about the context in which it makes sense to write the paper to the paper itself.  The beginning of Part 2 is therefore usually marked by the first appearance of a phrase like "This paper" or another phrase with "we" or "our paper" in it.  These words signal to readers that we are now going to be talking about this paper. Part 2 of the Intro is made up of "regular" paragraphs that follow the basic structural rules of such paragraphs.

 

Take a quick quiz to see if you can identify each part in samples from the literature.

 

 

 

 

 

Which paragraph marks the beginning of Part 2 of the Intro?

https://doi.org/10.1162/rest.88.4.641  

PDF here: https://www.mitpressjournals.org/doi/pdf/10.1162/rest.88.4.641 

Again: Which para marks the beginning of Part 2 of the Intro

 

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0304-405X(00)00056-8

These are 1st sentences of paragraphs in the Introduction.

Are they good enough?

(not perfect, just good enough)

We are about to build a first draft of the Introduction.  The goal is not to achieve perfection, but to simply lay down a sound structure: to articulate key points and decide on the order in which they will appear.  

 

I have included some videos below on how to work on the Introduction. You will see that in some of the videos, I am manipulating lorem ipsum (nonsense placeholder text). I am doing this for two reasons.  First,  because although I would like to share with you the process of building a real Introduction, I am not a researcher who builds Introductions. And no researcher I know is comfortable sharing their process of building their Intro (if you are, let me know!).  But there is another reason: I want you to learn how to recognize patterns.  That is, without focusing on the particular words of this Intro or that paragraph, to recognize structural patterns that are common to ALL Intros (or at least to many well-written Intros).  Nonsense text helps with that:  it allows you to see how we move through a document, which pieces we can pick up and where we can move them, regardless of the specifics of that document.

 

 

Building Part 1 Using the Template

The first video offers a recap of the method you can use to build Part 1 of the Intro from P.  In the second, I work with an example from the literature.

 

7-minute video

 

8-minute video

Adapted from https://doi.org/10.1162/003355302320935034

 

 

 

 

And Building Part 2

The first video offers a quick overview of things to think about while building Part 2.  In the second video, I manipulate lorem ipsum text to show you how you can lift parts of the RAP-outline to build Part 2 of the Intro.

 

4-minute video

 

 

10-minute video

 

 

 

 

 

 

Go to our shared drive and open the HW 3 Folder.  This is how I suggest you work on it:

 

1. First, move your up-to-date revised outline into this file.

  

2. Then, draft Part 2 of the Intro using takeaways from the outline (if you need a reminder of how to do this, go to the previous page). 

 

3. Finally, draft Part 1 of the Intro -- try to limit yourself to 2 paragraphs. As you work, go back to your  HW 1 file and take a look at the comments you got there. Look at both P and the Part 1 you drafted back then.