5 Steps to Writing a Position Paper

In a position paper assignment, your charge is to choose a side on a particular topic, sometimes controversial,
and build up a case for your opinion or position. You will use facts, opinion, statistics, and other forms of
evidence to convince your reader that your position is the best one. To do this, you'll collect research for your
position paper and craft an outline in order to create a well-constructed argument.

Select a Topic for Your Paper

Your position paper centers around a topic that is supported by research. Your topic and position have to hold
up when challenged, so it's helpful to research a few topics and pick the one you can best argue, even if it may
not reflect your personal beliefs. In many cases, the subject matter and your topic are not as important as your
ability to make a strong case. Your topic can be simple or complex, but your argument must be sound and
logical.

Conduct Preliminary Research

Preliminary research is necessary to determine whether sufficient evidence is available to back up your stance.
You don’t want to get too attached to a topic that falls apart under a challenge.

Search a few reputable sites, like education (.edu) sites and government (.gov) sites, to find professional studies
and statistics. If you come up with nothing after an hour of searching, or if you find that your position doesn’t
stand up to the findings on reputable sites, choose another topic. This could save you from a lot of frustration
later.

Challenge Your Own Topic

You must know the opposite view as well as you know your own stance when you take a position. Take the
time to determine all the possible challenges that you might face as you support your view. Your position paper
must address the opposing view and chip away at it with counter-evidence. Consider having friends, colleagues,
or family debate the topic with you to get alternative points of view that you might not have readily considered
yourself. When you find arguments for the other side of your position, you can address them in a fair manner,
and then state why they are not sound.

Another helpful exercise is to draw a line down the middle of a plain sheet of paper and list your points on one
side and list opposing points on the other side. Which argument is really better? If it looks like your opposition
might outnumber you with valid points, you should reconsider your topic or your stance on the topic.

Continue to Collect Supporting Evidence

Once you’ve determined that your position is supportable and the opposite position is (in your opinion) weaker
than your own, you are ready to branch out with your research. Go to a library and conduct a search, or ask
the reference librarian to help you find more sources. You can, of course, conduct online research as well, but
it's important to know how to properly vet the validity of the sources you use. Ensure that your articles are
written by reputable sources, and be wary of singular sources that differ from the norm, as these are often
subjective rather than factual in nature.

Try to collect a variety of sources, and include both an expert’s opinion (doctor, lawyer, or professor, for
example) and personal experience (from a friend or family member) that can add an emotional appeal to your
topic. These statements should support your own position but should read differently than your own words. The
point of these is to add depth to your argument or provide anecdotal support.

Create an Outline

A position paper can be arranged in the following format:

1. Introduce your topic with some basic background information. Build up to your thesis sentence, which asserts
your position. Sample points:

 For decades, the FDA has required that warning labels should be placed on certain products that pose a
threat to public health.
  Fast food restaurants are bad for our health.
 Fast food packages should contain warning labels.

2. Introduce possible objections to your position. Sample points:

 Such labels would affect profits of major corporations.

 Many people would see this as overreaching government control.
 Whose job is it to determine which restaurants are bad? Who draws the line?
 The program would be costly.

3. Support and acknowledge the opposing points. Just be sure you aren't discrediting your own views. Sample
points:

 It would be difficult and expensive for any entity to determine which restaurants should adhere to the
policy.
 Nobody wants to see the government overstepping its boundaries.
 Funding would fall on the shoulders of taxpayers.

4. Explain that your position is still the best one, despite the strength of counter-arguments. This is where you
can work to discredit some of the counter-arguments and support your own. Sample points:

 The cost would be countered by the improvement of public health.

 Restaurants might improve the standards of food if warning labels were put into place.
 One role of the government is to keep citizens safe.
 The government already does this with drugs and cigarettes.

5. Summarize your argument and restate your position. End your paper focusing on your argument and avoid
the counter-arguments. You want your audience to walk away with your view on the topic being one that
resonates with them.

When you write a position paper, write with confidence and state your opinion with authority. After all, your
goal is to demonstrate that your position is the correct one.
 Writing a Literature Review
Definition

A literature review is both a summary and explanation of the complete and current state of knowledge on a
limited topic as found in academic books and journal articles. There are two kinds of literature reviews you
might write at university: one that students are asked to write as a stand-alone assignment in a course, often as
part of their training in the research processes in their field, and the other that is written as part of an
introduction to, or preparation for, a longer work, usually a thesis or research report. The focus and perspective
of your review and the kind of hypothesis or thesis argument you make will be determined by what kind of
review you are writing. One way to understand the differences between these two types is to read published
literature reviews or the first chapters of theses and dissertations in your own subject area. Analyse the structure
of their arguments and note the way they address the issues.

Purpose of the Literature Review

 It gives readers easy access to research on a particular topic by selecting high quality articles or studies that are
relevant, meaningful, important and valid and summarizing them into one complete report
 It provides an excellent starting point for researchers beginning to do research in a new area by forcing them to
summarize, evaluate, and compare original research in that specific area
 It ensures that researchers do not duplicate work that has already been done
 It can provide clues as to where future research is heading or recommend areas on which to focus
 It highlights key findings
 It identifies inconsistencies, gaps and contradictions in the literature
 It provides a constructive analysis of the methodologies and approaches of other researchers

Content of the Review

Introduction

The introduction explains the focus and establishes the importance of the subject. It discusses what kind of work
has been done on the topic and identifies any controversies within the field or any recent research which has
raised questions about earlier assumptions. It may provide background or history. It concludes with a purpose or
thesis statement. In a stand-alone literature review, this statement will sum up and evaluate the state of the art in
this field of research; in a review that is an introduction or preparatory to a thesis or research report, it will
suggest how the review findings will lead to the research the writer proposes to undertake.

Body

Often divided by headings/subheadings, the body summarizes and evaluates the current state of knowledge in
the field. It notes major themes or topics, the most important trends, and any findings about which researchers
agree or disagree. If the review is preliminary to your own thesis or research project, its purpose is to make an
argument that will justify your proposed research. Therefore, it will discuss only that research which leads
directly to your own project.

Conclusion

The conclusion summarizes all the evidence presented and shows its significance. If the review is an
introduction to your own research, it highlights gaps and indicates how previous research leads to your own
research project and chosen methodology. If the review is a stand-alone assignment for a course, it should
suggest any practical applications of the research as well as the implications and possibilities for future
research.

Nine Steps to Writing A Literature Review

1. Find a Working Topic

Look at your specific area of study. Think about what interests you, and what is fertile ground for study. Talk to
your professor, brainstorm, and read lecture notes and recent issues of periodicals in the field.
 2. Review the Literature

 Using keywords, search a computer database. It is best to use at least two databases relevant to your discipline
 Remember that the reference lists of recent articles and reviews can lead to valuable papers
 Make certain that you also include any studies contrary to your point of view

3. Focus Your Topic Narrowly and Select Papers Accordingly

Consider the following:

 What interests you?

 What interests others?
 What time span of research will you consider?

Choose an area of research that is due for a review.

4. Read the Selected Articles Thoroughly and Evaluate Them

 What assumptions do most/some researchers seem to be making?

 What methodologies do they use? what testing procedures, subjects, material tested?
 Evaluate and synthesize the research findings and conclusions drawn
 Note experts in the field: names/labs that are frequently referenced
 Note conflicting theories, results, methodologies
 Watch for popularity of theories and how this has/has not changed over time

5. Organize the Selected Papers By Looking For Patterns and By Developing Subtopics

Note things such as:

 Findings that are common/contested

 Two or three important trends in the research
 The most influential theories

6. Develop a Working Thesis

Write a one or two sentence statement summarizing the conclusion you have reached about the major trends and
developments you see in the research that has been done on your subject.

7. Organize Your Own Paper Based on the Findings From Steps 4 & 5

Develop headings/subheadings. If your literature review is extensive, find a large table surface, and on it place
post-it notes or filing cards to organize all your findings into categories. Move them around if you decide that
(a) they fit better under different headings, or (b) you need to establish new topic headings.

8. Write the Body of the Paper

Follow the plan you have developed above, making certain that each section links logically to the one before
and after, and that you have divided your sections by themes or subtopics, not by reporting the work of
individual theorists or researchers.

9. Look At What You Have Written; Focus On Analysis, Not Description

Look at the topic sentences of each paragraph. If you were to read only these sentences, would you find that
your paper presented a clear position, logically developed, from beginning to end? If, for example, you find that
each paragraph begins with a researcher's name, it might indicate that, instead of evaluating and comparing the
research literature from an analytical point of view, you have simply described what research has been done.
This is one of the most common problems with student literature reviews. So if your paper still does not appear
to be defined by a central, guiding concept, or if it does not critically analyse the literature selected, then you
should make a new outline based on what you have said in each section and paragraph of the paper, and decide
whether you need to add information, to delete off-topic information, or to restructure the paper entirely.
 For example, look at the following two passages and note that Student A is merely describing the literature and
Student B takes a more analytical and evaluative approach, by comparing and contrasting. You can also see that
this evaluative approach is well signalled by linguistic markers indicating logical connections (words such as
"however," "moreover") and phrases such as "substantiates the claim that," which indicate supporting evidence
and Student B's ability to synthesize knowledge.

Student A:
Smith (2000) concludes that personal privacy in their living quarters is the most important factor in nursing
home residents' perception of their autonomy. He suggests that the physical environment in the more public
spaces of the building did not have much impact on their perceptions. Neither the layout of the building, nor the
activities available seem to make much difference. Jones and Johnstone make the claim that the need to control
one's environment is a fundamental need of life (2001), and suggest that the approach of most institutions,
which is to provide total care, may be as bad as no care at all. If people have no choices or think that they have
none, they become depressed.

Student B:
After studying residents and staff from two intermediate care facilities in Calgary, Alberta, Smith (2000) came
to the conclusion that except for the amount of personal privacy available to residents, the physical
environment of these institutions had minimal if any effect on their perceptions of control (autonomy). However,
French (1998) and Haroon (2000) found that availability of private areas is not the only aspect of the physical
environment that determines residents' autonomy. Haroon interviewed 115 residents from 32 different nursing
homes known to have different levels of autonomy (2000). It was found that physical structures, such as
standardized furniture, heating that could not be individually regulated, and no possession of a house key for
residents limited their feelings of independence. Moreover, Hope (2002), who interviewed 225 residents from
various nursing homes, substantiates the claim that characteristics of the institutional environment such as the
extent of resources in the facility, as well as its location, are features which residents have indicated as being of
great importance to their independence.

Finishing Touches: Revising and Editing Your Work

 Read your work out loud. That way you will be better able to identify where you need punctuation marks to
signal pauses or divisions within sentences, where you have made grammatical errors, or where your sentences
are unclear
 Since the purpose of a literature review is to demonstrate that the writer is familiar with the important
professional literature on the chosen subject, check to make certain that you have covered all of the important,
up-to-date, and pertinent texts. In the sciences and some of the social sciences it is important that your literature
be quite recent; this is not so important in the humanities
 Make certain that all of the citations and references are correct and that you are referencing in the appropriate
style for your discipline. If you are uncertain which style to use, ask your professor
 Check to make sure that you have not plagiarized either by failing to cite a source of information, or by using
words quoted directly from a source. (Usually if you take three or more words directly from another source, you
should put those words within quotation marks, and cite the page.)
 Text should be written in a clear and concise academic style; it should not be descriptive in nature or use the
language of everyday speech
 There should be no grammatical or spelling errors
 Sentences should flow smoothly and logically

In a paper in the sciences, or in some of the social sciences, the use of subheadings to organize the review is
recommended.
 Research Reports
Research reports present the results of formal investigations into the properties, behavior, structures, and
principles of material and conceptual entities. Almost any physical phenomenon or concept may be investigated
in a research framework. The following are some key differences between formal research, and other less
structured kinds of inquiry.

1. Problem definition: the rigorous reduction of the inquiry to a narrow question with a
quantifiable answer. The most significant preliminary phase of research writing is that of
effective problem definition. This process is one of identifying an interesting question and
narrowing the research inquiry to a manageable size.
2. Research approach: the structuring of the research according to a methodology associated
with a specialized field of inquiry. Specialized fields have research methodologies that are
followed in investigating problems. These range from general methods of interviewing and
literature researching to highly specialized procedures for using materials and mechanical
devices to establish appropriate conditions for generating data. Adapting a sound research
methodology to the investigation of your problem is a major milestone in the conduct of
your inquiry.
3. Research report: the presentation of the research and its results in a rigorously formatted
document that follows a conventional structure. In presenting your research, you pull all its
elements together into a focused, coherent document. Research reports contain a standard set
of elements that include

front matter

body

end matter

The following research report illustrates report format and provides examples of the kinds of material contained
in the various sections of an experimental document. Note that the report has been excerpted.