Basic Outline for a Content Analysis Paper
The best way to understand how to organize and write a journal article is to look at the
articles in one or two of the major journals and see how they are organized. Look for articles that
are somewhat similar in their approach or methods, but any issue of ASR will give you a good
idea of the structure. There is some flexibility, but there is also a clear general logic and sequence
that journal reviewers and readers expect to find, and that allows people to skim quickly through
articles and find what they want to learn. (You can “content-analyze” journal articles, and in fact
Andrew Abbott has done so.)
The sequence of the final product bears very little relation to the order in which you are
able to write the sections. Writing is a craft, and you can expect to work back and forth, to
discover new things as you write, and then to organize the work into a coherent and logical
product so a reader knows what you did, what you found, and why it was important. So regard the
outline that follows as a place to put different parts of the paper, and not as the sequence in which
to write it. I’ve provided some advice about the writing sequence in the descriptions below.
I.
II.
III.
Abstract
This comes first, but is generally written last, because it is a very brief summary
of what you found and its significance.
Introduction
The introduction describes very briefly what the study is about. It should be short
and clear, and it should let the reader know quickly what this piece of research is
about and why they might want to read it. Don’t get stuck here at the beginning. You
will need to come back to this later anyway.
Theory, Prior Research and Background
This is where you situate your study in its intellectual context, which may include
the relevant theoretical work and any empirical studies that relate to yours. In
standard sociological journal articles, this section generally contains some summary
statements followed by “shotgun citations” to the literature. You do not need to write
out elaborate descriptions or analyses of the theories on which the paper is based.
You just need to make the basic points that lead to your paper, and cite them to
sources so that readers can see what you are building on. Don’t start at the beginning
of creation. Start with the specific theoretical ideas you are actually going to USE in
the paper.
If there is a substantial body of empirical work that you are building on, then you
may need to describe that in a bit more detail so the reader can see where you are
going and why. If your study relies heavily on understanding a specific social or
historical context, you may also need a background section here that provides the
context so the reader can follow. Don’t include this unless you need it. In some cases,
where there is no prior research, this might substitute for the review of prior research
described above.
This section may not be called “theory” and it may have subdivisions to reflect
the logical sequence of ideas. It should lead the reader to the specific research
questions and/or hypotheses for the study. Hypotheses are sometimes presented one
by one, with their justifying background; specific research questions that are not
couched as hypotheses usually are presented clearly at the end of this section. In
either case, you only need sufficient theory, prior research, and background so the
reader can understand how you arrived at these research questions and why they are
reading the article.
IV.
V.
VI.
Sometimes it is easier to work backwards and unless you are engaged in
traditional, formal hypothesis testing, there is nothing wrong with that sort of
inductive procedure. You are writing a paper because you have some interesting
findings, so you have to find a way to make sense of them. You may be able to state
your research questions based on your initial theoretical or substantive interest. Now
that you have findings, you can fine-tune the research questions to reflect what you
actually were able to learn, and then work backwards to develop the appropriate
intellectual context in which to place the study. If you have a big study, you probably
are only presenting one part of it in one journal article, so its background and
research questions will be specific to the paper, not to the larger study.
Methods and Procedures
This section lays out HOW you performed the research that addresses the
research questions or tests the hypotheses. This is where you report clearly the things
that you decided upon in your research plan, and the procedures you used. It may be
divided into sections if needed to explain the sample and sampling procedures, and to
describe how you coded and analyzed the data. Sometimes coding details are put into
an appendix or into footnotes to save space. However, this section should be where
the reader can find out whatever they need to know in order to understand what you
did and to interpret any quantitative results you provide. This section includes the
basic numbers of your sample and a clear description of major variables and how
they were derived or coded. It is often easiest to write up this section first.
Findings or Results
This section reports what you found. It is organized as a logical presentation of
the findings that address the research questions, so it may have subsections with
specific titles to guide the reader. If the findings are primarily quantitative, then it
will have some tables that summarize the findings and an explanation in the text. If
the findings are primarily qualitative, then it will have sections that make specific
points, with the evidence to back them up, which might be quotations of material,
constructed example cases or summaries, or presentation of concepts or terms and
some indication of their frequency in the sample to persuade the reader that they
really are grounded in the data and not simply a flight of fancy. If the analysis is
about the co-occurrence, or some sort of relation between the patterns in different
parts of the data, then you may need some simple tables or diagrams to convey that to
the reader. If the findings are about some sequence or time-related process, then you
will need to find an appropriate way to show that to the reader. The point is that you
need to convince the reader that you actually have evidence for what you are saying.
Discussion and Conclusions
This may be one section or two separate ones, depending on the nature of the
research. The point here is to summarize for the reader the implications and
significance of the findings. That means while you might quickly summarize key
findings, the focus is on how they relate back to the theory and prior research that
you presented at the beginning of the paper. A journal article is supposed to advance
the study of the field, by its theoretical, methodological, or substantive contributions.
This is where you draw out what that contribution is, and link it to what came before
so the nature of your advance is clear. This is NOT generally a place to talk about
what you didn’t do, or what “further research” is needed, unless that is a very clear
and direct implication from your study.