Content Analysis Outline

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
Abstract This comes first, but is generally written last, because it is a very brief summary of what you found and its significance. II. 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. III. 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
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