Here to help!
When it's time to begin your first draft, sometime the biggest challenge is knowing where to start! If you begin by organizing your ideas, you will have a better idea of the direction your writing will take.
You might begin by creating an outline or a concept map to help you see patterns and relationships between your own ideas and the content you have extracted from your research.
We have a resource, Credo, that may help you narrow your topic and it also has a mind map.
Concept maps are graphic tools used to organize and visualize knowledge, showing relationships between different topics and ideas. Typically the nodes represent general ideas or concepts, while the lines and arrows represent relationships between concepts.
Concept maps can be arranged in a variety of ways. For example, they might be hierarchical in fashion, with general concepts at the top and more specific concepts below, or they might have general concepts radiating out from the central node, as in the spider map.
Tips for getting started
Hierarchical Model
Linear Model
If you have a clear understanding of your topic, your research question, and your main ideas, you might use the formal outline as a way to start organizing your thoughts. Here's an example, which you could adapt to your own purposes:
Thesis Statement
I. Introduction
II. First Main Idea
A. first subordinate idea
1. supporting detail
2. suppointing detail
B second subordinate idea
1. supporting detail
2. supporting detail
III. Second Main Idea
A. first subordinate idea
1. supporting detail
2. supporting detail
B. second subordinate idea
1. supporting detail
2. supporting idea
IV. Conclusion
Chambers Library
Corner of Ayers St. & University Dr.
Edmond, OK
405-974-3361
The University of Central Oklahoma recognizes the university's main campus is located on the traditional lands of the Caddo and Wichita people.
View the full Land Acknowledgement.