What Is a Research Paper Outline?
A research paper outline is a generalized, organized overview of a research topic. Outlines are useful as they help the writer think about a topic in more detail, revealing areas that may require more research. Like most outlines written for academic papers, there are at least three sections: the introduction, body and conclusion. A research paper outline, however, will also have a hypothesis or thesis as part of the introduction. Whether the main idea is called a thesis or hypothesis depends on the discipline. For scientific research papers the term hypothesis is often used. For non-scientific papers, like liberal arts research papers, the main idea of the paper is often called the thesis.
