Checklist for writing a research paper

Abstract • Summarize, in 200 words, what is your research question, your

Introduction
Literature review
Case study and background section
Methods section
Analysis and findings
Conclusion
Bibliography
case, your methods and your main findings
• Introduce a hook to show why your topic is relevant
• Define the relevant concepts
• Create a puzzle (empirical or theoretical) to introduce your
research question
• Express your research question
• Present your argument or the hypotheses of your paper
• Discuss what are your assumptions/normative stances on this topic,
what is your intellectual project in writing this paper (reflexive)
• Briefly introduce your case study
• Provide an outline of what you will do in the paper
• Discuss what other scholars have been saying about your
theoretical point, what are the prevailing theories
• Show that there is a gap in what other scholars have been
discussing from a theoretical standpoint
• Show that your research question is relevant to address what is
missing in the existing scholarship
• Discuss secondary sources
• Describe more in-depth what is going to be your case study
• Provide background information about your case, describe what
your reader should know about this case’s history, social
implication, economic system, legal system, inequalities, etc.
• Use scholarly literature to discuss your empirical case: what other
people studying the same place/ phenomenon have said to describe
this case?
• Explain why your case study is an appropriate choice to answer
your research question
• Describe which methods you are using in this research
• Justify why your methods of research are relevant to study your
specific question
• Discuss the limitation of your methods (what could be done better,
under what conditions?)
• Discuss what kind of primary sources you are collecting, from
where? Why did you select these primary sources?
• Cite scholarly authors who used similar research design as you to
study their questions
• Introduce verbatim from interview/ primary sources
• Analyze statistics
• Analyze textual sources
• Develop your main arguments
• Make sub-arguments and sub-claims
• Test out your hypotheses
• Summarize your main findings
• Discuss how your findings answer your research question
• Discuss what are the (methodological) limitations of the study as it
has been presented here, and what future research could be done
afterwards to overcome these limitations.
• Discuss what could be fruitful future avenues of research
• Discuss the policy/normative implication of this research
• Provide the full list of references of scholarly articles that you have
been using in your paper.