[MUSIC] A clearly written purpose
statement is the soul of a paper. It is the point in which everything
converges in the writing. If well written, the purpose statement becomes the climax
of your research publication. The purpose statement in your manuscript
can represent the chance to bring your readers to the edge of their seats,
and leave them there while you carefully unveil the answers to all the mysteries
in the remainder of your article. Certainly this is exaggeration, but some of the best academic writing
manages to do precisely that. Present the purpose of the research
publication in such a way that readers cannot help themselves. They simply have to read the paper
to learn more about the paper. This is an excellent
example of such a text. Where to begin is often the most
difficult decision a writer makes. The first part of every paper
is an introduction of some kind, which always contains at
least three elements, necessary background,
purpose statement, and scope. These three elements give
readers everything they need to know about what the paper will contain,
from the context to the content, and from the purpose to the limitations
of the data or methodology. The purpose statement is to the paper as
the topic sentence is to the paragraph. The purpose statement tells the reader with broad brush strokes
what the paper will contain. Purpose statement is in some
ways a misnomer, because this statement really constitutes a broadly
written overview of the paper's contents. It tells the reader that the paper
will analyze this, explore that or disagree with some theory or theories. In other words,
this one crucial sentence frames and contextualizes the entire paper. A purpose statement is always general, leaving the rest of the paper to live up
to its promise by filling in the details. It usually begins with either,
this paper examines, investigates, analyzes, or
the purpose of this paper is. These are some of the sample
purpose statements. This paper identifies, say, the number of major factors
involved in studying something. Or this article compares something. This article describes how you can
use something to improve something. This article deals with something. This paper presents a comprehensive
study on something. The purpose of this paper is to
develop and analyze something. Or the purpose of this paper is to analyze
something and to indicate something. While the proper statement is always
one sentence putting the entire purpose of your paper into only one
sentence need not be daunting. You may then follow it with more details
in a sentence starting with a phrase such as, more specifically,
in addition, or in this sense. With practice, you will be able
to write powerful statements that make your reader back to
read the remainder of the text. To start with, write as many variations as
you can of the answer to this question. What is the purpose of my paper? Remember, that most often,
the purpose is to do something. Answer a question, or test a hypothesis,
compare findings across studies, argue for a better solution, examine a problem
in depth, or analyze data in a new way. As much as possible,
keep your purpose statement active. In other words, always use verbs to
describe your purpose, not nouns. After the one sentence purpose statement,
the authors announce two main arguments using first, second,
consequently hence to frame them. Framing is essential to
the writing of any academic text. Framing, which means the art of
introducing and contextualizing everything you write is to your argument what
a topic sentence is to the paragraph and the purpose statement to a paper. Framing makes logic out
of unconnected sentences. Framing fills in the gaps
that other linguistic communities may allow, but
thatEnglish never does. In English, good framing
signifies not only good writing, but also sophisticated thinking. Framing occurs on many levels. One is the simple use of
transitional adverbs from therefore, to however, from on the one hand,
to as previously mentioned. A second level is that of letting
the reader know what will happen and when, so the writer can make a transition
without losing the reader's attention. Framing, at all times, works well
even with longer phrases such as, third, and more relevant to
the main argument of this article. A typical framing
sentence looks like this. We intend to answer these three
questions in this article by empirically relating X characteristics to control
variables to various aspects of y. These are absolute models for
framing adapted from sentences and high ranking international journals. However, before analyzing these theories, we will review
the literature on something. Or we briefly review
the literature on this and that, refine our hypothesis and
then present the results of our analysis. I argue and present evidence that
finally and clearly open for discussion is the issue
of why something happens.
