Step 6: Writing a Phrase Outline

Now you need to play a little game that is called “Fifty Card

Pick Up.” In this game the rules are very simple. You need to

arrange your cards accordingly to the slugs at the tops of your cards.

This is where we begin to separate the REAL researcher from the

researcher want-to-be because, if you’ve done everything correctly

up to this point, it will no longer matter if your cards are arranged

according to the source from which they came.

When you finish this step, you will have four or five piles of

cards on your desk. One pile will be bibliography cards. Three piles

will be the main ideas which you are using to tell about the central

idea or topic of your paper. If there is another pile, it will probably

be a pile of miscellaneous cards which you do not quite know what

to do with at this point in your project. That is all right as long as the

pile of miscellaneous cards is not larger than any of the other piles.

If it is, go and see your teacher immediately!

20