How to Write and Use an Argument Plan

This note describes a structured approach for developing a research or creative idea and preparing it for production.

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What is an Argument Plan?

An argument plan, often called an outline, summarises a persuasive narrative. Disciplines deploy different structures in academic writing. This plan follows a standard way to report research in the sciences and other evidence-driven fields.1

It matches the official advice of many journals (see Journal Guidance below), and we find it productive for developing broad-ranging project ideas.

Key Instructions

Begin each piece of writing, whether a paper, article, report, abstract or blog entry, with an argument plan.

The argument plan is a logical narrative that aims to persuade the reader.

Use one short sentence for each substantive point. One line is enough. Use the active voice: write the bird ate a worm; avoid the worm was eaten by a bird. Connect the sentences with logical links such as therefore and because.

Test the whole plan by compressing it into one sentence with the And, But, Therefore template: [context] and [significance], but [gap], therefore [what this research does].2

Attach each example or item of evidence in square brackets to the relevant point. Give every point at least one example.

Append key references to substantive points as footnotes. Give every example or item of evidence at least one reference. Use reputable evidence. For large-scale statements, seek recent large studies or review articles that summarise the available research. Use peer-reviewed research.

Add evidence and references early. Early evidence makes the argument concrete. It also guides reading and thinking. Argument points without concrete examples tend to become trivial, commonplace or glib. This problem is especially common among novice researchers who tackle an unfamiliar field of study.

Ensure that the substantive points never repeat each other.

The Structure of the Plan

Organise your argument into sections that follow the structure shown in the image above and detailed below. Keep the correspondence between components as shown. The main principle is the mirror symmetry between the top and bottom parts. Guides to scientific writing often draw this symmetry as an hourglass that narrows from the broad context to the question and widens again in the discussion.3

The sections include:

Main achievement

State the main achievement of the research in one sentence, so the reader knows from the start what you have accomplished (for example, This research uses novel evidence to explain the use of oxygen).

Significance

Explain the significance of this research to specified stakeholders; this material often opens the Introduction. Use evidence from the research literature: key studies or review articles in peer-reviewed academic journals, books and conference papers that provide numbers and data. Show that the existing literature confirms the importance of your research. Exclude videos, websites and designer statements. Demonstrate why the issues, such as aspects of the environmental crisis, matter to a broad but defined range of stakeholders. Name this audience and state why the issues matter to them. Illustrate each important point with an example, drawing on your research and case studies whenever possible. Use simple declarative sentences here: subject, verb, object (for example, This research can help humans to survive by teaching them about oxygen).

Local significance

If you use a concrete case, you might begin with an introduction to it. Indicate how the proposed research matters in this situation.

Global significance

The second part of the Significance section can address larger scales or the global consequences of the research.

Gap

Identify a gap in existing knowledge, often within the Introduction, that this research fills. Use evidence from the research literature to show that current practices or current knowledge fail to meet the needs defined in the statement on significance. Examples include missing knowledge of nonhuman behaviour, suitable structure types, human cultural reactions, or unstudied implications for recycling and reuse. Make the comparison between the best available knowledge and the required knowledge clear. Use simple declarative sentences (for example, This research adds to the evidenced gap in knowledge of who makes oxygen).

Opportunity

Explain the opportunity for a novel contribution to knowledge, often within the Introduction. Show how an innovative combination of existing and emerging approaches gives you a novel way to fill the gap defined above. Combine the knowledge of science with design experiments or social studies as appropriate. Design techniques such as mapping, generative modelling, visualisation, diagramming, prototyping and material explorations can provide opportunities that other fields lack without contributions from design and its engineering techniques. Explain with evidence how this approach extends the best available methods. Use simple declarative sentences (for example, Humans know the plants emit gases. Humans can study these gases).

Question/Hypothesis

Formulate a research question, often within the Introduction, whose answer can partially fill the gap defined above. Use one wh- or how question. Avoid general yes or no questions (for example, How do gases enable life?)

Provide one possible and testable hypothesis in answer to the question above. Use one compound sentence: subject, verb, object + because + subject, verb, object (for example, Gases enable life because their smell pleases the gods). Reuse the words of the research question while providing an answer.

Methods

Specify the methods you will use to test the hypothesis: materials, apparatus, data and methods that will allow you to test the hypothesis defined above. Describe the data you will collect, the ways you will collect them, and the special tools, machines or software you will need to construct. Seek numerical methods, measurement and numerical analysis; these are almost always possible. Use imperative sentences: verb, object, with you as the implied subject, plus a subordinate clause using in order to or to (for example, Collect the plant emissions to have something to smell. Make the gods smell the gases to see their reactions). Combine these with sentences that use whether to offer alternatives (for example, Observe whether the gods say ‘yum’ or ‘yuck’).

For each method step, explain:

• The focus of testing: which part of the hypothesis you address.
• The actions of testing: which techniques and materials you use.
• The outcomes of testing: which outcomes these techniques generate.
• The benefit of testing: how these outcomes enable the next method step.

Findings

Present what you find by testing your hypothesis with the methods defined above; researchers often call this material Results or Outcomes. Was the hypothesis correct? Provide at least one finding for each method. Avoid findings that are trivial or predictable before the study. Express findings numerically, in tables, diagrams and similar forms. Add a numbered caption to each image or table when you first add it to your text. Refer to all images from the text. Explain every element in the images. Check and show that your findings are novel. Present your materials so that external experts can analyse and reassess your findings. Use simple declarative sentences or sentences with conjunctions such as when or while (for example, Gods say ‘yum’ when they smell plants).

Analysis

Use evidence to assess your findings in relation to the gap and the opportunity defined above; researchers often call this material Discussion. Address their limitations, weaknesses, alternative interpretations, promises and strengths. Use numerical comparisons that demonstrate the concrete benefits of your approach over the best existing research. Specify possible criticisms and pre-empt them. Use simple declarative sentences (for example, Gods do like gases. However, they might have little control over life and death).

Contribution

Use evidence to specify how your research contributes to knowledge in relation to the significance defined above; researchers often call this material Conclusion. State what future work becomes possible because of your investigation. Use simple declarative sentences (for example, God’s love towards gases is new knowledge).

Put target word counts next to each section title (for example, Significance (300)). Know the total target word count for the piece you are writing.

Order of writing

Often, the best order for writing the Argument Plan is:

1. Figures and tables
2. Methods
3. Findings
4. Analysis of findings
5. Conclusion
6. Introduction

The plan becomes clearer through iteration. Focus on formulating an increasingly precise research question and hypothesis. Spend the most time on the title, abstract, figures and plan, because many readers see little else.4

Using the Plan

• Keep your plan as a bullet-point list at the beginning of your draft. Keep it up to date.

• Adjust and clarify it as you develop your draft.

• Turn each substantive point in the argument plan into a paragraph. Keep one idea per paragraph. State the paragraph’s idea in the first sentence.

• Incorporate concrete examples and evidence into the body of the paragraph.

• Conclude each paragraph with a link to the next substantive point.

• Place familiar information at the start of each sentence and new information at the end, where readers expect emphasis.5^, 6

• Group paragraphs into sections.

• End each section with a mini-conclusion that states the section’s purpose in the argument and links to the next section.

• Check each revised draft with a reverse outline. Write one line stating the point of each paragraph, then compare the list with the plan.7

Journal Guidance

Journal guidelines and writing guides recommend similar sequences of moves for abstracts or whole articles. For introductions, the Create a Research Space (CARS) model offers a compact version in three moves: establishing a territory, establishing a niche, then occupying the niche.8 These moves correspond to the plan's Significance, Gap and Question/Hypothesis. The table maps the plan onto four common templates, so you can translate a plan into whatever format a venue requests. Blank cells mark sections that a template leaves implicit.

The plan separates two sections that these templates often merge with their neighbours. The Opportunity states what makes the approach new, which matters in design research because the field often contributes new combinations of methods. The Hypothesis turns the question into a claim that the Methods can test, even in conceptual work (see Cases below).

Cases

Each case shows one part of the plan at work. Open the source, then compare it with your own plan section by section.

An Annotated Abstract

Nature's guide to authors labels every sentence of a published summary paragraph with its function, from a basic introduction to the field to a broader perspective (PDF). Label the sentences of your own abstract in the same way to find missing functions and repetitions.

A Design Tool as the Hypothesis

A conference paper on artificial tree hollows states each section of the plan in one or two sentences of its abstract.11

The abstract places the Opportunity before the Gap. This order suits cases where a promising approach already exists and the gap concerns who can use it.

A Theoretical Claim with a Test

A conceptual article on interspecies design states its central hypothesis in one sentence: "the capabilities approach to justice can establish goals and evaluative practices for interspecies design".12 The article tests the hypothesis through a project with the powerful owl (Ninox strenua), then reports three numbered findings. Theoretical work can therefore follow the plan as closely as empirical work.

Methods as Steps, Headings as Claims

A computational paper lists five numbered steps "to answer the research question and test the hypothesis".13 Its main headings also state what each section shows, such as "Results: demonstration of autonomous visual abstraction and verification". Readers can then follow the argument from the table of contents alone.

When to Depart from the Template

Treat the plan as a default. Writing in architecture and design can vary its form with its subject: "When issues under consideration are complex, so can be the language that tackles them."14 Choose an essay, a visual narrative or a performative text when the material calls for it. Keep the chain of claims and evidence visible in whatever form you choose.

Adapt the Plan

• Read the author guidelines of the target venue before you draft. Map the plan onto the required headings and word limits with the table above.

• Some study types have a reporting guideline: a checklist of what the Methods and Findings should report. Systematic reviews usually follow the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA).15 Qualitative studies can follow the Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research (SRQR)16 or, for interviews and focus groups, the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ).17 Add the relevant checklist items to your plan. The EQUATOR Network (Enhancing the Quality and Transparency of Health Research) lists these guidelines with hundreds of others.

• For essays and position papers, keep the Significance, Gap and Contribution. Replace the Hypothesis and Methods with a central claim, support it with reasons backed by evidence, then answer likely objections.18 See also Public essay writing.

• For grant proposals, combine the plan with the what, why now and why me structure in Academic writing.

• Keep your own copy of the Journal Guidance table. Add columns for the venues you publish in most often, and note where their templates depart from the plan.

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Footnotes

1. Perneger, Thomas V., and Patricia M. Hudelson. “Writing a Research Article: Advice to Beginners.” International Journal for Quality in Health Care 16, no. 3 (June 2004): 191–92. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzh053.˄

2. Olson, Randy. Houston, We Have a Narrative: Why Science Needs Story. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015.˄

3. Turbek, Sheela P., Taylor M. Chock, Kyle Donahue, Caroline A. Havrilla, Angela M. Oliverio, Stephanie K. Polutchko, Lauren G. Shoemaker, and Lara Vimercati. “Scientific Writing Made Easy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Undergraduate Writing in the Biological Sciences.” The Bulletin of the Ecological Society of America 97, no. 4 (2016): 417–26. https://doi.org/10.1002/bes2.1258.˄

4. Mensh, Brett, and Konrad Kording. “Ten Simple Rules for Structuring Papers.” PLOS Computational Biology 13, no. 9 (2017): e1005619. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1005619.˄

5. Gopen, George D., and Judith A. Swan. “The Science of Scientific Writing.” American Scientist 78, no. 6 (1990): 550–58.˄

6. Pinker, Steven. The Sense of Style: The Thinking Person’s Guide to Writing in the 21st Century. New York: Penguin, 2015.˄

7. King, Cynthia L. “Reverse Outlining: A Method for Effective Revision of Document Structure.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 55, no. 3 (2012): 254–61. https://doi.org/10.1109/tpc.2012.2207838.˄

8. Swales, John M. Genre Analysis: English in Academic and Research Settings. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.˄

9. Kallestinova, Elena D. “How to Write Your First Research Paper.” The Yale Journal of Biology and Medicine 84, no. 3 (September 2011): 181–90.˄

10. Swales, John M., and Christine B. Feak. Academic Writing for Graduate Students: Essential Tasks and Skills. 1994. 3rd ed. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2012.˄

11. Parker, Dan, Kylie Soanes, Chiara Bettega, Luigi Marchesi, Paolo Pedrini, Chiara Fedrigotti, Mattia Brambilla, and Stanislav Roudavski. “An Online Tool to Design Custom Habitat-Structures with and for Tree-Dwelling Species.” In Proceedings of the International Conference on Construction, Energy, Environment and Sustainability, edited by Julieta António, Nuno Simões, and Michael Lacasse, 1–9. Funchal: Itecons, 2023. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.14619371.˄

12. Parker, Dan, Kylie Soanes, and Stanislav Roudavski. “Interspecies Cultures and Future Design.” Transpositiones 1, no. 1 (2022): 183–236. https://doi.org/10.14220/trns.2022.1.1.183.˄

13. Mirra, Gabriele, Alexander Holland, Stanislav Roudavski, Jasper Wijnands, and Alberto Pugnale. “An Artificial Intelligence Agent That Synthesises Visual Abstractions of Natural Forms to Support the Design of Human-Made Habitat Structures.” Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 10 (2022): 806453. https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2022.806453.˄

14. Roudavski, Stanislav. “Transparency or Drama? Extending the Range of Academic Writing in Architecture and Design.” Journal of Writing in Creative Practice 3, no. 2 (2010): 111–33. https://doi.org/10.1386/jwcp.3.2.111_1.˄

15. Liberati, Alessandro, Douglas G. Altman, Jennifer Tetzlaff, Cynthia Mulrow, Peter C. Gøtzsche, John P. A. Ioannidis, Mike Clarke, P. J. Devereaux, Jos Kleijnen, and David Moher. “The PRISMA Statement for Reporting Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses of Studies That Evaluate Health Care Interventions: Explanation and Elaboration.” PLOS Medicine 6, no. 7 (2009): e1000100. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000100.˄

16. O’Brien, Bridget C., Ilene B. Harris, Thomas J. Beckman, Darcy A. Reed, and David A. Cook. “Standards for Reporting Qualitative Research: A Synthesis of Recommendations.” Academic Medicine 89, no. 9 (2014): 1245–51. https://doi.org/10.1097/ACM.0000000000000388.˄

17. Tong, Allison, Peter Sainsbury, and Jonathan Craig. “Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research (COREQ): A 32-Item Checklist for Interviews and Focus Groups.” International Journal for Quality in Health Care 19, no. 6 (2007): 349–57. https://doi.org/10.1093/intqhc/mzm042.˄

18. Booth, Wayne C., Gregory G. Colomb, Joseph M. Williams, Joseph Bizup, and William T. FitzGerald. The Craft of Research. 1995. 4th ed. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2016.˄

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