Quantitative methods are the tools that social scientists use to find measurable results of various phenomena, following the general sequence of the scientific method, from hypothesis to evaluation. Finding the right quantitative tool to measure something like the effect that the color of paint in a child’s bedroom will have on her psyche can lead to considerable debate, but quantitative methods have come into common use in such social fields as political science, sociology, psychology and anthropology, and are accepted as the best way to test the truth of hypotheses in those fields.

Statistical Methods

Most quantitative research projects have a statistical component to them, particularly in the social sciences and economics. Researchers collect large samples of data and manipulate various factors based on the hypothesis at hand. For example, if you want to measure the effect that nutrition has on a student’s ability to retain material, you would manipulate the amount and nutritional quality of breakfasts consumed across your research sample. Opinion surveys with five- or seven-point attitudinal scales are also common tools. Depending on the statistical method, various regression methods (linear or non-linear, for example) are applied to the data to see if there are significant links between factors and outcomes.

Item-Response Theory

How well do these surveys actually work as far as giving a meaningful result to the questions that researchers want to answer? This is where item-response theory (IRT) comes in. According to the assumptions of IRT, if you are looking at one particular trait, such as reading level or strength of feeling about the designated-hitter rule, and you keep your questions independent and you can render your respondents’ answers in a mathematical way, then your assessment should render valid, meaningful results.

The Rasch Model

This model primarily works with measurement of personality characteristics, aptitudes and attitudes. You could use the Rasch model to figure out, for example, how a person feels about the right to bear arms using a questionnaire. While it is useful to find out one particular trait or attitude, it is not the ideal tool to use if you are trying to measure several factors at once.

Effective or Not?

Researchers who are skeptical about quantitative methods tend to point to the complexity of factors in any situation involving research in the social sciences. For example, if you’re going to measure the importance of a healthy breakfast for student learning, how can you isolate the choice between Frosted Flakes and All-Bran from other factors that affect that learning, such as sleep patterns, emotional turbulence in the home, disciplinary differences and other elements? Those who argue for quantitative methods insist that the results can be valuable if the researcher ensures a minimal disturbance from outside factors.

Proper organization is the difference between a good essay and a weak one. An essay that is well organized is easier for the reader to understand and enjoy, while poorly organized essays force the reader to do extra work. Readers aren’t the only ones who benefit from a well organized essay; using simple organization techniques while writing will make the process easier for you as well.

Make a Plan

Before you begin writing, take some time to make a master plan fro your essay. Decide what information you want to cover and the method you will use to accomplish this. If your paper is a narrative, you might use pre-writing activities like brainstorming to come up with ideas. If you are writing a research paper, clustering to find a focus might work better for you. Though your plan may change as you research and write your paper, making a plan will help streamline the writing process by helping you focus on a final goal for your paper. Write your plan down and keep it near you as you write your paper to make certain that you are headed in the right direction.

Take Good Notes

Organized notes are essential for an organized essay paper. While conducting research for your paper, use your master plan to identify the topics you need to research and the questions you must answer in your paper. Write your notes on index cards; not only will they help you stay organized, but their small size forces you to condense information and keep your notes brief, which will reduce the risk of unintentional plagiarism. Carefully label each card with a topic and reference information.

Create an Outline

An outline is a kind of road map for your essay and is more detailed than your essay plan. The method you use to outline your paper will depend upon your style of writing and the type of paper you are writing; an outline for a personal narrative will probably be less detailed than the outline for a research paper. Use roman numerals or letters to organize main ideas, and then break those main ideas into smaller chunks of information.

Topic Sentences

Use topic sentences to organize ideas within your paper. These topic sentences can be used in your outline as main ideas. Begin each new paragraph or section of your paper with a topic sentence that outlines the main idea of that section. Then, use supporting sentences to expand upon or explain that topic sentence.

Revision

After you have written a rough draft, create a reverse outline, recommends the University of Toronto Writing Centre. To make a reverse outline, go through your paper and write down each main idea on a separate sheet of paper in the order in which they appear, leaving plenty of space between each topic. When you have finished, read through the main ideas to make sure that they make sense. Make sure that you have not left out key points or repeated topics. Make changes to your draft if needed. Next, go through your paper to find sentences that support your main topics, and jot these down below each topic on your reverse outline. This will ensure that you fully explain each main topic.

For those are planning to enter college in the near future, scholarships are of vital importance. For many prospective students, scholarships play a pivotal role in which school they ultimately choose to attend.  By doing a little bit of research, online resources can point people in the right direction for scholarships that encompass pretty much every profession, family situation, or hobby known to man.  This also includes those who are writers.

There are quite a few institutions that offer scholarships for writers, although they might require a little bit of searching on the applicant’s part.  Here, for instance, is a great scholarship given to aspiring college students from 21^st Century Insurance. The grand place winner in their scholarship contest has the potential to put ten thousand dollars toward their expenses.

The Alliance for Young Artists and Writers is the foundation behind the awards given out by Scholastic for art and writing.  Their scholarship program allows kids from seventh grade to twelfth grade to send them a piece of art or a work of writing and the alliance will then choose the winners able to receive a scholarship.  The money that is given to the kids comes from the alliance as well as some of their educational partners and the best part is that there are more than thirty categories to choose from so anyone can enter.

For those college applicants looking to further their career in the world of journalism, there exists a very prestigious and well-known scholarship that is available specifically for journalism majors.  The National Press Club offers the Richard G. Zimmerman Award each year to one scholarship applicant who is planning on going into journalism.  Applicants will need to submit three examples of journalistic writing before they’re eligible for the five thousand dollar scholarship.

Journalism students will also be able to take advantage of the Free Spirit Scholarship, which is an award given one journalism major in each of the fifty continental United States.  This scholarship only accepts applications from journalism students who are juniors in high school with at least three pieces of journalistic examples and possess what the judges would call a free spirit.  Each winner will go to Washing D.C. to accept their scholarship.

Creative writers aren’t left out of the scholarship awards either.  There is also the Unpublished Author Award, which accepts applications until March of every year and will award the winner whose short story wowed them the most a scholarship for five hundred dollars.  Though the competition for this one might be a little tougher, it’s really a good idea for fiction writers, especially since some of the past writers have gone on to publish novels after receiving the award.

The Aspiring Writer award from the Go on Girl Book Club is available to any sophomore or junior studying in a historically black university and majoring in English, Journalism, or any other type of literary field.  This will award them five hundred dollars if the book club likes their essay on the power of the written word.

There are plenty of great scholarships available for writers if one knows where to look and not only do many of them offer a great deal of money, but some of them also have the benefits of helping publish work or get jobs later down the road.