Putting it all together: Writing a variationist paper
1. Introduction
Introduce the sociolinguistic variable and the sociolinguistic issue(s) you will be addressing. This
section should end with a clear statement of your hypotheses.
2. Situating the linguistic variable (or some other appropriate title, e.g. Diachronic perspective)
A section like this allows you to contextualize your research and your research questions.
Relevant sub-sections may include:
2.1 Previous analyses
2.2 Synchronic and/or diachronic perspective(s)
2.3 Formulation of hypotheses
3. Data and method
3.1 Data
Describe the corpus and outline the sample used for your research.
3.2 Circumscribing the variable context
Elaborate on your sociolinguistic variable, define the variable context, and discuss any exclusions/categorical or near categorical contexts, etc.
All discussion should be supported by relevant examples.
3.3 Coding and analysis
Describe and justify the coding protocol. Again, give examples.
4. Results (Any and all sub-sections in the results should include discussion; do not simply
provide a laundry list of findings.)
4.1 An overall distribution of the linguistic feature
4.2 A factor by factor distributional analysis
4.3 Cross-tabulation of factors if and where relevant
4.4 Summary of findings
5. Discussion and conclusion
This is where you bring it all together. Provide a critical overview of your project. Then,
interpret your findings and explain them.
To do this, ask yourself questions like:
What do the findings demonstrate? What does it all mean? What are the implications?
The discussion should also include a reflection on the evolution and development of your hypothesis.
Finally, based on the facts you have uncovered, make projections for further research.
6. References
Be consistent. Whatever format you decide on, stick to it.
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