Decide on a topic and thesis for your paper. Choose a topic you are interested or that you already know a great deal about. Choose a thesis statement that you can reinforce with evidence and research in your paper, such as "How Organic Gardening Improves Your Health" or "Hunting and Fishing Should be Illegal."
List the information you want to include in the paper. You can include information and ideas you already know, such as "Organic produce is free of harmful pesticides" as well as information you gather via research, such as the names of specific pesticides that are used in non-organic farming. Organize similar information into separate categories.
Format your outline. Open your computer's word processing software to a blank document. Left justified, type your full name, name of the class the paper is for (Economics 101), the name of your instructor (Mr. Jacobs) and the current date, assigning one line per item and separating each item by two lines.
Type the name of your research paper. To set the title apart from the rest of the outline, underline the title, make the font of the title bold or center the title in the middle of the document. Enter down two lines and type the word "Thesis" followed by a colon. Type the complete thesis statement of your paper.
Use Roman numerals (I, II, III) immediately followed by a period to indicate the main topic headings in your paper. Your paper should contain at least three topic headings. Use capitals letters (A, B, C) to denote subtopics within your paragraphs. Use numbers (1, 2, 3) to signal specific divisions of the subtopic, and use lowercase letters (a, b, c) to further divide each subheading. Indent five spaces to the right for each subheading and for the division of each subheading.