The Sociology Place

Every empirical research article in sociology and political science requires a theory section. When you conduct research with data, there are dozens of concepts and theories to choose from. However, only some can fit into the theory section.

What to do?

This post provides some commonsense tips on how to write the theory section of an empirical research article in the social sciences.

Articles on writing empirical research articles in the social sciences

• Outline of the Structure of Research Articles in the Social Sciences
• Effective titles in social science research are short, truthful, and informative
• How to write an abstract for a social science research article
• How to Write the Introduction to a Research Article in the Social Sciences
• Data Write-up: The Who, What, When, Where, and Why
• How to write the results section of a research article in the social sciences
• Writing the Conclusion Section of a Research Article in the Social Sciences
• Writing the Acknowledgements Section of a Research Article

What is theory?

Theories are a set of explanations and predictions of phenomena. The explanations can be about a particular phenomenon that occurs at one point in time, but they can also lead to predictions of how societies, groups, and individuals will think, feel, and act when faced with similar phenomena in the future.

Theories are sets of statements about the relationships between concepts. Each concept must have a definition.

The theory section is where you define the concepts in detail and where you clarify the connections between the concepts.

Some tips on how to write the theory section of an article

1. Remember that the empirical research paper in the social sciences should be a harmonious whole — everything should meaningfully connect. The title, the abstract, the introduction, and so on should all be about the same set of concepts. Everything should fit together with as little extraneous information as possible.

2. Remember: the paper is 8000 words. The author cannot write an 8000 word theory section. There must be some reduction, some selection, and some judgment of what goes in.

3. The theory section should contain the concepts that were “introduced” in the introduction.

4. It is not the job of the author to survey every possible theory from Earth to Mars, from Greece to France. Rather, they should discuss only the theories that are directly relevant for this article.

5. Remember your audience; they are the audience of the particular journal to which you will send the article. The audience does not expect to read a meandering theory section that winds its way back to Aristotle, unless of course, the article is specifically about Aristotelian political philosophy. You do not need to invoke Marx every time you write about class, etc.

6. Keep in the theory section…

(a) … what the literature at the time of your writing considers as the main theories. When you research your topic, you will keep notes on the theories previous scholars have used. From them you will know what the main theories are.

(b) … new theories that the literature has not considered, if that is a contribution of your article to the field of study. If you do not use the theory in your paper, you should seriously question why it is in the paper.

7. A mix of old and new references to theory and concepts is best. It will demonstrate the temporal and intellectual breadth of your research.

8. Organize your theory section by concepts. Do not organize them as a series of summaries of other articles. When you organize by concept, you can trace the connections between concepts and build your theoretical argument. When you present a series of article summaries, it is difficult to understand the connections between them. So, organize by concept.