687 ROUTE 9 -
ENGLISH DEPARTMENT
SAMPLE RESEARCH PAPER
Title page
Structure of an outline
First page of a research paper through body
Works cited page
GENERAL RESEARCH PAPER INFORMATION
MLA Works Cited Requirements
Parenthetical Documentation
How to Avoid Plagiarism
TITLE PAGE
Use a balanced three-part division for the title page information. All information on the title page should be double spaced.
STRUCTURE OF AN OUTLINE
Outline pages use Roman Numerals starting with ii.
Include the title with your outline.
Page numbers are ½ inch from the top (use the header).
Title is one inch from top.
Double space the outline.
Use standard outline symbols. They are:
FIRST PAGE OF A RESEARCH PAPER
8 ½ x 11” paper
1” margins
Name & page # ½” down at right top
Title 1” down & centered
Indent first line of each paragraph ½”
Leave 1” at bottom of pages
Second Page: Same margins, name & page ½: down, then double space and start first line
Page citations for long quotations are set outside the final period.
Short quotations and paraphrases should be worked smoothly into your text.
WORKS CITED PAGE
This list shows most of the possible components of a book entry and the order in which they are normally arranged;
1. Author’s name.
2. Title of a page of the source.
3. Title of the source.
4. Name of the editor, translator, or compiler.
5. Edition used.
6. Number(s) of volume(s) used.
7. Name of the series.
8. Place of publication, name of The publisher, & date of Publication.
9. Page numbers
10. Supplementary bibliographic information and annotation.
MLA WORKS CITED SAMPLES
Electronic sources:
A complete scholarly project or information database:
The typical entry for a complete online scholarly project or information database consists of the following items:
1. Title of the project or database (underlined)
2. Name of the editor of the project or database (if given)
3. Electronic publication information, including version number (if relevant and if not part of the title), date of electronic publication or of the latest update, and name of any sponsoring institution or organization
4. Date of access and network address.
If you cannot find some of this information, cite what is available.
A document within a scholarly project or information database:
To cite an article, a poem, a short story, or a similar short work or document within a project or database, begin the citation with the author’s name and, in quotation marks, the title of the work. If no author is given, begin the citation with the title of the material, in quotation marks. Continue with the relevant information for the project or database, the date of access, and the URL; be sure to give the URL of the specific work or document rather than that of the project or database if they are different.
A professional or personal site:
To document an online professional or personal site, begin the entry with the name of the person who created it (if given and relevant), reversed for alphabetizing and followed by a period. Continue with the title of the site (underlined) or, if there is no title, with a description such as Home page (neither underlined nor in quotation marks); the name of any institution or organization associated with the site; the date of access; and the network address.
PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION
DOCUMENTING SOURCES
Nearly all research builds on previous research. Researchers commonly begin a project by studying past work in the area and deriving relevant information and ideas from their predecessors. This process is largely responsible for the continual expansion of human knowledge. In presenting their work, researchers generously acknowledge their debts to predecessors by carefully documenting each source, so that earlier contributions receive appropriate credit.
As you prepare your paper, you should similarly seek to build on the work of previous writers and researchers. And, whenever you draw on another’s work, you must also document your source by indicating what you borrowed – whether facts, opinions, or quotations – and where you borrowed it from. You must indicate to your readers not only what works you used in writing the paper but also exactly what you derived from each source and exactly where in the work you found the material. The most practical way to supply this information is to insert a brief parenthetical acknowledgment in your paper wherever you incorporate another’s words, facts, or ideas. Usually the author’s last name and a page reference are enough to identify the source and the specific location from which you borrowed material. This parenthetical citation concludes the sentence and is followed by a period.
The citation “(Marcuse 197)” tells readers that the information in the sentence was derived from page 197 of a work by an author named Marcuse. IF readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the works-cited list, where, under the name Marcuse, they would find the following information.
This
entry states that the work’s author is Sibyl Marcuse and its title is
A Survey of Musical Instruments. The remaining information relates,
in shortened form, that the work was published in
PLAGIARISM
The writing of the research paper is a process based on a relationship between the student and instructor where researched information is inspected and manipulated to create the student’s original work. As such, submission of the paper assumes original authorship.
Students are often in doubt as to what constitutes plagiarism, hence the following statement may be helpful. The dictionary defines plagiarism as “copying or imitating the language, ideas, and thoughts of another and passing off the same as one’s original work.”
If, in a theme, you copy language of someone else (source book, another theme, etc.) you should put all such language within quotation marks, and indicate the source. “Language” includes even part of a sentence if the phrase is distinctive, tables of statistics, etc. To omit the quotation marks is to pass off another’s work as your own.
If you imitate the language or thought of someone else, you are paraphrasing – you are restating another’s thought in your own language. In such cases you may omit the quotation marks, but you are plagiarizing unless you specify the source of the thought. The problem can often be handled within the text of your writing by such phrases as: “I agree with Faulkner’s idea that. . .”, or “As I learned from my history teacher. . .“. Your integrity is at stake. Unless you make specific acknowledgement you claim the credit for yourself for anything that you write.
Common sense must obviously be used in applying these rules. If you say “Shakespeare was a great poet” you are quoting words of others, but you need not use quotation marks or make acknowledgement, because the statement is of wide and general acceptance and has been made by many people. But, if you say “Scorn not the sonnet. . . with this key Shakespeare unlocked his heart” you must use quotation marks and make acknowledgement, because this is a distinctive quotation from a sonnet by Wordsworth.
To avoid plagiarism it is important to understand the rules of parenthetical documentation. In general, it is better to say too much about your sources than too little.
Discovered deliberate plagiarism will result in a grade of “0” (zero) for the project.