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Research paper

Front Matter Title Page Table of Contents Foreword and Preface Abstract

Front Matter

Depending on the subject matter of your research paper and the course requirements, you may need to include specific material before the body of your paper. This includes:
•    Title page
•    Table of contents
•    Foreword
•    Preface
•    Abstract
Always check with whomever requested the research paper (college instructor, work supervisor, and so on) to see if you are required to include front matter and, if so, which elements are required.

TITLE PAGE

Most high school and college research papers require a title page. Your title page should contain:
•    the title
•    your name
•    the name of the course
•    your instructor's name
•    the date
Here's how to arrange the information:
•    Title. Center your title one-third down the page. (Repeat the title on the first page, centered on the first line. Double space between the title and the first line of the text.)
•    Your Name. Place your name halfway down the page, prefaced by the word "by."
•   Course name, instructor's name, date. These go directly under your name. Double-space between lines.
If your instructor does not require a title page, your first page functions as a title page.

The table of contents lists the main divisions of your paper. If you include a table of contents, be sure that the headings on the table of contents match the headings in each section of your paper. The table of contents appears directly after the title page. Type it up last so you will know the page numbers.

FOREWORD AND PREFACE

It is unusual to include a foreword or preface in a high school or college research paper.
• In most cases, the foreword is written by an expert in the field and serves as an endorsement of the contents.
• The preface, written by the author of the paper, explains how the paper came to be written and gives thanks to people who helped with research and other related matters.

ABSTRACT

An abstract is a brief summary of the contents of your paper. Objective in tone, abstracts are often included in technical or scholarly papers. An abstract usually runs between 100-125 words. It is presented on a separate page in one paragraph. Do not indent the first line.

Example
Abstract
How the Division within the Liberal Community was Reflected in the Nation, 1930-1950
Granville Hicks charged in the New Masses in 1937 that the Nation had abandoned its long-held position as unofficial organ of the Liberal Left when it deliberately selected anti-Stalinist reviewers for books dealing with Soviet Russia. The Nation called the charges unjustified. Fourteen years later, Hicks once again attacked the Nation, this time charging that the editorial section gave the Russians the benefit of every doubt
Hicks was correct in his charges and in this seesaw of beliefs and allegiances lies the main story of our time.The initial pull of Communism, drawing away, and resulting break-up of the Left determined the literary course of American radicalism.

End Matter

End matter may include visuals, such as charts and graphs, and a glossary.

VISUALS

Visuals include graphs, charts, maps, figures, and photographs. You can draw them by hand or prepare them on a computer. Place each graphic at the appropriate place in the text or group them at the end.
Warning!
Visuals that you did not create yourself must be credited the same way you would credit any outside source.

GLOSSARY

A glossary lists and defines technical terms or presents additional information on the subject. For example, if you are writing a research paper on Shakespeare, you might include a brief glossary of Shakespearean English, a glossary of films that tie in with the topic, or a glossary of notable Shakespearean actors or performances.

Presentation Format

Research papers follow a standard presentation format. They are never submitted in handwritten form. If you have a situation that prevents you from keyboarding your paper, be sure to speak to your instructor well in advance of the paper's due date. Follow these guidelines:

Paper stock Fonts

Use white paper, standard 8'/2 x 11" size. Use standard 12-point fonts such as Times Roman, Courier, or Helvetica. Avoid fancy, elaborate fonts, since they are difficult to read.

Spacing

Double-space the text. Leave a lll2" margin on the left side and 1" on the other sides. Your computer is preset for the correct margins.

Justification

Do not right-justify (align) your paper. The right margins should be ragged. Your computer will automatically justify your left margin.

Pagination

Number each page and write your name on the upper-right-hand corner. Do not place a number on the title page, but count it in the final number of pages you submit. Your computer software program creates an automatic page header. This inserts your name and the page number automatically on each page.

Indenting

Indent five spaces at the beginning of each paragraph. Do not skip lines between paragraphs.

Order of pages

Arrange your pages in this order:
Title page (if required)
Outline (if required)
The body of the paper
Any relevant end matter
Works Cited

Binding
Check with your instructor for specific guidelines. Some instructors require research papers be presented in folders; others discourage this.

Additional Guidelines

Every scholarly field has a preferred style of presentation. Here are some of the standard style manuals for different fields.
•    Biology. Council of Biology Editors. Scientific Style and Format: The CBE Manual for Authors, Editors, and Publishers, 6th edition. New York: Cambridge University Press, latest edition.
•    Chemistry. American Chemical Society. The SCS Style Guide: A Manual for Authors and Editors. Washington: ACS, latest edition.
•    English and the Humanities. Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. 4th edition. New York: Modern Language Association, latest edition.
•    Engineering. Michaelson, Herbert B. How to Write and Publish Engineering Papers and Reports. 3rd Edition. Phoenix, Arizona: Oryx, latest edition.
• Psychology. American Psychological Association. Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. 4th ed. Washington: APA, latest edition.

How to Avoid Plagiarism?

How to avoid plagiarism in your research paper

To avoid plagiarism, you should
Never use someone else's ideas without acknowledging the source.
Never paraphrase someone else's argument as your own. Never present someone else's line of thinking in the development of an idea as if it were your own. Never turn in an entire paper or a major part of it developed exactly as someone else's line of thinking. Never arrange your ideas exactly as someone else did-even though you acknowledge the source(s) in parentheses.
You present original ideas in an original way. You give credit for any research that is not your own.
Ways to avoid plagiarism include always documenting quotations, opinions, and paraphrases and recognizing the difference between fact and common knowledge.

DOCUMENT QUOTATIONS

You must always set off direct quotes with quotation marks and give credit to your original source. It is considered plagiarism if you copy a part of the quotation without using quotation marks-even if you give credit.

Example
Not Plagiarism
In a famous essay on the naturalists, Malcolm Cowley noted, "Naturalism has been defined in two words as pessimistic determinism and the definition is true as far as it goes. The naturalists were all determinists in that they believed in the omnipotence of abstract forces." (Becker 56)

Plagiarism
Malcolm Cowley defined Naturalism as "pessimistic determinism" and the definition is true as far as it goes. The naturalists were all determinists in that they believed in the omnipotence of abstract forces. (Becker 56)

DOCUMENT OPINIONS

You must also document the way an author constructs an argument or a line of thinking. In addition, it is considered plagiarism if you try to fob off someone else's opinions as your own.

Examples
Original Source
Probably the most influential novel of the era was UncleTom's Cabin (1852). More polemic than literature, Uncle Tom's Cabin nonetheless provided the North and South with the symbols and arguments they needed to go to war (Levin 125)

Plagiarism
Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852, was likely the most important novel of the pre-Civil War era. Even though the book was more of a debate than a novel, it nevertheless gave the Confederate and Union sides the push they needed to start the Civil War.

Not Plagiarism
As Harold Levin argues in his book Roots of the Civil War, Uncle Tom's Cabin, published in 1852, provided America with the impetus it need to plunge into the Civil War. Likely the most important novel of the era, UncleTom's Cabin cannot be regarded as "literature"-it is too strident for that. Nonetheless, its influence cannot be denied. (125) DOCUMENT PARAPHRASES
The same holds true for paraphrases. It is not enough just to change a few words. Neither is it enough to rearrange a few sentences. Both practices can result in plagiarism. Study these examples:

Examples
Original Source
William Dean Howells (1837-1920) was the most important literary figure in his time. In addition to championing many American writers such as Edith Wharton and Emily Dickinson, Howells promoted Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy. (Goldsmith 98)

Plagiarism
William Dean Howells was the top literary person in his time. In addition to advancing the careers of American writers like Edith Wharton and Emily Dickinson, Howells championed the writing of non-Americans such as Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy.

Not Plagiarism
William Dean Howells was the single most significant editor of his day. Howells helped the careers of Ivan Turgenev, Leo Tolstoy, Henrik Ibsen, Emile Zola, George Eliot, and Thomas Hardy as well as those of Edith Wharton and Emily Dickinson. (Goldsmith 98)
UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FACTS VS. COMMON KNOWLEDGE

By now you're probably thinking that you have to document every single word in your research paper—or pretty close! Not really. You have to document another person's words, ideas, or argument, and everything that is not common knowledge.
It's not difficult to document quotations, opinions, and paraphrases, but differentiating between facts and common knowledge can be tricky. "Common knowledge" is defined as the information an educated person is expected to know. People are expected to know general facts about many categories of common knowledge, including the ones listed below:

art
geography language music literature
science history films
social studies
cultural facts
computer science
mathematics

How can you tell if something is common knowledge? If the fact is presented in several sources, odds are good that your readers are expected to know it. This means that you do not have to document it.

Examples of Common Knowledge

The Civil War started in 1861 and ended in 1865.
Abraham Lincoln was the president during the Civil War.
He was assassinated by John Wilkes Booth.
Andrew Johnson became the new president.

In the following instance, however, the fact is not common knowledge and so has to be documented:

Examples of Facts Needing Documentation

Original Source
By the time the last canon thundered across the Shenandoah Valley at Antietam, the battlefield echoed with the screams of 20,000 Union and Confederate wounded soldiers. (Harris 415)
Plagiarism
When the last canon roared at Antietam, 20,000 Union and Confederate wounded soldiers were left wounded across the Shenandoah Valley. They were yelling in excruciating pain.
Not Plagiarism
Antietam was one of the most devastating battles of the Civil War. By its conclusion, 20,000 Union and Confederate soldiers were wounded. (Harris 415)
In the following two chapters, you'll learn how to use internal documentation and footnotes/endnotes to document your sources.

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism is the technical name for using someone else's words without giving adequate credit. Plagiarism is
1.   Using someone else's ideas without acknowledging the source.
2.   Paraphrasing someone else's argument as your own.
3.   Presenting someone else's line of thinking in the development of an idea as if it were your own.
4.   Presenting an entire paper or a major part of it developed exactly as someone else's line of thinking.
5.   Arranging your ideas exactly as someone else did-even though you acknowledge the source(s) in parentheses.

While plagiarism is a serious lapse in ethics as well as a cause for failure and even expulsion in some schools, documenting your sources correctly is easy. It also gives your research paper authority and credibility. Here's how to do it.

Plagiarism Detection Programs

Thanks to plagiarism detection software such as Turnitin.com and MyDropBox.com, instructors have become even more adept at proving that research papers are plagiarized. These programs quickly and easily show instructors which parts of the research paper the student has copied without attribution. Nearly all high schools, colleges, and universities make this software available to instructors free of charge. This means that it's even easier for an instructor to catch instances of plagiarism-and prove them beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Document the Material

As you include the outside source, be sure to provide enough information so your readers clearly understand where it came from. In most cases, this is done through parenthetical documentation, footnotes, or endnotes.

Use the Material to Make Your Point

Never assume that your readers understand why you included a specific piece of information. It may appear that you are simply padding your paper with lots of outside sources. To avoid this misunderstanding and to strengthen your point, point out your message to readers and be sure to make your point. You can do this at the beginning or end of a passage.
Examples
Cue Words                Feminist Gloria Steinem argues that "Employers adhere to a number of beliefs about women that serve to reinforce a pattern of no employment Parenthetical and nonparticipation for female employees"

Documentation    (Steinem, 54).
Your Point                    Since many employers feel that women work for extra money, women's jobs are nonessential. This leads to the conclusion that men should be hired or promoted rather than women.

Showing the Material Has Been Cut

What happens if a quotation contains material that's irrelevant to your point? You can use an ellipsis (three evenly spaced periods) to show that you have omitted part of a quotation.
You can use ellipsis in the middle of a quotation or at the end. Do not use an ellipsis at the beginning of a sentence; just start with the material you wish to quote. If you omit more than one sentence, add a period before the ellipsis to show that the omission occurred at the end of a sentence.

Example
Readers of the Atlantic Monthly were astonished to find in the January 1875 issue the debut of one "Mark Twain." The originality of Twain's voice dazzled readers as the Atlantic showcased what was to become one of the great passages in American literature: "[Hannibal] the white town drowsing in the sunshine of a summer's morning" is shocked into life by the cry of "S-t-e-a-m-boat a-comin'!" As the Twain critic Justin Kaplan notes, "The gaudy packet ...was Mark Twain's reasserting his arrival and declaring once and for all that his surge of power and spectacle derived not from such streams as the meandering Charles or the sweet Thames but from 'the great Mississippi, the majestic, the magnificent Mississippi, rolling its mile-wide tide along, shining in the sun.'"
Warning!
Never omit material from a quotation to change its meaning deliberately. This is a sleazy way of slanting a quotation to make it say what you mean. In addition, always be sure that the quotation makes grammatical sense after you have cut it.

Who Gets Credit?

Document the Material

Use the Material to Make Your Point

Showing the Material Has Been Cut

Who Gets Credit?

Sometimes you have an idea about your topic but find after researching that you weren't the first person to come up with this idea. To take credit for your original thinking but give credit to others who came up with the idea first, present both versions of the idea and give credit to the outside source. If necessary, explain how your idea is different from the reference you used.
Example
Outside Since music fans have a great deal of difficulty obtaining Source tickets for certain concerts, any one customer should be prevented from buying more than four tickets at a time (Harvey, I 19). However, this does not prevent scalpers from hiring "ringers" to your idea stand in line and buy blocks of tickets. To overcome this problem, at least one-third of the tickets offered for sale should be set aside for bona fide students.

Setting Off Long Quotations

As mentioned earlier, try to avoid using long quotations in your research paper. But if you must quote more than four typed lines of text, follow these guidelines:
•   Indent the quotation one inch from the left margin.
•   Do not indent the right margin.
•   Do not single-space the quotation; stay with double-spacing.
•   Do not enclose the quotation in quotation marks; since it is inset, it is understood to be quoted.
As always, introduce the quotation with a sentence and cue words, usually followed by a colon (:).

Example
In his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig extends Twain's idea. As Pirsig explains:
When analytic thought, the knife, is applied to experience, something is always killed in the process. Mark Twain's experience comes to mind, in which, after he had mastered the analytical knowledge needed to pilot the Mississippi River, he discovered the river had lost its beauty. Something is always killed. But what is less noticed in the arts—something is always created too. And instead of just dwelling on what is killed it's important also to see what's created and to see the process as a kind of death-birth continuity that is neither good nor bad, but just is (23 1-232).

Cue Words and Phrases

How can you show that the material you are quoting, summarizing, and paraphrasing comes from outside sources and isn't something you made up? It's not enough just to plop the material into your paper, even if you do surround any exact quotes with quotation marks.
In addition to the awkwardness this creates, you're sacrificing most of the "punch" carried by expert opinions by not smoothly blending their words in with yours. The reason to use outside sources is to buttress your claims, but if you're not going to give the experts clear credit in your research paper, you are, in effect, wasting their words.
Start by using cue words and phrases to set off outside material. As you blend the experts' words, be sure to include
• the source of the material.
• the author's name.
• the author's identity and why the author is important. This tells your readers why they should believe the person you cite.
• the author's credentials, since this lends greater weight to the material.
Examples
In Shakespeare, The Comedies, the noted literary critic Kenneth Muir claims that....
In a March 15,2007 front-page article in the NewYorkTimes, the well-known consumer activist Ralph Nader stated that...
An October 30. 2007 article on the Harvard University web site reported that Gabriel Corfas, an associate professor of neurology at Harvard Medical School, has uncovered an important signal in brain development that is regulated by a molecule involved in Alzheimer's disease, http://www.harvard.edu
Use the specific verb you need to indicate your exact shade of meaning. Below is a selection of verbs you may wish to choose from:

Verbs that Help You Integrate Quotations into Your Text

adds	agrees	argues	concedes
acknowledges	admits	advises	confirms
asks	asserts	believes	concludes
claims	comments	compares	considers
contends	declares	defends	denies
disagrees	disputes	emphasizes	explain
endorses	grants	hints	hopes
finds	holds	illustrates	implies
insists	maintains	notes	observes
points out	rejects	relates	reports
responds	reveals	says	sees
speculates	shows	speculates	states
suggests	thinks	warns	writes

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Front Matter Title Page Table of Contents Foreword and Preface Abstract

Front Matter

TITLE PAGE

TABLE OF CONTENTS

FOREWORD AND PREFACE

ABSTRACT

End Matter

VISUALS

GLOSSARY

Presentation Format

Paper stock Fonts

Spacing

Justification

Pagination

Indenting

Additional Guidelines

How to avoid plagiarism in your research paper

DOCUMENT QUOTATIONS

DOCUMENT OPINIONS

Examples of Facts Needing Documentation

What Is Plagiarism?

Plagiarism Detection Programs

Document the Material

Use the Material to Make Your Point

Showing the Material Has Been Cut

Who Gets Credit?

Document the Material

Use the Material to Make Your Point

Showing the Material Has Been Cut

Who Gets Credit?

Setting Off Long Quotations

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