GUIDELINES FOR CREATING A RESEARCH PAPER

PROF. GARRETT, DEPT. OF SOCIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY

SAINT MICHAEL’S COLLEGE

        These guidelines have been prepared to help facilitate the creation of a focused, well-researched, and well-presented term paper. One central fact to remember is that research papers take time. Therefore, you need to plan well in order to give yourself sufficient time for both the gathering of information and its presentation in written form.

        The selection of a good topic to be pursued in a research paper must be based on some background reading. Once an area of investigation has been identified, students will want to pay careful attention to the formulating of a basic thesis to be established by the research contained in the paper. The first order of business is to state the research thesis of hypothesis as clearly and concisely as possible. The next step is to construct an outline that marshals the evidence in support of the thesis. Be sure to always formulate your own outline—if you rely on an outline drawn from a book or article, then it will be very difficult not to plagiarize a great deal of the paper. If you create your own outline, then it will be difficult to plagiarize. Finally, every paper should contain a conclusion wherein you summarize for the reader the various components of your argument leading up to the central thesis of the paper.

        These guidelines are most appropriate for students who are doing library research. They may not be as helpful for those who are reporting on empirical data which they have created or gathered themselves—although information has been provided at the end of this document on how to construct charts and graphs.

        The number of resources in the form of books, articles, and data summaries required to deal satisfactorily with a given topic will vary significantly. As a general rule, the bibliography will probably require eight to ten entries and perhaps more. Another rule of thumb is that one usually expects at least three citations per page. The paper topic should, in all instances, be discussed with the instructor to make sure that the bibliographic references are both sufficient in terms of number and relevance.

        All papers should be clearly outlined. The inclusion of an outline at the beginning of the paper is strongly recommended. Also, each paper should include a title page giving the title of the paper, the author, the course for which the paper was submitted, and a date. Section headings throughout the paper are also strongly recommended; these are helpful to the paper writer in terms of outlining and to the reader.

        Quotations are a major feature of any research enterprise. All material copied directly from a book, article, or other source should be placed in quotation marks. When only a portion of a sentence is quoted, then the proper citation is:

"Calvinism opposed organic social organization in the fiscal-monopolistic form which it assumed in Anglicanism under the Stuarts…" (Weber, 1958:179).

The three dots at the end signify that you did not quite the entire sentence—only the first part. After the quote, you close the quotation marks and then give the citation. In this instance, it is open parenthesis, type Weber without spacing [who is the author], followed by a colon, no space, and the page number, and finally closed parenthesis with a period. (Please note the placing of the period after the citation and not after the quoted material.) The reader can then go to the References at the end of the paper and find it in the bibliography:

Weber, Max. 1958. The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism. Trans. by Talcott

        Parsons. New York: Scribner’s. (Note: all references should be double-spaced.)

        In the References, all items should be arranged alphabetically by author. When you have several references by the same author, they should appear from the earliest date to the most recent. Also, if you have two references by an author in the same year, the you assign an "a" to the first, as in (Weber, 1958a), and a "b" to the next, as in (Weber, 1958b). The "a" should be assigned to the work whose title comes first alphabetically. You can indicate an earlier publication date to a work in the following way: Weber, Max. 1958 [1904-1905]…. This signifies that the first publication occurred in the years 1904-1905. The can also be helpful as a way of indicating whether you are quoting from an original hardback version of a book or from a later paperback edition (this is important because sometimes the pages numbers are quite different.)

        When citing an article, the proper format is:

Garrett, William R. 1994. "Religio-cultural Foundations of Western and Eastern Family

        Systems in a Global Age." International Journal on World Peace. XI:4:11-36.

(Note: the XI refers to the volume of the journal, the 4 refers to the number, and 11-36 refers to the pages.)

        When citing a book chapter, the proper format is:

Garrett, William R. 1991. "The Reformation, Individualism, and the Quest for Global

        Order. Pp. 47-63 in Roland Robertson and William R. Garrett, eds. Religion and

        Global Order. New York: Paragon House.

        One can use footnotes to identify the source of a quotation, but more commonly in social scientific writing today footnotes and endnotes are reserved for comments not properly included in the text and citations are handled in the format sketched above.

        There are occasions when a central idea needs to be referenced, even though you do not quote directly from a source. In this case, you simply include the citation after the sentence of phrase without quotation marks, for example: (Weber, 1958:101). Also, if you have a citation after almost every sentence, it should be clear that you are relying on your sources too much and that the paper is simply becoming an exercise in weaving together other people’s ideas and prose. That makes for a poor and ineffective term paper.

        More and more, students are obtaining information from electronic sources of several varieties—for example, web sites, the internet, and so forth. Conventions for how such materials should be cited in one’s References are still in the process of being resolved. However, the following format is suggested for the present time.

Author/editor. (Year). Title (edition), [Type of Medium]. Producer (optional).

        Available: Supplier/Database identifies or number [Access date].

Example:

Sternberg, M. L. A. (1994). The American Sign Language Dictionary on CD-ROM

        (Windows version, [CD-ROM]. Available: HarperCollins [1995, May 27].

Title (edition), [Type of medium]. (Year). Producer (optional). Available: Supplier/

        Database identifier or number [Access date].

Example:

Academic American Encyclopedia [Online]. (1995). Grolier (producer). Available:

        Dow Jones News Retrieval Service/ENCYC [1995, May 27].

        B. File Transfer Protocol (FTP)

Author/editor. (Year). Title (edition), [Type of Medium]. Available FTP: address

        path/file [Access date].

Example:

Byrds. (No date). The Byrd’s Greatest Hits [Lyrics], [Online]. Available FTP:

        vacs.uwp.edu/pub/music/lyrics/b/byrds/greatest.hits [1995, June 3].

Title (edition, [Type of Medium]. (Year). Available FTP: address/path/file [Access

        date].

Example:

Oxford Text Archive Snapshot [Online]. (1990). Available FTP: hnsource.Cc.ukans.

        edu.pub/history/Europe/Modern/Britain/oxtext.bib [1995, June 1].

        C. HTTP

Author/editor. (Year). Title (edition), [Type of medium]. Available: URL [Access date].

Example:

Lehman, M. A. and R. H. Brown. (1994). Intellectual Property and the National

        Information Infrastructure [Online}. Available: http://www.uspto.gov/nii/

        ipwg.html [1995, May 15].

Title (edition), [Type of Medium]. Available: URL [Access date].

Example:

        Leadership for Columbia University—1993-2000 (Initial Workshop Draft),

        [Online]. Available: http://www.ilt.columbia.edu/CONF/EdPlan.html [1995,

        May 16].

Author. (Year). Title. Journal [Type of Medium], volume(issue), paging if given, or other

        indicator of length. Available: Supplier/Database name/Identifier or number if

        if available/item or accession number [Access date].

Example:

Bosselman, F. (1994). Four Land Ethics: Order, Reform, Responsibility, Opportunity.

        Environmental Law [Online], 24, 1439(39,389 words). Available: Mead Lexis/

        LAWREV/ENVLAW [1995, June 12].

Title. (Year). Journal [Type of Medium]. Volume(issue), paging if given, or other

        indicator of length. Available: Supplier/Database name/Identifier or number if

        available/item or accession number [Access date].

Author. (Year). Title. Journal [Type of Medium], volume(issue), paging if given, or

        other indication of length. Available FTP: address/path/file [Access date].

Example:

Attfield, R. (1995, Spring). Preferences, health, interests, and value. The Electronic

        Journal of Analytical Philosophy [Online], 1-20. Available FTP:taski.phil.

        indiana.edu/ejap/1995.spring/attfield.1995.spring.txt [1995, June 15].

Title. (Year). Journal [Type of Medium]. Volume(issue), paging if given, or other

        indication of length. Available FTP: address/path/file [Access date].

Author. (Year). Journal [Type of Medium], volume(issue), paging if given, or other

        indicator of length. Available: URL [Access date].

Example:

Inada, K. (1995). A Buddhist Response to the Nature of Human Rights. Journal of

        Buddhist Ethics [Online], 2, 9 paragraphs. Available: http://www.cac.psu.edu/

        jbe/twocont.html [1991, june 21].

Title. (Year). Journal [Type of Medium], volume(issue), paging if given, or other

        indicator of length. Available: URL [Access date].

TEXT PREPARATION

        All research papers must be typed—perhaps in the age of computers we don’t need to say that anymore. The text should be double spaced (including References)—except for lengthy quotes. The typical rule of thumb is that, if a quote is longer than three lines, then it should be typed indented five spaces, single spaced, and without quotation marks. The citation appears at the end of the quote before the final period. Be sure that you have the page numbering function on before you print the paper. Also, please use the spell-check.

        For some students constructing coherent paragraphs, organizing, writing clearly, proper punctuation, and so forth remain frustrating problems. For these kinds of linguistic issues, two solutions are available. The first is to write the paper early and submit it to the instructor for evaluation and criticism before you turn in the final draft. This means, of course, that you must have the paper down well in advance so there is time to read it and get it back to you for revision before the paper deadline. Another resource is to go to the Writing Center in the Library (extension 2441) for help in planning, organization, and technical presentation. As they advertise: "trained coaches can help you with all kinds of writing, from brainstorming through revising and final editing." It’s free, and very helpful. We recommend you take advantage of it!!!!!

        Strict rules on plagiarism apply to all work done at Saint Michael’s College. The Student Handbook has explicit and rigid rules for governing violations. Our Department takes infractions very seriously. The punishment for violations is up to the judgment of the professor. Failure for the paper is common, but so is failure for the course and further disciplinary before a College Judicial Board may also be initiated. If you have any doubt about whether or not to reference an idea, fact, or quotation, then you probably should.