Paper Guidelines

The ability to communicate effectively is one of most valuable skills you can develop. It is indispensable in both your university and future careers. Communicating effectively means following the accepted rules of such things as structure, grammar, spelling and citation to enable your audience to understand you. Writing papers, both research papers and the shorter analytical papers, will help you to develop this skill.

Your paper will be graded not on what you meant to say, or thought you were saying, but what you actually said and how you said it. If the reader has to stop and puzzle his/her way through your words to try to determine what you are trying to say, this is a problem. It is a problem, however, that can be avoided by thoughtful writing and careful editing. These guidelines will help you structure and present your paper and avoid some of the common errors that can bring down your grade

Substance

  1. Composition
    Generally speaking, the procedure used in coming up with the ideas for the paper and the procedure used in composing it work in the opposite order. First, read the text keeping in mind the question you have been asked and noting relevant passages in the text. After having read the text once, you should try to formulate the overall interpretation that you wish to make and then examine the text again with an eye to finding suitable evidence (and modifying the interpretation as necessary). In effect, whereas in formulating the paper you go from the specific observations to the interpretation, in actually composing the paper you start from the interpretation that you have formulated and then demonstrate it on the basis of the observations.

  2. Thesis
    • You need a manageable thesis, clearly expressed in the opening paragraph. A clear thesis allows you to arrange your evidence so that it leads to a logical conclusion, and allows your reader to follow your argument and, ideally, be convinced by it. Each paragraph should then discuss a single topic that serves to develop and demonstrate the general theme, and it is best to lay out this topic in the opening sentence of the paragraph.
    • The Writing Tutorial Services at Indiana University offers advice on generating a thesis statement as well as several other downloadable pamphlets offering help with common writing problems.
    • Another helpful resource is the Handout on Thesis Statements available from the The UNCCH Writing Center (they too have other downloadable pamphlets that will help you with the mechanics of writing your paper.
    • Prof. Lynch at Rutgers University has an excellent Guide to writing term papers which includes many useful links for matters of citation, formulating a thesis, and literary terms. This site is still a "work in progress" but has much useful information.

Form

  1. Presentation:
    • Type your paper, using Times, or Times New Roman in 12 point font.
    • Double space the body of your paper.
    • Paginate your paper. (No page number is needed on the first page.)
    • Staple your paper in the top left-hand corner. Do not use paperclips or report covers. Paperclips can easily get lost; report covers make it harder to read the paper.
  2. Title & Title Page Page:
    • Don't use a title page. (Save a tree!)
    • Put your name and the course number in the top right hand corner of the first page of your paper.
    • Center your title at the top of the first page.
  3. Paragraphing:
    • One idea and its supporting evidence per paragraph. As a general rule of thumb, if your paragraph is a page long, you probably have too many ideas in it. These ideas need their own paragraph in which you walk your reader through these ideas and offer supporting evidence.
    • Either indent paragraphs or leave a space between each paragraph. Do not do both.
  4. Style and Structure
    • By all means use appropriate technical language, but as far as possible express yourself in normal English words. Do not use words with which you are not familiar, and do not under any circumstances use the "thesaurus" functions unhappily provided with word-processing programs. Also, make sure that the words and phrases that you do use are used idiomatically (that is, that you use the regular constructions associated with those words). For example, you "show interest in something" not "with something." If in doubt, read the sentence out loud and see if it sounds natural and is readily understandable. If it isn't, rewrite it on the basis of what does sound natural.
    • Avoid colloquialisms, jargon, and pretentious diction.
    • Be careful that the words you use actually mean what you think they mean. If in doubt, check your dictionary.
      • Don't use "literally" when you mean "metaphorically". ("It was so frustrating that I was literally pulling my own hair out" is only correct if you have clumps of hair in your hands and bald patches on your head.)
      • Not all words can be qualified. For example, "unique" is an absolute; nothing can be "very unique" or "more unique" or the like.
    • Generally speaking, use the past tense for actual past events (e.g., "Sophocles wrote the Antigone") but the present tense for comments on the text (e.g., "In the Antigone, Creon refuses to allow the burial of Polyneices.").
    • There is nothing wrong with the sparing use of 1st person statements ("I will prove that X is the case" is far preferable to "this paper will prove that X is the case").
    • Avoid "I feel" and "She believes." Feelings are for dates, and beliefs are for religious occasions. In a paper, all that matters are your arguments (supported by evidence derived from a careful consideration of the text).
    • Assume you are writing for an intelligent audience, but not one as familiar with the material as you are. Give them all the information they need to follow your argument and to draw the conclusions that you want them to draw. (Ex. Imagine you're a lawyer. Present the jury with the facts of the case and the conclusion you want them to reach. Don't leave the conclusions up to them in case they get it wrong.)
    • Be sure to express clearly and explicitly what the significance of your points is. "He fell in love because it was spring" requires your reader to know how the time of the year contributed to his falling in love. "He fell in love because it was spring, that time 'when a young man's fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love'" draws that conclusion for your reader and ensures that your reader gets the point you want to make.
    • Proofread, proofread, proofread. Better yet have a friend you trust proofread for you, both for grammar and for content. Since you already know what you're talking about you can't catch all of your own typos and you can't know if you are expressing yourself fully and clearly. (But see below under "Plagiarism" about substantial editorial assistance.)
  5. Common Errors of Grammar, Spelling etc.
    • Don't trust the grammar checker (or for that matter the spell checker) in your word processing program. While they can sometimes highlight errors, neither one of them can read for context, which means they will not correct all errors and will sometimes introduce some.
    • Common mistakes with plurals and possessives:
      • " 's " never makes a noun plural. (e.g., the plural of "dog" is "dogs" not "dog's").
      • The possessive form of Tiberius is Tiberius' or Tiberius's never Tiberiu's (e.g., Tiberius' tribunate.)
      • it's = "it is" while "its" = possession (e.g., "It's the dog's house" v "Its name is Fido").
      • who's = "who is" while whose = possession (e.g. "Who's that knocking at the door?" vs. "Whose house is it?")
    • Watch out for run-on sentences (Run-on sentences are sentences that lack punctuation they try to cover too much in one sentence they are better off broken up into separate and discrete sentences.), sentence fragments and dangling participles / modifiers (Well-written, I enjoyed the latest Zombie novel ["well-written" clearly must modify "the latest Zombie novel" but as the sentence is written, modifies "I"].
    • A very common mistake is misuse of the semicolon (;). The sole use of the semi-colon is two connect two otherwise independent thoughts that directly bear on each other (e.g., "Understanding punctuation is necessary for writing successful papers; many people come to grief through failure to pay due attention to this point"). It is not the equivalent of colon, which is used to add a list at the end of statement, and can often be replaced with the word "namely" (e.g., "There are three things we must bear in mind writing a paper: having a clear thesis, using words correctly, not misusing semicolons").
    • The word "however" is an adverb, not a conjunction equivalent to "but". It is wrong to write: "This proposal sounds like a good idea, however, there are many problems with it." You would have to write either "This proposal sounds like a good idea. However, there are many problems with it." or "This proposal sounds like a good idea, but there are many problems with it."
    • The abbreviation "e.g." means '"or example" and is not interchangeable with "i.e.," which means "that is" and introduces an item that is entirely equivalent to what precedes. Hence, it is redundant to add "etc." to a list introduced by "e.g.," since it's already clear that the list is not complete.
  6. Quotations
    • Use quotations sparingly, and only if they advance your argument. Don't put them in simply as decorative filler.
    • If you do use quotations, spell out clearly and explicitly what conclusions you are drawing from that quotation, and how you reach them.
    • How to Quote and Cite:
      1. Italicize or underline titles. Do not use quotation marks.
      2. For Livy, since the text is very short and I already know what you're quoting from, there's no need for specific citations. With Polybius, cite the large arabic number at the start of each paragraph plus the small number at the start of the specific sentence or group of sentences that you're quoting (e.g., 11.2 or 11.2-3 for a longer quote).

Useful Resources

Plagiarism

Go to Syllabus