Finishing Up Your Paper & Documentation/Citations Research Methods and Data College of Advancing Studies Brendan A. Rapple

Finishing Up Your Paper & Documentation/Citations

Research Methods and Data

College of Advancing Studies

Brendan A. Rapple

Late Assignment Policy

• The final paper MUST be handed in by 12 December, the final day of class.

• The grade for the assignment will be reduced by 20% each day or fraction of a day that the assignment is late.

• So, it’s not worth it to be late!!

Don’t Panic

Format of Paper

Title/Cover Page

• Title

• Author's name, address, phone no., e-mail, fax no., etc.

• Name of course, the institution etc.

• Name of instructor

• Date

Table of Contents

Executive Summary (i.e. Abstract)

• Include one!

• It’s often written last

Introduction

• You should have a separate introductory section.

• This should provide the background, the rationale for the lit review.

• Detail carefully the topic of your lit review: what is it; what are its parameters; what are its limits; any time frame etc., etc.?

• You might want to mention why are you are interested in this topic.

• Why do you feel the study is important and/or necessary.

• Anything else in the introduction that you consider relevant.

• At any rate, the Introduction shouldn’t be very long.

• Normal scholarly process.

• Should include all resources used in the literature review.

• Should adopt a particular style, e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago etc. -- style must be consistent.

• Helps the reader to form an opinion of the quality of the sources available (and your ability to find them).

Bibliography

Appendices

• Charts, graphs and other information which may interfere with the flow of the proposal or lengthen it may be placed in the appendices.

Images

• Feel free to add images to your paper if you consider them relevant.

• Use subheadings to clarify the structure

• they break up the material into more readable units.

• they give the reader a place to "dive in" if she doesn't want to read all of the material.

Subheadings

Simple, Straightforward Writing Style

• Don’t adopt some artificial pose

• Be clear, concise, to the point

• Be as normal as possible in your writing style

• Don’t appear as a poseur

Use simple, direct language(thanks to Simon Peyton Jones slide: http://74.125.113.132/search?q=cache:gxm-Sgjzn9cJ:www.cs.iastate.edu/~honavar/Peyton-

Jones-Writing.ppt+%22research+paper%22+filetype:ppt&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us )

NO YES

The object under study was displaced horizontally

The ball moved sideways

On an annual basis Yearly

Endeavor to ascertain Find out

It could be considered that the speed of storage reclamation left something to be desired

The garbage collector was really slow

Leave Time for Revision

Ask a friend or friends to read your paper for a more objective reaction.

Ask them to read the paper for argument, style, persuasiveness, and general flow.

Make appropriate content and reasoning changes and check spelling,

grammar, punctuation, footnotes, bibliography.

A good revision cannot happen an hour before the completed paper must be submitted!

Word-Processing Programs

• Spell-checks and grammar-checks will catch many errors.

• Still, if you write "Charlemange was crowed on Christmas Day, 800 AD” instead of “Charlemange was crowned on Christmas Day, 800 AD,” the computer won't catch it.

• Nor will it catch: "The explorers became extremely famished after they returned to London from Borneo" instead of "The explorers became extremely famous after they returned to London from Borneo"!

• The computer does not always distinguish between the correct and incorrect usage of, e.g.:

• "their" and "there"

• "to" and "too"

• "its" and "it's "

• "complement" and "compliment"

– and countless other errors.

Proofreading

• Traditional proofreading is still important.

• Dedicated proofreaders read the text backwards (a ruler under the words can help detect misspellings.

Terms -- Definitions

• Remember that you, the author, are familiar with the research topic but that the reader is probably notprobably not!

• Useful to define major terms at their first use: consider italicizing the definitions with italics.

Main Body of Paper: Connection Phrases

As you are introducing other experts’ ideas in your paper, it’ll be useful to use such phrases as

• In the words of . . .

• According to . . .

• Recent research findings point to/prove/substantiate . . .

• In a recent study by…

• Most research proves that…• Etc., etc., etc.

When Do I Have to Cite?

[The following seven slides are borrowed from Brian Gatten’s presentation “Avoiding Plagiarism” http://lib.utexas.edu/services/instruction/resources/plagiarism_final.ppt. ]

Consider the following scenarios and decide whether or not you have to provide a citation for the information described.

Cite it?

a) You read the phrase “cultural tapeworm” in an article. You decide to use it in your paper.

Is a citation required?

Cite it?

a) You read the phrase “cultural tapeworm” in an article. You decide to use it in your paper.

Cite it! Any unusual phrase borrowed from another writer or speaker must be cited, no matter the length.

Harris, Robert A. "Using Sources Quiz." The Plagiarism Handbook. Los Angeles:

Pyrczak Publishing, 2001. 143-144.

Cite it?

b) You quote from an interview you conducted with your grandmother.


Cite it?

b) You quote from an interview you conducted with your grandmother.

Cite it! Whenever you quote someone else’s words, you must cite them, regardless of your relationship to that person.



Cite it?

c) In a paper, you write, “Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin without electricity.” This is a fact you have read many times in the past and you now do not remember where.


Cite it?

c) In a paper, you write, “Abraham Lincoln grew up in a log cabin without electricity.” This is a fact you have read many times in the past and you now do not remember where.

Do not have to cite it. This is considered common knowledge that can be found in many sources.



Cite it?

d) You’re writing about global warming. On a website, you locate a graph illustrating the effects of climate change and paste it into your paper.


Cite it?

d) You’re writing about global warming. On a website, you locate a graph illustrating the effects of climate change and paste it into your paper.

Cite it! Photographs, drawings, graphs, and other visual materials are forms of ideas and their creators should be credited, whether the item is in a book or found online.

Harris, Robert A. "Using Sources Quiz." The Plagiarism Handbook. Los Angeles: Pyrczak Publishing, 2001. 143-144.

What Sources Do Need to be Cited?

• Words or ideas that you are using that you located in a magazine, book, newspaper, song, TV program, movie, Web page, computer program, letter, advertisement, or any other medium.

• Information you gain through interviewing or conversing with another person, face to face, over the phone, or in writing.

• When you copy the exact words or a unique phrase.

• When you use another’s diagrams, illustrations, charts, pictures, or other visual materials.

• When you reuse or repost any electronically-available media, including images, audio, video, or other media.

• Bottom line: document any words, ideas, or other productions that originate somewhere outside of you.

Stolley, Karl. "Avoiding Plagiarism." The OWL at Purdue. 18 Sept. 2007. Purdue University.

11 Oct. 2007 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02>.

What Sources Do Not Need to be Cited?

• Writing your own lived experiences, your own observations and insights, your own thoughts, and your own conclusions about a subject

• When you are using "common knowledge," things like folklore, common sense observations, myths, urban legends, and historical events (but not historical documents)

• When you are using generally-accepted facts, e.g., pollution is bad for the

environment.

Stolley, Karl. "Avoiding Plagiarism." The OWL at Purdue. 18 Sept. 2007. Purdue University.

11 Oct. 2007 <http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/589/02>.

APA Documentation – Why?

• APA style provides a standard system for giving credit to others for their contribution to your work.

• It's what is called a "parenthetical" documentation style, i.e. citations to original sources appear in your text.

• The reader sees immediately where your information comes from.

• It saves you the trouble of having to make footnotes or endnotes.

APA Documentation

Formatting

The appearance of your printed paper may seem like a small detail compared to all of the hard work you've put into writing it, but a well-formatted paper is easier to read, easier to revise, and just looks better than a paper that's been typed hurriedly and haphazardly.

Paper

• Use one kind of good quality white paper, size 8 1/2" x 11".

• Use the same font for the entire paper.

• Use only one side of the paper.

Page Numbering

Starting with the second page, place consecutive page numbers at the upper right-hand corner of the page, at least 1 in. (whatever your right margin is) from the right edge of the page, between the top of the page and the first line of text (the default setting on most word-processing programs, 1/2 in. from the top of the page, is acceptable).

Usually no page numbers on the title page

Margins

Use uniform margins at least 1 in. from the top, bottom, and sides of every page.

Spacing

Double-space all text throughout the manuscript, including the title page and reference page.

Punctuation

• Generally, leave one space between words and one space after every comma, semi-colon, or colon.

• At the end of a sentence one may have either one or two spaces whether the sentence ends with a period, a question mark, or an exclamation mark. Be consistent.

• However, NO space should be left in front of a punctuation mark; for example, the following would be incorrect:

• What dismal weather !

• "Why me ? "

Justification

• Feel free to right justify your paper

Page Headers

• Feel free to include a "running head" or short title on the top of each page.

• For example, if the title of your paper is “An Analysis of Literary Creativity in Adolescent Girls," your running head might be "Literary Creativity."

Indentation

Use the tab key to indent the first lines of paragraphs and all lines of block quotes five to seven spaces or 1/2 in.

Long Quotations

Place quotations of 40 or more words in block form:

Indent the entire quotation five to seven spaces, or 1/2 in. (the same distance you indent the first line of a paragraph). Block quotations are often introduced with a colon:

An example of an actual block quotation and its introduction

According to Greenberg (2001), two different criteria were proposed to determine brain death: the "higher-brain" and the "whole-brain" concepts. He describes the higher-brain formulation as follows:

A brain-dead person is alleged to be dead because his neocortex, the of consciousness, has been destroyed. He has thus lost the ability to

think and feel -- the capacity for personhood -- that makes us who we are, and our lives worth living. (pp. 37-38)

Text in APA Style

Big Business in ArtThe buoyant late-1990s economy has created a bull market in high-priced art, especially in New York (“Fresco Frenzy,” p. 76). For example, Art in America writer Walter Robinson (1996) reported that in the fall of 1995, the leading auction houses, Sotheby's and Christie's, moved a combined $300 million in fine art, more than in any year since 1990 (p. 19).

Leading the herd is Microsoft's Bill Gates, who bought Winslow Homer's Lost on the Grand Banks in 1998 for $30 million, the record for an American painting. Gates's other recent high-profile purchases include a $30+ million Leonardo da Vinci manuscript (Luscombe, 1998). According to Carol Vogel (1998), the Homer sale was followed shortly by another record, the highest price ever paid for an Andy Warhol work, as his Orange Marilyn went for over $17 million. Sotheby's called the Warhol "a wise buy. . . . It will soon be worth as much as a Picasso or any landmark work of this century" (p. A27). Will a new all-time price record be set soon? If so, the buyer will need deep pockets to top the $82.5 million commanded by Van Gogh's portrait of Dr. Gachet (Luscombe, 1998).

Source: http://acadweb.snhu.edu/documenting_sources/apa.htm

Works Cited/Reference/Bibliography List

Title:

Type the word “References” at the top of a new page, centered.

Spacing:

All entries should be double-spaced.

Indention:

Use hanging indents (first line flush left, following lines five spaces indent).

Capitalization:

Capitalize only the first word of titles of books and articles and the first word after a colon.

Works Cited or Reference List

Articles: One author

Roy, A. (1982). Suicide in chronic schizophrenia. British Journal of Child and Family Studies, 141, 171-177.

Articles: Two Authors

Adkins, A., & Singh, N. N. (2001). Reading level and readability ofpatient education materials in mental health. Journal of Child

and Family Studies, 10, 1-8.

Journal Article with six authors

Utley, C. A., Reddy, S. S., Delquadri, J.C., Greenwood, C.R., Mortweet, S.L., & Bowman, V. (2001). Class-wide peer tutoring: An effective

teaching procedure for facilitating the acquisition of health education and safety facts with students with developmental disabilities. Education and

Treatment of Children, 24, 1-27.

Journal Article in press

Smith, R. W., Huber, R. A., & Shotsberger, P. G. (in press). The impact of standards guided

equity and problem solving institute on participating science teachers and their students. North Carolina

Journal of Teacher Education.

Article in Internet-only Journal

Greenberg, M.T., Domitrovich, C., & Bumbarger, B. (2000, March 30). Prevention of mental disorders in school-aged children: Current state of the field. Prevention and Treatment, 4, 1.

Retrieved 9 December, 2009, from

http://www.journals.apa.org/prevention/volume4/pre0040001a.html

Books

Book with single author

Reference:

Baxter, C. (1997). Race equality in health care and education. Philadelphia: Balliere Tindall.

In-Text:

(Baxter, 1997)

Books – Two or More Authors

• Reference: Strunk, W., Jr. & White, E.B. (1979). The elements of style (3rd

ed.). New York: Macmillan.

• In-Text: (two authors): (Strunk & White, 1979)

• In-Text (three or more authors): (Strunk, White, & Smith, 1979)

• In-Text (subsequent references): (Strunk et al., 1979)

Book: Editors as Authors

Stock, G., & Campbell, J. (Eds.). (2000). Engineering the human germline: An exploration of the science and ethics of altering the genes we pass to our children. New York: Oxford University Press.

Book: English Translation

Dykes, S. L. (1987). Cognition and development (J. Nuise, Trans.). New York: Academic Press. (Original work published 1958.)

Article or chapter in edited book

Eiser, S., Redpath, A., & Rogers, N. (1987). Outcomes of early parenting: Knowns and unknowns. In A. P.

Kern & L. S. Maze (Eds.), Logical thinking in children (pp. 58-87). New York: Springer.

In-Text (three or more authors): (Eiser, Redpath, & Rogers, 1987)

Corporate Author as Publisher

National Institute of Mental Health. (1989). Manual of cognitive learning. Washington, DC: Author.

Newspaper article: Discontinuous pages

Reichenbach, M. (1988, May 10). Mind and body of a child. Christian Science Monitor, pp. 4, 16.

No author

Understanding early years as a prerequisite to development. (1986, May 4). The Wall Street

Journal, p. 8.

Electronic version of article from newspaper; no author

Mad-cow may tighten blood-donor curbs. (2001, April 19). The Gazette [Montreal], p. A13. Retrieved

9 December, 2009 from Lexis-Nexis database.

Paper presented at a meeting/conference

Crespo, C.J. (1998, March). Update on national data on asthma. Paper presented at the meeting of the

National Asthma Education and Prevention Program, Leesburg, VA.

Last points . . . .

A good research paper should

– read well

– flow logically and smoothly

– produce confidence in the reader that author has good knowledge of the subject matter

– properly credit all sources.

Common Grammatical Errors (1)

• Verb must agree in number with its subject:

– The lawyer and his client agrees on a fee

– If any one of the substations are knocked out…

– The jury has made up their minds

Source: http://www.arcticcentre.org/contentparser.asp?deptid=9015


• Pronoun must agree in number, person, and gender with its antecedent noun (the noun to which it refers), and should have a clear antecedent:

– The captain threw some floatable items overboard for the sailor, even though he knew that it would probably not save him.

– John told his father that his car wouldn’t start

• Source: http://www.arcticcentre.org/contentparser.asp?deptid=9015


Comma splice:

Independent clauses cannot be joined just by a comma:

– We are not allowed to think for ourselves, that privilege is reserved for administrators (incorrect)

– We are not allowed to think for ourselves, because that privilege is reserved for administrators. (good)

– We are not allowed to think for ourselves. That privilege is reserved for administrators (good)



Run on sentence:

Two or more independent clauses without a conjunction or proper punctuation:

– Two suspects were arrested last week one of them was a cripple (incorrect)

– Two suspects were arrested last week; one of them was a cripple. (good)

– Two suspects were arrested last week, and one of them was a cripple. (good)


Common Spelling Errors in English

Its/It’s– its is the possessive case of the pronoun it– it’s is the contraction of it is or it has

There/Their/They’re– Their is the possessive pronoun they– There is an adverb meaning "that location“ (also used in the passive phrasing: “there

is…”)– They're is a contraction of they are

You're/Your– "You're" is the contraction of you are– Your is the possessive pronoun of you

We’re/Were– We’re is a contraction of we are– Were is the past tense of are

http://www.xeromag.com/cheat.html

Common Spelling Errors in English

Affect/Effect– When you affect a situation, you have an effect on it.

Except/Accept– To accept something means to receive that thing– Except means "with the exclusion of" or "but”

To/Too– Too means "also" or "to a great extent“– To means "in the direction of" or indicates an infinitive

Lose/Loose– Lose means "to misplace“– Loose means "not tight“

http://www.xeromag.com/cheat.html

Breaking Words

• Better not to break words at the end of a line.

• However, if you right justify, breaking words is OK --your word-processing program will probably break them for you.

APA Style

• Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, 6th ed. (Washington D.C. American Psychological Association, 2009).

• Numerous web sites will help with APA style.

Documents

Finishing Up Your Paper & Documentation/Citations Research Methods and Data College of Advancing Studies Brendan A. Rapple