English Department

Media Center & The English Blog
http://www.dhslmc.blogspot.com

Research Manual

Media Center Guidelines

Steps in the Research Paper Process

Organizational plan for the research paper

Guidelines for Research Paper

Writing a Thesis Statement

How to Prepare Note Cards

Note Cards

MLA Citation Examples

Integrating Sources into a Paper

Mentioning a Title in Your Paper

Ellipsis

Honors Composition and Research Guidelines for Using/Integrating Quotations

Title Page

The Research Writers Ten Comandments

Media Center Guidelines

• You will quietly enter the Media Center and move immediately to the reference section. This section will be our station, and we will sit together as a class.
• You will start your assignment without delay.
• You will work quietly. I expect you to be mature enough to calmly tell your friends and foes that you must work and that social gatherings are not part of this library assignment. Quietly direct those who have difficulty with this concept to me for enlightenment.
• Do not crowd around the computers.
• You will seek help when confused. Ignorance is no excuse for idleness.
• You will work in the DHS Media Center during class time. Researching in the public library, or on the Internet at home, is no excuse for idleness during our class time.
• Cleanliness matters! Do not make messes. Return materials to their appropriate places once you have finished using them.
• Only those who work will be allowed to return to the Media Center.

*** You will need to bring your materials to the Media Center with you. No excuses will be accepted! You will need index cards, lots of paper, pens/pencils, and possibly your student ID card (for the purpose of checking out materials).

Steps in the Research Paper Process

Before you go to the Media Center please make sure you have your student ID card, paper, pens/pencils, index cards, and the information I have given you in class on the requirements for this project.

1. Read all the information you have obtained about your topic.
2. Create your first bibliography card for the first source.
3. Continue to create the rest of your bibliography cards and note cards as you go through your sources until you have the amount of cards you will need for the paper. Remember to put page numbers on the note cards from hard copy materials. This will be too hard to find later. (Note: You should have only one idea per note card. This helps with organization.)
4. After you have completed the bibliography and note card process, you should begin to put your Works Cited page in order. This page is in alphabetical order and should reflect current MLA documentation format. (Note: We will go over this format many times in class.)
5. Now that you have your Works Cited page complete, please begin writing your introduction, concentrating on your thesis statement. The thesis statement is very important and the body paragraphs of your paper should support this statement.
6. Continue to write the body paragraphs of your paper making sure they are clear, concise, and supportive of your thesis statement. (Note: The organization of your note cards will become important here.)
7. The conclusion paragraph is next. This paragraph should summarize the focus of your paper and your thesis statement. DO NOT introduce new ideas in your conclusion.
8. Proper format should be followed for the final draft of your paper. Your grammar book gives an example of a research paper with proper format. (i.e. page numbers, placement of your name, title, spacing, etc.).
9. Please make sure you have proofread your paper, corrected your grammar and punctuation mistakes, and made all proper citations before submitting.
10. Please make sure your final draft is submitted in a folder with your rough draft placed behind it. This is a major grade, and presentation does make a difference!

Remember: Luck is when opportunity meets preparation.

Organizational plan for the research paper

The research paper should be divided into three parts for the purposes of the research itself and your planning. However, it will not be divided for the rough or final draft. THEN THE THREE PARTS WILL MERGE AND BE DEVELOPED AS ONE CONTINUOUS PAPER. You will use transition devices to merge the three parts. [Use the following plan as an example of a research paper centered around and author’s life and works.]

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH begins your paper and includes your THESIS or CONTROLLING IDEA and INTRODUCES YOUR AUTHOR and his importance to the literary world. This will include comments about his importance, the contributions he made, etc., as well as your THESIS STATEMENT.

THESIS STATEMENT or CONTROLLING IDEA is contained in your first paragraph. It is your hypothesis about why the author chose the topics, characters, settings, themes, style, etc. he did – you can use one or several of these elements.

• PART A: Author’s Life is the first section of your paper and should include information about his life. It will include such things as date of birth, family information, schools attended, dates important works were published, and important influences on his life. BE SURE TO INCLUDE INFORMATION THAT SUPPORTS YOUR THESIS – information from his life that lends support to the thesis that you have chosen.
• PART B: Author’s Works is the second section of your paper and should include the reviews of stories, novels, plays, poems, etc. you read by this author. Be sure to include such elements as title of story, title of novel, characters, settings, themes, conflicts, etc. BE SURE TO INCLUDE INFORMATION FROM HIS WORKS THAT SUPPORTS YOUR THESIS.
• PART C: Summary includes summary statements about your author regarding the reasons he wrote as he did. It should include evidence (taken from data about his life and works that you discussed earlier in the paper) that support your thesis. It includes a restatement of your thesis statement. It also includes information about his importance as a literary figure.

Guidelines for Research Paper

• We will spend _____ days in the media center. Use this time for finding sources, taking notes, and writing your paper. YOU WILL NOT HAVE ANY TIME TO WASTE!
• Do not get ahead of yourself and do not panic. You will be given complete instructions for each step in the process of writing a research paper.
• Papers will be due _____ DAYS after working in the library. Submitting things on time is essential.

Grading includes:
1. Thesis card
2. Bibliography cards
3. Note cards
4. Outline
5. Rough Draft

• The paper should be a least ______ (no more than _____) typed pages, double-spaced, 12 point font.
• Make certain there is information on your topic available in our media center. This is the reason for completing bibliography cards before taking any notes.
• ______ sources in the Works Cited of the final paper are minimum. _____ sources must be hardcopy sources (books, magazines, newspaper, etc.)
• Intentional plagiarism will result in automatic failure of the paper.
• On the final due date, you will turn in the rough draft, thesis card, note, and bibliography cards. The final copy of the paper must be in a report folder.
• You will be using parenthetical documentation. You have been shown how to do this.

  You will need the following supplies:
  Index cards
  Manila envelope (for carrying all materials)
  Loose-leaf paper
  Report folder

This is a MAJOR paper. You will receive at least _____, and maybe _____ grades for this project. Follow the rules for formal writing. At the end of your research, you will present your material to the class. This is for an oral presentation grade. BE PREPARED!

WRITING A THESIS STATEMENT

Once you have decided on a specific topic (author), your next step is to write a statement of controlling purpose. This is a sentence or pair of sentences that tells what you want to accomplish in your paper. It is called a statement of controlling purpose because it controls, or guides, your research. The statement of controlling purpose usually contains one or more key words that tell what the paper is going to accomplish. Key words that often appear in statements or controlling purpose include analyze, classify, compare, contrast, define, describe, determine, establish, explain, identify, prove and support.

Examples of statements of controlling purpose:

1. The purpose of this paper will be to describe the elements that give the prose writing of Sandra Cisneros a poetic quality.
2. The purpose of this paper is to compare and contrast the views of nature in the poetry of Emily Dickinson and Robert Frost.
3. The purpose of this paper is to examine the use of the technique of allegory in The Scarlet Letter, by Nathaniel Hawthorne.
4. The purpose of this paper is to explain the political message of John Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath.

When you begin writing your research paper, you will replace your controlling purpose with a thesis statement, a statement of your main idea. The thesis statement will NOT contain the phrase “the purpose of this paper is.”

To create the thesis statement, you can simply recast your statement of controlling purpose. You may decide to change the statement, however, to reflect any additional refining or refocusing of your topic that has occurred during research. In either case, avoid using the phrase “the purpose of this paper” in your final thesis statement. Notice how that phrase is eliminated in the following example.

Statement of Controlling Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to show that Steinbeck’s novel expressed a strong political message; it warned that exploitation of migrant workers would cause them to rise up as a group against their oppressors, the state, and the wealthy landowners.

Thesis Statement: Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath warned that exploitation of migrant workers would cause them to rise up as a group against their oppressors, the state, and the wealthy landowners. But beyond that, the novel shows how such and oppressive situation can result in a profound philosophical change in the people who experience it.

HOW TO PREPARE NOTE CARDS

PROCEDURE

1. Always create a bibliography card for a source before you take notes.
2. Make sure note cards indicate what is quoted and what is paraphrased.
3. Before you leave the library, make sure you have a written page number in the lower left hand corner of each note card.
4. Be neat, and pay attention to formatting details.
5. Develop a system for keeping your note cards organized.

CAUTIONARY NOTE ABOUT PLAGIARISM

Avoid plagiarism; never use the words of another source as if they are your own. Take notes in phrases, not sentences. Use quotation marks for any information you copy directly from another source. When you paraphrase, remember to give credit whenever you retain the main thought and structure of another source, regardless of your changes. Not only does plagiarism violate the honor code, but it is also an offense punishable by law. To avoid plagiarism, make a clear distinction on your note cards between the material you quote directly (with quotation marks) and the material you paraphrase.

TYPES OF NOTE CARDS: direct quotation note cards, paraphrase note cards, and summary note cards.

DIRECT QUOTATION NOTE CARDS

Use a DIRECT QUOTATION note when the author has phrased something particularly well, when the words express a meaning as no other words could, or when an authority has concisely stated an opinion relevant to your speech.

Steps to follow

1. Copy the quotation exactly.
2. Check to make sure you have copied all spelling and punctuation exactly.
3. Make sure that the section of the work you quote does not need the surrounding material to keep the same meaning.
   

NOTE CARDS

1. Give each card a heading. Keep your headings or subject as narrow and specific as possible. You will find that outlining and drafting will be easier if you do not try to put too much material from varying headings on one card. You are not required to fill each card; therefore concentrate on making headings as exact as possible and limiting the information on the card to those narrow headings.
2. Provide a method of associating the notes with the source from which they were taken. Many of you have been using letters and numbers. I suggest that you also use and abbreviation of the source’s title. Choose an abbreviation that you can easily remember. Now if you should ever come to the library without your bibliography cards, you will not have to guess about sources used.
3. Trust me on this one. I’ve seen students in the library at the last minute trying to find a page number, and I’ve seen documentation that was created from the student’s imagination.
4. Trust me on this too.
5. The card number is necessary of you have more than one card under the same specific heading.

INTEGRATING SOURCES INTO A PAPER

Three Basic Rules
A source can appear in your paper in different ways. You can briefly mention it; you can summarize its main ideas, events, or data; you can paraphrase one of its statements or passages; or you can quote the source directly. Let three rules govern your thinking about these options.

FIRST Rule: Use sources as concisely as possible, so your own thinking isn't crowded out by your presentation of other people's thinking. This means that you should mention or summarize your source, perhaps quoting occasional phrases, unless you have a good reason to paraphrase closely or quote extensively.

A good reason to paraphrase-to restate in your own words the full meaning of a phrase or passage is if the phrase or passage is difficult, complex, or ambiguous. Good reasons to quote include the following:

• The source author has made a point so clearly and concisely that it can't be expressed more clearly and concisely.
• A certain phrase or sentence in the source is particularly vivid or striking, or especially typical or representative of some phenomenon you are discussing.
• An important passage is sufficiently difficult, dense, or rich that it requires you to analyze it closely, which in turn requires that the passage be produced so the reader can follow your analysis.

SECOND Rule: Never leave your reader in doubt as to when you are speaking and when you are using materials from a source. Avoid this ambiguity by citing the source immediately after using it. Also (especially when quoting directly) by announcing the source in your own sentence or phrases preceding its appearance and by following up its appearance with commentary about it or development from it that makes clear where your contribution starts.

*Example: Finally in a moment of clarity Proctor declares, “It is my name! It is the only one I have and I cannot have another!” (957).

THIRD Rule: Always make clear how each source you use relates to your argument. This means indicating to your reader, in the words leading up to a source's appearance or in the sentences that follow and reflect on it (or in both), what you want your reader to notice or focus on in the source.

*Example: Proctor demonstrates his passive acceptance of injustice when he removes himself from the town of Salem completely and refuses to leave his field. His only response when asked is, “I have no business in Salem” (938).

MENTIONING A TITLE IN YOUR PAPER

Underline or italicize a book or collection, journal or newspaper, play, long poem, film, musical composition, television show, or artwork. Place quotation marks around the title of an individual article, chapter, essay, story, or poem. Do not underline the Bible or its books, or legal documents such as the Constitution. Italicizing is the equivalent of underlining: do not do both.

RULES FOR QUOTING

General Principles

• Quote only what is needed or is really striking. If you quote too much, you may convey the impression that you have not digested the material or that you are merely padding the length of your paper. Whenever possible, keep your quotations under a sentence, short enough to embed gracefully in one of your own sentences. Do not quote lazily; where you are tempted to reproduce a long passage of several sentences, try to quote instead a few of its key phrases and link them with concise summary.
• Construct your own sentence so the quotation fits smoothly into it. If you must add or change a word in a quotation to make it fit into your sentence, place brackets [ ] around the altered portion. However, always try to construct your sentence so you can quote verbatim. Usually announce a quotation in the words preceding the quote.
• Choose your announcement verb carefully. For example, do not say “Diamond states that,” unless you mean to imply a deliberate pronouncement, to be scrutinized like the wording of a statute or Biblical commandment. Choose rather a more neutral verb (“writes,” “says,” “observes,” “suggests,” “remarks,” etc.) or a verb that catches exactly the attitude you want to convey (“laments,” “protests,” “charges,” “replies,” “admits,” “claims,” etc.).

Technical Rules

• Put quotation marks around a direct quote.
• The period follows the parenthetical documentation. Example (987).
• Use a slash (/) to indicate a line-break in a quoted passage of poetry, inserting a space before and after the slash: Hamlet wonders if it is “nobler in the mind to suffer / The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune” or physically to act and end them.
• Otherwise, quote verbatim, carefully double-checking with the source after you write or type the words.

ELLIPSIS

Whenever you omit words from the middle of a source passage that you are quoting, insert three spaced periods to indicate the omission: “Even to take drugs once or twice,” Diamond writes, “I must be strong enough to get past…the misery of my first hangover” (199). If a sentence ends within the omitted portion, add a fourth period after the ellipsis to indicate this. Make sure you don’t use an ellipsis at the start of a quotation, and only use one at the end if you are quoting a block and have omitted words from the end of the last sentence quoted.

QUOTING BLOCKS

If you need to quote more than five lines of prose or two verses of poetry, set off and indent the passage as a block. If at all possible try to avoid quoting blocks, but if necessary only do it once in your paper. If you rely too much on quoting blocks you may not be explaining your point well enough in your paper.

The basic rules for quoting blocks are these:

• Indent all lines 10 spaces from the left margin, to distinguish a block from a paragraph break. Single-space the block, to demarcate it further, unless you are otherwise instructed.
• Don’t put an indented block in quotation marks; the indentation replaces quotation marks. Only use quotation marks in an indented block where the source author is quoting or reporting spoken words.
• Tell your readers in advance who is about to speak. Don’t send the reader unguided through a long stretch of someone else’s words.
• Construct your lead-in sentence so that it ends with a colon: pointing the reader ahead to the quotation itself.
• Follow up a block quotation with commentary that reflects on the quotation and makes it clear why you needed the quote.
• When using in-text parenthetical citation, put the citation of a block quotation outside the period at the end of the last sentence quoted. This makes clear that the citation applies to the whole block, not just to the last sentence quoted.
  

Honors Composition and Research
Guidelines for Using/Integrating Quotations

When you use a direct quotation within your own sentence, you must incorporate the quote so that the entire sentence is grammatically correct. To integrate a quotation smoothly into the flow of your text, use one of the following methods:

A. Quote a whole sentence, introducing it in your own words. Use a comma for grammatically incomplete introductions. Use a colon to introduce a formal quote preceded by a complete sentence.

Ex. 1 Margaret Wilson sums up Hurston’s belief this way: “She sees people as
people” (110).

Ex. 2 Toni Morrison said, “I write the kind of books I want to read.”

Ex. 3 Phil Rizzuto, in an observation famous for its optimism, said, “They still can’t steal first base.”

Ex. 4 Commentators have tried to account for the decorum of most slave narratives by discussing social context: “Popular taste discouraged the writers from dwelling too long or too carefully on the more sordid details of their xperience” (Morrison 109).

Ex. 5 Patrick Henry concluded his revolutionary speech before the Virginia House of Burgesses with these ringing words: “Is life so dear, or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

Ex. 6 Chief Joseph said, after his surrender in 1877, “The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it.”

B. Quote part of a sentence within a sentence of your own.

Ex. 1 The long sermon “was taken almost verbatim from Hurston’s field notes” (Hemenway 197).

Ex. 2 The novel was even criticized because the “folk sayings may become the main point of the novel” (Bone 127).

NOTE: Be sure that your sentence is a “finished” statement.

Faulty: Faulkner says, “A life’s work in the agony and sweat of the human spirit.”

Better: Faulkner says that his writing career has been “a life’s work in the agony
and sweat of the human spirit.”
Altered quotation to create a finished statement:
Original quote: John F. Kennedy, an immortal figure of courage and dignity, was assassinated while in office.
Faulty: One historian writes, "John F. Kennedy, an immortal figure of courage and dignity."
Altered quote: One historian writes, “John F. Kennedy [was] an immortal figure of courage and dignity.”

C. Quote just one or a few words within a sentence of your own. Be sure to work the quoted passage into the syntax of your sentence.

Ex. 1 Eatonville was where she heard the local storytellers tell their “lies” (Hurston, Dust Tracks 197).

Ex. 2 Morrison points out that social context prevented the authors of slave narratives “from dwelling too long or too carefully on the more sordid details of their experience” (109).

Ex. 3 This ideal differed greatly from the thoughts of eighteenth-century poets, who felt that poetry was “primarily an imitation of human life” (Abrams 5).

Ex. 4 Her “skill at transcribing” made the language in Jonah’s Gourd Vine somewhat hard to read (Young 220).

Alterations in Some Quoted Matter: In general, you should reproduce quoted materials exactly, yet a few exceptions are permitted for logical reasons.

A. Change the first word in the original sentence to lowercase if it continues the grammatical flow of the sentence. Restrictive connectors, such as that or because, create restrictive clauses and eliminate the need for a comma.

Ex. 1 Another writer argues that “the single greatest impediment to our improving the lives of America’s children is the myth that we are a child-oriented society” (Zigler 39).

Ex. 2 Another writer argues, “The single greatest impediment […].”

Ex. 3 The poet Emily Dickinson wrote in a letter to Thomas Wentworth Higginson, her literary advisor, “If I feel physically as if the top of my head were taken off, I know that is poetry.”

B. Change the verb tense for tense consistency.

Faulty: While the legislators cringe at the sudden darkness, “all eyes turned to Abraham Davenport.”

Better: While the legislators cringe at the sudden darkness, “all eyes [turn] to Abraham Davenport.”

C. Clarify pronouns that have no clear antecedents.

Faulty: Captain Wentworth says, “It had been my doing—soley mine. She would not have been obstinate if I had not been weak.”

Better: Captain Wentworth says, “It had been my doing—solely mine. She [Louisa] would not have been obstinate if I had not been weak.”

Faulty: This same critic indicates that “we must avoid the temptation to read it heretically.”

Better: This same critic indicates that “we must avoid the temptation to read it [The Scarlet Letter] heretically.”

D. Adjust final mark of punctuation if necessary.

Original quote: “He watched sleepily the flakes silver and dark, falling obliquely against the lamplight.”

Adjusted end punctuation: As Gabriel watched the snowflakes “falling obliquely against the lamplight, “ he realizes the time has come for him to leave.

Title Page

(12 lines down) Title of Paper (18 font)

(14 lines down) By: Student Name (16 font)

(30 lines down) Block (14 font)

(32 lines down) Instructor (14 font)

(34 lines down) Date (14 font)

THE RESEARCH WRITER’S TEN COMANDMENTS

I. Thou shalt not use the passive voice.

II. Thou shalt not quote more than three lines – and thou shalt use “block” quotes sparingly.

III. Thou shalt not quote anything thou canst say better thyself.

IV. Thou shalt not quote to carry thy story.

V. Thou shalt, in short, quote only to “season” thy story.

VI. Thou shalt use complete sentences, good paragraph structure and smooth transitions.

VII. Thou shalt properly document sources, and never shalt thou plagiarize thy material.

VIII. Thou shalt strike the reader hard with thy first sentence.

IX. Thou shalt not use slang nor sub-standard English.

X. Thou shalt not use the personal pronoun.