Alex john C.

Cardinez III-1

How to write a Research paper.

1. Choose your topic wisely. You should be given
some choice in what your research paper will be
about. The main subject area may be set out, but there
ought to be some degree of flexibility. Use this to
focus on the part of the subject area that best suits
your interests and current knowledge base. Even
though this knowledge won't be enough, it's a good
foundation upon which to build.

2. Find where the relevant information is. This could
be in your local library, the school library; it could be
magazines, reports, professional journals, and even
oral recordings if you are using real life case studies.
The Internet is a great resource for researchers these
days but make sure that any information you find is on
reputable sites and is backed up by other reputed sites.
Some sites just copy information from other sites
without checking the source, and this could adversely
affect your grade so make sure that you fact check as
much as possible when researching via the Web.

3. For each source that you are going to use, create an
index card, or put them into an Excel spreadsheet.
This means when you come to compile the
bibliography section of your paper, you'll be able to
easily access these. It also means that if you have to
recheck a section of your material after you've
returned it to the library or wherever you borrowed it,
you'll be able to locate it quickly.
AdChoices

4. Start with an outline of what your report will
contain. It should always have an introduction, a main
section that addresses the research question you've
been assigned, a conclusion that you come to based
upon the research that you did, and a bibliography of
the sources you use. In the outline make sure that the
main section of the paper has headings that
correspond with the headings you are going to use in
the main report and bullet point the information that
will appear under each heading in the final report.

5. Once you have an outline, write a rough draft. This
will help you see any gaps or inconsistencies in your
work. At the point you should insert footnotes that
identify any reference sources, and/or quotations on
each page.

6. Tidy up your rough draft by addressing any
problems you found with additional information, and
then check for spelling, grammar and format (if you
were given a format to follow for the assignment make
sure you follow it or you'll lose unnecessary pints).
Check that your bibliography is complete and that all
of your sources are listed in it.

7. Finally, if you haven't already done so, create the
title and contents pages, and then insert the right page
numbers on the contents page.

8. Read it through carefully to ensure that all diagrams
are properly labeled, you can't see any spelling errors,
and most importantly, your research findings lead
logically to the conclusion that you've come to.

WHAT IS A BIBLIOGRAPHY?
A bibliography is an alphabetical list of all materials
consulted in the preparation of your assignment.

WHAT IS AN ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY?
An annotated bibliography is an alphabetical list of
books or articles for which you have added
explanatory or critical notes. The annotation is usually
written in a paragraph, about 150 words, in which you
briefly describe the book or article cited, then add an
evaluation and a critical comment of your own. An
annotated bibliography differs from an abstract which
is simply a summary of a piece of writing of about 150-
250 words without critical evaluation.
WHY MUST YOU DO A BIBLIOGRAPHY?
Some reasons:
1. To acknowledge and give credit to sources of
words, ideas, diagrams, illustrations, quotations
borrowed, or any materials summarized or
paraphrased.
2. To show that you are respectfully borrowing other
peoples ideas, not stealing them, i.e. to prove that you
are not plagiarizing.
3. To offer additional information to your readers who
may wish to further pursue your topic.
4. To give readers an opportunity to check out your
sources for accuracy. An honest bibliography inspires
reader confidence in your writing.
5. Your teacher insists that you do a bibliography or
marks will be deducted.
WHAT MUST BE INCLUDED IN A
BIBLIOGRAPHY?
AUTHOR
TITLE
PLACE OF PUBLICATION
PUBLISHER
DATE OF PUBLICATION
PAGE NUMBER(S) (For articles from
magazines, journals, periodicals, newspapers,
encyclopedias, or in anthologies).
1. AUTHOR
Ignore any titles, designations or degrees, etc. which
appear before or after the name, e.g., The
Honourable, Dr., Mr., Mrs., Ms., Rev., S.J., Esq.,
Ph.D., M.D., Q.C., etc. Exceptions are Jr. and Sr. Do
include Jr. and Sr. as John Smith, Jr. and John Smith,
Sr. are two different individuals. Include also I, II, III,
etc. for the same reason.
Examples:
a) Last name, first name:
Berkel, Catharina van.
Christensen, Asger.
Wilson-Smith, Anthony.
b) Last name, first and middle names:
Price, David Robert James.
c) Last name, first name and middle initial:
Schwab, Charles R.
d) Last name, initial and middle name:
Holmes, A. William.
e) Last name, initials:
Meister, F.A.
f) Last name, first and middle names, Jr. or Sr.
designation:
Davis, Benjamin Oliver, Jr.
g) Last name, first name, I, II, III, etc.:
Stilwell, William E., IV.
2. TITLE AND SUBTITLE
a) If the title on the front cover or spine of the book
differs from the title on the title page, use the title on
the title page for your citation.
b) UNDERLINE the title and subtitle of a book,
magazine, journal, periodical, newspaper, or
encyclopedia, e.g., Oops! What to Do When Things
Go Wrong, Sports Illustrated, New York Times,
Encyclopaedia Britannica.
c) If the title of a newspaper does not indicate the
place of publication, add the name of the city or town
after the title in square brackets, e.g. National Post
[Toronto].
Sample, Ian. "Boy Mixes Saliva with Web Savvy to
Locate Birth Father." Globe and Mail [Toronto]

3 Nov. 2005: A1+.
Furuta, Aya. "Japan Races to Stay Ahead in Rice-
Genome Research." Nikkei Weekly [Tokyo]

5 June 2000: 1+.
d) DO NOT UNDERLINE the title and subtitle of an
article in a magazine, journal, periodical, newspaper,
or encyclopedia; put the title and subtitle between
quotation marks:

Baker, Peter, and Susan B. Glasser. "No Deals with
Terrorists: Putin." Toronto Star

29 Oct. 2002: A1+.

Fields, Helen. "Virtual Healing." U.S. News & World
Report 18 Oct. 2004: 70.
Penny, Nicholas B. "Sculpture, The History of
Western." New Encyclopaedia Britannica.

1998 ed.

e) CAPITALIZE the first word of the title, the first
word of the subtitle, as well as all important words
except for articles, prepositions, and conjunctions, e.g.,
Flash and XML: A Developer's Guide, or The Red
Count: The Life and Times of Harry Kessler.
f) Use LOWER CASE letters for conjunctions such as
and, because, but, and however; for prepositions such
as in, on, of, for, and to; as well as for articles: a, an,
and the, unless they occur at the beginning of a title or
subtitle, or are being used emphatically, e.g., "And
Now for Something Completely Different: A
Hedgehog Hospital," "Court OKs Drug Tests for
People on Welfare," or "Why Winston Churchill Was
The Man of The Hour."
g) Separate the title from its subtitle with a COLON
(:), e.g. "Belfast: A Warm Welcome Awaits."
3. PLACE OF PUBLICATION - for Books Only
a) DO NOT use the name of a country, state,
province, or county as a Place of Publication, e.g. do
not list Australia, Canada, United Kingdom, Great
Britain, United States of America, California, Ontario
or Orange County as a place of publication.
b) Use only the name of a city or a town.
c) Choose the first city or town listed if more than one
Place of Publication are indicated in the book.
d) It is not necessary to indicate the Place of
Publication when citing articles from major
encyclopedias, magazines, journals, or newspapers.
e) If the city is well known, it is not necessary to add
the State or Province after it, e.g.:
Boston:
Chicago:
London:
New York:
Paris:
Tokyo:
Toronto:
f) If the city or town is not well known, or if there is a
chance that the name of the city or town may create
confusion, add the abbreviated letters for State,
Province, or Territory after it for clarification. See
Chapter 13. USA and Canada - Abbreviations of
States, Provinces, and Territories. Example:
Austin, TX:
Englewood Cliffs, NJ:
London, ON:
Medicine Hat, AB:
g) Use "n.p." to indicate that no place of publication is
given.
4. PUBLISHER - for Books Only
a) Be sure you write down the Publisher, NOT the
Printer.
b) If a book has more than one publisher, not one
publisher with multiple places of publication, list the
publishers in the order given each with its
corresponding year of publication, e.g.:
Conrad, Joseph. Lord Jim. 1920. New York:
Doubleday; New York: Signet, 1981.
c) Shorten the Publisher's name, e.g. use Macmillan,
not Macmillan Publishing Co., Inc. Omit articles A,
An, and The, skip descriptions such as Press,
Publishers, etc. See Section 7.5 in the 6th ed. of the
MLA Handbook for more details and examples.
d) No need to indicate Publisher for encyclopedias,
magazines, journals, and newspapers.
e) If you cannot find the name of the publisher
anywhere in the book, use "n.p." to indicate there is no
publisher listed.
5. DATE OF PUBLICATION
a) For a book, use the copyright year as the date of
publication, e.g.: 2005, not 2005 or Copyright 2005,
i.e. do not draw the symbol for copyright, or add
the word Copyright in front of the year.
b) For a monthly or quarterly publication use month
and year, or season and year. For the months May,
June, and July, spell out the months, for all other
months with five or more letters, use abbreviations:
Jan., Feb., Mar., Apr., Aug., Sept., Oct., Nov., and
Dec. Note that there is no period after the month. For
instance, the period after Jan. is for the abbreviation of
January only. See Abbreviations of Months of the
Year, Days of the Week, and Other Time
Abbreviations. If no months are stated, use Spring,
Summer, Fall, Winter, etc. as given, e.g.:
Alternatives Journal Spring 2005.
Classroom Connect Dec. 2004/Jan. 2005.
Discover July 2004.
Scientific American May 2004.
c) For a weekly or daily publication use date, month,
and year, e.g.:
Newsweek 29 Sept. 2004.
d) Use the most recent Copyright year if two or more
years are listed, e.g., 1988, 1990, 2005. Use 2005.
e) Do not confuse Date of Publication with Date of
Printing, e.g., 7th Printing 2005, or Reprinted in 2005.
These are not publication dates.
f) If you cannot find a publication date anywhere in
the book, use "n.d." to indicate there is "No Date" listed
for this publication.
g) If there is no publication date, but you are able to
find out from reliable sources the approximate date of
publication, use [c. 2005] for circa 2005, or use
[2005?]. Always use square brackets [ ] to indicate
information that is not given but is supplied by you.
6. PAGE NUMBER(S)
a) Page numbers are not needed for a book, unless the
citation comes from an article or essay in an
anthology, i.e. a collection of works by different
authors.
Example of a work in an anthology (page numbers are
for the entire essay or piece of work):

Fish, Barry, and Les Kotzer. "Legals for Life." Death
and Taxes: Beating One of the

Two Certainties in Life. Ed. Jerry White.
Toronto: Warwick, 1998. 32-56.
b) If there is no page number given, use "n. pag."
(Works Cited example)
Schulz, Charles M. The Meditations of Linus. N.p.:
Hallmark, 1967.
(Footnote or Endnote example)

1
Charles M. Schulz, The Meditations of Linus
(N.p.: Hallmark, 1967) n. pag.
c) To cite a source with no author, no editor, no place
of publication or publisher stated, no year of
publication, but you know where the book was
published, follow this example:
Full View of Temples of Taiwan - Tracks of Pilgrims.
[Taipei]: n.p., n.d.
d) Frequently, page numbers are not printed on some
pages in magazines and journals. Where page
numbers may be counted or guessed accurately, count
the pages and indicate the page number or numbers.
e) If page numbers are not consecutive, it is not
necessary to list all the page numbers on which the
article is found. For example, if the article starts on
page 10, continues on pages 12-13, and finishes on
page 36, you need only to state 10+ as page numbers,
not 10-36, and not 10, 12-13, 36.
Cohen, Stephen S., and J. Bradford DeLong. "Shaken
and Stirred." Atlantic Monthly

Jan.-Feb. 2005: 112+.
Above article starts on page 112, continues on pages
113 and 114, advertisement appears on page 115,
article continues on page 116, and ends on page 117.
f) Treat page numbers given in Roman numerals as
they are given if quoting sources from Foreword,
Preface, Introduction, etc., write v-xii as printed and
not 5-12. Normally, do not use Roman numerals for
page numbers from the main part of the book where
Arabic numbers are used. Also, do not use Roman
numerals for encyclopedia volume numbers if Arabic
numbers are given.
g) To cite an article from a well known encyclopedia,
such as Americana, Britannica, or World Book, you
need not indicate the editor, place of publication,
publisher, or number of volumes in the set. If there is
an author, cite the author. If no author is stated, begin
the citation with the title of the article. Underline the
title of the encyclopedia and provide the year of
edition, e.g.:
Kibby, Michael W. "Dyslexia." World Book
Encyclopedia. 2000 ed.
Do not confuse a subheading in a long article with the
title of the article, i.e., do not use the subheading
History or People as the title if the main title of the
article is Germany.
Where the encyclopedia cited is not a well-known or
familiar work, in addition to the author, title of article,
and title of the encyclopedia, you must also indicate
the editor, edition if available, number of volumes in
the set, place of publication, publisher, and year of
publication, e.g.:

Midge, T. "Powwows." Encyclopedia of North
American Indians. Ed. D.L. Birchfield.

11 vols. New York: Marshall Cavendish, 1997.
WRITING A BIBLIOGRAPHY IN MLA STYLE
Begin typing your list of cited sources flush to the left
margin. Indent 5 spaces (or half an inch) for second
and subsequent lines of citation.
Some citations are short and may fit all on one line.
Nothing is wrong with that.
Do not type author on one line, title on a second line,
and publication information on a third line. Type all
citation information continuously until you reach the
end of the line. Indent the second line and continue
with the citation. If the citation is very long, indent the
third and subsequent lines.
1. Standard Format for a Book:
Author. Title: Subtitle. City or Town: Publisher, Year
of Publication.
If a book has no author or editor stated, begin with the
title. If the city or town is not commonly known, add
the abbreviation for the State or Province.
If you are citing two or more books by the same
author or editor, list the name of the author or editor
in the first entry only, and use three hyphens to
indicate that the following entry or entries have the
same name. Do not use the three hyphens if a book is
by two or more authors or is edited by two or more
individuals.
Example:
Business: The Ultimate Resource. Cambridge, MA:
Perseus, 2002.
King, Stephen. Black House. New York: Random,
2001.
---. Dreamcatcher. New York: Scribner, 2001.
---. From a Buick 8: A Novel. New York: Simon,
2002.
Osen, Diane, ed. The Book That Changed My Life:
Interviews with National

Book Award Winners and Finalists. New York:
Modern, 2002.
2. Standard Format for a Magazine, Periodical,
Journal, or Newspaper Article:
Author. "Title: Subtitle of Article." Title of Magazine,
Journal, or

Newspaper Day, Month, Year of Publication:
Page Number(s).
Example:

Hewitt, Ben. "Quick Fixes for Everyday Disasters."
Popular Mechanics Nov. 2004: 83-88.

Nordland, Rod, Sami Yousafzai, and Babak
Dehghanpisheh. "How Al Qaeda Slipped

Away." Newsweek 19 Aug. 2002: 34-41.
Suhr, Jim. "Death Penalty for Juveniles Is Considered:
High Court to Hear Missouri Case."

Buffalo News 10 Oct. 2004: A12.
For other citation examples, see Chapter 12.
Bibliography - Examples in MLA Style.
Note: It is generally not necessary to indicate volume
and issue numbers for newspapers and magazines as
the publication dates and pages make the articles easy
to find. For scholarly journals, such as those published
quarterly, semi-annually, or annually, it is advisable to
indicate both volume and issue numbers when
available. For a detailed discussion on citing articles
and other publications in periodicals.