Finishing Up Your Paper &
Documentation/Citations
AD700
College of Advancing Studies
Brendan Rapple
30 November, 2005
Don’t Panic
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 "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 but that the reader is probably not!
• Useful to define major terms at their first use: consider
italicizing the definitions with italics.
Title/Cover Page
• Title
• Author's name, address, phone no.,
e-mail, fax no.
• Name of the course, instructor, institution, etc.
• Date
Appendices
• Charts, graphs and other information which may interfere with
the flow of the proposal or lengthen it may be placed in the
appendices.
Writing
• Always worthwhile to lavish care on a research paper.
• Writing is perhaps the most important skill in today’s workplace.
Paragraphs
• Keep paragraphs short
Subheadings
• 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.
Writing Drafts
• Write the first draft straight through
• Do it quickly -- this preserves continuity -- gives
coherence
• So easy to revise using the computer.
Common Errors
• Too ambitious -- unattainable goals
• Excessively long introduction before actual Lit. Review
• Failure to focus -- going on tangents
• Failure to cite essential pertinent studies
• Poor organization of paper
• Poor language, grammar etc.
Common Grammatical Errors in English
• 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
• 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
Common Grammatical Errors in English
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.
We are not allowed to think for ourselves. That privilege is reserved for
administrators
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.
Two suspects were arrested last week, and one of them was a cripple.
Source: http://www.arcticcentre.org/contentparser.asp?deptid=9015
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
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
Bibliography
• Normal scholarly process.
• Should include all resources used in the proposal.
• Should adopt a particular style, e.g. MLA, APA, Chicago etc. -style must be consistent.
• Helps the reader to form an opinion of quality of the sources
available (and your ability to find them).
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 title 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).
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: op . cit . or "Why me ? "
Justification
• Feel free to right justify your paper
Breaking Words
• Better not to break words at the end of a line.
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)
Why APA Documentation?
• 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.
Text in APA Style
Big Business in Art
The buoyant late-1990s economy has created a bull market in high-priced art,
especially in New York ("Fresco Frenzy," 1996, 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
APA Style
• Publication Manual of the American Psychological
Association, 5th ed. (Washington D.C. American
Psychological Association, 2001).
Works Cited or Reference 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 of
patient 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.
Electronic version of journal article
Reference:
Weist, M. D. (2001). Toward a public mental health
promotion and intervention system for youth.
Journal of School Health, 71, 101-104. Retrieved
December 1, 2004, from ERIC database.
In-Text:
(Weist, 1995)
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 August 24, 2001, 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
27 April, 2005, 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.
A Good Lit. Review (any 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