Research Paper Writing Addendum
All papers must be written in:

Third (3rd ) person; he, she, it, they, them, one or similar….never use I, me, my,
us, we, you.

Past tense, such as “fought”, “saw”, “did” (for a more complete list of useful
verbs, see p. 261 in Rubin, Rubin, et. al which is the class text book).
may use “say”, “says” or “said” once!
See the note below concerning Public
Relations and Journalistic writing form below.
he would have)

You
Never use “Perfect” tenses ( ex.
Omniscient view; that simply means from an all-knowing perspective.
you were God looking down on what is going on.
As though
It comes from the concept
that you are viewing events which have already occurred and you know the
outcomes.

Active voice.
acted upon.
This simply means the subject does the acting rather than being
Stated another way, the subject must be at the beginning of the
sentence rather than at the end.
have)
Never use any “ING” ending verbs.
prose.
Never use “Perfect” tenses ( ex. he would
Gerunds are not acceptable in good research
Research is not creative fiction an must not be written in that manner.
NEVER use the “journalistic present or future” tenses.
state it that way.
leave it that way.
If it happened in the past, then
If using a quote and it is in present tense, then by all means
There will be a few other instances in which present tense may
be used, but in general see comment above.
Please write in neither public relations
nor journalistic style while writing research prose.
The intended audience is entirely
different for research writing when compared to PR or journalism consumers.
Never begin a sentence with “So”, “Thus”, “Though”, “But”, or “And”.
be used to begin a sentence.
Never use “like” as a comparative.
“Although” may
Rather use “such as” or “in the manner as”.
Like is used to describe an attraction to something as in ”I like that”; not “he was
good like his brother”.
Do not use “a lot of”.
Rather use “many” or “several” instead.
The same applies to “Persons”.
in its place.
If you mean different kinds of people use “individuals”
If you mean the plural of person, then use “people”.
“Because” must be used sparingly; once or twice in a paper is acceptable.
other expressions such as “as a result”, “however”, “as in” and other similar
There are
expressions.
Do not interject your personal opinion.
In research writing, the body of research
speaks for itself and the writers opinion, if not supported by the research, is of no
consequence.
Do not try to persuade.
Good research is not persuasion.
However, the content may
be persuasive without interjecting an appeal to a specific point of view.
“True”, “Prove”, “Fact” are not acceptable terms in good human research writing.
Always cite material that is not yours at the point where it is introduced, not just at
the end of the paragraph.
If a direct quote, directly retrievable data or similar is used
within your writing, the citation must include three items; Author name, Date of
publication or retrieval, and page or paragraph number.
Paraphrase lengthy quotes and cite author and date. If data or quotes are used you
must also cite page or paragraph number (s).
Direct quotations of 40 words or more should be formatted in Block Quote style (see
APA 6th pp. 170 – 171).
Always follow current APA writing guidelines.
Currently that is the 6th Edition.
There must be 25 lines per page; please count them…..I do.
You must double space only between each line.
well.
That means between paragraphs as
Check to make sure that there are no added lines before or after each
paragraph…..I do.
The cover page uses the words Running head: before the running head in the upper
left corner of the page.
The running head itself is in ALLCAPS.
head: PAPER WRITING ADDENDUM.
Such as
Running
Page two and following has only the running
head itself in ALLCAPS and does not have the words Running head:
All margins, not headers, have a 1 inch margin.
not correctly format at 1 inch.
correct.
Check them as many printers do
I check them and deduct points if they are not
All headers should have a ½ inch top margin and 1 inch margin from the left side of
the paper.
Check them to make sure that they are correct…..I do.
All formal papers require a cover page and an abstract page.
The first page of
content is page number 3.
Utilize headings and subheadings as described in APA 6th pp. 62 – 63.
application in the example paper pp. 41 – 51.
Also see the
Place all figures and tables at the end of the work.
within the body of the text.
page requirements.
Clearly label them and cite
Figures and tables are not considered when meeting the
See pp. 125 – 167 APA 6th for guidelines and p. 51 for an
example.
All formal papers require a Reference page, or two..or three.
style.
Follow APA reference
APA 6th uses “hanging indents” on the second and succeeding lines of each
reference.
Please refer to pp. 41 – 51 APA 6th manual for examples of writing style and items
to be included in a correctly written paper.