Research Paper Checklist
1. Make sure your thesis states the results of your research. In other words, don’t
settle for something like “This paper will explore the most important causes of
classroom misbehavior in elementary-age schoolchildren.” Name those causes in
the order in which the paper presents evidence about them.
2. Make sure all research is cited clearly and accurately, no matter if it’s
summarized, paraphrased, or quoted.
a. ANY material taken word-for-word, punctuation-mark-for-punctuationmark—NO MATTER HOW BRIEF OR LENGTHY—must be enclosed
in quotation marks or rendered in a block quotation (if the passage is
four lines of text or longer), and cited.
b. ANY material that you summarize must be accurate, significantly
shorter in length than the original text, translated completely into the
style you’re employing in this paper, and cited.
c. ANY material that you paraphrase must be accurate, the same length as
the original text, translated completely into the style you’re employing
in this paper, and cited.
d. No matter the quality of the paper as a whole, even a single
missing in-text citation means the paper has been plagiarized
and will therefore earn a grade of “F.”
3. Make sure to format the paper EXACTLY according to the model provided for
your assigned Style Sheet.
4. Make sure all citations—whether in-text or bibliographic—are completely
accurate in form, according to the requirements of your assigned Style Sheet.
5. Make sure to proofread carefully. Frequent grammar and punctuation problems
will severely undermine an otherwise sound research paper. Some suggestions:
Professor Repp/ENGL 102
a. To use Microsoft Word to help proofread, copy and paste the entire paper
into a new document. Then run a grammar/spell-check from the
beginning.
b. Have someone else read the whole paper aloud SLOWLY, sentence-bysentence, while you mark passages that seem “off.”
c. Have someone else read the whole paper aloud SLOWLY, sentence-bysentence, BACKWARDS—final sentence first, next-to-last sentence next,
and so on. This way, you won’t get lulled into “knowing” what you mean.
You’ll be forced to hear the sentences as themselves, unconnected to any
“flow” the paper sets up.
Good luck!
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