What you should and should not do
when writing a formal research
paper
 No
personal pronouns
I, My, We, Me, You
 No contractions
– Don’t, didn’t, won’t, it’s, etc.
Do Not Cut and Paste
the consequence will be
steep!
Summarize the
information: Read it and
put it into your own
words.
You need Paragraphs


Use topic sentences to organize your
paper. Do not insert information that does
not pertain to you topic sentence.
Example: Toni Morrison was an
excellent writer and public speaker.
She received many awards and was
invited to speak at various functions. In
addition to writing short stories she also
wrote poetry. Toni married six different
men and was a Baptist preacher.
A research paper must have
parenthetical documentation


Internal or parenthetical documentation is used to support your
claim or the answer to your questions. Do not throw in a quote
just to say you have one.
Example:
Langston realized that by faking a vision (with
Jesus) he had trespassed on the faith that Auntie Reed had
in him…One of his pieces, the poem “Goodbye Christ,”
created such an unfavorable response from the public that
Hughes had to repudiate the poem and apologize. Hughes
biographer Arnold Rampersad, in his introduction to The
Collected Poems of Langston Hughes, says that,
“Hughes…wrote some of the most radical poems ever
published by an American, as well as some of the most
poignant lamentations of the chasm that often exists
between American social ideals and American Social
reality.” (4)
No isolated quotes
Example:
 It
is important that we study and
teach Hughes because he is arguably
one of the most significant American
poets. “When Langston was about
five or six years old, Carrie (Hughes’
mother) and her estranged husband
decided to reconcile. (Hughes 207)
How to cite
 Books
are underlined
 Put quotes around poems
 Movies are underlined
 Short stories put quotes around
 Articles: quotations
MLA Style Documentation
 Entire
paper is double space
including the heading, 12 font, Times
New Roman
 Header: Last name and page number
Robinson 1
 Works Cited page is double spaced
 URL’s are tabbed
<www.brobinson@blogspot.com>
What you must know
Without internal documentation you do
not have a research paper.
 Without a works cited page you do not
have a research paper
 Without either you will receive a grade of
zero
 If the source is in your paper, it must be
on the works cited page
 If the source is not in your paper, it should
not be listed on your Works Cited Page

Works Cited page
12 Font
 Times New Roman
 Double Spaced
 Alphabetical order

– Basic Citation for electronic source
Author and/or editor names. Name of the
database or title of the project, book, article.
Any version numbers available. Date of
revision. Publisher information. Date you
accessed the material. Electronic address.
Robinson, Bonita J. The Life of Langston Hughes. Google. 21 January 07. 07 January
08.
http://www.roadmaptolangstonhughes.org
PS:
 Participation
Grade!