Term Paper Format

Recommendations here are based on the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. It is important to note, however, that individual instructors and institutions or departments may vary from these recommendations somewhat and that it is always wise to consult with your instructor before formatting and submitting your work.

Paper:

 

Use white, twenty-pound, 81/2- by 11-inch paper. Erasable paper tends to smudge and should be avoided for a final draft. If you prefer to use erasable paper in the preparation of your paper, submit a good photocopy to your instructor.

Margins:

Except for page numbers (see below), leave one-inch margins all around the text of your paper -- left side, right side, and top and bottom. Paragraphs should be indented half an inch; set-off quotations should be indented an inch from the left margin (five spaces and ten spaces, respectively, on standard typewriters).

Spacing:

The MLA Guide says that "the research paper must be double-spaced," including quotations, notes, and the list of works cited.

Heading and Title:

Your research paper does not need a title page. At the top of the first page, at the left-hand margin, type your name, your instructor's name, the course name and number, and the date -- all on separate, double­spaced lines. Then double-space again and center the title above your text. (If your title requires more than one line, double-space between the lines.) Double-space again before beginning your text. The title should be neither underlined nor written in all capital letters. Capitalize only the first, last, and principal words of the title. Titles might end with a question mark or an exclamation mark if that is appropriate, but not in a period. Titles written in other languages are capitalized and punctuated according to different rules, and writers should consult the MLA Guide or their instructors.

Page Numbers:

Number your pages consecutively throughout the manuscript (including the first page) in the upper right­hand corner of each page, one-half inch from the top. Type your last name before the page number. Most word processing programs provide for a "running head," which you can set up as you create the format for the paper, at the same time you are establishing things like the one-inch margins and the double-spacing. This feature makes the appearance and consistency of the page numbering a great convenience. Make sure the page-number is always an inch from the right-hand edge of the paper (flush with the right-hand margin of your text) and that there is a double-space between the page number and the top line of text. Do not use the abbreviation p. or any other mark before the page number.

Tables and Figures:

Tables should be labeled "Table," given an arabic numeral, and captioned (with those words flush to the left­hand margin). Other material such as photographs, images, charts, and line-drawings should be labeled "Figure" and be properly numbered and captioned.

Binders:

Generally, the simpler the better. Why spend money on gimmicky, unwieldy, slippery binders, when instructors prefer nice, flat stacks of papers they can stuff into their briefcases and backpacks? A simple staple in the upper left-hand corner of your paper should suffice, although the MLA Guide suggests that a paper clip can be removed and this facilitates reading (which suggests to us that it's been a long time since the people at MLA have had to deal with stacks of student papers). Your instructors or their departments may have their own rules about binders, and you should consult with them about this matter

Outline

This section on planning combines the "bones" of your thesis or question with the "flesh" from your research and insights to construct a unified essay body.

An outline is the organizational plan for your paper. You know your starting point: your introduction and thesis/research question. You know your destination: some sort of summative and thoughtful conclusion. But how are you going to get from one to the other? What's your vehicle? See, an outline doesn't just help you articulate what you plan to say, but also how you're going to move from supporting paragraph to supporting paragraph, how you're going to get where you want to go.

The importance of outlines: 

·     if you can't articulate your paper even in point form, you won't be able to do it effectively in prose and it will take you much longer to write an inferior draft

·      if you do find structural problems or gaps as you outline, it's easier to fix them now than to try and totally revamp a 3rd draft. Face it, it's always easier (translation: less intellectually painful) to scrap a note than a paragraph or whole essay

·     any teacher will tell you that you will lose more points for lack of substance than for lack of writing style; outlines are all about the crux and direction of substance

·     should things click into place, an outline gives you confidence. It helps you to realize that, yes, you really do know what you're talking about!

·      stream-of-consciousness writing can be published and fascinating as creative writing, but not as a research paper. Markers don't appreciate mental diarrhea or what Kevin B. Bucknall from Griffith University calls The Shotgun Technique: "This is putting down everything you know about the subject, and is a common fault. It is like firing a shotgun and hoping that some of the many pellets hit home." So have some respect for your readers

·     outlines make drafting less stressful not only by describing the relationship of your ideas to each other and to the thesis or question, but because you now have small manageable chunks to tackle

·     many professors will be delighted to make an appointment with you to go over an outline but not a draft

How to construct your own

The first step to constructing an outline is to take a deep breath. You're probably intimidated by the research materials and notes amassed in front of you --not to worry.

Carefully read the notes you took from the last step. Try to find classifications for your findings that relate to your thesis or research question. Look for common trends. They're going to be separated from each other but gather them together. It doesn't really matter how you classify. For a 5,000 word paper, you may find two huge headings. Great, now see what could fall under each. And don't forget to look back at the original assignment for clues about sub-groups your professor might be looking for.

You can classify using a variety of techniques. If you like putting notes on index cards, then paper-clip ones that go together and shuffle them around to achieve the best order of ideas. You can also do this on paper: use different-coloured symbols or highlighters or cut your sheets into strips (if you wrote on only one side of the page). On the computer, use some of the techniques suggested by our OWL handout on Writing With Computers.

With several piles of related concepts before you, think of other ways of grouping that might make equal sense.

Once you're happy with what you've got, you may find that some sections are strong and fleshed-out whereas others are weaker. Do some more research where needed or see if two "weak" sections just couldn't fit under one stronger heading. Perhaps as hard as you try, your points fit together but not with the overarching argument you're making. In that case, don't be afraid to re-evaluate your thesis; it may just need a qualification. Your evidence may be great but if it supports a different thesis, your readers won't see how great it is because they'll be expecting something else.

Now that you have thesis and support (or research question and answers) fitting together, give yourself a pat on the backrb.the really hard work is done!

What should an outline look like?

It doesn't really matter. Unless you have to hand it in for marks or you really do like the process, don't feel you have to get bogged down in the formal, "roman-numeral" structure. If webbing or point form does it for you, then that's what you should use.

Check out this possible template for an argumentative paper and this one for an analytical paper. Remember that they are just possible structural ideas. Now that you're an expert critical problem-solver, we're sure you can modify them to suit the needs of your particular paper.

Plagiarism

Using someone else's ideas or phrasing and representing those ideas or phrasing as our own, either on purpose or through carelessness, is a serious offense known as plagiarism. "Ideas or phrasing" includes written or spoken material, of course - from whole papers and paragraphs to sentences, and, indeed, phrases - but it also includes statistics, lab results, art work, etc. "Someone else" can mean a professional source, such as a published writer or critic in a book, magazine, encyclopedia, or journal; an electronic resource such as material we discover on the World Wide Web; another student at our school or anywhere else; a paper-writing "service" (online or otherwise) which offers to sell written papers for a fee.

Let us suppose, for example, that we're doing a paper for Music Appreciation on the child prodigy years of the composer and pianist Franz Liszt and that we've read about the development of the young artist in several sources. In Alan Walker's book Franz Liszt: The Virtuoso Years (Ithaca: 1983), we read that Liszt's father encouraged him, at age six, to play the piano from memory, to sight-read music and, above all, to improvise. We can report in our paper (and in our own words) that Liszt was probably the most gifted of the child prodigies making their mark in Europe in the mid-nineteenth century - because that is the kind of information we could have gotten from a number of sources; it has become what we call common knowledge.

However, if we report on the boy's father's role in the prodigy's development, we should give proper credit to Alan Walker. We could write, for instance, the following: Franz Liszt's father encouraged him, as early as age six, to practice skills which later served him as an internationally recognized prodigy (Walker 59). Or, we could write something like this: Alan Walker notes that, under the tutelage of his father, Franz Liszt began work in earnest on his piano playing at the age of six (59). Not to give Walker credit for this important information is plagiarism.

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Some More Examples

Here is our original text from Elaine Tyler May's "Myths and Realities of the American Family":

Because women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage, single mothers rarely earn enough to support themselves and their children adequately. And because work is still organized around the assumption that mothers stay home with children, even though few mothers can afford to do so, child-care facilities in the United States remain woefully inadequate.

Here are some possible uses of this text. As you read through each version, try to decide if it is a legitimate use of May's text or a plagiarism.

Version A:

Since women's wages often continue to reflect the mistaken notion that men are the main wage earners in the family, single mothers rarely make enough to support themselves and their children very well. Also, because work is still based on the assumption that mothers stay home with children, facilities for child care remain woefully inadequate in the United States.

Plagiarism In Version A there is too much direct borrowing in sentence structure and wording. The writer changes some words, drops one phrase, and adds some new language, but the overall text closely resembles May's. Even with a citation, the writer is still plagiarizing because the lack of quotation marks indicates that Version A is a paraphrase, and should thus be in the writer's own language.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------­Version B:

As Elaine Tyler May points out, "women's wages often continue to reflect the fiction that men earn the family wage" (588). Thus many single mothers cannot support themselves and their children adequately. Furthermore, since work is based on the assumption that mothers stay home with children, facilities for day care in this country are still "woefully inadequate." (May 589).

Plagiarism The writer now cites May, so we're closer to telling the truth about our text's relationship to the source, but this text continues to borrow too much language.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------­Version C:

By and large, our economy still operates on the mistaken notion that men are the main breadwinners in the family. Thus, women continue to earn lower wages than men. This means, in effect, that many single mothers cannot earn a decent living. Furthermore, adequate day care is not available in the United States because of the mistaken assumption that mothers remain at home with their children.

Plagiarism Version C shows good paraphrasing of wording and sentence structure, but May's original ideas are not acknowledged. Some of May's points are common knowledge (women earn less than men, many single mothers live in poverty), but May uses this common knowledge to make a specific and original point and her original conception of this idea is not acknowledged.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------­Version D:

Women today still earn less than men - so much less that many single mothers and their children live near or below the poverty line. Elaine Tyler May argues that this situation stems in part from "the fiction that men earn the family wage" (588). May further suggests that the American workplace still operates on the assumption that mothers with children stay home to care for them.

This assumption, in my opinion, does not have the force it once did. More and more businesses offer in­house day-care facilities....

No Plagiarism The writer makes use of the common knowledge in May's work, but acknowledges May's original conclusion and does not try to pass it off as his or her own. The quotation is properly cited, as is a later paraphrase of another of May's ideas.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------­Penalty for Plagiarism

The penalty for plagiarism is usually determined by the instructor teaching the course involved. In many schools and colleges, it could involve failure for the paper and it could mean failure for the entire course and even expulsion from school. Ignorance of the rules about plagiarism is no excuse, and carelessness is just as bad as purposeful violation. At the very least, however, students who plagiarize have cheated themselves out of the experience of being responsible members of the academic community and have cheated their classmates by pretending to contribute something original which is, in fact, a cheap copy. Within schools and colleges that have a diverse student body, instructors should be aware that some international students from other cultures may have ideas about using outside resources that differ from the institution's policies regarding plagiarism; opportunities should be provided for all students to become familiar with institutional policies regarding plagiarism.

Students who do not thoroughly understand the concept of plagiarism and methods of proper documentation should request assistance from their teacher and from librarians.

Sample Works Cited

Works Cited

 Anderson, J. "Keats in Harlem." New Republic 204.14 (8 Apr. 1991): n. pag. Online. EBSCO. 29 Dec. 1996.

  

Angier, Natalie. "Chemists Learn Why Vegetables are Good for You." New York Times 13 Apr. 1993, late ed.: C1. New York Times Ondisc. CD-ROM. UMI-Proquest. Oct. 1993.

  

Anzaldua, Gloria. Borderlands/La Front era: The New Mestiza. San Francisco: Spinsters/ Aunt Lute, 1987. Astin, Alexander W. Achieving Educational Excellence. Washington: Jossey-Bass, 1985. 

 Burka, Lauren P. "A Hypertext History of Multi-User Dimensions." MUD History. URL: http://www.ccs.neu.edu/home/lpb/mud-history.html (5 Dec. 1994).

  

Christie, John S. "Fathers and Virgins: Garcia Marquez's Faulknerian Chronicle of a Death Foretold." Latin American Literary Review 13.3 (Fall 1993): 21-29.

  

Creation vs. Evolution: "Battle of the Classroom." Videocassette. Dir. Ryall Wilson, PBS Video, 1982. (MLA) 58 min.

  

Darling, Charles. "The Decadence: The 1890s." Humanities Division Lecture Series. Capital Community­Technical College, Hartford. 12 Sept. 1996.

  

Feinberg, Joe. "Freedom and Behavior Control." Encyclopedia of Bio-ethics, I, 93-101. (MLA) New York: Free Press, 1992.

  

Hennessy, Margot C. "Listening to the Secret Mother: Reading J.E. Wideman's Brothers and Keepers." American Women's Autobiography: Fea(s)ts of Memory. Ed. Margo Culley. Madison, WI: U. Wisconsin Press, 1992. 302-314.

  

Jones, V.S., M.E. Eakle, and C.W. Foerster. A History of Newspapers. Cambridge, Eng.: Cambridge UP, 1987.

 

 Metheny, N.M., and W. D. Snively. Nurses' Handbook of Fluid Balance. Philadelphia: Lippincott, 1967. "Money." Compton's Precyclopedia. 1977 ed., X, 80-91.

  

Mumford, Lewis. The Highway and the City. New York: Harcourt Brace and World, 1963. -. Highways Around the World. New York: Prentice, 1967.

  

Orchestra. CD-ROM. Burbank: Warner New Media. 1992.

  

Pepin, Ronald E. Literature of Satire in the Twelfth Century. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen Press, 1988.

 

 Pikarsky, M. and Christensen, D. Urban Transportation Policy and Management. Boston: D.C. Heath, 1976. "The Political Problems of Arms-Treaty Verification." Technology Review May/June 1986: 34-47. Redford, Robert. Personal Interview. 24 Sept. 1996.

  

Schneider, Pamela. Interview. Seniors: What Keeps Us Going. With Linda Storrow. Natl. Public Radio. WNYC. New York. 11 July 1988.

  

Seabrook, Richard H. C. "Community and Progress." cybermind@jefferson.village. virginia.edu (22 Jan. 1994).

  

Shaw, Webb. "Professionals are Required to Report Abuse." Akron (Ohio) Beacon Journal, Nov. 11, 1984