How To Format Your Research Paper

Our goals today are to learn how to:

Correctly format your paper

Create in-text citations for sources and avoid plagiarism

Develop the Works Cited page

What Spacing does MLA require for a research paper?

Double space throughout the entire paper

How are pages numbered in MLA style?

In the top, right hand side of each page, including the first page

With the author’s (your) last name followed by the page number

Right margin aligned

Example of page numbering in MLA

How is the first page header set up for a paper in MLA style?

Student’s name

Instructor(s) name(s)

Course title

Date

ALL LEFT MARGIN ALIGNED

Example of the header set up for a paper in MLA style…

Sample First page in MLA style

Plagiarism: What’s the Big Deal?

Definition: Using others’ ideas and/or words without clearly acknowledging the source of that information.

Why do we care? It’s ethical

It’s the law

Intellectual theft/artistic & intellectual ownership

People need to be able to trace your research and, if they cannot, you are guilty of plagiarizing, regardless of how innocently it may have happened!

How do I know when to give credit to other sources?

To avoid plagiarism when you write your paper, you must give credit whenever you use… Another person’s ideas, opinions or theories

Any facts, statistics, graphs, drawings, photographs

Any pieces of information that are not COMMON KNOWLEDGE

Quotations of another person’s actual spoken or written words

Paraphrase of another person’s spoken or written words

How do I know what is COMMON KNOWLEDGE?

COMMON KNOWLEDGE includes:

Familiar proverbs: “You can’t judge a book by its cover.”

Very well known quotations: “To be or not to be?”

Commonly understood information such as “George Washington was the first president of the United States.”

What qualifies as plagiarism?

Using another person’s phrases or sentences without putting quotation marks around them or providing a parenthetical citation is considered plagiarism even if you cite the source on your Works Cited page!

Examples:

Original material from:

“Shakespeare must have been mercilessly ribbed all his life.”

Tyree 1

Kiernan, Pauline. Filthy Shakespeare: Shakespeare’s Most Outrageous Sexual Puns. New York,

NY: Gotham, 2007. Print.

What is parenthetical citation?

An acknowledgement of the original source within YOUR writing.

How do you introduce and integrate a cited material into your writing?

Introduce sources of quotations, summaries, paraphrases by referring to an author, a book title, a website, expertise, credentials, etc. before getting into the specifics…

OR you can mention these items toward the end of the cited info…

BUT they should NEVER pop up without warning!

THEN END with the page number in parentheses, followed by a period.

How do you introduce and integrate a cited material into your writing?

IF you already mentioned an author’s or interviewee’s full name once, you need to use only the last name subsequently (afterward)

DO VARY your wording!

AND us a varied mix of quotes, paraphrases and summaries

Using your research to strengthen your own arguments rather than overpowering your own writing. DON’T QUOTE BOMB!

THINK of it the way you might think of SPICES… Just give it flavor and depth!

Creating the Works Cited Page

The FINAL step to your paper!

What’s a Works Cited Page?

This is the page at the end of your document that lists all the sources that were quoted throughout your paper. It contains your MLA in-text documentation.

How should the MLA Works Cited page be organized?

Alphabetically, by the AUTHOR’S LAST NAME

Or BY TITLE if no author is known

ALWAYS with a HANGING INDENT! Mircosoft Word will do this easily with the hanging indent

option.

Go to Format, Paragraph, Indents and Spacing, Indention, then open the more options arrow under “Special”

Where should the MLA Works Cited page be placed?

At the end of the research paper on a new, separate page

Friendly Reminders

Do not number a Works Cited list.

Alphabetize your Works Cited list.

Double-space, hanging indent.

Don’t be afraid to ask for help.

Give credit where credit is due: Source: Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of

Research Papers: Fifth Ed. New York: The Modern Language Association of America, 1999.

What did you learn today?

How to correctly format your essays.

Create in-text citations for sources while avoiding plagiarism.

Develop the Works Cited page.