Professional Documents
Culture Documents
PAPERS
CONTENT
I. Research Design--What question, idea, or topic are you
researching? What type of information do you need to answer
your research needs? How are you planning to organize and
support your argument? Are your data sufficient to the task? Is
your argument logical and relevant to your question? Where
can you find the information?
Preparing your research question and design in advance will
save you a lot of time and agony when it becomes time to do
the actual research and writing. A common mistake is in
choosing too general a topic or idea. Keep your focus tight or
you will need a book rather than a research paper to
adequately deal with it. If you prepare a good research design,
your research and writing will be greatly simplified.
II. Conduct your research, using your research design. Be
thorough, but do not be tempted to go outside your plan unless
some modification is necessary (or you are just interested).
This is a second common mistake. Many people tend to clutter
their research and writing with irrelevant details and
inconsequential asides. Stay with your current point and follow
it up in detail. Stay focused!
While you should maintain your focus, be alert for data and
information that you may not have thought of or known about
in advance and that is important to your research. Check your
sources' sources for clues to important work you may have
missed. Do not ignore journal articles. (If you do not know how
to use the indexes to topics, articles, etc., ask the librarian. It
is his or her job to help you.) In fact, journal articles can save
you a lot of time since they are frequently a distillation of a
longer work or book. You should also be alert to primary
sources, original historical documents and other archival
material, foreign language newspapers, some government
documents, personal interviews, raw statistics, etc.
STYLE
When you have finished your first draft, read through it and
eliminate any unnecessary words or phrases. Check for brevity.
Check for clarity and accuracy of your argument. Check for
extraneous comments that do not add to your argument or
which are not then developed. Check for unsupported or
"opinion" statements. Editorial page comments have no place
in a research paper, unless that is your topic. Check for smooth
transitions from one point to another. Rearrange your
paragraphs, if necessary. Check your spelling and grammar.
After you finish editing your work, do it again. Be happy that
you live in the computer age. Read it aloud. Have a friend edit
your work for you. If you do this on a regular basis, both you
and your friend will benefit by learning how to pick out flaws
before they occur and by receiving better grades.
PLAGIARISM
--UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WILL PLAGIARISM BE
TOLERATED. FAILURE TO READ YOUR GUIDE SHEET IS NOT AN
EXCUSE. Plagiarism is stealing and passing off as one's own
work the ideas or works of another and it is a serious crime in
academia. If you are summarizing the words of anyone else,
even in your own words, you must cite him or her. For a
general summary of an entire work or chapter, the name and
date is sufficient (Sahlins 1972). If you are summarizing a
specific passage, then the inclusive page number(s) must be
given (Sahlins 1972:36-38). If it is a direct quote, the specific
page number(s) must be given Sahlins 1972:36). Only your
own ideas, your own data, your own conclusions--or
information that is in the realm of general knowledge (The
Amazon River is located in South America.)--can be used
without citation. Everything else must be cited. This includes
references to films, recordings, literary references, personal
communications, unpublished papers, etc. Failure to do so will
cause you to fail the assignment. Take this as a serious
warning.
FORMAT
"no date" or "ng" for "not given." Do not simply leave the
reference out.
--Avoid over-quoting. Most students quote far too much. Use
your own words as much as possible. Use quotations for
matters where:
1) the exact wording is crucial, as in parts of some documents
or letters;
2) where the wording is unusually colorful or descriptive; or
3) where you want to comment on the exact text.
--Indent and single space direct quotations of three or more
sentences. Do not use quotation marks to begin and end a
block quotation.
One-third to one-half of humanity are said to go to
bed hungry every night. In the Old Stone Age the
fraction must have been much smaller. This is the
era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of
the greatest technical power, is starvation an
institution. Reverse another venerable formula: the
amount of hunger increases relatively and absolutely
with the evolution of culture (Sahlins 1972:36).
--If you are deleting words from a quotation, use three dots
within a sentence and four between sentences.
Marshall Sahlins (1972:36) has said, "Now . . . is starvation an
institution."
--Note that the quotation marks fall outside the entire sentence
and after the period. The only exception to this rule is in some
citations that also fall at the end of a sentence.
"This is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in the time of
the greatest technical power, is starvation an institution.
Reverse another venerable formula: the amount of hunger
increases relatively and absolutely with the evolution of
culture" (Sahlins 1972:36).
--If you add commentary in someone else's text or need to
make an editorial comment, it is placed in brackets directly
after the edition or at the end of the quote, but before the
period.
"This is the era of hunger unprecedented [rather than the
distant past]. Now, in the time of the greatest technical power,
is starvation an institution" (Sahlins 1972:36).
According to Julio Cesar Chaves (1942:279), the new nation of
Paraguay was left to incubate its new nationalism for the 26
years of Francia's rule.
The isolation of Paraguay in 1823 was almost total.
No commercial relations whatsoever were
maintained outside the country, reducing commerce
to the barter of a few products in Pilar [on the
Paraguay River near Argentina]. Navigation was
limited to an arrival at the port [of Pilar] of a boat
because, for a rare political exception with the
exterior, the Paraguayan government did not send
representatives nor receive them. Since Nicols de
Herrera, in 1813, not one plenipotentiary arrived in
Asuncin; those sent from Artigas [Jos Gervasio,
president of Uruguay] and from the Congress of
Tucumn [Argentina] have also not set foot on
Guaran soil [my translation] (quoted in Turner
1991:5).
Note the use of brackets in the text for clarification and the use
of brackets at the end to make an editorial comment. Also note
that when you are using a direct quote from a secondary
source, it is necessary to indicate that fact in the citation, i.e.,
"quoted in" or "cited in."
--The first time you mention an individual in your text
(excluding in text citations), the full name should be given,
thereafter use only the surname. Honorary titles (Dr., Mrs., Mr.,
etc.) are not used in scientific writing with the possible
exception of those in the religious orders (Father John, Sister
Joan). Only the last name is given for the in-text citations
(Sahlins 1972).
When you cite a book or author in the text, place the in-text
citation immediately after the title or name. The citation should
include author's surname, date of publication, and page
number(s), where necessary. If you have just mentioned the
author, you only need the year and page number. You do not
need to include the title of the work, nor do you need to
underline it in the text. You must always include the date of the
publication. If the author has more than one publication in one
year that you are citing, you must indicate which you are
referring to by the use of "a" or "b" after the year. The
designation of which is to be "a" and which is to be "b" is
decided alphabetically by title. This must also be done for your
reference page. (Multiple references by the same author are
first sorted by year, earliest first, and then alphabetically by
title, if necessary).
In his work, Stone Age Economics, Marshall Sahlins (1972:36)
has said, "[t]his is the era of hunger unprecedented. Now, in
the time of the greatest technical power, is starvation an
institution." Sahlins (1972:38) further states that, "...."
Note the use of only the surname in its second occurrence and
that the reader will need to refer to the reference section of
your work to acquire the name of the second publication for
that year.
If the article you are citing is part of a larger, edited volume,
your must cite the specific author, not the volume editor(s).
The complete information about the volume references will be
made in your references section. Similarly, if there are more
than two authors (Ruff, Trinkaus, Walker, and Lawson
1993:22), your specific reference may be shortened (Ruff et al.
1993:22). Remember that if you refer to these multiple authors
in your actual text, that all of their full names must be given
with the first reference.
Make sure your references (or bibliography) are accurate and
complete in all respects. As you advance in your academic
career, you should also be using more primary sources for your
data, as opposed to relying wholly on someone else's
interpretation of the data or sources.
Refer to the attached bibliography for the proper formatting of
your references. If you incur difficulties or are unsure about
the form, ask me for clarification before you turn in your work.
General rules for in text citation forms are:
--author(s) names (all of them);
SAMPLE
REFERENCES CITED
Ruff, Cramdon, Eric Trinkaus, Amos Walker, and Christopher
Lawson
1993 Postcranial Robusticity in Homo, Temporal
Trends and Mechanical Interpretation American
Journal of Physical Anthropology 91:21-53.
Sahlins, Marshall D.
1958 Social Stratification in Polynesia. Monograph of
the American Ethnological Society. Seattle:
University of Washington Press.
1960 Political Power and the Economy in Primitive
Society. In, Gertrude Dole and Robert Carneiro, eds.,
Essays in the Science of Culture in Honor of Leslie
White, pp. 123-56. New York: Crowell.
1961a Moala: Culture and Nature on a Fijian Island.
Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
1961b The Segmentary Lineage: An Organization of
Predatory Expansion. American Anthropologist
63:322-45.
NOTE: Every discipline has its own style and format. Frequently
there are variations within a discipline. It would be wise to
check with all your professors throughout your academic
career as to their preferences in this regard. It would be
unwise to suggest that you did it differently in another class
with another professor.
Adapted from Justus Doenecke, "A Guide to Writing Term
Papers," Division of Social Sciences, New College, Sarasota, FL.