Frequently Asked Questions about the Research Paper
Introductions
| Even the introduction to a research paper must have the same requirements as an introduction to any paper. The first requirement is that the introduction must get the readers' interest. Since the writer does not have any advance knowledge about what interests the readers, the writer must fall back on tried and true techniques that have proven themselves to get the readers' interest. To review these techniques, go to the Introductions website. |
Using references in your paper
| Using Quoted References:
The essential quality of a research paper is making effective uses of
research materials that become a necessary part of the writer's own
language. The key to using quoted references is to use only enough to make
the point the writer wants. To use too much quoted material shifts the
emphasis from the writer's language to the quoted language. Using quoted
materials has an established history. In other words, readers expect the
quotes to be written in a certain form. Using quoted references is much
like using quotes to indicate dialogue. To review this form, go to Purdue's
Online Writing Laboratory (OWL).
Sometimes it is necessary not to quote directly but to use a summary or a paraphrase. To review these techniques, go to this OWL site. |
Works Cited Page
| To review how to use quoted references in your own writing,
go to this OWL
site. This site also contains examples of how to use Long
Quotes. There is also a good illustration of how to write the Works
Cited Page.
Frequently asked questions about how to do a works cited page (using the MLA format) can be answered here:
It
is best if you have a copy of a handbook. They are in every library. We
use the MLA handbook. Many different publishers publish these handbooks.
But you can also get all of the information online.
Here
are some of the sites to use:
This
site I put together. It's not complete, but it shows the basic patterns:
This
site shows how to do the electronic citations:
This
site is the most complete. It illustrates everything you should need to
know about the works cited page:
To review how to construct a Works Cited Page, go to this self-test. If you think you do not need the test, you can go directly to the answers for a model of a works cited page. |
Electronic and online sources
| Going to this Modern Language Association site will help
with using electronic
sources in your research paper.
Here is another Modern Language Association site that has very good examples of how to use electronic sources in your research paper. |