8-10 Pages Essay

Requirements for research paper

 

 

Formatting/size/parts: The paper should be 8-10 pages double space, 12 pt, with 1 inch margins using a normal size font, and should have page numbers. Papers that are under 8 page will receive a significant cut in grade. The paper should have a title with your name taking up minimal space on the first page – or you can have a separate title page not included in your page count. The paper should have a full bibliography covering all works cited in the paper that also is not included in your page count.

 

Topic: The paper can be on any topic on environment or disease in China or in China’s international relations. Research must be on a topic beyond class material, not one that replicates lectures. If you are doing a paper on international relations, more than half the paper must focus on the Chinese side.

 

Sources: The paper must include some primary sources as well as peer reviewed or fact checked secondary sources with credible referencing. I don’t count Wikipedia or other on-line encyclopedia type websites as real sources. Please don’t use them! Please carefully check the publisher of all online sources. Many are propaganda from the Chinese government.

 

Referencing: Footnotes (not endnotes) are strongly preferred. However, if you have already written most of your paper using parenthetical referencing, I will accept it. I take referencing very seriously in this paper. You should have a minimum of 3 references per page and hopefully more. I don’t care which style you use for notes and bibliography, but it should be internally consistent and one of the normal scholarly styles used. Make sure that all references whenever possible have exact page numbers.

 

Thesis: The most important part of this paper is that you have a strong, specific argument that you spend the paper proving. It should not be a personal opinion, but rather something you can argue based on what YOUR SOURCES are telling you. This argument should also not be just common sense, but something you really need to prove. In fact, the entire paper should be about proving a single thesis. If you can’t figure out how a section or part of your background specifically helps prove your argument, then cut it out. If part of your paper seems necessary, but isn’t covered by your current thesis, then rewrite the thesis so it covers the whole paper. The thesis is usually placed near the end of the first paragraph.

 

Writing Center: While not required, I strongly suggest going to the Writing Center and having them go over the paper with you. It’s a free service and will save you a lot of trouble.

 

Grading: What am I looking for when grading the final paper?

1. Does it have a specific thesis that covers the whole paper? If not, it’s already a B paper at best.

2. Do the arguments throughout the paper make a good case for the thesis? Do they seem to build on each other in a logical way?

3. Does it have excellent referencing?

4. Is the organization of the paper, of sections, and of paragraphs coherent/make sense?

5. Does it have introductions and conclusions for the paper, for sections, and for each paragraph?

6. Does it have decent English with sentences that make sense? Does it have spelling errors or other easy to correct problems that show a lack of caring on the part of the author? Does it use slangy language and contractions which should not be in a formal paper? (This doesn’t mean that I appreciate very uptight language with unnecessarily fancy vocabulary either.)

 

A review of sources:

· Primary sources?

· Things written or produced (like a picture or a chair) at the time

· Secondary sources?

· Analysis written now by scholars who read or look at primary sources

· Tertiary sources?

· Textbooks and encyclopedias. Authors mainly base their analysis on secondary sources, i.e. other scholars’ analyses. This is the furthest away from original sources and should basically not be used in a research paper.

· Trustworthy sources?

· Peer reviewed journals

· Books from academic presses (University of X Press) and some high-end commercial academic presses

· High-end newspapers with fact checking. Please take into account most newspapers’ have a political bias.

· Internet sources?

· Look for the same trustworthy sources listed above. If a book or article does not have referencing, it’s a very bad sign! If its published by a group that has a strong agenda (the Chinese government, a coal mining industrial group talking about mining), do not indiscriminately believe it.

 

Some ideas about referencing for those unclear about it:

· Why do it?

· To prove what you are saying.

· To give credit to other researchers.

· To help future researchers

· When should one cite?

· Any time one quotes (right after the quote)

· Any idea not commonly known

· Any specific facts or data

· Any time you are taking an argument or point from another author

· Basically if you didn’t know it and got your information from a particular source, then you have to give that source’s author credit.

· What counts as a quote?

· Five or more words in a sequence taken from a piece of writing.

· If you copy five words without using quote marks, even if you use a citation, you are committing plagiarism

 

 

Formatting footnotes vs. a bibliographic item?

(Note that I will accept many different footnoting/bibliographic formats as long as they are internally consistent. I’m giving you one example among many.)

· How is a footnote different than a bibliographic entry?

· A footnote MUST tell the exact page number where you found something; a bibliography just lists the whole book or article.

· Sometimes people add extra data or interesting side points that don’t exactly fit in the paper in the footnotes.

 

· How is the format different?

· Footnotes are one long sentence. All the pieces are usually connected by commas. They also use a first name last name format (Unless it’s a Chinese name which retains its normal last name first name format.) Footnotes use a full format the first time, and a short format (like name, short title, page #) every time after.

· Bibliographic items break each piece up into a mini sentence using periods. They are organized alphabetically based on a last name, first name format (Unless it’s a Chinese name which doesn’t use the comma).

· Biographies are single-space, but have a space between each reference item. They have the same font size (usually 12 pt) as the paper. Footnotes are also single-space, but they have no spaces between them, and they are in a 10pt font. If you use footnotes in Word, it will automatically format them this way for you.

 

· Examples

· Bibliography: Ebrey, Patricia Buckley, ed. “The Haifeng Peasant Association.” Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition. New York: The Free Press, 1993.

· Footnote, 1st time: Patricia Buckley Ebrey, ed., “The Haifeng Peasant Association,” Chinese Civilization: A Sourcebook, 2nd Edition, New York: The Free Press, 1993, 365.

· Short footnote form used after: Ebrey, Haifeng, 366.

· If two or more footnotes in a row are from the same source. For example, the first, second, and third are all from Ebrey, then the second and third have an ultra-shortened format: Ibid., 367. Ibid. is short for ibidem, which is Latin means “in the same place.” Because it’s an abbreviation, it always has a period after it.

· If a chunk of information is based equally on more than one source, feel free to add all of them in a single footnote. Separate sources with a “;”. For example: source 1; source 2; source 3.

 

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