FORMATTING
THE RESEARCH PAPER
SECTIONS OF THE PAPER:
·
Title Page
·
Abstract (as if you were annotating this paper)
·
Outline or Table of Contents
·
The Paper Itself
·
Intro
·
Body
·
Conclusion
·
Works Cited
·
Appendices, Attachments
Margins should be 1 inch all around.
Font size should be 12-point.
Font type should not be script
or a cutesy type that calls attention to itself (and is therefore harder to
read); use a standard type such as Times, Arial, Times New Roman, Palatino or
THE TITLE PAGE:
Center Title 1/3
of the way down from the top.
Capitalize
only the first letters of key words.
Double-space a long title.
Drop a few
spaces, then "by" then double-space, then your name, all centered.
Up one inch
from the bottom, include, centered and double-spaced: the due date,
instructor's name, and course name.
PAGE NUMBERS:
Upper right
hand corner: your last name followed by page number, with no comma in between
(MLA).
Upper right
hand corner: paper title followed by page number, with no comma in between
(APA).
Do not count title page.
Preface
material, such as abstract, outline, and table of contents (see below), should
be numbered with small roman numerals.
Arabic numbers
begin counting on the first page of your actual paper. However, you do not put a number on the first
page in MLA. (You do in APA.)
How To Do This in Microsoft Word:
Click on View
Click on
Headers and Footers
Type Your Name
or Title (with a space at the end) in the dialogue box that comes up
Click on the Right
Justify Box at the top of the screen
Click on the #
symbol in the dialogue box
Go to Insert
Click on
Insert Page Numbers
De-select the
“Show number on first page” box if you are using MLA.
OUTLINE OR TABLE OF CONTENTS:
Should be
double-spaced and include all your section headings.
If outline,
make sure you include thesis of paper.
LONG QUOTES:
A Quote longer than four lines long
(around 40 words) should be indented on left (10
spaces for
MLA, 5 for APA) to help set it off from the rest of the text. These should be rare in your paper.
Indented quote should be
double-spaced in MLA, but can be single-spaced in APA.
You don't need quotation
marks when you indent the quote. The
parenthetical reference should just follow the end of the quote.
Long quotes should always be
introduced somehow.
TABLES OR CHARTS:
Should
be numbered. (e.g., Table 1)
Should be titled.
(Casualties in the
Should give source at bottom of
table, flush left:
Source: Jones 82. .
(When
you reproduce the table/chart exactly as in the
original.)
Source: Discussion in
Jones 82-84. (When you create the table yourself, based on
info in source.)
Should be referred
to in your text.
Should come as
close as possible to the paragraph in which it is first mentioned in your text. If it is a full-page chart/table/graph, it
can come as an appendix.
Comes after Works Cited or
References
E.g., Annotated Bibliography
Full-Page
Illustrations, Charts, Graphs, and Tables.
Summary of
interview if you have one.
Any other
“supplementary” information.
Each appendix should be titled
separately (Appendix
I: Annotated
Bibliography on the Nigerian Health Care System).
SECTION HEADINGS:
Be Consistent!
Typical way of
showing order of importance:
--Centered, Caps, Underlined [This
would be the equivalent of level
outline.]
--Flush left,
Underlined, First Letters of Key Words Capped [equivalent of level
A. in your
outline]
--Centered, First Letters
of Key Words Capped, No Underline [equivalent of level
1. in your
outline]
--Indent, underline,
continue paragraph, or use bullets [level (a.) in your outline]
Most of you will probably not go
beyond the first two levels in this paper.
OTHER FORMAT ISSUES:
·
Double-space the paper.
·
Use bullets like I'm doing here as a way to help get out
complicated information, particularly lists.