The following are some more things you should focus on while writi.docx

The following are some more things you should focus on while
writing the research paper.
1. Do not let the sources write the paper. Ever. The essay is
your essay. Use sources to help build your ideas, argument.
Bring in experts, people with experience, as correlatives and to
provide emphasis—to strengthen and legitimize the material.
2. Try to cite at least one source per page. Two would be
preferable. Three works, but getting a bit close to losing your
voice to the sources, especially if they are of any length…
3. Consider using integrated, non-integrated, and block quotes.
Integrated quotes flow with the essay. They become part of the
paragraph and use the source in the sentence:
Art cinema is akin to Hollywood cinema and derives its very
essence fro the Hollywood system. “Historically,” Susan
Hayward writes in Key Concepts in Cinema Studies, “art cinema
was not intentionally devised as a counter–Hollywood cinema,
even though its production is clearly not associated with
Hollywood” (10). *I do not write (Hayward 10) because I’ve
already mentioned her and book—only requires page #.
In a non-integrated quote, where we do not mention the author
or book in the paragraph, we cite the source as follows:
(Hayward 10). A “non-integrated” quote simply uses the
material followed by a parenthetical citation: “Historically, art
cinema was not…” (Hayward 10)
Block quotes [4 or more lines requires block quoting] are as
follows:

Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake is indeed difficult to the point of
being impenetrable. John Bishop, in his introduction to the
Penguin edition of Finnegan’s Wake, writes,
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------
-----------------------------------------------------------. (Bishop 5)
*note how unlike integrated, in block quotations, the period
precedes the parenthetical box.
4. Magazine and newspaper articles, essays, short stories [if
they are part of a collection] receive quotation marks [e.g., Tom
Wolfe’s article, “Pornoviolence,” gets to the root of tabloid
journalism…Stephen Crane’s “The Open Boat” points out the
dominion of nature…] whereas books are always underlined
[see above].
5. If you’ve already mentioned a book or article in the essay,
simply quote the page # next time you quote the source: “quote”
(Blake 10). “quote” (14). “quote” (17); but if you use another
source (White 14) in between, you will need to cite Blake again
next time you quote him: “quote” (Blake 22).
6. When you omit something from a quotation, signal the
omission with three spaced periods [ellipses] surrounded by
brackets: “It is difficult to know […] simply how James Joyce
did it.”
7. Common knowledge does not require a source citation [“Of
course only one president actually managed to hold office more

than three times in a row: Franklin Delano Roosevelt.”]
8. You must acknowledge all material quoted, paraphrased, or
summarized from any published or unpublished work. Failing to
cite a source, deliberately or accidentally, is PLAGIARISM—
presenting as your own work the words or ideas of another. A
quote is a quote—verbatim.
9. A paraphrase is a restatement of words in about the same
number of words. These words are also your own. Paraphrase
can help you restate difficult material more simply.
10. A summary is a concise restatement, shorter than the
original source. Helps avoid needless details.
SOME RESEARCH PAPER WRITING TIPS
No writing takes place in a vacuum. The rhetorical situation—
purpose, audience, and occasion—determines your tone and
shapes your writing. Whenever you write, you engage in a
process of developing an appropriate topic for a certain
audience. You will explore and gather information and focus the
subject, form a thesis, and develop an appropriate plan of
organization. You will also, for this class, revise two drafts
before preparing a final version.
Know your audience: is the subject specialized in nature? Will
the audience be? Do you expect your audience to have some
foreknowledge of your subject? If not, consider a lengthier
introduction.
Understand the occasion. This is an academic paper. Remain
objective. Be clear, forceful, direct.
Set the appropriate tone:
Tone is a reflection of your attitude toward your subject and

must be appropriate to your purpose, audience, and occasion,
whether for a personal essay or lab report. Although humor
might well be suitable in a letter to a friend telling him/her of
trouble with your new car, it would be inappropriate in a letter
of complaint to a manufacturer. Set the tone to match the
seriousness of the essay topic.
Explore a subject:
When you have a subject in mind you will need to explore all
the possible ways to develop it. You will also need to follow
certain leads and eliminate others as you direct and focus your
ideas.
Writers use many different methods to explore a subject. If you
are having a hard time getting started, try “free writing”---
writing non stop for a brief period of time about any aspect of
your subject that occurs to you—and then examine your writing
for productive approaches. Some other useful methods are
“listing,” “questioning,” and “applying different perspectives.”
Use whatever methods seem productive for you.
Different methods may work best for different subjects; if you
run out of ideas using one method, switch to another.
Sometimes, especially for an assigned subject remote from your
own interests and knowledge, you may need to try several
methods.
Limit and focus your subject:
Exploring the subject will suggest not only productive strategies
for development but also a direction and focus for your writing.
Some ideas will seem worth pursuing; others will seem
inappropriate for your purpose, audience or occasion. You will
find yourself discarding ideas even as you develop new ones.
Establish a thesis [or purpose]
If you have limited and focused your subject, you have worked
a long way toward developing an idea that controls the content
you include and the approach you take. Your controlling idea,

or thesis, insures that decisions you have made about purpose,
audience, occasion, and tone fit together.
The thesis statement will also help unify your paper. It will also
guide many decisions about what larger details [points of
support] and specific details [concrete details, examples] to
keep and what to discard. It is your “frame of reference,“ and it
will be the point around which your paper will turn.
Choose an appropriate method of ARRANGING IDEAS. Use an
informal working plan [a collection of lists, notes about your
subject, most of which will come out of your preliminary
reading. Next form a ROUGH OUTLINE. This will lead to a
rearrangement of the material and a later FORMAL OUTLINE.
RESEARCH PAPER
SUBJECT and a SCRATCH OUTLINE [early, uninformed,
tentative]---examine and copy “scratch” outlines----how
extensive?
Did it inform the reading?
Did the reading inform the scratch outline?
How many wrote a scratch outline without doing any
preliminary reading?
Preliminary reading:
Encyclopedia—broad survey of subject [may be used as minor
sources]
Reference works---any suggestions? Consider the area and make
adjustments…

remember periodical, magazine, and newspaper indexes
scanning material [easy reading]-----
Note-taking:
Notes on encyclopedia article
What to look for…only facts that are unknown previously to
you---weed out unnecessary
Highlighting [only significant]
Outline will focus notes [each area of outline requires specific
notes---keep separate]
One book/one page; one magazine article/one page; one
periodical/one page; one newspaper/one page
One internet/one page
FOCUS
Note card or page requires: “fact or idea/source of information”
Summary/paraphrase
Separate fact from opinion
Outline:
Scratch outline to rough outline----differences [extensiveness,
logical relationships, patterns]
Thesis and supporting points: writing the introduction

Thesis or “supporting point”
What is the significance of the introduction? What will it
contain? Why important? How long? [see p. 463 for “formal
outline” and thesis statement: what would intro look like? Will
discuss three main points with sound and clear and useful
method of introduction.
By today all should have subjects and some form of scratch
outline.
This weekend is where you finish essential preliminary reading
and begin to form a “rough” outline from a “scratch” outline.
WRITING THE INTRODUCTION
Steps: 1—method of introduction [longer than normal---a
general overview and discussion of the topic]
2—basic thesis statement or “purpose” expressed [what do you
want to say about the subject?]
3—supporting points [major divisions] expressed clearly! And
with some specificity.
Introduction is the most important “area” of the paper [no
matter how many paragraphs]---it is the “set-up,” the “frame of
reference” and the thing on which the entire paper will turn. It
contains your main idea [subject] your understanding or opinion
of the subject [thesis or purpose], and your introduction to the
major divisions of the essay
SOME RESEARCH PAPER WRITING TIPS
No writing takes place in a vacuum. The rhetorical situation—
purpose, audience, and occasion—determines your tone and
shapes your writing. Whenever you write, you engage in a
process of developing an appropriate topic for a certain
audience. You will explore and gather information and focus the
subject, form a thesis, and develop an appropriate plan of

organization. You will also, for this class, revise two drafts
before preparing a final version.
Know your audience:
Is the subject specialized in nature? Will the audience be? Do
you expect your audience to have some foreknowledge of your
subject? If not, consider a lengthier introduction.
Understand the occasion. This is an academic paper. Remain
objective. Be clear, forceful, direct.
Set the appropriate tone:
Tone is a reflection of your attitude toward your subject and
must be appropriate to your purpose, audience, and occasion,
whether for a personal essay or lab report. Although humor
might well be suitable in a letter to a friend telling him/her of
trouble with your new car, it would be inappropriate in a letter
of complaint to a manufacturer. Set the tone to match the
seriousness of the essay topic.
Explore a subject:
When you have a subject in mind you will need to explore all
the possible ways to develop it. You will also need to follow
certain leads and eliminate others as you direct and focus your
ideas.
Writers use many different methods to explore a subject. If you
are having a hard time getting started, try “free writing”---
writing non stop for a brief period of time about any aspect of
your subject that occurs to you—and then examine your writing
for productive approaches. Some other useful methods are
“listing,” “questioning,” and “applying different perspectives.”
Use whatever methods seem productive for you.
Different methods may work best for different subjects; if you
run out of ideas using one method, switch to another.
Sometimes, especially for an assigned subject remote from your

own interests and knowledge, you may need to try several
methods.
Limit and focus your subject:
Exploring the subject will suggest not only productive strategies
for development but also a direction and focus for your writing.
Some ideas will seem worth pursuing; others will seem
inappropriate for your purpose, audience or occasion. You will
find yourself discarding ideas even as you develop new ones.
Establish a thesis [or purpose]
If you have limited and focused your subject, you have worked
a long way toward developing an idea that controls the content
you include and the approach you take. Your controlling idea,
or thesis, insures that decisions you have made about purpose,
audience, occasion, and tone fit together.
The thesis statement will also help unify your paper. It will also
guide many decisions about what larger details [points of
support] and specific details [concrete details, examples] to
keep and what to discard. It is your “frame of reference,“ and it
will become the point around which your entire paper will turn.
Choose an appropriate method of ARRANGING IDEAS. Use an
informal working plan [a collection of lists, notes about your
subject, most of which will come out of your preliminary
reading. Next form a ROUGH OUTLINE. This will lead to a
rearrangement of the material and a later FORMAL OUTLINE.

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