1. THE RESEARCH
PAPER 2010-2011
Made INCREDIBLY
simple
(yeah, right)

2. YOUR MISSION
 Choose an author, work or
genre dealing specifically with
British or ancient Greek or
Roman literature and explore a
specific question or concern.

3. FORMAT
• MLA style
• Typed or word-processed
• 12 pt. Times New Roman font
• Follow the remainder of the
guidelines already set out for you
for a typewritten paper.

4. YOU MUST INCLUDE…

5. WORKS CITED PAGE
 At least 6 (six) academic sources besides
encyclopedias
 primary and secondary sources
 Any Internet sources not available through
PowerLibrary must be approved prior to use.
 All entries must be utilized and cited within your
paper.

6. This research paper is
weighed as a large
portion of your final
exam, which is 1/5 of your
overall grade for the year.

7. A RESEARCH PAPER IS
NOT…
 A Book report
 A Biography
 A Comparison
 YOUR (the writer’s) opinion
 Derived from one source

8. A RESEARCH PAPER
MUST…
 Summarize information gleaned not just from
one source, but from a series of sources
 Include both primary sources and secondary
sources.
 Primary sources - firsthand material, novels,
interviews, & letters
 Secondary sources - works about someone
 Merge the information from the various
sources into one smooth coherent product.

9. CHOOSING A SUBJECT
 Teacher assigned vs. Student choice
 Must be large enough to fill the assigned size and
small enough to be covered in that space
 variety of sources
 Come up with a general subject you like first, find
info, then narrow it to something manageable
 Determine your thesis.

10. COMING UP WITH ATHESIS
 A Thesis is the statement you are going to prove in your paper
 Do preliminary research
 Come up with a question (“Shakespeare” is not a thesis)
 Do some research to answer that question
 YOURTHESIS WILL BETHE
ANSWERTOTHE QUESTION

11. THESIS=TOPIC + ASSERTION

12. EXAMPLE

13. THE “SO WHAT? WHO
CARES?”TEST
 Will anybody care about your thesis?
 NOBODY wants to read about something they already
know.
 Examples of thesis that fails the test:
 “Shakespeare is considered one of the
greatest writers in British history.”
 “Greek Mythology has had a great impact
on literature.”

14. YOU MUST HAVEYOUR THESIS
SELECTED BY DECEMBER 3RD
Email me your thesis statement.
rlane@gorockets.org

15. WHERE TO GO FOR MORE HELP
 OWL (Online Writing Lab)-
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/w
 An online tutorial that takes the
reader through the research
paper process.

16. NOTE CARDS,WORK
CITED CARDS, OUTLINES &
QUOTES

17. WORK CITED CARDS
Shakespeare, William.
Macbeth. The Riverside
Shakespeare. Boston:
Houghton, 1974.
1
Put the
information on
this set of cards
EXACTLY as
you will put it
on the Works
Cited page
Number your
WC cards

18. NOTE CARDS
One Piece of
information
per card
“I am in blood/Stepp’d in so far that,
should I wade no more,/Returning
were as tedious as go o’re.”
(Macbeth saying he’s already too
guilty to stop committing crimes.)
Blood
p. 1327
1
Page number of
book you found
info in
Work Cited
card number
Topic or heading under which this
information will go

19. OTHER NOTE TAKING OPTIONS
 Microsoft OneNote
 Pros
 very versatile if you own the
program
 Works in conjunction with
Office Live, thus it is accessible
from anywhere
 Cons
 Not Cheap
 Not all versions of MS Office
come with OneNote
 Evernote
 Pros
 FREE!
 Can be used from any
computer with internet access
 You don’t need to download
software to use basic features
 Notes are accessible from
smart phones
 Cons
 Isn’t as versatile as the PAY
version of MS OneNote

20. OUTLINE
 Include Thesis statement at top.
 Major topics headed with Roman Numerals
 Secondary topics headed with capital Arabic
letters
 “A” requires “B”
 “A” & “B” must be closely related

21. OUTLINING
Purpose: to explain how to do an
outline before creating a speech
I. Introduction
A. What is an outline?
B. Why is it needed?
1. Road map example
2. Skeleton example
II. Parts of an outline
A. Title
B. Purpose
C.Main Topics
D. Sub Topics
III. Form
A. Divisions
1. Roman Numerals for
main topics
2. Capital letters for sub
topics
3. Numbers for next level
of sub topic
B. “A” requires “B”
C. Closely related

22. QUOTATIONS
 Quote only words, phrases, lines, and passages
that are particularly interesting, vivid, unusual,
or apt.
 Keep all quotations as brief as possible.
 Over quotation can bore your readers.
 RULE OFTHUMB—No more than Twenty
Percent of your paper should be direct quotes

23. PROSE QUOTES
 If a prose quotation runs no more than four typed
lines and requires no special emphasis, put it in
quotation marks and incorporate it in the text.
 “It was the best of times, it was the worst of
times” wrote Charles Dickens of the eighteenth
century in the book ATale ofTwo Cities (1).
 Sometimes you may want to quote just a word or
phrase as part of your sentence.
 For Charles Dickens the eighteenth century was
both “the best of times” and “the worst of
times” (Dickens 1).

24. PARAPHRASING
 Paraphrase a quote to:
 Shorten the length
 Simplify the language
 YOU MUST STILL CITE A
PARAPHRASED SECTION OF
YOUR PAPER!!!

25. MLA IN-TEXT CITATIONS
 In parenthesis ()
 Usually the author’s last name and page
number, but not always
 No Comma
 It’s part of the sentence so it goes
inside the end punctuation
(Dickens 123).