However, if you are working on a review article, the aim is to present to the readers everything that has been written on a topic, so you will need to include a more exhaustive list of citations. In most cases, you will need to cite one or two of the most representative sources for each key point. The number of sources you cite in your work depends on the intent of the paper. An example for common knowledge would be "There are seven days in a week". In addition to crediting the ideas of others that you used to build your own argument, you need to provide documentation for all facts and figures that are not common knowledge.Ĭommon knowledge is knowledge that is known by everyone, or nearly everyone, and can basically concern any subject.
Citing also shows that you have personally read the work. To put your own contribution in context, it is important to cite the work of the researchers who influenced you.Ĭited sources can provide key background information, support or dispute your thesis, or offer important definitions and data.
You have got a pre-made table here that has all the formatting that the MLA recommends, and you have even got things like this chart and a caption here, with a figure number, which is helpful.The broad scientific knowledge we have today is the accomplishment of many researchers over time. Okay, for long quotes of more than one paragraph - let's say there's a really long quote and it has two paragraphs or three paragraphs - use the Long Quote Style. If you keep on going through here, it'll give you more particulars, like for quotes of more than four lines, use the Quote Style up here. One way I like to do this quickly is, I'll select a line, I'll do Shift+F3 until I get the initial caps for every word, and then I'll go through here and uncap the non-principal words here, like conjunctions and prepositions. And so just go ahead and read the instructions.Ĭapitalize the first and last words of the title and all principal words. There's no need to type this out manually and build all these margins manually.Īnd then the template has all sorts of awesome instructions for particulars of your paper, okay? I'm going to go ahead and type in a title here, “Of Zombies in American Fiction.” Okay, and I'll remove the subtitle. You have got a half-inch margin here before your header, okay? This is all pre-built for you and ready for you to use, okay? You have got a one-inch margin on the top. You have got a one-inch margin on the right. It's great.įor example, you have got a one-inch margin on the left, which is what the MLA specifies as, should be your left margin. This date is automatically formatted in the MLA style, so there's the day first, the month, and then, the year, okay? That little automation for you happens throughout this template. You can go ahead and you can choose this little Content Control arrow here, and choose the due date. The other thing about Spellcheck is that people are using it, but not being careful in replacing the suggested words with the right word. So if you see a red squiggle, right-click that, and replace it with the correct spelling. Surprisingly, the number one thing was students aren't using Spellcheck. I put my course number in here, English Composition 100.Īctually when I asked a bunch of College Professors what their biggest pet peeves were. And this is just a template, right? You've probably made templates before. I'm going to double-click that, and open it. It's also helpful if your Professor wants you to use that guideline or that handbook, but the MLA is the one we are going to use today. We have the MLA style research paper, okay? I'm going to open that up in just a second. I am going to search for the keyword MLA and then press Enter, and here we go.
I am here with the start screen, right, where it gives you all sorts of fun templates to choose from. Other papers might use other handbooks, like the APA or Chicago, but the MLA is probably the most common, and it is easy to adhere to this handbook when you use Microsoft Word.
Now, when I say "Research Papers” I mainly mean papers for English comp, Literature, History, Political Science. If you are in college and you are writing research papers, then you are most likely basing your formatting on this, the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
0 kommentar(er)
