has an outline following the cover page, as illustrated in the class handout.
must be 6 to 10 pages long. It may be longer, but it must contain a minimum of 6
pages of text.
must have a thesis which should appear somewhere early on in the paper, most likely on page one, a narrowing of focus to one particular area of a bigger topic. A possible thesis on the Vietnam War could be “The Gulf of Tonkin Incident that motivated America to enter the Vietnam War never really happened.” It would not be a thesis to say “Let me tell you everything I know about the Vietnam War.” A good thesis for another paper could be “Jackie Robinson endured a great deal of animosity to break the ‘color barrier’ in becoming the first black baseball player.” It would not be a good thesis to say “Here is the history of Baseball.” It would be a good thesis to say that “Walt Disney’s SNOW WHITE AND THE SEVEN DWARFS was the film that made the difference between whether the Disney studio survived or went out of business, and as the first feature length animated film encountered seemingly insurmountable obstacles.” It would not be a good thesis to say “Let me tell you the whole life story of Walt Disney.”
may have an appendix or appendices directly following the text for charts or graphs or pictures or non-print items. Each appendix will be listed by Roman numerals -Appendix, I, Appendix II, Appendix III – and each appendix will have a source in parentheses at the bottom of the page explaining from where that item was taken. In the text when the reader is to look at an appendix, the words (see Appendix #) must be written.
following the Appendices, I may have a Notes page where personal observations can be added or material that is not directly relevant to the topic at hand but may add “spice” or “flavor” to the paper. For each note in the text, an upraised number must appear informing the reader to turn to the Notes page to learn about the upraised number.
Must have a minimum of 10 sources in the bibliography
must have a one inch margin for all pages.
must be double spaced throughout.
must have the student’s last name in the upper right hand corner followed by the
page number beginning with the first page of text (do not number the cover page or the outline).
must follow every new bit of information that’s not
common knowledge with a reference in parentheses to the
source from which the material was taken and a page number, if available. If all the material in a paragraph is from the same source, the source in parentheses may appear only at the end of that paragraph. You must cite both direct quotes and any ideas taken from others, or you may be guilty of plagiarism.
cites quotes of 5 lines or more by indenting 10 spaces and eliminating the quotation
marks.
should NEVER use the word “I” or refer to myself or to “this paper,” though I may
mention my own personal experiences or ideas in the Notes section.