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Your most critical concern for Paper 5:
As you complete your final paper, my number-one recommendation is for you to think like a researcher, NOT an English student. If you find that you’re asking yourself “what does she want” (“she” being me), you’re approaching this in the wrong way. Force yourself to stop thinking of this report as an assignment for an English class and start thinking of it as a real document that you will deliver to a real person.
Your readers are your main concern, and your goal as a researcher and writer is to provide something of value to them. To be valuable, your research must be up to date and your argument — and the evidence you use to support it — must be relevant to the readers’ existing needs and interests. Every word you write should be tailored to your readers’ specific involvement in the issue, their current level of knowledge and their role in affecting the outcome. Avoid telling them what they already know and making recommendations that are beyond their scope of influence .
Imagine one of your defined readers in the act of reading your final report. Will he understand your approach? Will he see the relationship between your argument and his interest or role in the issue? Will he have questions that you haven’t fully answered? Will he be interested in continuing to read your paper after the first few paragraphs? And most important: Will he be convinced that your thesis is valid?
“Test” every subtopic on your outline and every paragraph of your report by asking yourself if it directly develops your main argument. Avoid including big sections of information that might be mildly interesting but aren’t necessary to support or explain your main conclusion.
•If your outline has a section called “History” or “Background”, make sure this material is very brief and that it’s focused only on the aspects of the topic that are directly related to your thesis and final recommendations.
•If your outline has a section called “Definitions” or “Facts” or “Statistics”, remove that topic and use this information to support ideas and conclusions you’re developing in other sections.
The most important part of your final report is the Recommendations section. Be sure you are structuring your report so the discussion will logically lead to — and provide adequate support for — specific, practical recommendations that your defined readers can act on.
The three most serious errors you can make with Paper 5 are:
1 – Plagiarizing your sources. The most obvious form of plagiarism is submitting a paper that someone else has written. It’s also a serious error to just “lift” text from a web site and drop it into your paper without rewording or quoting. A “cut-and-paste” paper is plagiarism, even if you document the source of the text. If I question the originality of your paper, it will be your responsibility to prove you are doing your own work, so be sure to save all your notes, drafts and research materials.
2 – Using sources that are too old to be reliable. Anything published more than two years ago — or for some topics, even before this year — is dubious. One or possibly two older sources may be used if they’re relevant for background information, but most of your discussion should be based on information from the most up-to-date sources available.
3 – Making up your own documentation formats. See #6 below.
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Other considerations:
As you work on Paper 5, please pay special attention to the tips I’ve posted in the Lessons folder. Print them out and double check your final draft to be sure you’ve followed all the guidelines in these messages. You’ll find a last-minute checklist linked from the Paper 5 assignment file on the web site.
1 – Paper 5 is a research report, not a personal essay. Your opinions about your topic will affect your choice of thesis, your writing style and your overall approach, but your personal views should not be a part of the argument. Remove every reference to yourself (I think, I feel, etc.) from the Discussion section of your paper. Every evaluation, judgment or conclusion you make in the report should be supported and explained with evidence from your sources.
2 – A good portion of the material you presented in Paper 4 can be integrated into Paper 5. However, since Paper 5 is presenting a persuasive thesis, you’ll probably want to condense and refocus the evidence to fit the development of your argument. Most of the generic historical and background information should be eliminated from Paper 5.
3 – Virtually every paragraph in the body of your report should be developed with “hard” evidence from your sources — specific examples, case studies, facts, statistics, summaries of research studies, explanations, experts’ opinions and analysis. That means every paragraph will also have at least one MLA parenthesis note to document the information.
•When presenting your evidence, take care to avoid getting bogged down in dry, factual information. Your presentation should sound like a persuasive analysis of the issues, not a textbook.
•Keep your main focus on issues (the problem, controversy or debate) and the conclusions that support your thesis.
•Use the topic sentence of each body paragraph to emphasize a reason your thesis is valid.
•In the remainder of the paragraph, present the facts and detailed explanations that support the idea or conclusion advanced in the topic sentence.
•Add interest and persuasive material to body paragraphs by including specific, “real-world” examples and experts’ comments.
4 – Take special care to avoid “unintentional” plagiarism. When you are summarizing or paraphrasing material from your sources, you need to reword and restructure it to fit your own paragraph, sentence and writing style. If you copy the exact wording of a sentence or phrase without formatting it as a quotation, it is plagiarism. Don’t be tempted, though, to quote factual material just because it’s difficult to reword. Use quotations very sparingly.
5 – Be careful in selecting and formatting quotations. Every time you use a quotation, you must include an acknowledgement phrase (a “tag line” that identifies the speaker and his credentials) in the sentence with the quote, not just in the MLA note. The most effective use of quotes is when you are citing an expert’s opinion.
If the writer/speaker is the author of the article, the MLA note should cite just the page number:
Brian Jones of PC Magazine wrote, “QUOTE” (2).
If the person being quoted is not the author of the article you’re citing, use the “qtd. in” form for the MLA note:
“QUOTE,” explained Maria Smith, president of the American Heart Association (qtd. in Jones 2).
For subsequent quotations by the same author, you still need the acknowledgement phrase, but you can refer to the author by last name only:
According to Jones, “QUOTE” (1).
You’ll find a succinct summary of formatting rules for quotations in Chapter 44 of the textbook. Chapter 31 deals with rules for punctuating quoted material.
6 – If you do a sloppy job of documenting your sources, it will detract from your credibility as a researcher and from your grade. You cannot earn a passing grade for this course unless your final paper demonstrates that you understand and can properly use the MLA documentation formats explained in the textbook.
You’ll find complete instructions and examples of MLA documentation in Chapter 47 of the Little, Brown Handbook. Follow these formats carefully, right down to the exact placement of commas and periods. The files under “Writing Tools” on the web site may be easier for you to use when formatting the Works Cited entries for web sites.
A good deal of the information you need to successfully complete this paper is available only in the textbook, so if you haven’t read ALL the textbook assignments, crack open your Little, Brown Handbook do that now. Study the sample papers in Chapter 48 and try to identify principles and techniques you can apply to your own report.
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