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 or APA 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…
Outline
2,000 to 3500 words
Underlined Thesis
Works Cited Page
Abstract (APA only)

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 A THESIS
 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
YOUR THESIS WILL BE THE
ANSWER TO THE QUESTION

11. THESIS=TOPIC + ASSERTION
More
research
for
ANSWER
to Question
Question
about
topic
Preliminary
Research on
TOPIC

12. EXAMPLE
Researching you find that some scholars believe that
Christopher Marlowe wrote the plays of Shakespeare.
QUESTION: Did someone else write
Shakespeare’s plays?
MORE RESEARCH
ANSWER (THESIS) Christopher Marlowe wrote
many of the plays attributed to Shakespeare.

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 HAVE YOUR
THESIS SELECTED BY
DECEMBER 2ND.
You will post your complete thesis
statement on the proper forum in the
class blackboard site.

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

16. ALL WEBSITES ARE NOT
CREATED EQUAL…BE
SELECTIVE!
•When was it last updated?
•Information needs to be current and up-to-
date
•Is bias obvious?
•For a persuasive argument you may want
bias, but in many research applications it is
unwanted.

17. CONSIDER THE SOURCE
Well-designed web sites
.com .org
will allow you find the .net
authors.
.gov .edu .jp
Check the top level
domain of the site's .tv
.ca
URL.
Look for a tilde (~) as
part of the URL

18. MAKE SURE YOU ARE IN THE RIGHT
PLACE.
 Not everything is on the web.
 copyright, cost, and demand
issues keep many things off.
 Very little is available written
before 1980.

19. WHEN IN DOUBT, DOUBT!
 Almost anyone can put up
almost anything on the Web for
almost any purpose.
 Try to differentiate FACT from
OPINION.
 Look for AMBIGUITY and
MANIPULATIVE REASONING and
BIAS.
 TEST one source against another.

20. KNOW WHAT’S HAPPENING
Tryto identify the reason the web page
was created in the first place.
Does the site have a particular BIAS?
Is
the main purpose is to INFORM, to
PERSUADE, or to SELL you something?
What is NOT being said?

21. LOOK AT DETAILS.
 Check for the obvious things, such
as good grammar and correct
spelling.
 Note the depth of the material
presented.
 Look for the date the page was last
revised.

22. THE WEB IS NOT A CATCH-ALL FOR
INFORMATION!
 Do not overlook available print materials
 Don’t waste exorbitant amounts of time looking for an
on-line resource when it can be more easily found in
a local database or print source.
 Quality NOT quantity in web sites and resources.
 Use a wide variety of search engines, tools, and
strategies to optimize your search time.

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

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

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

27. If you wish to use EVERNOTE rather than
index cards, you may.
Create a notebook specifically for this
class and share it with Mr. Lane
(rlane@gorockets.org).

28.  BIB Notes
Put down the bibliography / works cited
information EXACTLY as you will on you
Works Cited page at the end of your
Must be in either MLA or APA format, dependent
on which you are using for your paper.
Title each card with “Bib #”
Tags are optional

29. NOTEY Notes
 Put info in notes as you would for an index
card
 Include page number if a physical book
 Include URL if a web source (should be done
automatically)
 Tag with a topic (or topics if you wish)
 Tag with the number of the bib note it came
from.

30. 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

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

32. 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 OF THUMB—No more than Twenty
Percent of your paper should be direct
quotes

33. 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 A Tale of Two 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).

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

35. 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).