7th Grade Structure of your Research Paper

All steps MUST be followed.

Credit cannot be earned without proper citation of sources and Works Cited page.

  1. Insert a header at the beginning of your first page. Click INSERT; PAGE NUMBER;

TOP OF PAGE; move the cursor to the left of the number that you see and

WRITE YOUR LAST NAME

  1. On the left margin begin your heading:

Your name

Mrs. Folker/Ms. Nielsen (Or your English and Science teachers’ names)

X periods (whatever you have)

8 October 2015

Title

(All of this heading is done just in Times New Roman (or Cambria) 12 (or 11) point font, just like the rest of the paper. EVERYTHING, including the Works Cited page is double spaced when you print it)(I suggest writing everything in single space to begin with, then double space when writing is complete.)

  1. Structure of your research paper:

1st section - Introduction

2-3 paragraphs

Hook – a personal experience, or interesting news item, or a collection of statistics or questions that will catch your reader’s attention. It is generally more than just one sentence.

Thesis Statement or Claim – a sentence that tells me what is important about your topic. For instance, if I were reporting on theater, I might write:

Musical theater, dramas, and comedies are not just for entertainment; they are important literature that influences our society’s attitudes and morals.

Right after the thesis statement, tell me some background information (common knowledge types of things) about your topic, such as - what it is, why we need to know about it, general knowledge, specific knowledge that we will need to know in order to understand the rest of the paper.

Introduce the 2 specific subtopics (your questions) in the last line of the last paragraph in this section.

Example: In this paper, I will discuss __ and ___.

2nd section - 1st Subtopic (Subtopic A) (2 or 3 paragraphs)

Tell about the 1st subtopic. Be sure that you have a topic sentence and supporting details for each paragraph. Whenever you use information from one of your sources, be sure to tell me who the author is and what page that information can be found on. There are two ways to correctly cite your source; give credit to the author in the text then put the page# from the source in parenthesis at the end of the citation.

For example:

One example of the power of drama to change attitudes is Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. According to critic Marilyn Harris, this play helped the public recognize just how terrible the McCarthy senate hearings were by comparing them to the hysteria surrounding the Salem witch trials (35).

OR

At the end of your quote or summary, place the author’s last name and the page # in parenthesis.

One example of the power of drama to change attitudes is Arthur Miller’s play The Crucible. This play helped the public recognize just how terrible the McCarthy senate hearings were by comparing them to the hysteria surrounding the Salem witch trials (Harris 35).

If my source has no author, I would use the title to cite it: i.e. (“Social Commentary Through Drama”).

DO NOT USE the entire entry from the Works Cited page, nor the entire URL from a website.

I used my notes – a summary of what I had read in one of my books – and told my readers who had written that information and on what page the info could be found.

I only need to put either the last name of the author or the title (if there is no author), not the entire works cited entry.

Section 3 (2nd Subtopic--Subtopic B) will be similar and must contain citation of your sources.

Section 4 is a conclusion where you restate your thesis statement – in slightly different words – and recap the most important points in the other sections. Finish with a statement about why you think the topic is important.

The last page is entitled Works Cited. On it, you list all of your sources with as much information as you were able to collect. Begin with the author’s last name, first name. Then list each item in the order it is found on the source card page that I gave you. Article titles have quotation marks around them. Book titles are written in italics. A colon goes between the place and the publisher. A period goes after each item.

See the instructions for a Works Cited page or go to the OWL at Purdue website. Scroll to the bottom of the page and click on the topic that you need.

After you get everything written down -- and DON’T FORGET THE TITLES ON YOUR INTERNET SOURCES – you put the entries in alphabetical order according to the first word in the entry and indent the second line (if any) of each entry.

BEFORE YOU PRINT:

1.Read it aloud and proofread to make sure your sentences make sense. (Have someone else read your paper aloud to you, too.)

2.Proofread for spelling, grammar, or punctuation errors.

3.Check twice that you have everything that I’ve told you to have.

*****Before you send:*****

4.Make sure that I can find each thing on the following list by highlighting with the highlighter tool (in Word) or by clicking the arrow next to the font color and choosing highlight (in Google drive):

Check list for highlighting:

___ All of the heading

___ The Hook

___ The Claim/Thesis Statement

___ Your list of topics/ questions that will be addressed in the body of the report.

___ Each place inside your text that you have given credit to an author or article for the information that you are using (Parenthetical Citation).

___Transition words from one section to another.

___ The restatement of your thesis statement in the conclusion.

___ The first letter in each entry of your Works Cited (to show that it is in alphabetical order.)

___·Your primary source entry in green.