STRUCTURING YOUR PAPER
One of the most essential keys to writing a good research paper is strong organization. All papers of this sort have an introduction with a research question, a thesis statement and a roadmap (see below for details), a body, and a conclusion. Follow these simple steps for organizing your paper and you will do just fine
Step 1: The Research Question – The research question is that question that your research is intended to answer. In posing this question to the reader, you should provide some background as to why it is an important question to consider. Typically, the answer to a research question will not be self-evident, which is why (as your paper should explain to the reader) it merits investigation.
Step 2: The Thesis - Make sure that your paper has a well-articulated thesis in the first paragraph. The thesis statement tells the reader what point you will be making throughout your paper. It is the central idea around which you should organize all of your information. For example, if you are writing a paper on human rights in China, you might make the following thesis statement: “While some progress has been made in improving human rights in China, protection of basic human rights are still woefully lacking in the country.”
Step 3: The Roadmap - Make sure that your paper has a road map within the first paragraph or two. A road map is simply a statement that tells the reader what steps you will take to substantiate or support your thesis. If we return to the example of human rights in China, your thesis and road map might read something like this:
Research Question: “What is the current status of human rights in China?”
Thesis: “While some progress has been made in improving human rights in China, protection of basic human rights are still woefully lacking in the country.”
Roadmap: I will support this argument by first examining the standards of human rights protection (or lack thereof) under Mao, looking specifically at freedom of religious expression and the rights of the accused in judicial proceedings and after conviction. Subsequently, I will examine reforms in these areas under Deng Xiaoping and Zhu Rongsi. Examination of these reforms reveals that though some progress has been made in upholding human rights in China, serious shortcomings remain.
Step 3: The Conclusion - The basic formula for writing an essay is “tell what your going to tell me (thesis and roadmap), tell me (body of paper), and tell me what you’ve told me.” Following this model, the conclusion is nothing more than a strong restatement of the ideas and argument that you have presented throughout the paper.
Step 4: Attribution, Citation and Plagiarism - All knowledge is built upon previous knowledge. As we read, study and develop our own perspectives, we are using other people's ideas. Building on other people's ideas, we create our own. When you put your ideas on paper, your instructors want to distinguish between the ideas borrowed from other people and your own newly reasoned perspectives or conclusions. You make these distinctions in a written paper by citing the sources of the ideas that you have borrowed. Failure to make such attribution through the use of citations is plagiarism. Plagiarism is the intentional representation of another person’s words, thoughts or ideas as one’s own.
I expect that as a student in my class you will adhere to Clark University’s standards of academic integrity. These standards require that you do your own work and give proper attribution when you borrow ideas or material of any sort from another. If you have questions concerning what this means in terms of citing from a source in a paper, collaborating with other students on class presentations or other course related issues, please do not hesitate to ask me for clarification. Failure to abide by the University’s standards of academic integrity may result in severe penalties, including suspension or expulsion from the university. For further elaboration, see the section entitled “Academic Integrity” on the Academic Advising website (http://www.clarku.edu/offices/aac/integrity.cfm) or pages 23-25 in the Academic Advising Handbook (The Blue Book), available online at: http://www.clarku.edu/offices/aac/bluebook.pdf.
You need to cite your source, even if:
Step 5: How to Cite – I prefer that you use American Political Science Association (APSA) parenthetical citations along with a list of references or bibliography at the end of your paper. You may use MLA citation format if it is more familiar to you. However, when you use parenthetical notation you do not have to create footnotes or endnotes for your research paper. The information in parentheses will tell the reader the author's or authors' last name or names and the date of publication of the work where the original information used in your paper can be found. In the social sciences, it is important to have the date of publication immediately available for professional reasons, so it is included in APSA parenthetical references. A publication date also helps to identify works by an author with many publications. If you are referring to a work as a whole, the page number is not necessary.
When you want to cite a specific portion of a source, you can include the page number or other identifying information (the chapter number or the identifying number of an equation, figure, or table, for example) in the parenthetical citation. The APSA publication manual indicates that the "page or chapter numbers must appear unless the reference is to the entire work as a whole" (APSA Committee on Publications 2006, 17).
If you need additional information on how to cite in APSA format or guidance or stylistic issues, please see:
American Political Science Association Committee on Publications. 2006. Style Manual for Political Science. Washington, D.C.: American Political Science Association.
Available online at: http://www.apsanet.org/media/PDFs/Publications/APSAStyleManual2006.pdf