RESEARCH PAPER GUIDELINES

All research papers must include a bibliography or reference list in the style set out by Kate Turabian’s manual of style.

Research papers are graded on the following items:

• Is the relationship of the topic to nationalism or ethnic conflict clearly defined early in the paper?
• Is the topic manageable within the given page limits and time constraints?

• Does the paper attempt to answer a single question? Is that question stated clearly early in the paper?

• Was the original question answered?
• Did the student make a convincing case for this in the summary paragraph?
• Do the ideas flow in a logical sequence?

• Are the sources from good, scholarly publications?
• Did the student make the best use of those sources available about the topic?

• Did the student follow precisely the guidelines for reference citation found in Turabian?

• Did the student use the skills she learned in freshman English to produce a well organized research paper?

For Internet/WWW sources use an established style of citation and include a copy of the page from the website that you used as well as a copy of the homepage of the site that you have used that includes the complete URL address. This is the only way that I can tell whether or not the site is a legitimate, scholarly site.

Your literature review should begin with a working title and an abstract of your project. Your working title should be primarily descriptive; it is the shortest possible abstract of your research paper. It should include the geographical and chronological limits of your project, e.g., "Nationalist Editorials and Letters to the Editor in the The Jackson Sun September 2001-January 2002."

Your bibliography is your first effort at examining the literature about your question. You need to find scholarly books and scholarly articles. In the lit review you should provide a paragraph that gives the author's thesis, an evaluation of the work, and explanation of its relevance for your project, with appropriate citations of the work in the proper citation and bibliographic format.

• Title of the Paper

• The single question that your paper will attempt to answer.

• One paragraph describing what you plan to accomplish in your paper. (This could become your topic paragraph in the finished paper.)

Citations: YOU MUST CITE EVERYTHING THAT YOU DO NOT KNOW FROM YOUR OWN PERSONAL OBSERVATION, or that is not common knowledge. This usually means that you will have several citations per paragraph. Use any standard format, such as the one that you learned in freshman English class.

When you are discussing work published by other people, you must cite. When you are analyzing issues and are using your own thought processes to discover relationships or come to conclusions, no citations are necessary.