1. Choose
any topic having to do with THIS CLASS, but clear the topic with the professor
first.
2.You
must have three academic sources.Academic
sources contain footnotes.Newspapers
and magazines do not contain footnotes, whereas journals and most (but
not all) of the books in the FIU Library do contain footnotes.In
academic or scholarly papers, footnotes give the source of information
so that it can be checked for accuracy.Note
that footnotes could be endnotes or the Harvard citation method, which
indicates the author and year of publication (or copyright date) and is
embedded in the text of the paper, e.g. (Girard 1995).Also
note that:
1.Each
of these three sources should be on the identical topic;
2.The
topic should be narrowly defined – e.g., causes of teen suicide;
3.Thus,
one article on trends in suicide and another on prevention is not acceptable;
4.Journal
articles or chapters in books are good sources;
5.Three
chapters in the same book may count as three sources if each chapter has
a different author;
6.You
must either show me xerox copies of chapters and articles, or bring in
the books.
7.I
will not accept your paper unless I have approved sources that you show
me in advance.
3.Your
paper should be written as a scholarly treatment of the topic.Your
treatment should present the findings of studies discussed in the articles/books
you have selected for your paper.Scholarly
papers do not describe personal experiences or feelings.
4.Your
paper should be organized around one to three major themes that are either
announced or hinted at in the introductory paragraphs of your paper.Paragraphs
should be introduced with transitions that indicate where you are with
regard to laying out the themes in the paper (e.g., In addition to identity
threats, another cause of suicide is...)
5.The
paper should contain citations (footnotes, endnotes, or author’s name in
parentheses) for all facts or analyses that are not your own.You
do not have to quote in order to footnote.
6.Do
not quote excessively.Quotes in
contemporary research articles are limited to half a sentence in most instances.It
is far better to paraphrase in your own words, which will better maintain
the flow of the text and make it easier on the reader.Excessive
quotes are generally a sign of a lazy writer.
7.Don’t
refer to dictionary definitions (including Webster’s); this trite mechanism
for introducing a topic is generally not relevant and should be avoided.
8.Give
the professor a rough draft one week or more in advance of the final exam,
and you will get the paper back with comments telling you how you can get
an “A”.
9.You
must turn in a rough draft with your paper, or I will not accept the paper
(PERIOD, NO EXCEPTIONS).Do not tell
me you make corrections on a word processor so you do not have a rough
draft.If that’s how you write papers,
I can assure you they stink!(I want
to be unmistakably blunt here).Good
papers need to be printed out and read through before they are corrected.I
personally make 10 to 100 drafts like this for a single journal article.
10.Your
paper must have ten (10) pages of text (not including references).It
must be typed and double-spaced.I
prefer rough drafts that are typed, but I will accept rough drafts that
are written in longhand.
11.Do
not bother to purchase a paper.I
can tell when this has been done because the format of the paper is generally
inappropriate for the class.If the
paper is inappropriate, I will simply assign a low grade.
12.If
your paper does not improve your grade, it will not be averaged in when
calculating your final grade.
Most instructors at
the University level demand that all of most of the periodical articles
you use in writing a research paper come from SCHOLARLY JOURNALS.This
is especially true for upper-division courses and is absolutely essential
in graduate work.To help distinguish
scholarly journals from other periodicals, some characteristics of scholarly
journals are listed below.
CHARACTERISTICS
OF SCHOLARLY JOURNALS:
Scholarly journals
generally have a sober, serious look.They
often contain many graphs and charts but few glossy pages or exciting pictures.
Scholarly journals
ALWAYS cite their sources in the form of footnotes or bibliographies.
Articles are written
by a scholar in the field or by someone who has done research in the field.Authors
name appears at the beginning or the end of the article.
The language of scholarly
journals is that of the discipline covered.It
assumes some scholarly background on the part of the reader.
The main purpose of
a scholarly journal is to report on original research of experimentation
in order to make such information available to the rest of the scholarly
world.
Many scholarly journals,
though by no means all, are published by a specific professional organization.
EXAMPLES OF SCHOLARLY
JOURNALS:
JAMA: The Journal
of the American Medical Association.
Psychological Bulletin
(published by the American Psychological Association).
Journal of Marriage
and the Family (published by
the National Council on Family Relations).
Sex Roles: A Journal
of Research
Journal of Educational
Research
Journal of the Academy
of Marketing Science
PERIODICALS THAT
ARE NOT SCHOLARLY JOURNALS:
News magazines like
Time,
Newsweek, and U.S. News & World Report.While
these publications can be of great assistance in providing an introduction
to a current topic, they don’t providing an introduction to a current topic,
they don’t provide the same analysis as scholarly journals.Articles
are not usually written by scholars in the field and are aimed at a more
general audience than are articles in scholarly journals.
Opinion magazines such
as New Republic, National Review, or Nation.These
magazines are aimed at an educated audience, but without assuming particular
scholarly background.They comment
on current events and offer a particular viewpoint on world affairs, politics,
and cultural matters.
Popular magazines like
Sports Illustrated, Health, Redbook, People, Readers Digest, or Family
Circle.Generally, academic
libraries do not carry as many of these titles as public libraries do.Popular
magazines, while attractive and entertaining, do not report on original
research or cite sources, and are not the kind of source to cite in the
bibliography of an academic paper.
NOTE
There are reference
books which attempt to describe and evaluate periodical titles.If
you need further information about an individual title we suggest you consult:
Katz, Bill and Linda
Sternberg Katz.Magazines for
Libraries.7th ed.New
York: Bowker, 1992.(Z6941.M23)
“... an annotated listing
by subject of some 6,500 periodicals.”(Preface)
Each entry gives name of periodical, beginning publication date, publisher,
editor, address, price, and such information as indexing, size, and level
of audience.Short abstracts describe
the scope, political slant and other aspects of the publication.Arrangement
is topical which brings magazines and journals on like subjects together.To
find an individual title one uses the title index at the end of the volume.
FOR FURTHER ASSISTANCE,
PLEASE INQUIRE AT THE REFERENCE DESK IN THE LIBRARY.