Our research paper will conform to most current MLA guidelines for style and formatting, with one exception being that two spaces must be allowed after all end punctuation. The body of the paper will be approximately eight pages, following the appropriate guidelines for double-spacing, 12-point font, etc. The sections of the paper will be title page, abstract, body, and works cited page. The body will be presented in essay format, without headers of any type. Point of view will be third-person in this purely informative report on a topic selected from the course research paper topic list.
The works cited page will contain at least five (5) discrete sources of information used for the paper, and not more than two (2) of them may be Internet-derived. It is expected that periodical articles and at least one (1) book be consulted for the paper, and be represented in the works cited page by virtue of either direct quotation(s) or paraphrase(s) within the body of the paper.
The concept of thesis does not apply very directly to our course research paper since it is an informative (or analytical) paper rather than an argumentative/persuasive one. It is an exercise in information exploration and evaluation rather than in argument and persuasion. Ideally, no personal opinions, as such, are expressed by the student in the paper; rather, clearly stated and credible information is presented on the specific topic under review. (One might say that the absence of the student writers personal opinions is reflected in the third-person point of view employed, to be contrasted with the more subjective first-person viewpoint usually used in a more thesis-driven treatment.) Our important course paper in argumentation/persuasion is Essay IV, in which a clearly stated and then supported thesis is crucial to the success of the work; this is a very different type of paper in approach. NOTE: research can be done trough via internet due to quarantine.
