Writing papers
Preparing papers
Here are some general rules on preparing a well-formatted paper for this
course. Professors differ somewhat in what they expect, but most of these rules should be useful for
papers written in any course. The details may seem familiar or obvious to some people, but experience
shows that they are unknown or unclear to many others. And they matter.
Format: Please observe the following:
- Spacing:
Type double-space, not
single space or 1½ space. Not only does this look better, it gives me room to make comments.
- Margins:
Allow generous margins
on both sides as well as top and bottom, for the same two reasons as double-spacing.
- Page numbering: Number all pages
after the first. It's customary
to leave page 1 without a number, but you can number it if you want to.
- Title:
For any paper longer than two or three pages, find
a title that conveys something of the line of argument.
Put the title on a cover sheet.
- Stapling:
Put the paper together with a staple or a
paper clip. I won't accept papers without one or the other. Stacks of papers are hard
enough to manage without loose sheets!
Footnotes:
Provide source references for any quotations, paraphrases, or unusual
information in your papers. In short papers, where you use only the assigned reading (and therefore
where I know what you are referring to), you can do it the easy way, just inserting a note in the text,
in parentheses, after the sentence to which it refers, like this. (Djilas, 27) The comma is preferred
but not required. Where the author's name alone would be ambiguous, because we have used more
than one book by the author, add a short version of the title. (Rothschild, East Central Europe, 93)
If you prefer notes at the foot of the page or at the end of the paper, you can also use the simple
form (without parentheses, of course) as long as the notes refer to assigned books or articles. Any other
sources need to be identified in full footnote form. (See the brief introduction to
Footnoting below.)
Bibliography:
You don't need a bibliography in two-page papers, if you are citing only
course readings, which is all I expect. But if you choose to refer to materials from outside the course,
these should be fully identified somewhere -- in the footnotes themselves, or in a list at the end.
(See the brief introduction to Bibliographies below.)
Quotations:
- Precision:
Quotations must always be exact:
you are bound by the spelling, punctuation and capitalization of the original. Any changes must be
shown by square brackets [ ]; except that, if you leave
something out from the middle of your quotation, the omission is shown by
dots .... Note that we don't normally use dots at the
beginning of a quotation (since the fact that you are starting in the middle is generally obvious),
nor at the end.
- Insertions:
If you insert words into a quotation, put the addition in
square brackets [ ], not ordinary parentheses.
- Block quotations:
If (and only if) the quotation is four typed
lines or longer, use the form of a block quotation, which is single-spaced, has
all lines indented from the left margin, and
does not have quotation marks around it.
Foreign words:
Italicize or
underline them. Italics are always used for foreign
words in a printed text, and underlining is an acceptable equivalent.
Three things to avoid:
- Abbreviations:
With very few exceptions, abbreviations are not used in
formal writing. Write "twentieth", not "20th".
- Contractions
(like "didn't"): Formal writing is different from speech,
and this is one prominent way in which they differ.
- Split infinitives
(an adverb between "to" and the verb, as in
"to boldly go"): There are some exceptions to this prohibition, but not many.
Proofreading:
Proofreading your work is basic academic good manners,
and like many professors I take offense when it isn't done. If someone else types a paper for you,
it's still your responsibility to catch the errors. And don't rely on a spell checker alone to do the job.
Corrections can be made by hand.
Click
here for an illustration of the fallibility of spell checkers.
More tips
Words often misused:
- Disinterested:
This means "detached", "non-partisan", lacking any
financial or partisan interest in some affair. The word that means "unconcerned" or
"indifferent" is "uninterested".
- Backward, backwards:
"Backwards" means "hind end foremost".
The word that means "underdeveloped" or "retarded" is "backward".
Thus we say "a backward country", not "a backwards country".
- Land, territory:
Peasants, farmers and nobles have land; countries have territory.
- Advance, advancement:
An "advance" is a step forward, while an
"advancement" usually means a promotion (as in one's profession). Progress
(economic, political, and so on) consists of "advances", not
"advancements".
- Compose, comprise:
"Comprise" means something like "include". It
follows that "is comprised of" is an impossible phrase; the writer means to say
"is composed of". The two following sentences (both correct) mean the same thing:
"The middle class was composed of businessmen, professionals,
and their families."
"The middle class comprised businessmen, professionals,
and their families."
Transition words:
- Yet, thus, but:
These words at the start of a sentence or clause are
not followed by a comma.
- However:
This word takes a comma both before and
after it, unless it stands as the first or last word in the sentence.
- However, nevertheless, thus:
These words are not conjunctions; that is, they cannot be used to join
two clauses using only a comma as punctuation. The following sentence is ungrammatical:
"Disraeli was a clever man, however, he was not as clever as he thought." Either break
the sentence with a period or semi-colon before "however", or change
"however" to "but". Similar changes will do the trick with the other two words
as well.
Some words and phrases to avoid:
Societal:
Avoid jargon, and this is a jargon word for "social".
Existed,
when "were" will do: In good expository writing plain is
better than fancy.
Possessed,
when "had" will do: The reason is the same.
Time period:
This is redundant. Use either "time" or "period",
but not both.
At this point in time:
Either "at this point" or "at this time" is OK, but
both is just extra verbiage.
Occur:
This simply is a flat, boring word -- the language has lots of better
ones!
Spelling and usage:
Note how the following are written:
Bureaucracy:
Think of it as rule by a bureau, meaning a government office.
World War I and
World War II:
Roman numerals are always used, not the words One and Two.
Dangling phrases:
In English we expect an introductory phrase to refer to (to
"modify") the subject of the main sentence that follows. If the writer means the phrase to
modify something else (stated or implied), it becomes a "misplaced modifier" or
"dangling phrase/participle". The effect is often comical:
- "Plunging 1000 feet into the gorge, we saw Yosemite
Falls."
- "When a small boy, a girl is of little interest."
- "As a baboon who grew up wild in the jungle, I realized that
she had special needs."
Click
here for more on dangling phrases, mainly from the classic book by Strunk and White.
Words of quantity:
We have different words to express quantities depending on whether
the thing concerned can (in principle) be counted or not. Thus, "the majority of" can be
used only of countable things, like people or votes; otherwise use "most": write
"most of the time", not "a majority of the time". "Fewer" is the right
word for countable things, while "less" is used with nouns referring to vague quantities:
thus "fewer dollars", but "less money". Similarly, "a smaller
number" of sea gulls, but "a smaller amount" of sand.
Compound modifiers:
When you use a phrase of two or more words to modify a noun
(that is, when you use a phrase as an adjective), the words of the phrase are connected with hyphens.
Thus the phrases "twentieth century", "middle class", "right wing"
and "middle of the road" look like this when they are used as adjectives:
"twentieth-century Europe", "middle-class values", "right-wing groups"
and "middle-of-the-road politics".
Typographical matters:
- Accent marks:
Accents on foreign words and names (such as "Bełżec" or
"Iaşi") are part of the spelling – they’re not optional. All recent computers have a way to
do the accents; or you can put them in by hand. With German umlauts over vowels (as in
"Führer" or "Göring") you have the choice of putting an
"e" after the vowel; thus, "Fuehrer" and
"Goering" are also acceptable spellings. What is
not acceptable is paying no attention to the umlaut,
as with "Fuhrer" or "Goring".
- Hyphenation:
A word can be divided at the end of a line only between syllables.
A one-syllable word cannot be divided at all. An "-ed" at the end of a word is rarely a
syllable by itself, so you can't move it to the next line alone. If you're not sure where the syllables
break, a dictionary will help.
- Dashes:
It takes two hyphens to make a dash when you type -- like this. Your
word processor may automatically change the two hyphens into a long dash known as an em-dash,
which is fine, but a single hyphen is not enough.
As you see, I prefer to make the dash more prominent with spaces on either side of it, but you
don't have to do that; most people don't.
- More on quoting:
If you want to present a quotation in your text as a stand-alone sentence,
when it begins with a small letter in the original, you should show the change in capitalization in
this way: "[T]he only time...." The same device is needed if you want to embed into a
sentence of yours some words that began with a capital in the original, as in this case: "It has
been said that '[t]he Soviet Union....'" It's awkward, but it has to be done in order to keep
faith with your source and your reader.
Footnoting
There are variations in footnote style, but if you remember certain
main points you should always be within the acceptable range:
- A reference footnote is treated as a
sentence: it begins with a capital letter
and ends with a period. (This may be because some
footnotes do consist of, or include, regular sentences.) It follows that the parts of a footnote reference
are separated by commas, not by periods.
- Give the author's name in normal
order, first name first. There’s no reason to do otherwise, is there?
- Put the publication data of a book inside
parentheses, normally in one of these forms: (City, date) or (City: Publisher, date).
I don’t care whether you give the publisher, but other professors may be more finicky. Either way,
be consistent. As with parentheses used elsewhere there is never any punctuation right
before the parentheses, but there may be a comma or
other punctuation right after them, as needed.
- Use Ibid. or ibid. (capital "I" if it's the first word in the footnote)
to indicate the same source as in the previous note.
If you are referring to the same page in the same source,
then you can use just ibid., standing alone; otherwise, give the page number. (Note that ibid. is an
abbreviation, always followed by a period. It’s Latin, but it isn’t usually italicized.)
- The abbreviations op. cit. and loc. cit. aren't used any more. When
you come back to cite a work cited earlier, just use the author's last name followed by a page number;
if you are citing more than one work by that author, give the author's last name and a short version
of the title, then the page number.
- The abbreviation for "page" is "p.", and for
"pages" it is "pp.". It is acceptable to omit these and just give the number.
Some examples:
1. Milovan Djilas, The New Class (London, 1957), p. 53.
2. Ibid., pp. 78-79.
3. Mark Frankland, The Patriot’s Revolution (Chicago, 1992),
p. xvii.
4. "The Tito-Stalin Correspondence, March-June 1948,"
in Gale Stokes (ed.), From Stalinism to Pluralism (New York, 1991), p. 59.
5. Misha Glenny, "Yugoslavia: The Revenger's Tragedy,"
The New York Review of Books, August 13, 1992, pp. 33-35.
6. Djilas, New Class, pp. 30 and 97, and Glenny, p. 35.
Bibliographies
As with footnotes, small variations in style don't matter so long as
you understand the basic rules:
- Unlike a footnote, a bibliographical entry is
not a sentence. Its segments -- author or editor; title;
publication data (for a book); journal title with issue; page numbers in the case of a journal article
or a distinct chapter in a book; and there can be others -- are separated by
periods, not commas. There is also a period at the
end.
- Since a bibliography is in alphabetical order by the author's or editor's
last name, the last name goes first. If there is no author,
alphabetize by the first significant word in the title.
- Just as in a footnote, you may give the publisher in the publication
data of a book, or not, as you choose (as far as I am concerned) -- just be consistent. Parentheses
are not used.
- There are fancy ways to avoid using the same author's name
repeatedly when you have more than one title by the same author, but these are not required --
generally it’s best just to repeat the name.
Some examples:
Djilas, Milovan. The New Class. London, 1957.
Djilas, Milovan. Wartime. New York, 1977.
Frankland, Mark. The Patriots' Revolution. Chicago, 1992.
Glenny, Misha. "Yugoslavia: The Revenger's Tragedy."
The New York Review of Books, August 13, 1992. Pp. 32-43.
"The Tito-Stalin Correspondence, March-June 1948."
In From Stalinism to Pluralism, ed. by Gale Stokes. New York, 1991. Pp. 58-65.
Weschler, Lawrence. The Passion of Poland. New York,
1984.