Writing papers

Preparing papers

Here are some general rules for writing tutorial papers -- and most other short papers you write at Wesleyan. If it all seems obvious to you, please don't take offense; experience shows that these points will be unfamiliar or unclear to many others. And they matter.

Length:  Papers should be five or six pages long, typed double-space. Given the kind of questions asked, a shorter paper generally has too simple an argument, or is not adequately supported by specifics. Longer papers are hard on the preceptor and me. In five or six pages (seven at the outside) you can say what you need to say.

Format:  Please observe the following:

• Spacing:  Type double-space (three lines to the inch), not single space or 1½ space, so I can write comments between the lines.
• Margins:  Allow generous margins on both sides as well as at the top and bottom. I need margins to scribble in, and besides, full margins make a big difference to the appearance of the paper (not just in this tutorial!).
• Page numbering:  Number all pages after the first. Page 1 is usually left without a number, but it's not wrong to number it if you want to.
• Title:  Give your paper 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 all quotations, paraphrases, or unusual information in your papers. The simple way (fine with me) is to insert a note in the text, in parentheses, after the sentence to which it refers, like this. (Doyle, 27) The comma is preferred but not required. If you put your notes at the foot of the page or at the end of the paper, you can use the same simple form (without parentheses, of course) as long as the notes refer to assigned books or articles. If you refer to any other sources you can use the short form only if there is a full citation in a bibliographical list at the end of the paper. (See the brief introduction to full formal Footnoting below.)

Bibliography:  No bibliography is needed where assigned tutorial books are concerned. But if you have used other books or materials, these must be fully identified in a brief bibliographical list at the end. (See the brief introduction to Bibliographies below.)

Quotations:

• Precision:  Quoting 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 of course omissions, which are shown by dots.....  However, 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 something 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.  A block quotation is single-spaced, with all lines indented from the left margin; and since all this shows that it is a quotation, quotation marks are not used with a block quotation.

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 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. (Click here for an enjoyable illustration of the fallibility of spell checkers.) Corrections can be made by hand.

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 French aristocracy was composed of titled noblemen and their families."
"The French aristocracy comprised titled noblemen and their families."

Good class-conscious spelling and usage:

• bourgeoisie (n.):  This is the class, a rough synonym for middle class. Unlike "middle class", it can never be used as an adjective, because there is the perfectly good adjective "bourgeois". So you cannot write of a "bourgeoisie revolution".
• bourgeois (adj.):  This is the adjective form, used in phrases like "bourgeois revolution", "bourgeois mentality", and so on.
• bourgeois (n. sing. and pl.):  A member of the bourgeoisie is a bourgeois. The plural is written the same as the singular: a group of members of the bourgeoisie are bourgeois. Often you can write either "the bourgeoisie" or "the bourgeois" and mean much the same thing. However, it's generally better to write "the bourgeoisie" because of the ambiguity between singular and plural (or between noun and adjective) when you use "bourgeois".

• proletariat (n.):  This is the class, and like "bourgeoisie" it is never used as an adjective. Use "proletarian" instead.
• proletarian (adj.):  Used as an adjective in phrases like "the proletarian cause" or "proletarian behavior".
• proletarian (n.):  A member of the proletariat is a proletarian. A group of them are proletarians.

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's 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. 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 you don’t need both.
"occur":  This simply is a flat, boring word -- the language has lots of better ones!

Spelling: Note the correct spelling of the following:

Hobsbawm
Louis Philippe
Napoleon, Napoleonic
Bismarck
bureaucracy (think of it as rule by a bureau, meaning a government office)
tsar (the form "czar" is antiquated)

Usage:

• World War I and World War II:  Roman numerals are always used, not the words One and Two.
• Frederick William, King of Prussia:  His name is not Frederick, and not William, but always both together. The same is true of King Louis-Philippe of France, Archduke Francis Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, and others.

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". Thus we 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 uncountable things: thus "fewer dollars", but "less" money. Similarly, we speak of "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 it as an adjective), the words of the phrase are connected with hyphens.  Thus the phrases "nineteenth century", "middle class", right wing" and "middle of the road" look like this when they are used as adjectives:  "nineteenth-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 Orléans or Bülow) are part of the spelling – they’re not optional. Most computers have a way to do them. Otherwise put them in by hand.
• Hyphenation:  A word can be divided at the end of a line only between syllables. A one-syllable word cannot be divided. 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 Austrian Empire....'" It's awkward, but it has to be done in order to keep faith with your source and your reader.

There are variations in footnote style, but if you remember certain main points you should always be within the acceptable range:

• Punctuation:  A reference footnote is treated as a sentence: it begins with a capital letter and ends with a period. (This is probably 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.
• Author's name:  Give the author's name in normal order, first name first. There’s no reason to do otherwise, is there?
• Publication data:  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. There is never any punctuation immediately before the opening parenthesis, but there may be a comma or other punctuation right after the closing parenthesis, as needed.
• Ibid.:  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 isn’t usually italicized, even though it's a foreign word.)
• A work cited earlier:  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're 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.
• Page numbers:  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. Eric Hobsbawm, Industry and Empire (London, 1968), p. 53.

2. Ibid., pp. 78-79.

3. Lenin, quoted in Sheila Fitzpatrick, The Russian Revolution, 2nd ed. (New York, 1994), p. 109.

4. Charles S. Maier, "The Two Postwar Eras and the Conditions for Stability in Twentieth-
     Century Western Europe," American Historical Review, vol. 86 no. 2 (April 1981), pp. 327-67.

5. Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Revolution (London, 1962), p. 22.

6. Hobsbawm, Industry, pp. 30 and 97, and Fitzpatrick, p. 7.

As with footnotes, small variations in style don't matter so long as you understand the basic rules:

• Punctuation:  Unlike a footnote, a bibliographical entry is not a sentence. Its component parts -- 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.
• Author's name:  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.
• Publication data:  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. The form is either City, date. or City: publisher, date. Parentheses are not used.
• Same author twice:  There are 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:

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Revolution. London, 1962.

Hobsbawm, Eric. Industry and Empire. New York, 1968.

Kershaw, Ian. "Hitler and the Holocaust." The Nazi Dictatorship: Problems and Perspectives of
      Interpretation. 3rd ed. London and New York, 1993. Pp. 80-107.

Maier, Charles S. "The Two Postwar Eras and the Conditions for Stability in Twentieth-Century
     Western Europe." American Historical Review, vol. 86 no. 2 (April 1981). Pp. 327-67.