“Exploring a Topic of Interest: A Guide to Writing a Research Paper”

Your Research Paper
Research Paper:  Instructions
Writing a Research Paper is an important academic skill.  This assignment calls for a seven page paper, complete with a Works Cited page where you list the sources you depended on in your paper.  (By the way, the Works Cited page is on the 8th page.)  I want you to write on something that interests you through your own life experience, or something that has piqued your interest which you learned about in this course or something you have heard about in the media.  If you have doubts about your subject, you can simply email me and I’ll give you some feedback about it.  Your job is to research the subject and decide what you want your readers to understand about the topic.
You then have to write the paper while paying attention to the rubric for the paper.  This means that your first paragraph must introduce your subject along with what you intend to do in this paper.  This is called your thesis statement. 
As you unfold the events or lay out the information, you must always give credit to the sources from which you got your information.  You do this by citing your sources in the body of the paper.  Whether you quote directly from the source or not, you still must cite your source like this:  (Albanese 56).  This, of course, is the author’s last name and the page number where the information can be found.  Also, please be aware that even though you may quote one of your sources several times in a paragraph, you need only cite the source once the last time you use that source in that paragraph.
In addition, all of your sources must be listed in detail on your “Works Cited” page.  Detailed information about citing sources and the format of your “Works Cited” page can be found in this module.
You must also pay attention to sentence structure and spelling.  I take off a point for each error.  Format is also important.  Since you have a model to look at you should see that double-spacing is used throughout the paper, even on the “Works Cited” page.  Since your paper is only seven pages long, I do not encourage the use of separate titles to announce different parts of your paper.  I say that because the model paper you are given is probably use for a paper of more than 15 pages.  Therefore, please do not put additional titles to separate parts of the paper you submit to me.
I will be grading your paper with the use of a rubric which is part of this assignment and I also will be giving you feedback on your paper in the “Comment” section, so you can know how well you did or what you did which needs improvement. 
Writing a paper like this is an important academic skill which clearly demonstrates your research abilities, but also, in particular, your ability to express skillfully what you know and how you think