1. In what format will the paper have to be written?
MLA (Modern Language Association)
2. How long does the paper have to be?
3-4 full pages
3. What kind of sources do we have to use?
Books and the Internet
4. What kind of sources can we NOT use?
General online encyclopedias (Wikipedia)
5. What is the minimum number of sources we have to
have?
4 (two internet, one book, and one periodical/etc.)
6. What topics do I have to research for the paper?
aspects of culture
7. Does it have to be typed?
YES
8. Do we have to turn in notes/index cards/bibliography?
No, but you must have a Works Cited page
9. Do we have to submit to Turnitin.com?
NO, I will do that IF your work is to me by the 28th at
midnight.
10. What if a paper is late? Can I email my paper?
I will not accept papers after their due date without an
EXCELLENT reason (requiring a note). You can email the
paper and we will go by the sent date to be sure.
11. Do we have to document?
Yes. You must give credit to your sources in your paper.
12. What happens if we intentionally plagiarize?
You will be written up and suspended; you will receive a
zero on the paper.
13. Will there be a due date for a rough draft?
No, but you must have notes ready to type by Monday,
April 25th, for a grade.
14. When is the final draft due?
April 29th, a Friday
15. How much will the paper count in all?
Two test grades, which is equal to
~6 normal grades
16. How many direct quotes am I allowed to
have in my paper? How long can they be?
You need to incorporate at least one per
source. No one quote should be more than
four lines long.
17. Can we use first or second person
anywhere in the paper?
No. This is a formal paper, which means you
cannot use I, me, we, us, our, you, your (or
any forms of these words).
•A thesis statement is a one sentence statement of the
purpose of your paper.
•It usually appears at the end of the introduction to your paper.
•For this research paper, you will simply be stating the topics
which you will cover in your paper.
•Research papers are formal papers, which means that you
cannot use first or second person personal pronouns.
•In your thesis statement, you must mention your country, that
you are researching the culture, and list the topics you’ll cover.
EXAMPLE THESIS STATEMENT:
The food, religion, sports, holidays, and education in Japan are
all interesting aspects of its culture.
Addressing your Embassy Envelope
c/o Sean Sexton
Glenn High School
1600 Union Cross Rd.
Kernersville, NC 27284
Embassy of _____________
12345 Capital Street
Washington, DC 20008
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Definition of Paraphrasing: A restatement of a text or
•
•
•
•
passage in another form or other words.
Include all of the ideas mentioned in the original passage
Follow the original order of ideas
Keep the length approximately the same as the original, though
sometimes longer
Do not add your own thoughts or views
Definition of Summary: Presenting the substance in a
condensed form by reducing to its main points
•
•
•
•
Include only the main points of the original passage
Do not worry about following the original order of ideas
Keep the length to between ¼ and ½ of the length of the
original
Do not add your own thoughts or ideas
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
Original Text:
“Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall. Humpty Dumpty
had a great fall. All the king’s horses and all
the king’s men couldn’t put Humpty together
again.”
Correctly Paraphrased Text:
An egg by the name of Humpty Dumpty was
perched upon a wall. For some reason,
Humpty Dumpty had a catastrophic fall from
this partition. Horses and men, which
belonged to the King, tried unsuccessfully to
repair the broken egg.
Correctly Summarized Text:
According to the writer of a children’s nursery rhyme,
Humpty Dumpty, an egg, had a serious fall
from a wall. He was so broken that no one
could fix him.
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
“Peter, Peter pumpkin eater had a wife
and couldn’t keep her. He put her in
a pumpkin shell and there he kept
her very well.”
Paraphrasing and Summarizing
“Darfur has been embroiled in a deadly
conflict for over three years. At least
400,000 people have been killed; more than
2 million innocent civilians have been
forced to flee their homes and now live in
displaced-persons camps in Sudan or in
refugee camps in neighboring Chad; and
more than 3.5 million men, women, and
children are completely reliant on
international aid for survival. Not since the
Rwandan genocide of 1994 has the world
seen such a calculated campaign of
displacement, starvation, rape, and mass
slaughter.”
Bibliography Cards
1. For a book source, you will need the
following information:
1
Last name, First name. Title of Book.
City published: Publisher, Year.
Glenn High School Library
Bibliography Cards
1. For an Internet source, you will need the
following information:
2
Last name, First name. “Title of Web-
site.” Internet. Date Found.
<http://www.internet.com>
Internet
General Info. About Works Cited:
The Works Cited page is the last page of your
research paper. It does not count in the required
page numbers for the paper.
The Works Cited page is numbered in the upper
right hand corner of the page, just like all of the
other pages in your paper.
Everything on the page is double-spaced, never
more than that.
Entries on a Works Cited page are called
bibliographic entries, which means “Biblio”- book
and “graphic”-writing.
 The entries on the Works Cited page are in
alphabetical order.
General Info. About Works Cited:
 When you alphabetize, you alphabetize by the first
word of the bibliographic entry, unless it begins with
the three English articles, a , an , and the. You ignore
these words and alphabetize by the first word in the
title.
 You do not indent the first line of a bibliographic
entry, but you do indent the second line of a
bibliographic entry. It is the opposite of a paragraph
in an essay where you indent the first line.
 All of your sources must be documented in your
paper, so be sure to put only the sources you used on
your Works Cited page.
 Every period, comma, and colon are very important,
so do not get careless when you create your entries.
Book Entries:
For a Book Entry with an author, you need to find the
following information and put it in this order:
Author’s Last Name, Author’s First Name. Title of
Book. Publishing City: Publisher, Year
Published.
If the book does not have an author, you begin with
the title.
For a cultural encyclopedia, you add the name of your
country in quotation marks between the author’s last
name and title of the book.
Book Entries:
If you have two authors for a book, put
them in alphabetical order by their last
name, putting the first person in order by
last name then first name, and put the
other person in order by first name then
last name.
If you have more than two authors for a
book, list only the first person
alphabetically, then write the Latin phrase
et al, which means And all the rest.
Brochures are documented just like a
book without an author.
Website Entries:
For a website without an author, you
need to find the following information and
put it in this order:
“Title of Website.” Internet. Day Month
Year. <complete website address>
The date you put in the bibliographic
entry is the date you found the website
and printed it.
If you can find an author for the website,
you use the author’s last name and then
his/her first name, just like a book entry.
Website Entries:
The title of the website is usually printed
in the upper left- hand corner of the page.
The website address is usually printed in
the lower left- hand corner of the page.
The date you accessed the website is
usually printed in the lower right- hand
corner of the page.
This is why it is important to print from
the Internet since you won’t get this
information if you cut and paste into a
Word document.
Internal Documentation
What is Parenthetical Documentation?
Parenthetical Documentation is giving credit to your
sources in your research paper, even on
information you paraphrased or summarized.
How often should I document?
Every paragraph of your paper should have
documentation.
How much of my paper should be documented?
You do not have to document your topic or transition
sentence because you wrote them. The rest of
every body paragraph must be from a source, and
must be documented.
How do you document?
To document, you put important information in
parenthesis after the information you have quoted,
paraphrased, or summarized.
Internal Documentation
How do I know what to put in the parenthesis
when I am documenting?
When you document a BOOK source WITH AN
AUTHOR, you put the author’s last name and
the page number.
Example: (Smith 3)
When you document a BOOK source WITHOUT AN
AUTHOR, you put the title of the book and the
page number. (Germany the Beautiful
12-15)
When you document an INTERNET source WITH
AN AUTHOR, you put the author’s last name
and the page number. Example: (Jones 3-5)
When you document an INTERNET source WITHOUT
AN AUTHOR, you put the title of the website and
the page number. Example: (“German Food” 2-5)
When you document an INTERVIEW, you use the last
name of the person you interviewed and the word
“interview” in the parenthesis.
Example: (Sexton Interview)
Internal Documentation
What if a paragraph is in my own words and from
only one source?
If an entire paragraph came from the same source,
and you paraphrase or summarize the entire
paragraph, you only have document once at the
end of the paragraph. In this case, the period
goes before the documentation.
What if I use more than one source to put a
paragraph together?
If you used more than one source to construct a
paragraph, you must document after each block
of information. If each block of information is
more than one sentence, the period goes before
the documentation. If each block of information
is just one sentence, then the period goes after
the documentation.
Internal Documentation
Works Cited
“Food in Germany.” Internet. 6 February
2010. <http://www.germanfood.com>
German Culture. Berlin: Deutschland Publishing, 2010.
Sexton, Sean. Personal Interview. 5 April 2010.
Ashby, June. I Love Kraut. Greensboro: Glenn
Publishers, 1999.
Zimmermeyer, Dave. “Soccer, the Unknown Sport.”
Internet. 3 February 2007. <http://www.kickball.net>
Internal Documentation
Food is an interesting aspect of Germany’s culture.
This first and second sentence of the paragraph are from an
Internet source without an author, which is very common
for Internet sources. The Internet source is only three
pages long, and you know that because the printout tells
you in the upper right hand corner (
).
The next two sentences are from a brochure, which is
always documented as if it is a book. Often, because
brochures are written by advertising agencies, you will not
have an author, so remember that you just use the title,
which you can usually find on the front cover of the
brochure (
). This one
sentence is from an interview with one of your favorite
teachers who traveled to Germany; this teacher gave some
wonderful insight into the food of the country and how much
he loved it (
). The final three
sentences are from a book with an author. You found this
great information on food to finish the paragraph. The page
numbers that you used were pages 1121-1123 (
).
Many spectators at the popular sports in Germany enjoy
eating these wonderful foods.
Internal Documentation
Sporting life in Germany is exciting and very
competitive. This entire paragraph came from one
source and a range of pages. It was hard to find any
other source on the sports in Germany, but you did
find this great website that provided all the
information that you needed. You did a great job of
paraphrasing and summarizing all of the information
on the sports, making sure to put it all in your own
words and still capture the important information.
The website that you printed out was twelve pages
long but you only used the first six pages of the
website. Good luck with documenting this
paragraph and making sure that you get everything
correct (
). Sports in
Germany are often played on many of their national
holidays and festivals.
The Introduction
The Introduction of your research paper should
begin with a direct quote from a source, should
continue with a link explaining the quote, and
should end with your thesis:
“May the Emperor's reign continue for a thousand,
eight thousand generations until the pebbles grow into
boulders, lush with moss” (“Flag and National Anthem
of Japan” 1). This stanza from the Japanese
national anthem conveys the attitude of the people
of Japan that they apply not only to their leaders,
but to every aspect of their culture. The food,
religion, sports, holidays, and education of Japan
are all intriguing aspects of the country’s culture.
The Conclusion
The conclusion of your research paper should begin
with a restatement of the thesis, should continue with a
statement about the future potential of your country,
and should end with another quote:
The culture of Japan contains much more than
just food, religion, sports, holidays, and education,
but these aspects are the foundation of their
culture. The future of Japan is a bright and
exciting one as they continue to embrace other
cultures while never forgetting their own cultural
roots. “The traditional arts of Japan offer an
opportunity to experience something truly exotic or find
inner calm. These ancient 'ways' are not for the faint of
heart, but many foreigners come to Japan each year to
enlighten themselves through their study. For the rest of
us, just a nibble at this great banquet of culture will be
more than enough” (“Japanese Culture” 1).
Body of Research Paper
The body paragraphs of your research
paper should each be focused on one
aspect of culture:
TOPIC SENTENCE:
(The topic sentence should mention the aspect of culture
that will be addressed in the paragraph.)
Food is a delicious part of the culture of Japan.
TRANSITION SENTENCE:
(This is the last sentence of each of your body paragraphs.
It should sum up the current paragraph and introduce
the next topic. Find a relationship between the two
topics so you can do this in one sentence.)
Food is often a favorite item at many Japanese sporting
events.
Quiz on the Research Paper
1. What does MLA mean?
2. What is the page range for your paper?
3. What kinds of sources do you have to use for
your paper?
4. Explain the late policy for your paper.
5. Explain the plagiarism policy.
6. What can you not use in any part of your
research paper?
7. What are two ways that it is possible to plagiarize?
8. What is one way to avoid plagiarism?
9. Which version of the paper (rough or final) do you
have to upload into turnitin.com?
10. When writing a business letter in block format, what
do you not do to the paragraphs?
Quiz on the Research Paper
11. Write your thesis statement.
12. What are two important qualities that websites
should have to be good sources?
13. Define paraphrasing in your own words.
14. What goes in the upper right hand corner of a
bibliography card?
15. Which line is the only line not indented in a
bibliographic entry?
16. How do you organize your sources on the Works
Cited page?
17. How do you number your pages on a research paper
in MLA format?
18. For a book with an author, what do you put in parenthesis
in the paper?
19. If you are only documenting one sentence, where does
the period go?
20. For an Internet source without an author, what do you
put in parenthesis?
Extra Credit: What does Bibliography mean?
Write the following entries in order on the example Works Cited page in your booklet:
Smith, Jane. Land of the Rising Sun. New York: Harper Collins, 2004.
“Japanese Foods.” Internet. 24 February 2007. <http://www.japanfoods.com>
Hiroko, Yin. Personal Interview. 10 March 2007.
Ember, Carol and Melvin Ember. “Japan.” Worldmark Encyclopedia. Atlanta:
Dove Publishers, 2001.
Temple, Susan. “Japan: Culture.” Internet. 14 February 2007.
<http://www.japaneseculture.com>