BIBLIOGRAPHY
The first thing I look at is the bibliography. At least half of your
sources should be from substantive print sources. Every entry should be
as complete as possible. That is difficult with some web site sources. I will
use the URL you provide to check out the web sites. Examine the site closely
to find out who wrote the material. Do not just say there is no author. If I
find one through a little searching and you have not cited this person by
name, you lose a point. Indicate the author and chapter you are citing when
you use material from a book edited by someone else. E.g., John Smith,
ed., The Book of Knowledge (New York: Big Publisher, 1999), 12-20, is
not enough, unless the page numbers refer to Smith’s own intro or chapter.
If 12-20 is actually Alice Jones, "Part of All Knowledge," then that
is your actual reference. The whole reference should read:
Alice Jones, "Part of All Knowledge," in John Smith, ed., The
Book of Knowledge (New York: Big Publisher, 1999), 12-29.
Most students remember to cite the name of the book or article or website.
The truly important name, however, is the author. Some authors have
credibility; others do not. You will probably think that you do not know which
authors are credible or not. True. But by attending to their names now, you
will slowly get familiar with many of them. Another aid concerning credibility
is to learn publishers. For many of them, their first job is to publish things
that people will read and buy, not to make sure that the book is
accurate or complete. If there is an audience for it, that is often enough.
Nonetheless, some publishers take pride in trying to get it right. This
includes especially university presses, starting with Oxford, Cambridge,
Chicago, Harvard, California, and other big names. A religious publisher is,
of course, going to favor texts that reflect the particular religious group
that publisher is in tune with. (Orbis is Catholic; Fortress/Augsberg is
Lutheran; Eerdmans is Calvinist, Baker Book House is Evangelical, as is
InterVarsity Press, etc.)
GENERAL STRUCTURE
By the time you hand in your paper it should be in a form that would allow
me to easily outline it. The opening paragraph should provide guidance about
that outline (see the next section here). I strongly recommend using a clear
topic sentence at the beginning of each paragraph. The other sentences in that
paragraph should provide the specifics which explain, illustrate, and support
the topic sentence.
By the time you have finished the first draft of your paper, you should be
able to type out each topic sentence one after the other so that they in fact
provide the full outline of the paper. You will probably also want to
subdivide the paper into major sections, each with its own sequence of topic
sentences. You can then look at the sequence of parts and topic sentences and
see clearly whether there is an orderly outline that will make sense of things
to your readers.
AUDIENCE
Who are your readers? Plan to write your paper to be read by an intelligent
and informed high school senior, who is not familiar with the topic of your
paper. Write a paper that you could have enjoyed reading and learned from in
high school.
OPENING PARAGRAPH
Your intro should not waste words on how things are "in today’s
world" [please do not ever use that phrase], or generalities about life.
If it were a literature course or a journalism course I would encourage you to
begin with some vignette or concrete image to grab the reader’s attention
and give rise to a little emotional identification with the topic. You can
still do this, but I will grade on substantive content, not on good
journalistic techniques, praiseworthy though they may be. Identify your topic
and your subtopics, so I know how the paper is structured. Here is an example
of an opening paragraph which a) defines the topic, b) defines the precise
focus of this paper, and c) alerts the reader to look for three major parts.
Apocalypticism is belief in a catastrophic end of the world as we know
it. Apocalyptic thought has flourished for centuries and has taken various
forms. One is the Christian expectation, even a hope, that God will soon
bring about a cataclysmic destruction of the world and then usher in the
messianic age of peace and happiness under the rule of Christ. This paper
will describe three aspects of this Christian version: its biblical
foundations, some historical instances of intense apocalyptic anticipation,
and some significant current predictions of an imminent end of the world.
STRUCTURING A PARAGRAPH
Most paragraphs should have a clear topic sentence at the beginning. The
rest of the sentences in that paragraph should provide the specifics that
explain, illustrate, and support the claims made in the topic sentence. For
example:
The ghost dance of the North American plains natives in the 19th
century is often called a kind of apocalypticism. As Denise and John Carmody
tell it (1993: 60-81), around 1870 a Paiute shaman named Wovoka spread a
belief that if they engaged in a ritual dance for five days, calling upon
the spirits of their ancestors, the ancestors would drive the white men away
and give the plains back to the Native Americans. By 1890 this belief had
spread widely, including to various Sioux tribes. Many Sioux believed that
if they wore "ghost shirts," tunics worn during the dancing
ritual, that the bullets of the white men’s army could not hurt them. This
encouraged them to rebel against the U.S. Army, in the hope of precipitating
the final battle, between good and evil, after which the ancestors would
eliminate white people in the West. Unfortunately, that rebellion led to the
massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota, where hundred of Sioux were
killed. The ghost shirts provided no protection. The ghost dances continued
for many years among various tribal groups, however; evidence perhaps that
apocalyptic hopes do not die easily.
RULES ON USING QUOTATIONS AND MAKING REFERENCES
First of all, it is not at all necessary to have a quotation in
order to provide a reference to the source from which you got ideas or
information. Your high school teachers may have wanted you to use a certain
number of quotations so that you could practice writing footnotes or endnotes
or using other forms of reference. But a good paper could have twenty
footnotes or other references without having a single quotation.
Quotations can be useful, but only to illustrate or support
that which you have already made fully clear in your own words. Never make the
quotation do your work of explaining something. You have to explain clearly in
your own words every single quotation you use.
References do two things. They acknowledge where you are getting your
information. Unless you are an expert on the topic you are writing on, you
must rely on some authoritative sources. A reference acknowledges your
sources, giving them due credit. References also allow the reader to estimate
the validity of the claims made by your source and presented in your paper. If
the publisher is a vanity press, that suggests that the author could not get
approval from a scholarly publisher . If the author is associated with a group
with a clear bias, that helps the reader be appropriately cautious.
