Putting it All Together

You’ve done your research, your experimentation, your polling, your reading, and your number crunching, and now the time has come to put it all into presentation form.  Aside from doing a poster, the most common method of presentation is a paper to submit to a journal or present at a conference. Although most students have been writing papers since middle school, there are a few things you may have forgotten along the way:

1. Introduction, Body, and Conclusion: Your fourth grade English teacher was right when she started you off with the five paragraph essay: an introduction, three body paragraphs, and a conclusion. While your paper will surely require more than five paragraphs, and while you may not have exactly three main points, the basic format is the same: “tell them what you’re going to tell them, tell them, and then tell them what you told them.”

2. Organization: You know to have your three (or two or four or eight) main sections to your paper, but you must also remember to let them flow. Do they come in a particular order? Do the ideas progress sensibly toward your conclusion? Or is each supporting point just thrown in there in the order in which you felt like writing them?  It often helps for your reader to experience your ideas the way they came to you as you figured things out.

Drafting an outline at the start of the process can be immensely helpful in making sure that points one and two are done well. The outline not only will help guard against writer’s block later, but can reveal flaws in your argument before you find yourself scratching your head in the middle of typing page six, lost as to where you’re going next.

3. Thesis: The most important sentence in the entire paper (and there will be a lot of sentences in that paper, I imagine) is your thesis statement. There must be in the introduction, one (perhaps two) concise sentences that encompass the main purpose of your paper.

4. Grammar: I know that you probably hate it. I know it seems like a waste of time. I know that the Internet these days has taught our generation that “lol i LUV ur pix” is a perfectly acceptable way to write, but this paper will be exposed to an academic community; your audience will not care about your ideas, as monumental as they may be, if your grammar and spelling are not appropriate.

5. Format: Most students learn MLA formatting for citing sources and for the general form of writing papers. However, different academic communities require different formats (APA, Turabian, etc.).  To appear professional, it is vital to know which format you’ll use from the start. Ask your faculty sponsor about formatting, and check out some of the web sites at the end of this article.

6. Proofreading: Like grammar, another “terrible waste of time,” but the cool thing is that the process works better when you get other people to do it. Make an appointment with the WCU Writing Center (in Hunter Library) for one of their staff to look your paper over. Ask your advisor to read it. Ask your roommate. Ask your mother. Ask anyone who’s willing to help. They can not only spot spelling mistakes you may miss, but can tell you when a point is unclear, when a sentence is confusing, or when you contradict yourself.  Read your paper aloud to yourself for final proofreading—your ear (better trained from conversation) can hear mistakes that your eye can’t see.

This is just a basic rundown. If you need help with specific problems (and would rather surf the Internet than ask a real person for help at 3:30 a.m.), the following web sites can be helpful:

-The WCU Library Research Assistance Page:  http://researchguides.wcu.edu/help

-The Owl Writing Lab of Purdue University: a page with a step-by-step introduction to writing a paper, from choosing a topic to finishing proofreading  http://owl.english.purdue.edu/workshops/hypertext/ResearchW/index.html

-A Research Guide (.com): all sorts of specific articles about the questions you may have writing your research paper  http://www.aresearchguide.com/

-And remember, again, the WCU Writing Center exists solely to help you with any writing questions or troubles you may have.

P.S. PLAGIARISM CAN RESULT IN SUSPENSION, EXPULSION, AND THE REVOCATION OF COLLEGE CREDIT.

So avoid that, okay?