Guidelines for Writing a Research Paper: Develop Collegiate-Level Writing Skills

Task:

The research paper assignment is a “writing-to-communicate” exercise, which emphasizes proper writing style, grammatical correctness, coherence, and focus.
It is intended to help develop collegiate-level writing skills.
For this assignment, you may select one topic of interest from the list below.
Grades based on content, analysis and insight, detail, grammar, and punctuation.
Students will receive feedback (grades, comments, and suggestions for improvement)

The minimum requirements for the paper are minimum 2000 words (approx. 10 pages, double-spaced, 12- point font, with 1” margins.)
Minimum of eight sources required. Books, journal articles, newspaper articles, scholarly magazine articles, reputable websites are appropriate. You may use no more than two of the course texts for this assignment. As a research paper, there is an expectation that you will research the topic thoroughly in order to find adequate sources on your topic.
NOTE:
When using quotations in your writing, always set them off with quotation marks and appropriately cite the author.
Also be sure to attribute credit to an author when paraphrasing information from a source.
Paraphrasing is the act of restating the author’s words or ideas in your own words.

Your Final paper will be automatically submitted to SafeAssign, a plagiarism detection service available through Blackboard. You will also see the results of this service and can make corrections to your paper to resubmit as necessary.

When using internet sources during your research, only choose those which are reputable and scholarly.
If it can’t be found in the CSU library, it probably isn’t a good source.
For example, an online version of an article from the American Planning Association (APA) is a good source, but a citation from www.jennifersthoughts.net is probably a terrible source for research information!
WIKIPEDIA, Answers.com, Blogs, and other Wiki sites are NOT academic sources for citations, so please don’t use them for your research paper!
If you need additional guidance regarding how to construct a research paper, please access the resources provided below under Optional Readings and/or contact the CSU Writing Center.

I don’t expect you to format APA style in regards to including an abstract, but you will need to format your research paper using APA guidelines for citations. If you need more information on how this is done, see: http://library.csuohio.edu/research/vrd/citations.html. Or the information below

Grammar, spelling, and language use will be graded along with content, so be sure to use spell check!

For students interested in additional writing assistance, the Writing Center is available and is highly recommended, located in Rhodes Tower Rm.105.