Central Bucks School District

Writing Research Papers

III.C. THE BODY AND CITED INFORMATION

         The body must fully develop the thesis statement and the outline.  Your job is to use the information you have found to support your thesis statement and to develop that information in the order indicated by your outline.  Additionally, your paper should flow and be easy to read so that your reader can follow the logical development of your ideas without having to reread sections of the paper.  Your job is to write a paper that flows logically and can be read easily.  You must work hard so that your reader does not have to struggle to follow your meaning.  In writing a paper that is easy to read, the most important thing to keep in mind as you write is that you state ideas in your own words and use information from sources as support for what you have said.  All research papers are combinations of your own writing with support taken directly from sources.  All support, whether quoted or paraphrased, must be cited.  That is, you must credit the sources of your information in your paper.
        How much of your final paper will be cited?  That depends; there is no hard and fast rule.  If only 20-30% of your paper is cited, that is probably not enough.  After all, this is not an original paper presenting your ideas, it is researched information that you have located by using sources.  On the other hand, if you have cited 90% of all the writing in your paper, that is probably too much.  You do need to weave and combine the information you have found with your own words.  If cited information accounts for 50-75 % of your paper, you are probably on the right track.  And remember that cited information includes both paraphrased and directly quoted material.  Do not use direct quotes for 50-75% of your citations; that would be too much.  Direct quotes can be powerful; use them judiciously to support your key points, not to fill space.  A rule of thumb for direct citations might be 25-40% of the total citations for the paper.
        The most common form of documentation for high school writers is known as parenthetical, or in-text, documentation.  Basically, you list only the author's name and the page number of the source in parentheses after any information which is quoted directly or paraphrased. See page IV.A.  for a complete explanation of in-text citation.
        Documentation serves three purposes in your research paper:

1. To indicate the source of material that is directly quoted, word for word.
2. To give credit for other people's ideas and analysis, even if you used your own words (paraphrase).
3.  To give the source of graphic aids, figures, or statistics.
        Following are some guidelines that will help you weave cited information into your paper.  You may combine your own words with the source’s to form a unified whole; just let the reader know who says what.  Your job is to move the reader smoothly through the diverse materials and accurately cite each source.  You should avoid a long paragraph containing quoted or paraphrased material with only a page number at the end. You must give a signal to the reader in every sentence which contains borrowed material: a name, quotation marks, a page number, or a clear pronoun reference.  Help your reader clearly identify what material came from what source.  Notice how the example below blends a direct quote, a paraphrase, and the author’s own words.  Each sentence is numbered for reference.
 
        1.  Second, parenthood courses for adolescents are positive actions.  2.  Zigler advocates an expanded effort to educate young people for parenthood.  3.  He would extend sex education to include information on childcare, at least for older children of childbearing age  (42).  4.  Such a program makes sense because it seeks prevention and not remedies after the act of child abuse.  5.  Another sociologist concurs, saying, “A central notion in the treatment model is the building of responsibility, the realization that each of us is an important element of society”  (Giaretto  5).  6.  Youngsters who are future parents should be helped toward responsible social behavior.
 
        The reader can tell that the 1st, 4th, and 6th sentences were written by the student.  The 2nd and 3rd are
paraphrases from page 42 of a book by Zigler. The 5th is a direct quote on page 5 of a book by Giaretto.
 
Return to Table of Contents