In a research paper that follows MLA style, the list of works cited is the only place where readers will find complete information about the sources you have cited. For that reason, your list must be thorough and accurate.

The list of works cited appears at the end of your paper and, as its title suggests, lists only the works you have cited in your paper. Occasionally, your instructor may ask you to prepare a list of works consulted. That list would include not only the sources you cite but also the sources you consulted as you conducted your research. In either case, MLA prefers Works Cited or Works Consulted to the more limited heading Bibliography (literally, “description of books”) because those headings are more likely to accommodate the variety of sources-articles, films, computer software-that writers may cite in a research paper.

To prepare the list of works cited, follow these general guidelines:

1. Paginate the works cited section as a continuation of your text if the text of your paper ends on page 8, begin your list on page 9 (unless there is an intervening page of endnotes).

2. Double-space successive lines of an entry and between entries.

3. Begin the first line of an entry flush left, and indent successive lines five spaces or one-half inch.

4. List entries in alphabetical order according to the last name of the author.

5. If you are listing more than one work by the same author, alphabetize the works according to tide (excluding the articles a, an, and the). Instead of repeating the author’s name, type three hyphens and a period, then give the title.

6. Underline the titles of works published independently— books, plays, long poems, pamphlets, periodicals, films.

7. Although you do not need to underline the spaces between words, a continuous line is easier to type and guarantees that all features of the title are underlined. Type a continuous line under tides unless you are instructed to do otherwise.

8. If you are citing a book whose title includes the title of another book, underline the main title, but do not underline the other title (for example, A Casebook on Ralph Ellison’s Invisible Man).

9. Use quotation marks to indicate the titles of short works that appear in larger works (for example, “Minutes of Glory.” African Short Stories). Also use quotation marks for song titles and for the titles of unpublished works, including dissertations, lectures, and speeches.

10. Use arabic numerals except with names of monarchs (Elizabeth II) and except for the preliminary pages of a work (ii-xix), which traditionally use roman numerals.

11. Use lowercase abbreviations to identify the parts of a work (for example, vol. for volume), a named translator (trans.), and a named editor (ed.). However, when these designations follow a period, they should be capitalized (for example, Woolf, Virginia. A Writer’s Diarv. Ed. Leonard Woolf).

12. Whenever possible, use appropriate shortened forms for the publisher’s name (Random instead of Random House). See the list of abbreviations beginning on page 58.

13. Separate author, title, and publication information with a period followed by one space.

14. Use a colon and one space to separate the volume number and year of a periodical from the page numbers (for example, Trimmer, Joseph. “Memoryscape: Jean Shepherd’s Midwest.” Old Northwest 3 (1976): 337-69).

In addition, MLA recommends procedures for documenting an extensive variety of sources, including nonprint materials such as films, television programs, and computer software. The following models illustrate the sources most commonly cited.

You do not write a “perfect” thesis statement on your first try. Instead, you have to write and rewrite both your topic question and your thesis statement a number of times in different ways. It is important to remember that your thesis statement is not written in stone. At this stage, it is only a “working hypothesis” which allows you to gather your evidence and to organize your argument. If it does not work, change it.

If you are unsure of what to take on a controversial issue, try writing your thesis statement points of view. Then, decide which one best represents your opinion.

If you still cannot decide, try listing the facts that support each case. Then decide which argument seems more persuasive.

Example:

Topic question:

Did Tocqueville believe that other countries could adopt American-style democratic principles and institutions?

Trial thesis statement on one side of an issue:

Tocqueville believed that countries could adopt other American-style democratic principles and institutions.

Trial thesis statement on the other side of an issue:

Tocqueville believed that American democracy was unique and that other countries could not successfully adopt it.

Evaluate Your Thesis Statement

Have you merely restated the topic question without answering it?

EXAMPLE:

TOPIC QUESTION:

Did Tocqueville consider aristocracy to be the best form of government? If so, why? If not, why not?

WRONG: RESTATEMENT OF THE TOPIC QUESTION. In this essay, we examine whether or not Tocqueville thought aristocracy to be the best form of government.

CORRECT: THESIS STATEMENT.

Tocqueville thought that aristocracy was the best form of government because it provided leadership by an educated elite, it produced effective administrative centralization, and it promoted superior intellectual and artistic achievements.

Have you tried to argue both sides of a case?

EXAMPLE:

TOPIC QUESTION:

Did Tocqueville consider aristocracy to be the best form of government? If so, why? If not, why not?

WRONG: ARGUING FOR BOTH SIDES OF THE CASE.

Although Tocqueville saw some advantages to aristocratic government, he also saw some disadvantages.

CORRECT. THESIS STATEMENT.

Tocqueville saw both the advantages and disadvantages of aristocratic government, but he still maintained that it was the best form of government for France.

Have you prejudged the issue by using loaded language?

Writers use loaded language when they want to manipulate their readers’ emotions in order to keep them from paying close attention to the logical flaws in their argument. Most of the time, they do not fool anyone.

EXAMPLE:

TOPIC QUESTION:

How did Tocqueville’s social background affect his attitude toward democratic institutions?

WRONG: PREJUDGING THE ISSUE BY USING LOADED LANGUAGE.

Tocqueville was born with a silver spoon in his mouth; so he could not understand that democracy is the best form of government.

CORRECT: THESIS STATED FAIRLY.

Tocqueville’s background as a French aristocrat made him particularly critical of democratic institutions.

HAVE YOU WRITTEN A BLAND, BORING THESIS STATEMENT?

Remember, a thesis statement is always emphatic! It is never wishy-washy! Use an exclamation point to check your sentence.

EXAMPLE:

TOPIC QUESTION:

To what extent did Tocqueville undermine his own arguments in favor of aristocratic government?

WRONG: THESIS STATEMENT THAT LACKS EMPHASIS.

In some ways, Tocqueville undermined his own arguments in favor of aristocratic government by showing that democratic government generally produces good citizens.

CORRECT: THESIS STATEMENT.

Tocqueville undermined his own arguments in favor of aristocratic government by showing that democratic government produces patriotic citizens committed to the preservation of liberty and equality!

There are several reasons why, before you begin to do your research, it is important to prepare a preliminary research paper bibliography even though it will include books you will never see or use.

1. You must be sure that adequate information on the subject is available to you and that your thesis is not hackneyed.

2. You must allow time to order any pertinent published materials that you may need to obtain through the interlibrary loan service. There is often a nominal charge for postage, and you should be prepared to wait at least a week.

3. You need to become familiar with the type of research that has been done on your topic.

4. From seeing a variety of titles, you will learn how your chosen thesis might be further limited or broadened.

5. You will be given clues about titles, subjects, and authors relating to your particular subject; for example, in looking up Mythology, you will find a section on Creation Myths which would lead you to Types of Creation Myths or Origins of Creation Myths as well as Theories of Creation Myths and thence to the specific names of mythologists who have much to say about creation myths, such as Sir James Frazer or Joseph Campbell.

6. As you prepare your bibliography and later as you browse through the material, it is urgent that you evaluate and critically examine your sources. Certainly not everything in print or available through the Internet is valuable. By considering some important questions you will be able to evaluate your sources with some confidence:

a. Does the author document sources in footnotes at the bottom of the page or endnotes at the end of a chapter or book or Internet site? It is important to know where the information that you are reading came from. Does the author include a bibliography? This is an indication of the author’s awareness of other research that has been done in the field.

b. What is the date of the publication you are using and of the sources the author is using? If your topic requires current information, outdated material will be of no use, and if further research has been done even on something that is not current, what you say will mean very little.

c. Is the author an authority in the field? Often the book jacket or Information at the beginning or end of an article or Internet site gives the author’s credentials. You might want to check in such works as the Dictionary of American Scholars or American Men and Women of Science to find out something about the author’s background.

d. Have you seen references to the author in the bibliographies of other works dealing with the same subject? Usually experts in a particular field are referred to frequently in other works.

c. Who has published or sponsored the material? A university press usually publishes scholarly, well-researched material and some of the best known publishers are usually reliable. However, a vanity press or a popular magazine would normally not be a valuable source, whereas periodicals that cater to specialists would be.

f. Is this Internet site reliable and authoritative? The caution with which you approach research materials applies even more to Internet sites than to print material. Often the titles of these sites are misleading, indicating for example, that they are “the official” site of this or that organization when, in fact, they are no such thing. An Internet site created by an individual may be called anything that individual wishes to call it and may contain anything he or she wishes to put there. You must be extremely careful in using these sites, but fortunately there are several criteria that can help you to evaluate them in addition to those previously listed. The Internet address is the first indicator. Sites in the .edu and .gov domains are likely to be trustworthy since they are affiliated with educational and governmental institutions, just as books and journals published by university presses and governmental agencies are likely to be authoritative. Be particularly wary of free sites available to individuals in the .com domain. Second, look at the sites from which the site you are evaluating may be reached. If an authoritative site includes a link to this site, that is a good indication that it has been evaluated positively by an authority in that field. Third, make use of the available means of evaluating sites. The Internet Public Library <http://ipl.org>, the Librarian’s Index to the Internet <httptfii.org>, and The Argus Clearinghouse <http/clearinghouse.net>, for example, have links to sites they have evaluated. While these pointers can help you to evaluate a site, probably the best advice is to be cautious and use the knowledge you have accumulated. If a particular site has information or ideas you find nowhere else, be suspicious.

The particular angle of vision of your limited thesis will automatically suggest and determine the temporary research outline you need to work with. If you formulate a thesis stating that humanity’s attempt to understand the basic phenomena of life is expressed symbolically both verbally in mythology and visually in art, you would be compelled to investigate the truth of that statement.

You would need to (1) find out how and to what extent mythology and art are symbolically expressed, (2) discover what basic phenomena of life are expressed both visually and verbally, and (3) consider how and to what extent the visual and verbal expression are comparable in expressing the attitudes and beliefs of their respective cultures. At this point you still may not be certain that you can find a sufficient basis for comparison, but it is obvious from the outset that these three basic concerns, which constitute the points of your research outline, must be investigated before you can conclusively state your thesis as truth. Similarly, a logical analysis of any thesis that you choose to work with will suggest the points for your research outline. It is important that you state them as sentences because only a sentence can state a complete idea. Then when you put them into the research outline, you will know exactly the point that you are going to make. They outline the path along which you and your reader must travel before the statement you first wrote as a temporary thesis can be stated as a valid conclusion and become your final thesis. A topic outline is too ambiguous to accomplish this task.

With the formulation of your thesis as a temporary objective and with an outline statement of the points by which you can logically reach it, you have the necessary criteria by which, with a minimum of wasted effort, to select books for your research paper bibliography and to choose information for your note cards.

In setting up your research outline you are actually using a deductive process. You have temporarily accepted a general statement or premise, and you are going to investigate your sources to see whether or not that premise can be substantially supported by facts. Because a generality would be too superficial to work with unless it is supported by specific and valid evidence, it is extremely important that you use the most authoritative sources available from which to find your information. You must be wary of unsigned editorial columns or magazine articles that are not carefully documented. For this reason, also, you must consult many different sources representing a wide range of thinking in order to make your paper valuable as research. However, in spite of the fact that your research outline is the result of a deductive process, your final thesis and outline must be inductively developed. That is, you must eventually analyze your material or the facts accumulated and change your temporary thesis so that it ultimately states an accurate result or conclusion of the material you have observed and presented. The temporary thesis, then, is the statement of a hunch or of an educated guess; the final thesis is the result of research and is a statement of what you now believe to be true. You see it as the only conclusion to which one could come from the material that you have selected and presented. And your outline shows the means by which you arrived at your thesis so that your reader can follow the process step by step with you.

Certainly, there would be no value in simply restating the facts and opinions as you have read them; you could not retell them all, and you would have no criterion for deciding how to select those that you would retell. Consequently, you will have to decide to concentrate on some point that your preliminary reading has suggested is an arguable truth about your topic and that further reading would probably substantiate and clarify. Just as the creative artist is led to make a final statement of truth about some aspect of life by observing and selecting from the myriad details of life’s experiences, so you, as a researcher, must be able to crystallize a statement of truth by observing and selecting significant details from the wealth of material you will find on your topic. This truth, stated in a simple sentence, provides you with temporary thesis writing. It is a statement of your opinion, a conclusion that, from what you have read, you have reason to believe can be proven, but that you are scholar enough to discard or alter later if you uncover facts that prove it invalid. Good thesis writing is never the statement of a preconceived notion or a personal prejudice that you could prove only by distorting or ignoring facts, nor is it the statement of any indisputable fact about which further investigation would reveal nothing. It must express an idea that is arguable or debatable or one that demands further explanation. Because it is an idea, it must be expressed as a full sentence, never just a phrase. “Mythology as art” is a subject, not a thesis writing. “A culture often expresses its mythology both visually and verbally” is acceptable thesis writing. As a thesis writing, it requires further explanation and research because it is not self-explanatory.

If, for example, you wanted to do your research on some area of mythology, you might find in the course of your reading that you are surprised to learn that the Greeks portrayed even their most important gods and goddesses, such as Zeus and his wife Hera, as people like themselves who, although powerful and immortal, had many human frailties. The almighty Zeus, for example, was often guilty of thievery and promiscuity, as well as trickery to hide his many infidelities from his wife. Your discovery would not. However, justify a thesis writing that states that most Greek myths are just stories that show how evil the major gods are. Such a thesis would be based on a preconceived notion showing the limitations of your own understanding of the complexity of the subject. Neither would you consider a thesis statement saying that many early societies developed their own mythologies about the lives of the gods because this is an indisputable fact and there is very little to argue with or prove. However, because you might have realized from reading further that each culture differs dramatically in the way it thinks about the nature of its gods, you might consider an investigation of the similarities and differences in the ways that two, or possibly even three, different cultures look at their gods or how they conceptualize the relationship of mankind to the gods they have created.

Or perhaps as a result of reading in a general article that there are many similarities between African creation myths, which tell how the world and mankind came into being, and myths concerning death and the mystery surrounding death, you might be challenged to investigate the relationship between the creation and fertility myths and myths about death in the mythology of the Korumba people of Africa.

On the other hand, you might have been alerted by a statement in a general article that explains how a particular Mexican mask is used in a ritual that “acts out” the story of a myth about the Aztec god Quet-zalcoatl. You might decide to show how the details of the myth are translated into the specific actions of a ritual. Or you might be interested in finding out how and why certain rituals are practiced in some areas of Mexico and absent from others. In other words, you will choose one aspect of what you have read and investigate it to ascertain its validity.

Or after attending an exhibition of ancient Egyptian art and reading the catalog from it, you might realize how valuable it would be to know something about Egyptian mythology; you might even wonder whether there is a strong relationship between the art you saw at the museum and the Egyptian myths you find in your library. That question could challenge you to formulate a thesis that involves a study of the relationship of art and mythology in ancient Egypt or in another early culture that you would like to investigate. However, you would see very quickly that, because of the innumerable perspectives from which art and mythology can be compared, there are too many possibilities for development in one paper. Therefore, you might scan general articles covering various aspects of Egyptian mythology as well as of Egyptian art to find out whether there is some concept common to both that could form the basis of a comparative study of the two. You might find, for example, that Egyptian creation myths are the subjects of much of the art that attempts to express visually the mythology of “the beginning.” A comparative study of the two modes of expression would now give you a basis upon which to narrow and reformulate your temporary thesis writing.

Although the thesis that you develop now is necessarily a temporary one because you have not accumulated all the available facts yet, it does provide you with an angle of vision from which you can continue your research. You now know how you are going to focus on your subject, and you are ready to formulate a temporary outline. As you search in your reading and note-taking for the answers to the challenging question suggested by your thesis, you will, of course, reevaluate your facts and modify your first opinion until you are closer to the ultimate truth, the discovery of which is always the purpose of your research.

It is important to limit your temporary thesis as soon as possible so that, within the limits of the time in which you have to work and the projected or assigned length of the finished paper, the truth of that thesis statement can be investigated thoroughly. No factor is more often responsible for a poor research paper than is the failure to limit a thesis. It is obvious that the less area you try to cover, the more depth you can explore and the more valuable your finished paper will be. As you do your research, you will probably keep narrowing your thesis and limiting the scope of your research to express an idea that can be thoroughly and realistically handled within the space limitation of your paper.

One way to help you limit your thesis is to write a very short, preliminary temporary outline listing in sentence form the main ideas that you hope to develop in order to prove your thesis. Then look to see if any one of those points might serve as the thesis itself. Continue to go through that process until you feel you have limited your thesis as much as possible. Although this thesis is necessarily a temporary one because you have not accumulated all the available facts yet, it does provide you with an angle of vision from which you can continue your research. You now know how you are going to focus on your subject and how you are going to select the material for your research. You are ready now to formulate a more complete temporary outline.

Writing reading

After you have decided on a research topic, the next step is to writing reading a general, authoritative article (such as one in the Encyclopedia Britannica or Americana), browse through a scholarly book concerned with the general subject, or search the Internet so that you can see what the possibilities and ramifications of the subject are.

In your first investigation find out is your subject too broad to use with no limitation or too narrow to consider at all. You will be directed and become familiar with the general area in which to work. This reading not only suggests ideas on how to start limiting your chosen theme, but also suggests a series of theses potential inherent in it.

Sometimes a single sentence or phrase in this article will gain your attention and suggest a question you will want to investigate. In fact, if your chosen subject is at all interesting to you, it would be almost impossible to read any general article without finding phrases or sentences that will challenge you to investigate further some aspect of that subject. Look for ideas that prompt you to ask why or how they are true or in what specific way they may be true. These ideas will provide a basis upon which you will formulate a temporary thesis writing and a temporary outline.

If, for example, you are studying French and read a general article about France, you will find countless possibilities for research topics ranging from a comparative study of the French and American revolutions to the study of a particular influence (political, military, economic, religious) on the French character. If you are studying world literature and decide to write about Anton Chekhov (because you enjoyed seeing one of his plays), you might be alerted by any of the following statements: he contributed to the comic papers in Russia during the 1880s; he visited a convict island named Sakhalin and wrote a book about it that effected changes in the regime of that penal colony; his stories are developed along “calculated curves”; his masterpiece, My Life, is filled with symbols that give it an almost religious character. Such statements should arouse your curiosity, make you want to know more about some particular aspect of Chekhov’s work, and send you searching for information that might substantiate any thesis you finally decide to develop. Certainly, such ideas should point out many fascinating paths for you to explore.

Any time you browse through an encyclopedia, or a book, or an Internet site, you will find wonderful surprises and delightful reading that may prove to be “an arch whitethorn gleams that untraveled world” of knowledge and understanding that awaits all students. Some subject you once thought or heard about but never had a chance to pursue may challenge you to look into its various implications. Even a cursory reading of almost any general article will certainly prove that your problem will never be one of not finding some idea to research; your only problem will be deciding which of the myriad facets of knowledge on life you will choose to investigate and then reveal in your research project. No matter what thesis suggests itself as you read an encyclopedia article, book, or web page, your pursuit of it will enable you to take a giant step toward an increased perception, awareness, and enjoyment of the all-too-often hidden world around you.

Research paper topics

Finding a research paper topic that will interest you, one that is worth your time to investigate and one for which you will have the necessary time and materials, is an extremely important step in writing the research paper. You need not be familiar with a subject before doing research on it, but you should have some interest in the general area it involves because you will be working with that subject for a long period of time.

When the general subject is not assigned by your instructor, you can usually find one by examining your own interests, your background, or the other courses you are studying. There are other considerations that will limit the possibilities from which you may choose.

Your choice of a suitable subject for investigation will often be determined by whether or not you are interested in reading or investigating-and consequently analyzing-the original material directly and therefore working with primary sources or whether you are interested in investigating what others have said about your subject and therefore working with secondary sources. The usual college assign merit involves the latter. Your choice will be determined further when you eliminate unsuitable subjects. Some subjects are not worth inves­tigating; they are too trivial, merely factual, or obviously routine. Others are often too new or current for conclusive study; a research paper must be factual, not conjectural, and must therefore be based on a variety of dependable sources. The availability of resource materials will vary somewhat with time and locale, so you must know your area and your library. And finally, some subjects have never been suitable for research: a biography summarized from secondary sources, the entire history of anything, or any subject that you will investigate with a closed mind.

1. Find a research topics;
2. Writing reading a general article;
3. Formulate a temporary research thesis and a temporary research outline;
4. Prepare the preliminary bibliography;
5. Take notes from relevant sources;
6. Label note cards and revise the working outline;
7. Write the first draft;
8. Revise the text; write an introduction and a conclusion;
9. Fill in parenthetical references or footnotes on the draft;
10. Put the paper in final form.

Research paper writing is the disciplined process of investigating and seeking facts that will lead one to discover the truth about something. This truth, stated as one’s thesis, is a result of the facts one discovers, and it must be proved conclusively to the reader by the facts selected. The thesis may not be a statement of preconceived opinion or prejudice, nor may the paper be a stringing together of related quotations and a collection of footnotes.

The research paper, a formal presentation of these discovered facts, provides the evidence one needs to defend the opinion expressed as the thesis. Consequently, one must state how and where these facts were found. If they were discovered from what other people have said or written, the student must tell who said them and where they were said so that the reader could find them also; if they were discovered by direct observation, the student must describe this experience so that the reader could repeat it and observe the same phenomena or facts. The opinion, which is the thesis, the analysis of the material on which it is based, and the conclusions one draws from that material are the most important parts of the final paper. These are subjectively presented while the facts, which provide the supporting points, are objectively presented and carefully documented.

During the process of research, the student learns to select, evaluate, and analyze facts; to discipline habits of thought and work; and, most important, to think—to create a new angle of vision. In this sense only, the research paper is original; but it is important enough in itself to justify the work involved in its creation.

Because nothing else so clearly reveals the true quality and merit of the writer’s mind, the research paper becomes a valid criterion for judging the disciplined work habits and the intellectual maturity of the student.