1. Steps to Writing a Research Paper MLA Style Manual Diana Hacker, A Writer’s Reference Vol. 6, dianahacker.com/writersref

2. Formulate a Research Question.  Consider the scope of the research, type of research, sources available to you

3. Form a tentative thesis.  Example:  Should employers monitor their employees’ online activities in the workplace?  Tentative Thesis:  Employers should not monitor their employees’ online activities because electronic surveillance can compromise workers’ privacy.  DRAFT, REVISE, DRAFT, REVISE, DRAFT  Revise Thesis: (depends on drafting/research)  Although companies often have legitimate concerns that lead them to monitor employee’s Internet usage – from expensive security breaches to reduced productivity – the benefits of electronic surveillance are outweighed by its costs to employees’ privacy and autonomy.

4. Organize your evidence.  Sketch an informal plan that organizes your ideas in bold strokes.  After draft/revise, compile a more detailed outline

5. Use sources to inform and support your argument.  Provide background information or context  Explain terms or concepts  Support your claims  Lend authority to your argument  Anticipate and countering objections

6. Citing Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism.  Cite quotations and borrowed ideas  Enclose borrowed language in quotation marks  Put summaries and paraphrase in your own words

7. Limit your use of quotations.  Use quotations when:  language is esp. vivid or expressive  exact wording is needed  it is imp. to let the debaters explain the position in their own words  the words of an important author lend weight to an argument  language of a source is the topic of your discussion

8. Limit your use of quotations  Ellipsis  …  To condense a passage/indicates omitted words  Brackets  [ ]  Insert your own words for clarification or grammatical structure or error  Setting off long quotations  More than four lines, need to do a block quote

9. Example Block/Long quote Botan and Vorvoreau examine the role of gender in company practices of electronic surveillance: There has never been accurate documentation of the extent of gender differences in surveillance, but by the middle 1990s, estimates of the proportion of surveilled employees that were women ranged from 75% to 85%....Ironically, this gender imbalance in workplace surveillance may be evening out today because advances in surveillance technology are making surveillance of traditionally male dominated fields, such as long-distance truck driving, cheap, easy, and frequently unobtrusive. (127) Then you begin your paragraph after back out here.

10. Use signal phrases to integrate sources  Prep your reader for a paraphrase, summary or direct quote  Examples:  In the words of researchers Greenfield and Davis, “  As legal scholar Jay Kesan has noted, “  “…,” writes Daniel Tynan, “…”  “…,” claims attorney Schmitt.  Kizza and Ssanyu offer a persuasive counterargument: “  Verbs:  Acknowledges, adds, admits, agrees, argues, asserts, believes, claims, comments, compares, confirms, contends, declares, denies, disputes, emphasizes, endorses, grants, illustrates, implies, insists, notes, observes, points out, reasons, refutes, rejects, reports, response, suggests, thinks, writes

11. Use signal phrases to integrate sources.  Make sure to weave, integrate  Establish authority of sources  Put things in context/set up

12. Documenting Sources  In-text citations  Works Cited list

13. For a sample MLA paper, annotated works cited and style help:  dianahacker.com/writersref  OWL