Research Report Tips and Guidelines
AVOID: Using “I” in your paper (also my, mine)
AVOID: Using “you” in your paper
AVOID: Abbreviations
AVOID: Contractions
AVOID: All slang, except in direct quotations
AVOID: Starting a sentence with a numeral – spell out numbers that require no more than two words. In other cases, use numerals.
AVOID: Using just one example to draw a conclusion
AVOID: Writing “The reason why” or “The reason is because” –BOTH are REDUNDANT, which means you are the saying the same thing twice, unnecessarily. Instead, write, “The reason is ______.”
AVOID: Using a word or phrase twice in the same or next sentence.
AVOID: Using the words “In my opinion,” “In this report,” or “In this paper.”
ALWAYS: Strike one space after a colon.
ALWAYS: Strike one space after each period.
ALWAYS: Write the date as day month year (ex. 3 Dec. 2007).
ALWAYS: Include the punctuation after the parenthetical documentation.
ALWAYS: Include periodicals in your research because it takes at least a year for a book to be published after it has been written, so you cannot expect to find the most recent information about your topic there.
ALWAYS: Introduce a direct quotation. There are several ways you can accomplish this: by stating the author’s name; by referring to the title of the article; by explaining why this quote is important; by explaining how it is connected to the idea that precedes or follows it. Quotations longer than four lines are indented ten spaces from the left and right hand margins.
ALWAYS: Capitalize titles of books, plays, movies, articles, television shows, short stories, poems, etc. no matter where they occur in the sentence AND in the Works Cited list. Articles and conjunctions are not capitalized unless they begin the title.
ALWAYS: Place commas and periods inside quotation marks. Place colons and semicolons outside quotation marks. Place question marks and exclamation points inside quotation marks if they are actually part of the quote: place them outside if they are not.