Checklist For Preparing Academic Papers printable pdf download

Checklist For Preparing Academic Papers

Writing Across the Curriculum

A Checklist for Preparing Academic Papers

Sixteen Questions to Ask Yourself

Preparing to Write

______ 1. Be sure you understand what kind of paper the assignment calls for. Does it ask you,

for example, to present data, analyze facts, summarize one or several works, explain cause and

effect, discuss the literary or rhetorical impact of a work, argue for a specific policy?

Accomplishing these different tasks entails different kinds of approaches and evidence, and they

are not the only possibilities!

______ 2. Be sure you understand the kind of evidence your professor considers appropriate for

this assignment. Different disciplines may expect you to support claims in different ways. For

example, are you to provide quantitative evidence, explain your own analysis and/or

interpretation, report on the thinking of others, evaluate the thinking of others?

______ 3. For what kind of audience does your professor want you to write? How

knowledgeable can you expect your reader to be about your subject? For example, can you

assume that your reader(s) have read the same text(s) you have? Are you writing to inform? to

argue? to explain? to mediate? Answers to these questions can determine how much background

material you should include.

______ 4. Are you to use outside sources? Or are you to work only from an assigned text?

______ 5. What kind of citation format does your professor expect you to use to cite sources?

Are you expected to use parenthetical references? Should you use footnotes or endnotes? The

two most widely used documentation systems, Modern Language Association (MLA) internal

citation and American Psychological Association (APA) author-date style, are discussed

extensively in the handbook used in English 001-002, and you can find helpful guidance about

different systems on the Writing Across the Curriculum at Marquette Website.

Reviewing What You’ve Written

______ 6. Have you used quotations to buttress your points, not to make your points? Is it clear

how each quote fits with your point? If you have quoted at length, have you discussed at length?

Note: Most long quotes in student papers would be more effective if shortened.

Checklist For Preparing Academic Papers