Things about Writing Papers I keep Forgetting to Say

In list form; in no particular order:

• The seventh (most recent edition of the MLA Handbook) requires that all titles of books be italicized, not underlined.

• The Purdue Online Writing Lab (OWL) continues to be one of the best sources of information on paper formatting in both MLA and APA style

• That whole last post is about your job as a paper writer, which boils down to this--find information that correlates with the argument you are making and then do your best to prove the correlation exists and is significant.

• Write in the "literary present tense" which means write, "Rachel Carson says that . . . . " not "Rachel Carson said that . . . . "  It's a convention of paper writing.  It adds a sense of immediacy and relevance to the author's ideas, and it's what people do.

• Getting the embedded citations right is extremely important to avoid issues of plagiarism.  And, pretty much, the burden is on you to do it correctly.  Getting works cited entries right is just as important, but there are great tools on the Internet for this.  I personally like NoodleBib Express but other sites such as EasyBib and BibMe are fine too.

• The Golden Rule of Research:  When in doubt, cite it.