Essay outline & references

What you need to do

You have now decided on your topic and it is time for you to begin your research into the area of your choosing. For this assignment, you must submit an outline as well as a list of references for your paper. Your final paper is to be between 4 and 6 pages (approximately between 1600 and 2400 words, assuming 400 words per page).

You must submit an outline that is no more than one double-spaced page long. An outline provides a sketch of the main conceptual sections of a paper, with a short description of what each section is intended to cover. The sections in your paper may correspond to paragraphs, or they may consist of two or three (or more) paragraphs. Whatever the case, each section of your paper should have a coherent focus. While the outline must be no more than one page long, your references may appear on a separate page.

Your list of references must include at least four references. You may have more than four references if you wish. You must have at least one reference that is not strictly a webpage. This means that one of your references must be either be a book, conference paper, journal article, or some other type of published work. Wikipedia (or any other similar online site) is not appropriate as one of your four main references. Wikipedia can be a starting point for finding primary sources, but should never be used as a primary source.

The UB library site has some good resources for writing a research paper. You should look in particular at, Evaluating resources, which describes the differences between a primary and a secondary sources. Other pages you should look at include the page about plagiarism.

When you need to do it by

The essay outline & reference list is due by Friday, October 19, in lecture.

How you hand it in

You must prepare your work using a word processor (e.g. Word) or a document preparation system (e.g. LaTeX). Hand-written work will not be accepted.

Note that the presentation and formatting of what you submit at each stage will factor into your grade. Please note the following submission requirements. Your submission MUST be stapled with one staple in the upper left-hand corner, and the papers MUST be arranged in the following order:

1. your outline
2. your references (your outline must be on one page, while your references may appear on a separate page)
3. your original essay topic with any comments that were written on it.