Writing a paper is not difficult. If you are able to read and understand information and form your own opinions about what you have read you can also express those opinions. Thousands upon thousands of books and articles are written and published every year. The people writing and publishing these books and articles are ordinary people of average intelligence. Some are well educated, some are not. You are as able to express your own thoughts and opinions as any of these.
When writing a short paper it is a good idea to restrict the scope of the subject. In the example that follows you will see that although most timelines of Celtic history begin around 1000 to 900 BCE and end around 1066 CE with the Battle of Hastings, the outline covers the only the Halstatt Era. By restricting the scope of the paper you will be able to say something meaningful about one particular aspect of the subject.
In this example, if you tried to include the entire two thousand year timeline you would not be able to express any of your own thoughts except in the most general terms. The whole point of the paper is to show that you have studied the materials and formed YOUR OWN opinions and drawn YOUR OWN conclusions.
Unit: ANCESTRY 1: Chronologies and Timelines of Celtic History.
Title: Early Celtic Cultures in Western Europe
Introduction:
Begin with a brief, one paragraph explanation of what the paper is about and what you hope to show or prove in the paper.
Body of Paper:
I. 900 BCE - Goidelic-speaking people in England
II. 700 BCE - Halstatt Era
III. 600 BCE - Goidelic-speaking Celts in Ireland
IV. 500 BCE - Brythonic Celts in Britain
V. 450 BCE - End of Halstatt Era
Summary:
End with a brief, one paragraph summary of what conclusions you have drawn from the information.
End Matters:
Foot/endnotes, references, etc..
If you have never written a paper before, it is a good idea to study the form and structure of one or two. This means that you do not need to actually read the article, just look at how it is arranged. How the foot/endnotes are done, etc. You are only looking at the structure and format, not the content, of the articles. There are a number of on-line magazines and journals that contain scholarly articles. Here are a few:
Earthsongs: The Archives
At the Edge: The Archives
3rd Stone: The Archives
Title - (Name of the Article)
By Line - (Name of the Author)
Body - (Text)
End Matters - (Copyright information, footnotes, references, appendices, bibliography, etc.)
Form of Copyright:
Title, copyright (c) YYYY by Ann Author, all rights reserved.
A number in the text corresponds to each numbered footnote. Here are examples of two types of footnotes or endnotes:
1. The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, CS Lewis, Fontana Lions, 1980, pp. 158-59
2. I highly recommend that anyone who is serious student of the sources of human thought read both Hamlet's Mill and The Golden Bough.
A single author:
Blamires, Steve, Celtic Tree Mysteries, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1997.
Two or more authors:
Elsbeth, Marguerite and Johnson, Kenneth, The Silver Wheel, St. Paul, Llewellyn Publications, 1996.
Note that book and article titles are usually in italics or surrounded by quotation marks.
If you are unsure of how to cite a reference, refer to books in your home or local library containing similar references.
Finally, do not be worried or intimidated by the thought of expressing yourself. Since time began, thousands upon thousands of folks have recorded their thoughts and opinions. We should not take seriously the idea that only people with certain credentials should be allowed to express themselves.
How to Write a Paper, copyright (c) 2002 by Tira Brandon-Evans, all rights reserved.
Writing and Defending a Thesis, copyright (c) 2002 by Tira Brandon-Evans, all rights reserved.