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This Is Your Title: It Should Be Descriptive but Succinct

Your Name

Department of ABC, University of Wisconsin – Whitewater

ABC 101: Course Name

Professor (or Dr.) Firstname Lastname

Date

This Is Your Title: It Should Be Descriptive but Succinct

This is your introduction and thesis paragraph. The introduction should be about five or six sentences and provide some background or context for your topic. Limit the use of “I” and “you” in academic writing, though they are both used in this directions / template document. When appropriate, include recent events relating to the topic. For example, if you are writing about cyber warfare, you might mention Russia using cyber-attacks to influence the 2016 US presidential election. Your thesis should be one sentence and outline the main points of the paper. Readers should know from your thesis exactly what to expect from your paper. If you need help writing a thesis, check out Kibin’s Thesis Generator for argumentative or compare and contrast essays.

Literature Review or Background (This is a Level 1 Heading)

Summarize and quote the important research on this topic that has gone before you. Define subject-specific vocabulary or related theory. Usually, you want to look at books for background. You might want to use your textbook or an encyclopedia to find the names of researchers or theories that are important to the topic, then, search for those names on UWW Library’s homepage search tool, Research@UWW. Search Research@UWW for keywords of your topic (example: cyber warfare or cyber attack) to find related articles and books. Need help? Ask a Librarian.

This is a Level 2 Heading if Needed

Let’s talk about in-text citation. Anytime you summarize what someone else has said, you must always include the author’s last name and year either in the text narration (see next paragraph) or in parentheses at the end. Most in-text citations should look something like this, with the period after the parentheses (Ramirez, 2017). If you include any direct quotes from someone else, include the author’s last name, year, and page number in parentheses at the end. “Here is an example” (Ramirez, 2017, p. 26). If a work has three or more authors, the in-text citation includes only the first author’s last name and then “et al,” like this: (Stein et al., 2019).

If you would rather not have so many parentheses breaking up the flow of your text, you can also work the in-text citation into what you are writing. For example, you can explain in your narration how Pavlov et al. (2019, p. 5) are known for their research into classical conditioning with animals, while Skinner & Ferster (1957) studied reinforcement of behavior in children.

The purpose of in-text citations is so your reader can find the correct source in your References, so if you include any authors or titles in-text, they absolutely must match up with a corresponding citation in your References. No “orphan” in-text citations! Find out more about in-text citation on the UWW Library’s APA in-text citation page.

Business sources are not standard APA citations. See UWW Library’s APA business sources citation page.

Discussion

The discussion should be the largest part of your paper and include your argument, research, and experiences (for example, through Service-Learning). Each main point of your paper should start its own paragraph with a strong first sentence. Again, limit the use of “I” and “you” in academic writing.

Remember to introduce quotations with who said it and/or why it’s important. Make sure quotes fit seamlessly in your paper. Include short quotations (40 words or less) in-text with quotation marks. Use ellipsis (…) when omitting sections from a quote and use four periods (….) (i.e., an ellipsis plus the period) if omitting the end section of a quote.

This is a longer quote, which is 40 or more words. Indent the quote a half-inch from the left margin and double-space it with no quotation marks. To get the right format, just click on “Quote” in the Styles area on the Word frame above. In parentheses, include the author’s last name, year, and page number at the end, but no period (Smith, 2017, p. 45)

If you include website sources, make sure they are trustworthy. Evaluate your sources using the questions on this page. Check out our LibGuides by subject page – we have a guide for your subject area, and many contain trustworthy free websites that you can use. Or search in some of our introductory databases such as Academic Search Complete, CQ Researcher, ERIC for education, Business Premium Collection for business, or other databases in which you can easily search for popular sources such as newspapers and magazines.

Conclusion

The conclusion restates the thesis and summarizes the main arguments or points of the article, so that your reader could just read the conclusion to generally understand the paper. What is important to learn from reading your paper? If you know of areas in this topic that need further study, mention them. After this paragraph, there is a page break that forces References onto its own page: You will want to keep it there.

References

[ More References examples for your assistance here]

American Psychological Association. (year). Article title: Capital letter also for subtitle. Name of Journal, volume#(issue#), pg#-pg#.

Author(s) of essay or chapter. (year). Title of essay or chapter. In F. M. Lastname (Ed.), Book title (pages of essay or chapter). Publisher. https://doi.org/10.xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Freud, S. (year). Article title. Name of Journal, volume(issue), pages. https://doi.org/10.xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Pavlov, I., Jung, C., & Freud, S. (year of last update, month day). Webpage title. Source or hosting webpage. https://www.someurl.com/full/address

Ramirez, A. T. (year). Book title. Publisher. https://doi.org/10.xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Skinner, B. F., & Ferster, C. B. (year). Article title: Capital letter also for subtitle. Name of Journal, volume#(issue#), pg#-pg#. https://doi.org/10.xx.xxxxxxxxxx

Stein, D. J., Friedman, M. J., & Blanco, C. (Eds.). (year). Book title (edition, Vol. #). Publisher. https://doi.org/10.xx.xxxxxxxxxx

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