Documentation style and mechanics of writing

Documentation

In a report or research paper, documentation is the evidence provided for information and ideas borrowed from others. That evidence includes both primary sources and secondary sources.There are numerous documentation styles and formats, including MLA style (used for research in the humanities), APA style (psychology, sociology, education), Chicago style (history), and ACS style (chemistry).

Adrienne Escoe:

"Documentation has many meanings, from the broad—anything written in any medium—to the narrow—policies and procedures manuals or perhaps records."

Linda Smoak Schwartz

"The most important thing to remember when you take notes from your sources is that you must clearly distinguish between quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material that must be documented in your paper and ideas that do not require documentation because they are considered general knowledge about that subject."

Citation practices

A citation style is a set of rules on how to cite sources in academic writing. Whenever you refer to someone else’s work, a citation is required to avoid plagiarism. A "citation" is the way you tell your readers that certain material in your work came from another source. It also gives your readers the information necessary to find that source again, including:

• information about the author
• the title of the work
• the name and location of the company that published your copy of the source
• the date your copy was published
• the page numbers of the material you are borrowing

Citation style guidelines are often published in an official handbook containing explanations, examples, and instructions. The most common citation styles include:

MLA style in the humanities.

APA style in psychology and education.

Chicago notes and 

Sara Ahmed (2013) describes citation practices as a “rather successful reproductive technology, a way of reproducing the world around certain bodies.” Citation “structures” form disciplines, Ahmed tells us. “The reproduction of a discipline can be the reproduction of these techniques of selection, ways of making certain bodies and thematics core to the discipline, and others not even part.”

Bibliography

The bibliography appears on a separate page at the end of your paper, under the centered heading “Works Cited.” It contains the list of the books and articles in the journals the researcher has consulted. Here is the formula that is typically used to document a book:

• name of author inverted (period) + title of book or work italicized (period) +city of publication (colon) + publisher + year of publication (period) + medium of publication.

Here are the details of this particular work, written out: 

Chavez, Denise. Face of an Angel. New York: Warner, 1994. Print. 

Notice that there is a period after the author’s name; a period after the title; a colon after the city; a comma after the publisher’s name; and a period after the year of publication. The punctuation marks used are a period, a period, a colon, a comma, a period, and a period. This formula is applicable to virtually all citations you might list in “Works Cited.”

Here is an example of MLA style of Bibliography

Reference list style

A “Reference List” is very similar to a Works Cited list, and is a term used when citing sources using APA format (American Psychological Association) style. To prepare your APA references, do the following:

■ Start the references on a new page

■Center the title “References” one double-space down from the running head.

■ Double-space throughout the list.

■ Cite only the sources you actually used in the paper, not sources you consulted

■ List titles by the same author chronologically, not alphabetically:

Manfred, B. F. (2006). . . .

Manfred, B. F. (2007). . . .

■ Indent the second and subsequent lines of each entry five spaces or one-half inch(hanging indent).

■ Place a period followed by one space between all of the elements in each entry.

The two main exceptions are the colon between the place of publication and the publisher in citations to books, and the commas around the volume number for journals

■ Italicize the titles of books, periodicals, and volume numbers.

Here is an example:

Electronic sources

 Electronic materials are not stable and permanent as are printed material. So you need to be more specific during citation. 

When you cite electronic sources, your primary aim is to provide enough information to the reader yo find your citation and verify its accuracy.

You have to follow the correct format because it gives an accurate citation. Here is the usual template, but all items will nit appear in every electronic citation.

(1) Name of author or editor. (2) Title of piece in quotation marks, or, if a book or magazine or journal, italicized. (3) Publication information on any print and/or  electronic source. (4) Title of the Internet site. (5) Medium of publication consulted (Web). (6) Access date (7) URL, if needed, enclosed in angle brackets (< >).

Example:

Another example:

"James Bosewell". The Columbia Encyclopedia, 5th ed. eliberary. 1 Jan 1993. web. 28 july 2002 <www.eliberary.com>

Notes Citation practices

Chicago-style source citations come in two varieties: (1) notes and bibliography and (2) author-date.The notes and bibliography system is preferred by many working in the humanities—including literature, history, and the arts. 

There are two types of footnote in Chicago style: full notes and short notes.Full notes contain the full publication details of the source. They are only used in texts without a bibliography. If you do not include a bibliography, the first citation for each source should be a full note.

Short notes contain only the author’s last name, the title (shortened if longer than four words), and the page number (if relevant). They are used for all subsequent citations of the same source. If you include a bibliography, short notes are used for every citation.The following examples illustrate the notes and bibliography system. 

Preparing synopsis

A research synopsis is a short outline of what your research thesis is and all the steps you propose to follow in order to achieve them. It gives you and your supervisor a clear view of what the research aims at achieving and within what time frame. It also helps you stay focused and makes the research work generally less tedious. 

The format for writing a synopsis varies from institution to institution and among disciplines. But even within a discipline, the format can always be tailored to best suit your specific research work.

Below is the outline of how your research synopsis should look like. Note that the following items should only appear after you've written your research topic and the abstract to your research.

Background: here you are meant to lead down from the research in your area of study generally down to your specific research topic. Discuss the importance of your proposed research work to research as a whole. Discuss also the academic gap which your research would fill which will lead to your research problem.

 Theoretical Framework/Methodology/Conceptual Framework: the above captions for this section aren't meant to be used interchangeably. It often depends on the discipline and the particular topic to determine which to use. The theoretical framework discusses the theory to employ in researching the object. Methodology indicates the methods of data gathering and analysis which can be quantitative and qualitative. While the conceptual framework explains the major concepts that the research revolves round on.

Research Questions: These are the questions that will propel the research work and give it more focus along the line.

Hypothesis: here you mention the assumption on which the research work is built. Note that this assumption might turn out to be false at the end of the research.

Objectives of the study: this highlights the objectives of your study; what your research aims at achieving. Here, like other items in your synopsis required a great deal of clarity.

Literature Review: this contains a reading of other research works done on the area your work is centered. The idea is to show that your research topic hasn't been done before hence, it is researchable. 

Limitations: here you are to discuss the challenging factors that the research have or is likely to face. You and your supervisor would most likely make research choices based on this and determine whether to move ahead with the research.

References: since the research work hasn't been carried out already, this section should indicate the major texts that will inform the knowledge upon which the research is built or whose findings your research work is propoing to refute. In the arts these texts are referred to "secondary texts".

The formats of the writing of the synopsis itself should follow the requirements of research writing in your discipline particularly. For instance, MLA requires 12 font size, double line spacing with Times New Roman font type.

Post written by Vikram Beniwal