Department of
Linguistics
University of Sydney
Writing and
Presenting
Papers and Essays
1. INTRODUCTION....................................................................................................... 2
2. PREPARING YOUR WRITTEN WORK....................................................................................................... 2
3. MAKING NOTES....................................................................................................... 2
4. WRITING AN ESSAY AND PREPARING IT FOR SUBMISSION....................................................................................................... 3
5.BIBLIOGRAPHIES AND CITATIONS....................................................................................................... 4
A. THE BIBLIOGRAPHY.............................................................................................. 4
BOOKS :..................................................................................... 4
ARTICLES..................................................................................... 5
INTERNET..................................................................................... 5
B. In-text citations.............................................................................................. 6
B.1 When to use them..................................................................................... 6
B.2 How to present intext citations 7
1st edition 2002 [
Much material in this guide is copied or paraphrased from the Department of History, University of Sydney "A Short Guide To The Writing and Presentation of Papers and Essays" 5th edition 2000 Compiled by G. B. Harrison (1991), Revised by S. Garton (1997), Revised by K. K. Macnab (2000)] <http://www.arts.usyd.edu.au/departs/history/ShortGuide/guide2000.htm>,
viewed 9/4/02
This style sheet is intended to help you as a basic
guide to some of the things we expect from the essays and the papers that are
an essential part of your training in linguistics. It will also give you advice
about methods of preparing your work.
Being able to write standard academic English and to
present it in a consistent way according to the conventions of the discipline
(linguistics in this case) is an important part of your university education,
and will stand you in good stead for the rest of your life.
If you have questions that remain unanswered after
you finish reading the stylesheet, please ask your teachers for further advice,
or go to courses at the Learning Centre.
When you choose your essay topic, make sure that you
understand exactly what the question or essay title means, and what it is that
you are required to do. Make
certain that you understand all the parts of a question. Many poor essays,
papers and examination answers are the result of not thinking carefully about
the question.
Don't forget that the aim of your essay or paper is
not to tell a story, but to deal analytically with the linguistic problems or
issues that are raised by the essay question. When you come upon authors whose
opinions conflict, you'll need to note this, and to understand clearly how they
argue their cases. In your essay you might not be able to resolve the conflict,
but you must let your reader know that such a disagreement exists.
When you discuss such a conflict, analyse the logic
of the argument, and look carefully at the nature and extent of the evidence
which has been produced to support it. Has the author accounted satisfactorily
for the evidence? Has all the relevant evidence been examined? Does the author
show bias or prejudice that might distort their judgement?.
You'll want to make notes as you read. When you do this
a. Write
out the exact bibliographical details of the book, journal, web site or other source
that you are reading. Section 5, Bibliographies and Footnotes, will explain what those details are. You will need
them whenever you want to check your notes. You will need them again when you
are writing your essay, and providing it with a bibliography and footnotes. If
you do not get the full details exactly right at this stage, you are making
trouble for yourself later. If you
use a computer, we recommend using a bibliographic database programme, such as
EndNote - it will save you a lot of time
b. Take
care with the quality of the sources you consult and decide to use. Very
general and/or popular sources should be avoided, except possibly to give you
an initial overview. Particular
care needs to be taken with material found via the Internet. While
there is excellent material to be found on the Internet, there is no quality
control over what is placed on the Internet. Assess all such information critically and collect all the
informaiton that you'll need to cite the Internet site in your essay.
c. Quoting
When you write out a passage from a text that you
want to quote in your essay, make absolutely certain that you have done so
accurately. Put quotation marks around it, and write the number of the page on
which you found it in the margin of your notes. You will need this if you use
the quotation in your own essay. You will often find one author, let's call her
A quoted in a secondary source, let's call it B. Should you wish to use such a
quotation in your own essay, you must tell your reader, which secondary source
B it came from. Do not make it look as though you have read the original A if
you have not done so.
d. Summarising
other people's work
When you find an argument that seems important,
summarise it in your own words. It might help to number those points. Write on your notes the number of
the page where you found this material so that you can cite it in your essay.
Summarising material in your own words makes you think through the material,
absorb it, and understand it. It also helps you avoid plagiarism.
Plagiarism is the unscholarly practice of writing essays that are no more than a
patchwork made up of passages paraphrased, or taken entirely, from the writings
of other people, especially if you don't cite your sources. Plagiarism is heavily penalised
in this University.
Taking notes efficiently will save you time in the
long run by encouraging you to read carefully, and by ensuring that the results
of your reading remain permanently and easily accessible to you.
(a) COMPOSITION
1: DON'T
LEAVE THE ESSAY TO THE LAST MOMENT
2: WRITE
A DRAFT. LEAVE IT FOR A DAY OR SO
(b) PRESENTATION
i Markers
can’t make comments on the text of a paper or essay if there is no room
to do so. All written work should have a margin of at least 25mm on all
sides
ii Markers
can’t spend their time deciphering poor script. All written work must be
easily legible. You don't
have to type your essays, but do write them clearly. Make certain that you proofread your work, and make
all the necessary corrections.
iii Use
a reasonable sized font - at least 10 point, and with at least one and a half
spacing throughout.
iv Make
sure that your pages are in the right order, and that each one is numbered.
v Footnotes
can be at the foot of each page or at the end of the essay.
vi If
you quote or refer to an author's work in the text use in-text citations, give
the author's name, the year of publication, and the page numbers where relevant,
eg (Bloomfield 1933: 240-241) or (Hockett 1964), e.g.
The 'mental lexicon' (Aitchison 1994:10) is the
number of words an individual knows.
Make sure that all the details of the reference are
in the bibliography.
vii Some
students are upset when they get back an essay that has been criticised because
of poor expression or style (including punctuation). Check out
Bailey, R.F., A Survival Kit for Writing English,
2nd ed., Longman Cheshire, Melbourne, 1984. U808.066/25
viii Linguists
do use the first person singular (In this paper I shall argue that semantics
consists of two distinct processes...),
and first person plural (In short, we need to have a theory of inference
before we can identify the components of a theory of semantics).
However, avoid phrases like I think that..., or In my opinion ..., or In my opinion I think that ... an
Unsupported opinions are common in conversation, but in academic writing any
judgement you make must be supported by evidence. You have to show why your readers should agree with you.
ix Introduce
other authors' arguments as well as citing them. One way of doing this is as follows:
Aitchison (1994:8) claims that people are fast at
distinguishing real words from invented words.
Aitchison (1994:9) argues for the existence of a
structured mental lexicon on the basis of the number of words an individual
knows, and the rapidity with which an individual can retrieve words.
ix Everyone
writes in their own way.
However, some things to
avoid, unless you feel quite confident, are:
• using jargon words. Make sure that the word you are using means what you think
it means. And think about whether
you could say what you mean more simply and more concisely.
• long sentences
• hackneyed phrases and cliches
x Check
with your lecturer what they feel about sections with sub-headings. Some like them; some don't. In any case - don't overuse them - if your essay makes clear what the topic
under discussion is, then you don't need a heading..
xi Don't
use symbols or shorthand such as & for 'and' or BTW for 'by the way'.
Symbols and abbreviations such as these are useful for notes, but are not
acceptable as a rule in the texts of books or journals, and are not admissible
in your written work here.
xii Footnotes
are used sparingly in linguistics writing for material or arguments that would
otherwise interrupt the flow of the argument. They are normally not used for
citation of references. The best position for footnotes as a rule is at the end of the
relevant sentence or passage.
Number your footnotes consecutively through the piece.
Every piece of written work you submit must be
accompanied by a bibliography and citations of work in the text. This 'critical apparatus' shows your
readers exactly what materials you have used, and allows them to check your
arguments and evidence. Thus it
must be accurate and detailed.
There are several systems current among academics for
citing work, and you will come across many of them. The simple basic method set
out and explained below is acceptable throughout this Department. It does not
cover all the problems that may arise, so consult your teachers if you have any
difficulties, or check out a style guide for a linguistics journal such as Linguistic
Inquiry.
<http://mitpress.mit.edu/journals/LING/li-style.pdf>
This should contain a list of all the material you
have consulted. This includes
books, articles, reports, websites, CDs... Dictionaries and encyclopaedias are included if you are
using them as data for your essay, but not if you just check that you are using
a word correctly, Set the material out in alphabetical order by author or
editor at the end of your essay.
You can omit the article The from the titles
of encyclopaedias, dictionaries, journals, and newspapers printed in English.
1. The full
name of the author or editor as it appears on the title page. If
there is more than one author or editor, give the other(s) also.
2. The full
title of the book, as it appears on
the title page. If a book has a title and a subtitle, give both. If they are
not connected by any punctuation on the title page, put a colon (:) between
them in your bibliography.
3. The relevant
volume number(s) if the work
consists of more than one volume.
4. The number
of the edition, unless it is the
first edition.
5. The publisher’s
name.
6. The city
where the book was published. You
may have to add the state or country if confusion is possible (Cambridge MA,
Cambridge UK). If it was published
in more than one place simultaneously, you need give only the first city
mentioned.
7. The date
of publication of the edition you
have used.
Some examples:
Aitchison, Jean. 1994. Words in the mind: an
introduction to the mental lexicon.
2nd ed.. Oxford:Basil Blackwell.
Bach, Kent, and Robert M. Harnish. 1979. Linguistic
communication and Speech Acts.
Cambridge, MA:MIT Press.
Butt, Miriam , and Tracy Holloway King. eds. 2001. Time
over matter: diachronic perspectives on morphosyntax. Stanford:CSLI.
Lyons, John. 1977. Semantics. 2 vols. Cambridge, U.K.:Cambridge University Press.
(a) the list
has been set out alphabetically by author or editor. The surname has been put first.
(b) the title, and nothing but the title, is put in italics or
underlined.
(c) Chapters
are given only when they appear in an edited collection of individual
contributions. In this case, treat the chapter as you would a journal article,
giving also the details of the book in which you found it, including the page
numbers.
e.g.
Hale, Kenneth. 1982. Some essential
features of Warlpiri main clauses. In Papers in Warlpiri grammar: in memory
of Lothar Jagst, ed. S. Swartz. Work-Papers of SIL-AAB Series A. 217-315. Berrimah, Australia:Summer Institute of Linguistics.
Four pieces of information are needed about every
article:
1. The full
name of the author. As with books,
list your articles alphabetically by author. Put the surname first.
2. The full
title of the article. You can put
this between single inverted commas,
or not. The only other occasions on which you use inverted commas are to
show the title of a chapter, a title within the title of a book, the title of
an unpublished work such as a doctoral thesis, and to enclose direct
quotations. .
3. The full
title of the journal. Underline or
italicise this exactly as you would the title of a book.
4. Supply
enough information for the reader to find the precise place in the journal. Give the volume number, issue number (if relevant),
year, and pages on which the article appears.
Hale, Kenneth. 1983. Warlpiri and the grammar of
non-configurational languages. Natural Language and Linguistic Theory 1 1:5-47.
Use a consistent way of citing internet sites. Check out Fisher Library's guides: <http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/subjects/readyref/citing.html#publ>
The following information is needed about every
source used from a world wide web site:
1. The full
name of the author [surname first] [if
possible] If you can't find an author, cite the author as ANON.
2. The full title of the site
3. the
date of the site's creation
and/or updating. [if possible]
4. The nature of the site. Is it an encyclopaedia, set of primary sources,
series of essays, or something else, was it created by an individual,
organisation, or institution, and what was its purpose?
5. The
Uniform Resource Locator [URL] (the
website address). Present this between angle brackets < >. You may want
to use a different fixed width font, such as Courier.
6. The date you looked at the site
Examples:
Anon.
2002. Citations and style
guides. Document created by Fisher Library, University of Sydney,
Australia. <http://www.library.usyd.edu.au/subjects/readyref/citing.html#publ>,
viewed 9/4/02.
Bresnan, Joan. 1996. 'Lexicality and Argument
Structure.' Invited paper given at
the Paris Syntax and Semantics Conference, October 12-14, 1995. Corrected version: 12:57 p.m. April 15,
1996. 27 pages (postscript).
Online at <http://www-lfg.stanford.edu/lfg/bresnan/paris.ps>, viewed 9/4/02.
You must provide an in-text citation when you quote
someone's work or refer to it. Here are examples.
1. Quotations
If the quotation is short, include it in the body of your
paragraph, surrounded by inverted commas, 'But the new Gricean pragmatic
theories appear to be in no better shape' (Levinson 2000:256)
If it is long, finish the sentence that introduces it
with a colon (:), and then give the quotation a new paragraph to itself. Indent
this paragraph i.e. set it out well back from the margin so that it is
differentiated from your normal text, and do not put inverted commas around it. In either case, you
must give the source in an in-text citation.
But
the new Gricean pragmatic theories appear to be in no better shape. (Levinson
2000:256)
If you wish to omit something within the passage
to be quoted, replace it with an ellipsis (...). The ellipsis consists of three stops
only.
If you need to add a word or phrase of your own
to the original text of the quotation to make something clear, put your own
word or phrase between square brackets. This signals that the material they enclose is not in the
original text.
If the passage you are quoting contains a quotation,
put the latter between inverted commas (double if you have used single inverted
commas around the quotation).
2. Referring
to an argument, theory, point of view, etc. in published or unpublished material
3. Referring
to figures, maps, diagrams, percentages and statistics from other authors
4. Producing
information or evidence which you have read, and which is either not widely
known or is disputed.
You don't need to give an in-text citation for the
fact that humans by an large speak languages. This is widely known.
But you do need to give an in-text citation for the assertion that
mental models of language may influence behaviour (Aitchison 1994:69).
(SURNAME YEAR:PAGE REF)
If you give a reference to a book or article, and
then refer to exactly the same work without referring to any other work in
between, write Ibid. (= ibidem = in the same place) plus the relevant
page number(s). Ibid. in an intext citation refers the reader only and always
to the book or article given in the intext citation immediately prior to it.
e.g.
The assertion that the mental lexicon is structured
(Aitchison 1994:69) is reinforced by psycholinguistic data (ibid: .214-221).
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