Research, Documentation, and Writing Checklist - Milwaukee School of Engineering

Research

Only credible research sources should be used. These include peer-reviewed journals and other respected publications in the field.
A student should be able to provide ample evidence of all research sources in the event that questions arise about the sources. If possible, copies of research materials should be retained by the student.
Use of Web sources that may not clearly be identified as peer-reviewed items must be accompanied by a critical commentary, usually with analysis by other sources.
The student should critically examine the ideas and concepts presented in the research, not simply accept all statements as fact.

Documentation

For all papers and reports, use of the Documentation and Style Guide is mandatory.
Direct quotes should include a footnote (documentation) and attribution (affixing the quote to someone or something).
With source attribution, the identify of the author should include, at a minimum, the authors functional role and organizational affiliation, i.e., professor of marketing at Northwestern University ’s Kellogg Graduate School of Management.
Direct quotes must appear using quotation marks. Direct quotes, even if documented, that do not contain quotation marks are considered to be plagiarized.
Direct quotes of five lines or longer should be single-spaced and indented from both margins. Quote marks are not used to lengthy direct quotes.
Students must document more than just direct quotes. Any research that they summarize or paraphrase should be documented. This includes ideas, concepts, and even the organization of information. As a rule of thumb, all statistics and quantifiable data not generated in primary research by the student should be documented. Anything not representing the student’s original thinking should be documented.
Footnotes should be numbered sequentially and the footnote should appear at the bottom of the page.
Footnotes intended to support a list of items or material should be placed at the end of the list or material, not at the beginning. A single footnote that is used to support a list in this manner may cite more than one page from a source; the footnote may also cite more than one source.
Footnotes should have corresponding entries in the bibliography.
Footnotes (and the corresponding bibliographic entry) should be accurate. Footnotes must be able to be verified. If the student cites a book, that book must be in existence and the information cited must be present on the page or pages cited. If a web site is cited, the URL should be currently available for review.
Names of authors, publishers, periodicals, places of publication, etc. should be correctly and consistently spelled.
Titles of works should be presented in the correct format. This includes use of italic for book titles and names of publications, use of quotes for article titles or chapter titles, and use of upper and lower case for all titles.
Correct punctuation should be used for footnotes and the bibliography. Note that commas are used to separate elements of a footnote, whereas periods are used in the bibliography.
The bibliography should include all relevant sources consulted by the student for the research report, not just those sources cited in the report.

Formatting

At a minimum, reports should include a title page, the text of the report, footnotes, and a bibliography. Instructors will specify what elements they require in a report.
If a table of contents is required, then the title page, table of contents, list of figures, list of tables, and the abstract or executive summary should be considered as front matter and pages numbered using lower case Roman numerals. The list of figures and the list of tables should appear on separate pages. The abstract or executive summary should be no longer than one page. It should additionally feature the following elements: a statement of the purpose of the paper and objectives; a statement about methods employed to carry out research; and a statement of the major findings, conclusions, and recommendations. The table of contents should list all of the major sections and subsections of the paper or report with corresponding pagination. Headings in the table of contents should match precisely headings as they appear in the body of the paper or report. Pagination in the table of contents should match precisely pagination as it appears in the body of the paper or report.
Pages should be numbered, with the exception of front matter, using Arabic numerals. The preferred placement of page numbers is centered at the bottom of the page.
Text should be double spaced, unless otherwise specified by the instructor. For example, many instructors prefer single spacing for electronic submissions. Figure and table captions, the abstract, and the appendices may be single-spaced. The paper or report should be on single-sided 8.5- x 11-inch paper (or should be formatted in this manner in an electronic submission). With the exception of tables and figures (when appropriate), text should not be rendered in a landscape format. The report shall have a one-inch margin (i.e., 2.54 cm) at the top, bottom, and right-hand side of each page, and a 1.5-inch (i.e., 3.81 cm) margin on the left-hand side of each page.
A legible and readable typeface and font should be used. In most cases, this should be 12 pt. Times New Roman, which is a default font on many word processing programs.
Any figures, charts, graphs, tables, or other visual materials should be properly identified including a caption and documentation, if the material contained in the visual was obtained through research. Caption and documentation should appear below the visual. All visual material must be clear and legible.
Footnotes should have the first line indented, and bibliographic entries should have hanging indents.

Writing Mechanics

Research reports will be written using a formal style. With a formal style, personal pronouns, contractions, abbreviations, jargon, clichés, and colloquialisms are not used.
For comprehension, care should be taken with the use of commas. In particular, commas should be used to separate a series of items, including placing a comma before an “and” or similar connective word.
Punctuation should appear inside quote marks, not outside them.
When two or more words are used to modify a noun, then those words should be hyphenated, i.e., cross-functional teams.
Headings should be used to separate major topic areas of a report
Acronyms should be properly defined with the acronym, in parenthesis, following the complete phrase the first time it is used
Numbers should be spelled out if less than 10, with numerals used for 10 and above. In no instance should a numeral begin sentence.
Writing should avoid gender-specific pronouns unless referring to a specific person.
Avoid “there is” and “there are” sentence construction.
Avoid use of vague modifiers (very, extremely)
All written reports should be at the graduate level reflecting critical and creative thinking with some application. Generalizations and comments without sources must be avoided.
The written narrative should present a clear flow of ideas and logically support conclusions, a summary, and any future research or area of study.