Research Paper instructions
Women and Islam
(I will probably add a few
things to this document)
Length: minumum 12 pages of
text, not including title page and bibliography
Sources: at least 7 sources (books,
articles, and others, such as films and web-sites)
Due date: Dec. 13.
You may turn your paper in early, and I encourage you to do that. I will not accept any late research
papers.
Choose a theme or topic that interests
you, concerning women and Islam IN A
SINGLE COUNTRY. Your topic may be
primarily historical (concerned with the past), or primarily concerned with the
present. If your paper is concerned
primarily with the present, please incorporate some discussion of history. For
example, if you
are writing about divorce in present day
Your paper should have a central
thesis, a main argument. As in other
papers for this class, that argument should be made clear in your introductory
paragraph, a paragraph which should also make clear to me (the reader) what
this paper is about and where it is going.
Annotated Bibliography: Turn in an annotated bibliography for your paper by Nov. 8.
An annotated bibliography is one that includes a brief paragraph for
each book or article that you cite, giving an idea of
the content of the book or article and what elements were useful to you in
writing your paper. Creating an
annotated bibliography can be helpful as a first step toward writing your
paper.
Format:
Title page: including paper title (that should give me,
the reader, some idea what your paper is about), your name, date, and the
course name
Paper: double space, and use a reasonable font,
something in 10-12 point. Please do not
use the fiddling with fonts trick to try to make a short paper look longer.
Please make use of section
headings to show the structure of your paper.
Include page numbers. (I
don’t care where they are, but it is surprising how often papers are turned in
without any sort of pagination.)
Footnotes (not endnotes, not
parenthetical reference) should follow Turabian’s format,[1]
which is the format demonstrated in the instructions for the first paper you
wrote in this class.
Bibliography: Your bibliography should be arranged alphabetically
by author’s last name, as is shown in the various subsections of the course
bibliography on this website.
Presentation: your in-class presentation will be 10-15
minutes. You can choose any format that
you like—from just standing up and talking, to using PowerPoint, overheads,
video, etc. In your presentation, you
should present what you are writing about, why it interests you, and what you
have learned in your research. If you
present before you are finished with research and writing you may also use the
presentation to let your classmates raise questions and make suggestions about
your topic.
[1] Kate L.
Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers,
Theses, and Dissertations.