One of the important skills that you will need to learn as a student is on writing a social studies research paper. If you would like to do your paper well, there are a few things that you should bear in mind. You need to be consistent, complete and thorough. Here are a few important instructions that you should remember.
This is one of the most important things that you need to avoid. The term plagiarism means using work done by someone else as your own. The truth of the matter is that this is a crime that can even land you in jail. There are times when plagiarism, will occur by accident and others when it happens by purpose. However, the most important thing to remember is that it is wrong and should be avoided. When you plagiarize by error, there are penalties that will apply. If you would like to avoid plagiarism, then you need to cite sources. Once you have written the paper and cited the sources, you should come up with a page for works cited. When you follow the right format when citing your sources and you include a page for work cited, then you will be able to avoid plagiarism.
In most high schools, the MLA format is usually used. However, you will need to find out from your teacher whether this is the format that is needed for your school. When you use this format you should include the sources using the inline citation. This means that whenever you cite a source either through paraphrase or a direct quotation, you should include an in line citation consisting of the last name of the author and page number while the entire citation should be in brackets.
This is another key part of a research paper. A paraphrase involves reading the work of another author and putting it in your own words. When you research or use statistics from other sources, it is considered to be paraphrasing. You will need to understand how to paraphrase if you want to pass your social studies research paper.
When you use direct quote, you use the words of another author directly in the paper. It is essential to understand when to use direct quotes. You do not have to quote every word that you want to use. Instead, ensure that you paraphrase most of the words. You should only use the direct quote when you want a reader to understand something important. Ensure that the direct quotes are also used sparingly.