Seton Hall University

01/13/04

Dr. Lurie's Rules for Writing Papers.

Failure to follow these rules will impact on the grade you receive.  Papers with no cover sheet will be returned unread and un-graded. Print out the cover sheet, fill in the blanks, and submit it with your paper.

1.  Every paper, whether a brief assignment, paper, or term paper, must have a cover sheet with your name, date, and class.  Do NOT put your name anywhere else on the paper. Do NOT, repeat NOT, tell the computer to put your name at the top of each page.

2. All papers must be typewritten.

3. Use reasonable margins.

4. Number the pages starting with the first page of text (not the cover sheet).

5. Good papers use appropriate quotations.  All quotes MUST be in quotation marks.  Long quotes (over three lines) must be single spaced and in block form.

6. Citations must be used for all quotes.
    (a) You can use either footnotes or end notes, but you must use notes.
    (b) In writing your citations consult a standard style sheet for historians and be consistent in what you do.  Rampolla, A Pocket Guide to Writing in History is recommended as a source for the style of citations. Historians use Chicago Manual of Style. This inlcudes author's name (first name, then last name), title, place of publication, publisher, date of publication, and page).

7. If you include a bibliography (or are required for the paper to include one) it must also follow standard bibliography format.  You need to have author (last name, then first name), full title, place of publication, publisher, and date.  If the work has been reprinted you need both original and reprint dates.

8. When citing sources from a web page -- or writing a website review you need to indicate
    a. URL address for the page
    b. brief annotated explanation of what this source is (address alone does not always indicate this).
    c. who created it
    d. date and time you used the source

9. Book titles and/or film titles must be underlined.  Article or chapter titles are given in "quotation marks".

10. The paper should be double spaced (not triple spaced to look longer, and not single spaced so as to be difficult to comment on).

10. Late papers are penalized.  They will also be graded late -- put at the bottom of the pile of work I have to do.  
     Late brief assignments will NOT BE ACCEPTED.  You will receive a zero for the assignment.