Winkler and Metherell - Writing the Research Paper (A handbook).pdf

The eighth edition of Writing the Research Paper: a Handbook. Writing the Research Paper: A Handbook is a book designed to be consulted not read. A regular book builds from topic to topic in a steady accumulation of ideas and facts. This book, in contrast, treats each topic as an independent
unit. You do not need to understand the material in Chapter 2 to progress to Chapter 3. When you want information on, say, how to document a website, you simply go to the appropriate chapter or section of the book and copy the model given there. An exhaustive index and table of contents take a reader instantly to
where the particular material on a particular subject is to be found. Whether the student chooses to hop from topic to topic, like a feeding butterfl y, or to burrow like a determined mole through every explanation depends on the individual. Writing the Research Paper: a Handbook can be used either way. In 1979 when
the first edition was published, we wrote that “no part of this book is dependent for continuity upon another,” adding, a few sentences later, that the aim was for students to use “as much of the book as they need, or as little.” That is still the basic principle behind this book. This eighth edition of Writing the Research Paper: a Handbook makes no assumptions about its potential users. No other prerequisites are required to use this book other than enrollment in a class that requires the writing of a research paper. Whatever the student needs to know about how to use the library or how to explore a search engine for ideas on a particular subject will be found in this new edition.

This new edition was made necessary by changes in the protocols of research paper writing and documentation made in 2009 by both the Modern Language Association (MLA) and the American Psychological Association (APA). Most of these changes were admittedly microscopic, but they nevertheless have to be ob-served. Every new trait or shift in style, now the law of the land of research, is faithfully covered here with many examples. We have added a new paper writ-ten in MLA style and updated the APA example. The CMS paper has also been tweaked to refl ect changes, even minor ones, in the Chicago Manual of Style.
In this edition, we fi nally bid goodbye to the familiar card catalog that had come down to us through the ages. In earlier editions we felt obliged to pay lip service to what was in its day the best classifi cation technology available. This edition, however, concentrates on the computer and the vast opportunities for
research it has bestowed on the researcher, professional or amateur. We have rearranged some of the earlier chapters merely as an extension of the logic of the presentation rather than of any compelling necessity. The particu-lars do not really matter, and the book is not altered in any way by these shifts.
Everything you need to know about the research paper is still present here in a non-sequential way.

Anthony C. Winkler and JoRay Metherell