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STANDARDS FOR WRITTEN WORK
Philip Doty and R. E. Wyllys
General Guidelines
Review the standards for written work both before and
after writing; they are used to evaluate your work.
You will be expected to meet professional standards of maturity, clarity,
grammar, spelling, and organization in your written work for this class,
and, to that end, we offer the following remarks. Every writer is faced
with the problem of not knowing what his or her audience knows about
the topic at hand; therefore, effective communication depends upon maximizing
clarity. As Wolcott reminds us in Writing Up Qualitative Research
(1990, p. 47): "Address . . . the many who do not know, not the few
who do." It is also important to remember that clarity of ideas, clarity
of language, and clarity of syntax are interrelated and mutually reinforcing.
Good writing makes for good thinking and vice versa.
Except as noted below, you are to prepare your formal work as written
essays in the "Final Manuscript" format specified in Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association, Fifth Edition (herein
abbreviated as "APA 2001"). Copies of this Manual are available
in the GSLIS Information Technology Lab (on reserve under the name "Dr.
Wyllys"), in the Reference Collection of the Perry-Castañeda
Library, in other libraries, and from bookstores and the American
Psychological Association.
To help you understand the point of using the Final Manuscript format,
here is a brief excerpt (APA 2001, pp. 321-322):
The author of a thesis, dissertation, or student paper produces a
"final" manuscript; the author of a journal article produces
a "copy" manuscript (which will become a typeset article).
The differences between these two kinds of manuscripts help explain
why the requirements for theses, dissertations, and student papers
are not necessarily identical to the manuscripts submitted for publication
in a journal.
Copy manuscripts have been described throughout the Publication
Manual. Their life span is short; they are normally read by editors,
reviewers, and compositors only and are no longer usable after they
have been typeset. Copy manuscripts must conform to the format and
other policies of the journal to which they are submitted.
Final manuscripts, however, reach their audiences in the exact form
in which they are prepared. Final manuscripts have a long life span;
they may be read by many people over a long time. The difference between
how copy manuscripts and final manuscripts are used is one reason
for the differences between the preparation of journal articles and
the preparation of theses, dissertations, and student papers. A number
of variations from the requirements described in the Publication
Manual are not only permissible but also desirable in the preparation
of final manuscripts.
For details on such matters as headings, references, and the like,
you should refer to APA 2001, especially to pages 111-130 and 202-214
along with Chapters 4 and 5.
Although in the past professional journals insisted on a formal and
impersonal style that required third-person references to the author,
many journals today are using an academic but more informal style of
first-person references. To prepare yourself for eventual academic writing
in these publications, we suggest that for this course you use a professional
style that includes first-person references, such as "I conclude
that . . .," rather than the more formal third person references,
such as "It is the conclusion of this author that . . . ."
In a related matter, APA 2001 (pp. 39-40) points out that you should
avoid using "we" to describe general behavior. That is, you
should use "we" only when you are actually referring to yourself
and your collaborators, not when you are referring to, say, librarians
in general.
The following guidelines for LIS 386.13 are intended to help you interpret
the APA guidelines:
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Use a title page. Contrary to the APA guidelines,
do not print a number on the title page (even though it still counts
as page 1 of the set of pages for each assignment) and do not provide
other preliminary pages. As a minimum, the title page should contain,
first, the title of the assignment, and, following the title, the
date it is due, your full name, the course name, the course number
(LIS 386.13), and the school name. Since the written assignments for
LIS 386.13 are relatively short, you do not need to provide an abstract.
-
Use double spacing for all of your general prose discussions
of your various topics, as well as for references. (Note: These
standards formerly [i.e., prior to 2001 Sep 26] specified single spacing
of references, as allowed by APA 2001 [p. 326]. However, this exception
to the general rule of double-spacing caused more confusion and inconvenience
than the possible saving of paper is worth, so we abandoned it.)
-
Use italics, instead of underlining, to indicate emphasis
in the text. For other uses of italics, please follow the guidelines
on pages 100-103 of APA 2001. (Note: When you type a URL, Microsoft
Word [and most other wordprocessors] will automatically underline
the URL. In LIS 386.13 you may leave such underlines in your text.
Of course, in preparing materials for presentation on the World-Wide
Web, hyperlinked names and URLs should always be underlined, so as
to indicate to the reader that they are hyperlinked.)
-
Use hanging indents in the references list (as discussed
on page 299 of APA 2001). (Note: Microsoft Word will handle hanging
indents for you; just look up "hanging indent" in the MS
Word "Help" files.)
-
Number all pages beginning with 2 after the title
page (which counts as page 1). The numbers, and the page headers to
the left of them, go on the top right side of each page within the
top 1-inch margin. Notes, the title page, references, figures, and
appendixes do not count toward page limits. With the flexibility of
the font and pitch allowed, you should have no difficulty meeting
the page limits of each assignment.
-
Use APA standards for notes and references. Properly
cited secondary references may be used for this course. Certain assignments
will demand the use of notes (either footnotes or endnotes) and references.
It is particularly important in professional schools such as the GSLIS
that notes and references be impeccably done. Please use the APA standards.
There are other standard bibliographic and note formats—for example,
in engineering and law—, but social scientists and policy analysts
ordinarily use the APA style. Familiarity with standard formats is
essential for understanding others' work and for preparing submissions
to journals, professional conferences, and the like. The sixth edition
of Blanche Ellsworth's English Simplified (available at the
Perry-Castañeda Library and other libraries) is an excellent resource
for information on notes, grammar, punctuation, and so forth. In addition,
you may also consult " A
Guide for Writing Research Papers" by Charles Darling (2000),
which is a useful if non-canonical source.
-
Use APA standards for electronic references. Electronic references
should be prepared according to APA's Electronic
References and pages 268-281 of APA 2001. (Note: Because of
the rapidly changing nature of electronic information sources, the
Electronic References will be updated from time to time and
should take precedence over the guidelines in APA 2001 when these
two sets of guidelines differ.)
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For personal experiences, no formal attribution is needed (unless
a source happens to be available and you wish to attribute it), but
your prose should make it clear that you are making a statement that
is based on your personal experience.
- As a guide to when to cite, we quote from a UT-Austin Webpage entitled
"Academic
Integrity":
One of the most complicated aspects of source citation is learning
how to distinguish "borrowed ideas," which must be cited,
from "common knowledge," which does not need to be cited.
A simple guideline is that well known or easily accessible facts,
such as the winner of the 1908 World Series, or commonplace observations,
such as Einstein's prominence in modern physics, need not be cited.
Unique ideas, controversial or especially important facts, and novel
insights all must be cited (although other items may need to be
cited which meet none of these criteria). This is a judgment that
often depends on the writer and his or her academic community. What
the audience of an academic journal considers common knowledge may
not be seen the same way in a freshman composition course.
To be safe, be attentive to where you encountered a particular idea.
Just as with paraphrasing, good notetaking is invaluable for tracking
the origin of ideas. And of course, the best advice remains: when
in doubt, cite.
- Submit formal essays as a Microsoft Word attachment to an email message
sent to the class emailbox, unless otherwise specified in the assignment
instructions. Use 10-point or 12-point type only, and use 1-inch margins
on all sides of your text. Do not right-justify your lines of
text (this is sometimes called "full justification"); leave
a ragged right margin. This style is now preferred even in many typeset
journals.
It is imperative that you proofread your work thoroughly and be precise
in editing it. It is often helpful to have someone else read your writing,
both to eliminate errors and to increase clarity. Use the spell checker
in your wordprocessor to review your documents, but be aware that spell-checking
dictionaries: do not include most proper nouns, including names; omit
many technical terms; include very few foreign words and phrases; and
cannot identify such errors as writing "the" instead of "them" or using
homophones, e.g., writing "there" instead of "their."
If you have any questions about these standards, please ask. We will
be glad to discuss them with you at any time.
Accomplishing this work would be is very tedious without software help.
As noted in the Home Page of the course, you
are expected to have Microsoft Word (in a version from Microsoft Office
97 or later) available to you (as well comparable versions of Microsoft
PowerPoint and Excel). You are encouraged to purchase MS Office 2000 Premium
or Mac Office 2001 for this course; either of them is available at a greatly
reduced student-only price from the Campus
Computer Store, and registered UT-Austin students anywhere—not
just those in Austin—are eligible to purchase items from this store.
Some Things to be Careful About
Since the production of professional-level written work is one of the
aims of the class, the instructors and TAs will read and edit your work
as the editor of a professional journal or the moderator of a technical
session at a professional conference would. The reminders below will help
you prepare professional-level written work appropriate to any situation.
-
Use formal, academic prose. Avoid colloquial language,
e.g., *you know?* It is essential in graduate work and in professional
communication to avoid failures in diction -- be serious and academic
when called for, be informal and relaxed when called for, and be everything
in between as necessary. For this course, avoid words and phrases
such as "agenda," "problem with," "deal with,"
"handle," "window of," "goes into,"
"broken down into," "viable," and "option."
-
Avoid clichés. They are vague, *fail to "push
the envelope," and do not provide "relevant input."*
-
Avoid computer technospeak like "input,"
"feedback," or "processing information" except
when using such terms in specific technical ways; similarly avoid
using “content” as a noun.
-
Do not use the term "relevant" except in
its information retrieval sense. Ordinarily, it is a vague and colloquial
cliché, but it also has a strict technical meaning in Library and
Information Studies.
-
Do not use "quality" as an adjective; it
is vague, a cliché, and colloquial. Instead use "high-quality,"
"excellent," "superior," or whatever more formal
phrase you deem appropriate.
-
Study the APA style convention for the proper uses
of the ellipses *. . .* and *. . . .*
-
Avoid using the terms "objective" and "subjective"
in their evidentiary senses; these terms entail major philosophical,
epistemological controversy. Avoid terms such as "facts,"
"factual," "proven," and related constructions
for similar reasons.
-
Avoid contractions. *Don't* use them. (Note: Contractions
are welcome in your comments on the 386.13 Discussion Board, where
the atmosphere is intended to be something like that of a classroom
discussion; but please avoid contractions in your formal written work
for the course.)
-
It is unacceptable to use "/" in prose,
except in fractions and in the construction "and/or". For
example, say "she or he" rather than "s/he."
-
Be circumspect in using the term "this,"
especially in the beginning of a sentence. *THIS *is
often a problem because the referent is unclear. Pay strict attention
to providing clear referents for all pronouns. Especially ensure
that pronouns and their referents agree in number; i.e., "each
person went to their home" is a poor construction because "each"
is a singular form, as is the noun "person," while "their"
is a plural form. Therefore, either the referent or the pronoun must
change in number.
-
The use of "if" ordinarily takes the subjunctive
mood when it leads to a contrary-to-fact statement. For example, in
talking about a short person named John Doe, you might say, "If
John were [not "was"] a tall person, then. . . ."
-
Put "only" in its appropriate place, near
the verb if it modifies the verb and near the noun if it modifies
the noun. For example, it is appropriate in spoken English to say
that "he only goes to Antone's" when you mean that "the
only place he frequents is Antone's." In written English, however,
the sentence should read "he goes only to Antone's."
-
Do not confuse possessive, plural, or contracted
forms, especially of pronouns. *Its* bad.
-
Do not confuse "affect" and "effect,"
"compliment" and "complement," or "principle"
and "principal." If you do, readers will not *complement*
your work or *it's* *principle* *affect* on them.
-
Avoid misplaced modifiers; e.g., it is inappropriate
to write the following sentence: "As someone interested in the
history of Mesoamerica, it was important for me to attend the lecture."
The sentence is inappropriate because the phrase "As someone
interested in the history of Mesoamerica" is meant to modify
the next immediate word, which should then, obviously, be both a person
and the subject of the sentence. It should modify the word "I"
by preceding it immediately. One good alternative for the sentence
is: "As someone interested in the history of Mesoamerica, I
was especially eager to attend the lecture."
-
Avoid use of the terms "valid," "parameter,"
"bias," "reliability," and "paradigm,"
except in limited technical ways. These are important terms and should
be used with care and precision.
-
Remember that the words "data," "media,"
"criteria," "strata," and "phenomena"
are all PLURAL forms. They *TAKES* plural verbs. If
you use any of these plural forms in a singular construction, e.g.,
"the data is," you will make the instructor very unhappy
:-(.
-
"Number," "many," and "fewer"
are used with plural nouns (a number of horses, many horses, and fewer
horses); "amount," "much," and "less"
are used with singular nouns (an amount of hydrogen, much hydrogen,
and less hydrogen). Another useful way to make this distinction is
to recall that "many" is used for countable nouns, while
"much" is used for uncountable nouns. Another example: In
the Austin area, at least, upscale grocery stores attempt to appeal
to the knowledgeable by having express lines limited to "10 items
or fewer" while lower-scale groceries limit their express lines
to "10 items or less."
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*The passive voice should generally not be used.*
It is preferable to use the active voice. Note also that APA 2001
allows the use of "I" and "we" (with cautions
regarding the use of "we").
-
"Between" is ordinarily used with two alternatives,
while "among" is used with three or more.
-
Generally avoid the use of honorifics such as Mister,
Doctor, Ms., etc. when referring to persons in your paper, especially
when citing their written work. Use last names and dates as appropriate.
-
"Cite" is a verb, "citation"
is a noun; similarly, "quote" is a verb, "quotation"
is a noun.
- Places on the World-Wide Web are not "sights" but "Websites"
or "Web-sites."
-
*PROFREAD! PROOFREED! PROOOFREAD!*
-
Use double quotation marks (“abc), not single quotation
marks (‘xyz’), as a matter of course. Single quotation marks are
to be used only to indicate quotations within quotations.
-
"As" does not equal "because."
-
Use "about" instead of the tortured locution
"as to."
- Only very rarely should sentences begin with "and" or "but."
Inexpert writers often overuse such constructions.
-
In a course dealing with scholarly matters including
public-policy studies as well as science and technology studies, the
term "issue" is used in a technical way to identify sources
of public controversy or dissensus. Please use the term to refer
to topics about which there is substantial public disagreement, NOT
synonymously with general terms such as "area," "topic,"
or the like.
- The University of Texas System uses "UT-Austin" to designate
The University of Texas at Austin; "UTA" is used to refer
to The University of Texas at Arlington.
Some Editing Conventions for Student Papers
The following are marks that the instructor and/or TA
may use in grading your papers for this course.
| Symbol |
Meaning |
| # |
number OR insert a space (context will help you decipher
its meaning) |
| AWK |
awkward (and usually compromises clarity as well) |
| block |
make into a block quotation without external quotation
marks; do so with quotations 
4 lines |
| caps |
capitalize |
| COLLOQ |
colloquial and to be avoided |
| DB |
database |
| j |
journal |
| lc |
make into lower case |
| lib'ship |
librarianship |
| org, org’l |
organization, organizational |
| Q |
question |
| REF? |
what is the referent of this pronoun? to what or whom
does it refer? |
| w/ |
with |
| w.c.? |
word choice? |
Some Additional Sources of Information on APA Style
The following additional sources of information about using the style
guidelines of the American Psychological Association were kindly contributed
by Lori Eichelberger.
http://www.vanguard.edu/faculty/ddegelman/index.cfm?doc_id=796
[This appears to have been updated to accord with the 2001 edition of
the APA Publication Manual. It includes a hyperlink to a sample paper
that illustrates various APA stylistic matters.]
The following sources appear not to have been updated for APA 2001, but
should still be helpful with basic APA style considerations.
http://www.newark.ohio-state.edu/~osuwrite/apa.htm
http://www.wooster.edu/psychology/apa-crib.html
http://wally.rit.edu/pubs/guides/apa.html
References
American Psychological Association. (2001). Publication
Manual of the American Psychological Association (5th ed.). Washington,
DC: Author.
American Psychological Association. (2001). Electronic
References. Washington, DC: Author. Retrieved July 7, 2001 from http://www.apastyle.org/elecref.html
Darling, Charles (January 10, 2000). A Guide for Writing Research
Papers based on Styles Recommended by The American Psychological Association.
Hartford, CT: Author. Retrieved May 6, 2001 from http://webster.commnet.edu/apa/apa_index.htm
Wolcott, Harry F. (1990). Writing Up Qualitative Research. Newbury
Park, CA: Sage Publications.
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