Senior Thesis:

Model for Format and Internal Citations

For all drafts, please use Times New Roman (12 point) and use one inch margins. Don’t put your entire paper in italics or bold. This model is written with the correct format (12 point, 1 inch margins, etc.). Also, don’t forget to double space.

Don’t forget not to use contractions like don’t, can’t, and so on. Spell out do not and cannot. Also, try to avoid using the informal you. Spell out all one word numbers like three, thirteen, fifty, or 305 million. Be sure to proofread carefully. You should probably ask someone to help you proofread just before you are ready to hand in your final draft.

If you still are confused by internal citations, this model will remind you how to do them. First of all, you need to cite all information that is not your own opinion, not your explanation, or is not common knowledge. You should cite all quotations, statistics, opinions of others, obscure facts, etc. Almost all of the information on your notecards will be cited. You should have a lot of citations. A standard internal citation contains the author’s last name and the page number where you found the information and looks like the following (Butler 38). If your source does not have an author you cite it with the title of the article (“Kids and Guns” 24). If you have a source without an author and without page numbers cite it like this (“The Death Penalty”). If you are citing from an interview, use the person’s last name as the author (Whiteside). Don’t forget to reflect on all of your facts and quotations.

When you cite a short quotation, less than three lines, “You must remember to put the period after the citation” (McKinley 14). If you have a really long quotation, more than three lines long, cite it like the following:

Be sure to indent all of the lines, single space, and do not use quotation marks.

Remember, only put information that is in the author’s or interviewee’s exact words in

quotation marks or in a long quotation format. (Michener 11)

After writing down the quotation, reflect on it, but don’t indent because it’s part of the same paragraph.

Then you indent as normal in your next paragraph. You should have page numbers at the bottom of every page except for the first page. Your title page should not have a page number either. Do please number your Works Cited page and anything in your appendix.

I hope this model has been helpful to you in understanding the format of your research paper. Good luck!