Typing and Formatting a Research PaperWORD 2013

Looking at a Template Let’s take a look at Microsoft’s template for research papers – but then we will create our own so we see how to format and have Word format the citations and bibliography.

◦ Open Word. In the search area, type research paper

◦ You should get the following screen with MLA Style Research Paper selected

◦ Go ahead and click on it and save it to your Word document. Name it something such as research template.

◦ Read through the document as it tells you about formatting a research paper in MLA format

Create a New Blank Document◦ From the File tab, click

on New / Blank Document

◦ Change the font to Times New Roman size 12

◦ Change the Line Spacing to 2.0

◦ Remove Spacing after Paragraph from Line Spacing. Word automatically puts in extra spacing and we do not want that when we double space

Adding a Header◦ Click INSERT in the ribbon◦ Click the ‘Add a header’ button ◦ Click Edit Header to switch from the document text to the header, which allows you to edit the contents

of the header◦ Right-align by clicking on the Home tab and right-align button◦ Insert page number by clicking back on Header Design tab and click Insert Page Number icon. Choose

Current Position / Plain. Word will insert the number 1 – but it will change to a 2 on the 2nd page, etc.◦ Type your last name and a space before the page number◦ Click on Close Header and Footer to get back to document◦ See next slide for screen shot

Screen Shot - Adding a Header

Type the First Five Lines◦ Your name (I typed my

name)◦ Your instructor’s name (I

typed Art Simonson’s name)

◦ The course◦ The date◦ The title of the paper

(center this line)◦ Press enter and left align

again◦ If your rulers are not

displaying, click on the View tab and click beside Ruler

First-Line Indenting◦ To see non-printing

characters, such as where you pressed the space bar and enter key, click on the Show/Hide button

◦ Paragraphs should be indented ½ “. You can press the tab key every time or you can set up first-line indenting

◦ To set first-line indenting, drag the First Line Indent marker to the ½” on the ruler bar

Change Bibliography Style Since we are going to use MLA style in this paper, make sure the Bibliography Style is set to MLA Seventh Edition

◦ Click on References◦ Click on Style and choose desired style (in our case, MLA)

This will make Word create the citations and Bibliography according to MLA Seventh Edition rules. It is a really neat feature!!

Another popular style is APA. It is a style used for scientific papers including health and the social sciences.

Content Normally, you would type your paper. To save time, let’s copy and paste the content from the template we saved.

◦ In the template you saved, select the lines from the line below the title up to (but not including) the Works Cited line. Click Copy (or right-click and choose Copy)

◦ Go back to your document and choose Paste (choose the 4th option for “Keep Text Only”.◦ Save your document in your Word folder as YourLastName research paper

Removing characters in entire document◦ We don’t need the brackets: the [ and the ]◦ You can remove any character or group of characters at once – even replacing them with other characters.

◦ Be sure your cursor is at the top of your document◦ Click on Home / Replace◦ In the first line, type your character or choose from the More option. In our case, type [◦ Then choose Replace All. It will tell you it replaced 11 or 12◦ Do the same thing again using the ]

You may need to Select All and then choose Remove Spacing After Paragraph if extra space was added.

Save your document

Inserting a Citation for MLA Handbook

◦ Click at the end of the first paragraph before the period.◦ Click the Insert Citation button (REFERENCES tab /Citations & Bibliography group) to display the Insert

Citation menu◦ Click ‘Add New Source’ on the Insert Citation menu to display the Create Source dialog box◦ Tap or click the ‘Type of Source’ arrow, and click Book◦ Type the source information in the appropriate text boxes as shown on the next slide. I always use the

Edit button to enter the author information so that it formats correctly. If you have 2 authors, be sure and use this Edit button so that you can add the 2nd author. In this case, our author for the MLA Handbook is the Modern Language Association, so we list that as the corporate author.

◦ When finished, click the OK button to insert the citation in the document at the location of the insertion point. The citation will have the author’s name in parenthesis. We will later learn how to modify what displays in the citation.

Entering a Citation Source

Editing a Citation or Source◦ Sometime you may need to edit the source or the citation itself (what displays in the parenthesis).◦ Click somewhere in the citation placeholder to be edited to select the citation placeholder◦ Click the Citation Options arrow to display the Citation Options menu◦ Click Edit Citation if you need to change what displays in the parenthesis◦ Click Edit Source if you need to change the content of the citation

Inserting a FootnotePlace cursor where you want the footnote number to go.

Choose Insert Footnote from the Reference ribbon.

Type the desired text in the footnote area. Here is what I typed

Word makes the font smaller, single spaces, and lines up at left margin for footnotes. MLA wants the font the same size as the document, double spaced, and first-line indent. Select the footnote text you typed. Make the font size 12, choose double space from the line-spacing icon, and drag the first-line indent marker on the ruler to .5 as shown in a later slide.

Dr. Art Simonson is your professor for this course. I am explaining more in the footnote here. I will also pretend he has written a book about formatting research papers and insert the citation here. It will put his last name in parenthesis, but since we have mentioned his name previously in this paragraph, we edit the citation and make it display the page numbers and suppress the author and title

Adding Citation and Source to Footnote

◦ We are pretending that Art Simonson has written a book about formatting reference papers, so we need to reference the pretend book.

◦ Click at the end of the footnote◦ Click the Insert Citation button (REFERENCES tab /Citations & Bibliography group) to display the Insert Citation menu◦ Click ‘Add New Source’ on the Insert Citation menu to display the Create Source dialog box◦ Click the ‘Type of Source’ arrow, and click Book◦ Type the source information in the appropriate text boxes as shown below and click OK

Changing Citation Since we have mentioned Art Simonson’s name in the footnote, we don’t need his name again in the citation. Instead we just need the page number. We need to suppress the author in the citation and tell it to display the page number.

◦ Click on the arrow below the citation and choose Edit Citation◦ Type in the page numbers 62-65◦ Click to suppress the author and to suppress the title◦ Click OK◦ You should see the page numbers in parenthesis as the citation

Works Cited Page We need to add the Bibliography (called Works Cited) on the last page of the paper.

◦ Go to the end of the document◦ Insert a manual page break. (Insert / Page Break)◦ You will now have a blank last page. We want to center the title Works Cited, but first let’s move the

first-line indent marker on the ruler back to zero so the title will center perfectly.◦ Once you have done that, click on Center◦ Type Works Cited◦ Press the enter key and click on Align Left◦ Let Word create the Bibliography. Click on the References tab and click on Bibliography. Do not choose

any of the built-in bibliographies because they do not meet MLA requirements. Instead, click on Insert Bibliography. It is at the end.

◦ It inserts your citation sources, formatted almost perfectly. We need to select it, choose double space, and choose Remove Space After Paragraph.

Screen Shot of Works Cited Page