Think of a paper that you write in this course as something more like a science lab report than like a literary essay. This philosophy affects both the structure and the style of the paper.
Structure
- Breaking your paper down into numbered sections,
sometimes with numbered subsections, helps make the structure
of your argument very clear.
- Start your paper with an Introduction section that
includes a statement of the research
question you have addressed -- the "point" of the paper -- and
a brief summary of the answer that you have found. Don't
worry about giving away the punch line. Your readers will thank
you if you tell them right away what your arguments are leading
up to; this helps them follow your discussion.
- After you have stated your research question and a summary
of your answer, much of the rest of the paper will be about
giving your readers argumentation and
evidence to support your conclusions.
You should do this with data and discussion. State each piece of the argument clearly. Wherever relevant, immediately show data that supports your claim. That is, don't keep referring back to a huge chart of data in one place in your paper -- organize the data into subparts and put it where it needs to be to show your reader that your claim or description is justified.
If you are working with numerical data, it is good to supplement a table that simply lists values with some kind of graphical display, like a bar graph or chart, that represents the important relationships among your reported values.
- If your project required collecting your own data,
whether that involved numerical values, utterances from
native speakers, or linguistic forms from written or
audio/visual media,
be sure to explain your methodology (perhaps in a
separate Methodology section near the begining of the paper).
What kind of data did you decide to look at? Why did you make
that choice? How did you go about locating or collecting
relevant examples to analyze?
It is best to include all your raw data with the paper if possible. Depending on the nature of the data, this may best be done with raw data in an appendix and selected representative examples, or numerical summaries, presented in the main text of the paper. If your project involved so much data that you don't think it makes sense to include it even in an appendix, consult with me and we'll figure out how you should handle it.
- In your discussion, where appropriate, use as much
linguistic formalism as you can based on your background;
in addition to morphological formalisms introduced in class,
this might include phonological rules or constraints,
morphosyntactic tree structures, or
a formalism or analysis convention introduced in one of your
background references.
But also, be sure to state in plain English what your use of formalism is intended to show. This is important because (a) formalisms can go out of date and be hard for later generations of linguists to read, and (b) you may have made an error in your formalism, so the prose statement is a backup device that tells the reader what you actually wanted your formal analysis to do.
Style
- A linguistics audience will be more impressed by
well-organized thinking and clarity of discussion
than by flowery language. An elegant writing style
can sometimes be a nice thing, but not if it comes at
the expense of clarity.
For more information about clear and effective writing,
see the
handouts
on writing prepared by UNC's Writing Center.
- Where appropriate, be sure to use linguistics
terminology that has been introduced in the course.
- How to format linguistic data in your paper:
- If you give a linguistic form in the middle of a
paragraph, unless it is in
[f@nEtIk sImblz],
it should be in italics (or underlined).
English glosses should be given in single quotes.
Examples:
- The nouns hana 'flower' and hana 'nose' are distinguished only by pitch accent.
- The English verb know is a stative predicate, but the Japanese verb siru 'know, find out' is an achievement predicate.
- If you give linguistic data as part of a table or chart, italics are not necessary.
- If you give data involving whole phrases or sentences, include a morpheme-by-morpheme gloss as well as a more natural English translation, as was done for the data presentation.
- If you give a linguistic form in the middle of a
paragraph, unless it is in
[f@nEtIk sImblz],
it should be in italics (or underlined).
English glosses should be given in single quotes.
Examples:
- If you need to cite a source, give the author's name
and publication date in the body of the paper (not in a special
footnote), and include a bibliography of sources at the end of
the paper. Examples:
- Chomsky (2001) has a lot to say about syntax.
- This phonological principle was first applied to tone languages (Leben 1973).
Remember that all information taken from another source needs to have a citation, even if it's not a direct quotation. (See me if you have questions about how to avoid accidental plagiarism.)
- Your paper must include a bibliography of all sources
cited in the paper. In linguistics, it is customary to use a
format that is reasonably close to APA
format, but as long as your bibliography is consistent, this can
be flexible. You can also use the bibliography in a class reading as
a model (but full first names are better than first initials).
- Remember to edit and proofread your paper. Typing and grammar mistakes are distracting. Rereading your paper will also help you find places where your ideas could be stated more clearly.