guidelines for the structure and form of academic papers

8/13/2019 Guidelines for the Structure and Form of Academic Papers

1/4

1

GUIDELINES FOR THE STRUCTURE AND FORMOF ACADEMIC PAPERS1

The following guidelines apply to written papers such as term papers and theses. Term papers areto be turned in with a cover sheet that you can obtain from the student office. Instead of using acover sheet for your thesis please include the same information on the first sheet of your thesis.You will also have to add a signed statutory declaration (thesis only, not in term papers) to provethat you have written the paper independently and that you used the quoted literature only:

"I herewith formally declare that I myself have written the submitted dissertation independently. Idid not use any outside support except for the quoted literature and other sources mentioned at theend of this paper.

I clearly marked and separately listed all the literature and all other sources which Iemployed producing this academic work, either literally or in content.I am aware that the violation of this regulation will be penalised."Berlin, [add the date] Your signature

By copying entire sections without naming your source and thus breaking an academic rule yourwork might be considered an attempt of deception. Consequently, you might be excluded from anexam or your grade might be changed to a fail - even in retrospect.

Layout

Please type paper.

Leave a 6 cm thick margin on the left for comments / corrections.

Lines: 1.5 (or 16.8 18 pt). Please put footnotes in single spaced lines.

Font: proportional font. Recommendation: Times New Roman, size 12, footnotes size 10

Insert page numbers.

Please use common abbreviations only. Add a key to abbreviations if using non-common ones.

As term papers have to be kept on file in the student office please dont use binders. Staples orpaper-clips only. (This applies to term papers only! Your thesis should be bound.)

Structure

The structure of a paper is based on the classical trisection: introduction, main part and conclusion.

IntroductionIntroduces the subject and the problem that is discussed in the paper. Examples: overview of thecomposition of the paper, structure of the analysis, how current is the subject you are dealing with,what is the focus of your paper, what are your most important conclusions

Main partMake an outline. Divide into chapters and sub-chapters. The thread of the argument has to beclear! Common numbering of structures either: 1, I, 1a) , 1b), 1bb) etc. or 1, 1.1, 1.1.1, 1.1.2, etc. Ifthere is a subdivision 1.1 please make sure a 1.2 follows otherwise leave it at 1. withoutsubdividing it. Dont overdo it!

ConclusionFinish your paper well. Examples: short summary of your most important results / conclusions,forecast

1For further reading please see Burchardt, Michael: Leichter Studieren. Wegweiser fr effektives wissenschaftliches Arbeiten,

Berlin Verlag Arno Spitz GmbH, 3. Aufl., Berlin 2000 (in German)


2/4

2

Annotations and Quoting

Having to independently work on your paper does not imply that using other peoples ideas is notallowed. Quite the contrary: working academically means dealing with specialised texts. Academicpractice simply requires quoting those parts of the text of which you have either copied the contentor the exact wording.

Cite your source by using footnotes or by making an annotation. Put a superscript number at the

end of a term, sentence or idea that you have taken from another source2. The footnote text shouldbe on the same page at the end of your main text. It is also possible to list all the footnotes at the

end of your paper following the complete main text. In that case they are called endnotes. The

superscript numbers are to be continued consecutively. Word programmes usually do this

automatically.

There are two types of quotations: literal quotes and quotes in which the content is copied

analogously.Literal Quotes

are only used if using the original wording is of great importance in its particular context (e.g.

particularly characteristic or linguistically concise parts of a text). Only make rare use of literal

quotes! Literal quotes are marked by quotation marks at the beginning and end of what you arequoting.

Important: Should you have to make changes to the original quote you HAVE to show these. If

you are leaving out a word or several words use three dots to mark the words that have been

dropped. Should you have to add something - for instance out of grammatical necessity - mark this

with square brackets: [...]. If the quote contains a word in quotation marks itself then mark this word

with simple quotation marks like this: ...

Quoting Content

When rephrasing ideas and parts of a text you do not add quotation marks but from the way this

part of the text is embedded in the rest of your main body of text it should be made clear which part

of the text is actually the rephrased quotation. Mark it with a footnote. The annotation then begins

with the abbreviation cp. (for compare).

Make further annotations if you wish to add a more precise statement to your text that is not an

absolutely necessary part of your main text.

References

Your reference should contain the following specifications in the following order:

Last/family name of author, first name, title of book (subtitles are divided from the main title by

a dot), no. of edition, place of publication and year of publication, page no.

Example:

8Smith, William, National Systems of Innovation. An analysis, 8 thedition, Oxford 1998, p. 234.

If there are more than one author proceed in the following way:

Two authors: name both

More than two authors: naming the first author is enough, add et al.

2The footnotes menu in word programmes usually does this automatically.


3/4

3

Example:9Cp.Adam, E./Maier, F., The future of the Euro, Berlin 1996, p. 13 ff.

10Nemitz, O. et al., The future of the Euro, Mainz 1999, p. 2.

Essays in Magazines and Collected Editions

Apart from the authors name and title of the essay you will also have to include the name of themagazine or the collected edition.

Magazines: also cite the volume no. and the year of the publication (in brackets)

Collected editions: add editors name and the title of the collected edition

An editors name is marked by the edition (ed.) behind the name. Divide title of the article and

magazine title with an in:

Example for a magazine:11Cp. Miller, Monica, Determining the optimal size of a company, in: The Economic Magazine,

Volume 8 (1993), p. 23-25.

Example for a collected edition:12 Young, G., Changes in design engineering, in: Smith, G./Simpson, K. (ed.), Socialism

Handbook, 6th

edition, Berlin 1989, p. 444.

Online Publications

An online source has to be cited as well to make it possible for the reader of your paper to be ableto find and check your source. Standards for citing are still being developed. For now you shoulduse the following form:

Internet publication: URL: http://www.address.com/elements of further paths

Make sure you copy the exact wording and spelling (including capital and lower case letters).Dont forget to add the publication date (if it appears on the website) and the day you accessed thewebsite (usually in square brackets).

Examples:13Cp. Born, K., The Statistical Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, 1994. Internet publication:

URL: http://www.edu01-net.uk/ffebs/reg/supplier.html [7 Feb 2000].14

Hill, G., Fear of speed. A ZEIT-interview, in: DIE ZEIT, Volume 55 (2000), No. 4. Internet

publication: URL: http://www2.zeit.de/zeit/tag/aktuell-/200004.inverv._krause_j.html [22 Jan

2000].

If the URL address is longer than one line divide it after a slash.

As it is not clear for how long the information will be available in the internet, you should save the

content on a file on your computer and turn the print-outs, a disc or a CD-rom in with your paper.

Reference List

At the end of the paper on the last page there should be a reference list listing all the sources youused for writing your paper. Cite the references as described above.

Abbreviations

You only need to cite a reference the way it was described above once (either in a first footnote orthe reference list). When citing it twice or more times you may do so in an abbreviated form:

Name of author, then add l.c. (in the place cited / loco citato) and the page no.If you are using more than one source by the same author add the year of the publication inbrackets to make clear which source you are referring to.


4/4

4

Examples:15

Miller, M., l.c., p.17.16

Schneider, W. (1996), l.c., p. 23.

If you are quoting the same source consecutively, you may use the abbreviation ibid.. Add the

page number.

Example:18Smith, K., Distributive trade, Frankfurt/M. 1981, p. 17.

19ibid., p. 21.

20Cp. ibid. [if you are quoting p. 21 again]

If now you are quoting a different author than Smith but someone you have already mentioned

earlier, you would use the abbreviation l.c.:

Example:21

Schneider, l.c., p. 33.22

Heinze, l.c., p. 19.

- Guidelines (in the original German version) by Prof. Dr. M. Burchardt -

guidelines for the structure and form of academic papers

Documents