Paper guidelines

[Gary McCarron <gmccarro@sfu.ca>]

Title: Paper guidelines

Hello everyone

There was, apparently, some confusion about the way the term papers were (are?) to be formatted.  Accordingly, I will expect that everyone will follow an approved style whether it be MLA, APA, or whatever, and that each of you will remain consistent throughout your paper – that is, you won’t do part of it in APA, part in MLA, and so on.

But what I actually did say in class was that everyone should format their papers according to the online guidelines used by the Canadian Journal of Communication.  So...if you are still working on your paper and want some basic guidance on its style, I have pasted below from their website the style guide given to authors by the editors of the CJC.  You can use these guidelines if they help you or ignore them if you are already finished your paper.

cheers

Layout

1. The text should be double-spaced.
2. Start each paragraph at the margin (no tabs to indent first line). Place an extra blank line between paragraphs to separate.
3. Dashes should be keyed in as double-hyphens with no space at either end. For example: word--word

> Heading Styles
>
> First level headings: (Boldface, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)
>
> Second level headings: (Plain type, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)
>
> Third level headings: (Italic type, first word capitalized, justified at left margin, on a separate line)
>
> Citations in the Text
>
> 1. If the work has more than one author, give all the names the first time the work is referred to, then et. al. thereafter.
> 2. When titles of journals or books are mentioned, they should be italicized, not underlined.
> 3. If the citation follows a quotation, place the parentheses after the quotation marks but before the end punctuation. For example: "...for the future of telecommunications" (Smith, 1987, p. 42).
>
> References
>
> 1. Following the Notes, list only those works actually cited in the text.
> 2. The heading for the references should be bold and left-justified, as References.
> 3. The following formats must be strictly adhered to in terms of punctuation and order of the items within each entry.
>
> Book : Desbarats, Peter. (1990). Guide to Canadian new media. Toronto: Harcourt Brace and Jovanovich, Canada.
>
> Article in a book : Christains, Clifford. (1989). Self-regulation: A critical role for codes of ethics. In Everette E. Dennis, Donald M. Gillmor, & Theodore L. Glasser (Eds.), Media freedom and accountability (pp. 35-53). New York: Greenwood Press.
>
> Article in a journal : Martin, Robert. (1983). Libel and class. Canadian Journal of Communication, 9(2), 1-14.
>
> Government document : Royal Commission on Newspapers. (1981). Report. Ottawa: Minister of Supply and Services Canada.
>
> Website link : Gurstein, Michael. (2000). Effective use: A community informatics strategy beyond the digitial divide. First Monday, 8(12). URL: http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue8_12/ gurstein/index.html [March 4, 2005].
>
> 4. Double space all entries.
> 5. Begin each entry at the margin and indent the subsequent lines by 1/2 inch; i.e., hanging indent.
> 6. Separate the main items in each entry by periods (i.e., name of author, title of book, etc.) Leave one space between a period and next part of the entry.
> 7. Publication date should be in parentheses following author name. Title of book should be in italics and only the first word and first word after a colon should be capitalized (see examples above).
> 8. For articles, the title should be in plain text, with only the first word capitalized; the title of the periodical or edited book should be in italics.
> 9. For journals the volume number of the periodical volume is in italics, with the issue number in plain text and parentheses. Page numbers are given at the end of the reference but without the requirement for "page" or "p". See examples above.
>
> Use of Notes
>
> 1. Footnotes are not used in this format; only endnotes are used.
> 2. Do not use automatically formatted endnotes. Notes should appear at the end of the text and before the references (typed in a regular text). Endnote numbers in the text should be regular text formatted as eight-point superscript.
> 3. Use of notes should be very sparing. They should be used only where additional explanations are absolutely necessary and cannot be incorporated in the text. Maximum: 10.
> 4. Notes should be listed after the text and before the list of biographical references.
> 5. The heading for the notes should be bold and left-justified, as Notes.


Gary McCarron
Graduate Chair
School of Communication
Simon Fraser University
www.sfu.ca/~gmccarro
gmccarro@sfu.ca