【正文】 memos, reports, essays, articles, booksit should present information and ideas clearly and effectively. You should not let the mechanics of gathering source materials, taking notes, and documenting sources make you fet to apply the knowledge and skills you have acquired through previous writing experiences. This handbook is not about expository writing. It is, instead, a guide for the preparation of research papers. No set of conventions for preparing a manuscript can replace lively and intelligent writing, however, and no amount of research and documentation can pensate for a poor presentation of ideas. Although you must fully document the facts and opinions you draw from your research, the documentation should only support your statements and provide concise information about the sources cited。Style and Methods of English Paper Writing Introduction During your school career your have probably written many personal essays that presented your thoughts, feelings, and opinions and that did not refer any other source of information or ideas. Some subjects and assignments, however, require us to go beyond our personal knowledge and experience. We undertake research when we wish to explore an idea, probe an issue, solve a problem, or make an argument that pels us to turn to outside help. We them seek out, investigate, and use materials beyond our personal resources. The findings and conclusions of such an inquiry appear in the research paper. The term research paper describes a presentation of student research that may be in a printed, an electronic, or a multimedia format. The research paper is generally based on primary research, secondary research, or a bination of the two. Primary research is the study of a subject through firsthand observation and investigation, such as analyzing a literary of historical text, a film, or a performance。 conducting a survey or an interview。 it should not overshadow our own ideas or distract the reader from them. Methods: 1. Selecting a Topic Your instructor may let you choose what to write about in your paper or may assign a topic. Even if the topic is assigned, you will probably need to decide which specific idea to explore or which approach to use. Selecting an appropriate topic is seldom a simple matter. Even after your discover a subject that attracts your interest, you may well find yourself revising your choice, modifying your approach, or changing topics altogether after you have begun research. Remember the time allotted to you and the expected length of the research paper. “International politics in the modern age” would obviously be too broad a subject for a tenpage term paper. You may prefer to begin wit a fairly general topic and then to refine it, by thought and research, into a more specific one that can be fully explored. Try to narrow your topic by focusing on an aspect of the subject or an approach to it. A student initially interested in writing on Shakespeare’s poetic imagery, for instance, might decide, after careful thought and reading, to focus on the blood imagery in Macbeth。 incorporates a number of bibliographic databases, such as National Newspaper Index, Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature, Business Periodicals Index, Humanities Index, Social Sciences Index, and General Science Index, and other kinds of reference works like those discussed in the next section。other similar works have titles like A Guide to the Literature of Art History, A Guide to the Literature of Pharmacy and the Pharmaceutical Sciences, and Philosophy: A Guide to the Reference Literature. Some guides to research are devoted to specific subjects (., The English Romantic Poets: A Review of Research and Criticism). To learn of any guides that might be useful to your project, consult the latest edition of the American Library Association’s Guide to Reference Books or your instructor or a librarian. Dictionaries. Dictionaries are alphabetically arranged works that6 provide information, usually in concise form, about words or topics. Two of the most authoritative dictionaries of words are Webster’s Third New International Dictionary of the English Language and, especially for the history of a word’s meanings and usages, The Oxford English Dictionary. Major fields of study have specialized dictionaries, such as A Dictionary of Botany, Computer Dictionary, Black’s Law Dictionary, Dorland’s Illustrated Medical Dictionary, The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, A Dictionary of Philosophy, The Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, and A Dictionary of the Social Sciences. Encyclopedias. Encyclopedias are works, usually alphabetically arranged, that give introductory information about subjects. Popular general encyclopedias are Academic American Encyclopedia, The Encyclopedia Americana, and The New Encycloped