St. Charles Borromeo School
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND WRITING HINTS
How to
Write a Bibliography
Whenever you write a research paper, always let the
reader know where you found your information. This is called a
bibliography.
Follow the guidelines below to write a bibliography for your
report.
Internet- When you get information
from the internet, use the format in this example:
Young, M.C. "Mrs. Young's Research Room." Online. 08
March 1999. Available
http://www.geocities.com/EnchantedForest/Tower/6766/.
Book-Here is an example to use
with a book:
Hillyer, V.M. A Child's History of the World. New York: The
Century Co., 1924.
Encyclopedia-The encyclopedia format
looks like the following example:
"A. A. Milne." The World Book Encyclopedia. 1997, 555.
Magazine-When using information from
a magazine, use this format:
McCraken, Harry. "Bandwidth on Demand." PC World (March
1999): 108-112.
Newspaper-If you use a newspaper, use
this format:
Ussery, Peggy. "Salaries Will Be Reviewed." The
Columbia County News Times
[Columbia County, GA] June 1998: 1.
The Writing Process
A process is a series of steps that are done in order to
make or do
something. The steps in the Writing Process will help you to
write better
stories and research papers.
Prewriting
Drafting
Revising
Editing
Publishing
Prewriting- This step is for generating
ideas.
In Creative Writing stories this is the step for brainstorming
ideas about the characters, setting, problem, and solution.
On Research Papers this step is for gathering the information
about your topic from several different sources.
Take notes, but be sure to use your own words or use quotation
marks!
Drafting- This step is your first
attempt at writing. Some like to call it their "sloppy
copy."
Write your ideas in complete sentences. Group sentences on the
same topic into paragraphs.
Skip lines in order to leave room for changes.
Do not worry about spelling and grammar at this point.
Revising- In this step the writer
improves the first draft. Below are some ways to improve the
writing.
Add details to your writing. Add adjectives to describe your
nouns throughout the story. Use a thesaurus to find some
more interesting verbs to use. Add some figurative language to
make it more interesting.
Make sure you have grouped similar sentences into a paragraph.
Check for a logical sequence and flow to your writing.
Editing- This step is for correcting
mistakes in your writing. Be sure to check for the following
things.
Circle any words that might be misspelled and look them up in a
dictionary.
Check for punctuation marks at the end of each complete thought.
Be sure there is a capital letter at the beginning of each
sentence.
Make sure that your subjects and verbs agree. Check for any
incorrect use of grammar.
