University of Washington, Professor Harrington's guide for papers

University of Washington
Professor James W. Harrington

STYLE MANUAL FOR STUDENT PAPERS

Contents:

About plagiarism

Citing materials used

Data

Spelling

Tables and figures

Link to Harrington's criteria for grading term papers
Link to the style guide of Prof. Ian McLachlan

ABOUT PLAGIARISM
Plagiarism is the presentation of material written or developed by someone else as one's own material. It is the second most serious academic crime.
It's quite easy to plagiarize, and quite easy to avoid plagiarizing.

*Plagiarism*	*Acceptable use of material*
Using ideas or information that I read somewhere, without mentioning where I read it.	Using ideas or information that I read somewhere, and making it very clear where I read the ideas or information.
Copying a table, figure, or image from somewhere, without mentioning where I obtained it.	Providing a clear reference to the origin of any tables, figures, or images that appear in my paper.
Writing three or more words in the same order as I read them somewhere, without using quotes.	Paraphrasing ideas and providing a reference, OR putting exact quotes in quotation marks and providing the reference and page number.

A paper that plagiarizes is not an acceptable paper.
Self-plagiarism is also unacceptable. You might be surprised at how often instructors check to see whether a student has turned in the same material for two different assignments (we quite often check, even across different quarters).

CITING MATERIALS USED
You can use any referencing system, as long as you are consistent within a single paper. The most common system in academic geography is the author, date system. Material from a specific source is followed by the author's last name and year of publication (or year of communication, if the material is unpublished). At the end of the text of the paper is a list of all materials cited, in alphabetical order by authors' last name.

*within the body of the paper...*	*in the REFERENCES list of the paper...*
...The flexibility of these arrangements has increased with improvements and cost reductions in computing and communications technology, affecting the incomes, public-infrastructure needs, and private service requirements in exurban and rural locations [Beyers and Lindahl 1997a&b].	Beyers, W.B. and Lindahl, D.P. 1997a. Endogenous use of occupations and external reliance on sectoral skills in the producer services. paper prepared for the RESER conference, Roskilde, Denmark (September). Beyers, W.B. and Lindahl, D.P. 1997b. Strategic behavior and development sequences in producer service businesses. Environment and Planning A 29: 887-912.
After presenting a range of regional systems of employment practices across Europe, Peck [1994: 169] cautioned that "the social and spatial context in general and the regulatory milieu in particular will have a major influence on the 'type' of labour-market flexibility which emerges in a region."	Peck, J. 1994. Regulating labour. Ch. 7 in A.Amin and N.Thrift, eds. Globalization, Institutions, and Regional Development in Europe. Oxford: Oxford Univ. Press.
"Warehousing involves the storage, processing and distribution of goods, as well as some manufacturing" [ILWU, 1997].	ILWU. 1997. History of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. http://www.ilwu.com/tis.htm#The Warehouse Industry. accessed 16 Jan 1999.

Note that:

If the attribution is at the end of a sentence, it comes before the period or other punctuation.
If you're using superscripts in the body of the text to refer the reader to footnotes or endnotes, and if the superscript comes at the end of a sentence, it generally comes after the period or other punctuation.

DATA
Secondary data, which you've gotten from some published source, should be cited like any other information. If you present the data in tabular form, and if all the data in the table are from the same source, you might write

SOURCE: Donnelley, Inc. 1998: Table 4.

below the bottom of the table. Then, your reference list at the end of the paper would give a full citation for the Donnelly, Inc. publication or website from which you got the data.

Primary data, which you've collected by survey, interview, measurement, or whatever, cannot be cited, but must be explained carefully. Within the body of the paper, you should explain how and when you collected the data. Fabrication of primary data is the worst academic offense. Imagine how much more messed up the world would be if medical researchers or military intelligence faked their research data. Don't do it; don't even approach doing it.

SPELLING
In a nutshell, use spell-checking software. If you're writing without a computer, be careful. I'm generally pretty lenient about misspellings in hand-written material, but here are three kinds of errors about which I will warn you now, and will grade down:

Commonly misspelled words:

Homophones
The words within each set of words below are pronounced alike or similarly, but have different spellings and meanings. Now that you've been warned, don't confuse them:

"affect" and "effect"

The word "affect" has many meanings. The meaning that you will most commonly intend in a paper in economic geography is "to produce an effect upon," as in "The amount of training and capital equipment provided to workers greatly affects their productivity."
The word "effect" has many meanings. The meaning that you will most commonly intend in a paper in economic geography is "something that follows a cause," as in "In many industries, capital intensity has a large effect on labor productivity."

"it's" and "its"

"It's" is a contraction for "it is." Never use this in a formal paper (or even a written test).
"Its" is the possessive form of "it": in other words, "its" means "belonging to it." There is no apostrophe in this word.
Therefore, when you're writing a paper and you write "it's," ask yourself if you can replace that with "it is." If you can, then replace it with "it is." If you cannot, then omit the apostrophe: the word you want is "its."

"their," "there," and "they're"

"Their" is the possessive form of "them."
"There" means (among other things) "in or at that place or direction."
"They're" is a contraction for "they are." Don't use this in a formal paper.

"to," "too," and "two"
Here's a set of homophones that I know I don't need to explain. Yet I occasionally see them misused. Don't.

Plurals and possessives of nouns ending in a "consonant-y"

*NOUN*	*PLURAL*	*POSSESSIVE*	*PLURAL POSSESSIVE*
company	companies: Only three companies produce overdrive widgets in the U.S.	company's: The company's performance was much better in 1997.	companies': All three companies' profits were up last year.
country	countries: There are only three countries in North America.	country's: The country's trade balance was negative again in 1998.	countries': The EU countries' unemployment rates are all above ten percent.

Note:
"Industry," "industries," "industry's," and "industries' " are a similar set of words that you will likely use in economic geography.

"Company" and "country" are each singular. When you use a pronoun for a company or country, use "it," not "they."

"Abacus Corp. announced plans for substantial job cuts in 1999 and 2000. The company suggested that it would accomplish many of these cuts through retirements. Its labor unions were not satisfied with the plans presented so far."
"Canada's wealth lies in its resources and skilled labor. It is ...."

TABLES AND FIGURES
A paper will generally have only three types of content: text (divided into sections and subsections), tables (text and/or numbers divided into regular rows and columns, organized in parallel fashion so that the rows and columns have a specific meaning), and figures (essentially, anything else: typically graphs, charts, or images).

Text should be divided into sections and subsections, and the title of each section or subsection should come before the section or subsection.

Above each table should be a number ("Table 1") and a clear title, that says what the cells of the table express. Within or underneath the title should be all key information:

for what territorial unit(s)?
for what time period(s)?
in what units of measurement (thousands of employees; millions of U.S. dollars; etc.)?

The source for the tabulated information should be cited beneath the table. It's better to compose a table that presents exactly the data you need, than to insert a photocopied table from a publication. It is, however, a good idea to make photocopies or print of tabular data that you use in a paper, so you can refer back to the original information after you've returned the book to the library or browsed away from the website.

Tables are numbered from 1 to however many there are in the paper. Each table can be inserted within the body of the paper, as soon as possible after it is mentioned for the first time, or all the tables can appear after the text and references.

Below each figure should be a number ("Figure 1") and a clear title, that tells what the figure illustrates. Within or underneath the title should be all key information:

for what territorial unit(s)?
for what time period(s)?
in what units of measurement (thousands of employees; millions of U.S. dollars; etc.)?

If the figure is a chart or diagram, the axes should be clearly labeled.
The source for the tabulated information should be cited beneath the figure and title. If a published figure says exactly what you want to say, then it's acceptable (in a term paper) to cut and paste, with clear attribution. You cannot publish a paper with an already-published figure, without written permission from the original publisher.

Figures are numbered from 1 to however many there are in the paper. Each figure can be inserted within the body of the paper, as soon as possible after it is mentioned for the first time, or all the figures can appear after the text, references, and tables.