A good rule of thumb in approaching any writing project is to ask yourself:
For whom am I writing and why? or,
Who is my audience and what do they expect from my writing?
In graduate school, your most common audience will be your course instructor. You can think of most of your writing assignments as your instructor asking you to make an argument. Your instructor wants to gauge how well you understand the course material by seeing how well you can make an argument related to that material. A good argument is well-written, logical, and supported by evidence.
In graduate school, one of the aspects of a well-written paper is proper formatting and style. Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, there are five very basic formatting rules you should always follow:
Use the 9th edition of A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations (Turabian) for footnote and bibliographic citations. However, you can choose another style manual after consulting with your advisor (eg. SBL). Keep in mind that you must use a selected style consistently. The Learning Commons provides access to the following style guides:
Quick Tip
Turabian is the abridged version of the Chicago Manual of Style developed for students.
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Unless your instructor tells you otherwise, they will consider a well-written paper to include the following parts: