Guide for Undergraduate Research Papers

The paper should be a serious research project in which you:

(1) Survey the available information on a subject,
(2) Read recent research on it, and
(3) Study certain problems or questions within it.
(4) The paper should be based principally on primary sources in the Bible and other ancient texts, and these should be cited to back up whatever statements you make about a subject. Use secondary sources to help you find the primary sources as well as to see how scholars interpret the primary sources, what additional information they bring to bear on the subject, and how they deal with the issues you are studying.

Begin the paper with a clear definition of the question or problem you are studying, the factual information available about it, and an introductory survey of scholarly work on it. Then proceed to describe the issues involved and, if possible, to answer the question that interests you. Compare different views on the subject. Evaluate authors' assumptions, their selection of evidence, and the coherence of their arguments.

Remember that a research paper is not simply a collection of quotations (attributed or not attributed) from others. Nor is it an encyclopedia-style narrative of information. It is a combination of facts, questions, and reasoned interpretation. A large mass of information is not very meaningful until you begin at ask questions about it. Information organized as answers to questions is meaningful. Keep in mind that you do not begin with a thesis. Although in the final, written form of you paper you may present the thesis first so that readers know where you are leading them and follow your argument, in preparing the paper the thesis can only emerge after you examine the evidence.