The First Draft and Works Cited Page
Wow! You have selected your topic, completed and organized your research, and written your thesis statement. You are now ready to write your first draft, or rough draft. If you write a solid first draft, you will have less editing and revising making the writing process quicker and easier. While the writing process may mean different things to different people, there are still some steps you must take as well as some parts of a paper that must be included in order to successfully complete an essay. You also need to know the standard rules for using the Modern Language Association (MLA), or American Psychological Association style (APA), to write and format your paper.
You do not want to procrastinate with this step in the writing process. Getting your first draft written in a timely fashion will allow you extra time to have someone read over it and give you feedback. Then, you will have time to edit the draft before submission.
Creating an Outline
Before you begin, you must figure out what you want to say and the order in which you want to present your information. It is time to go back and look over and fine-tune your graphic organizer and thesis statement to make sure you are ready to start writing. It is advised that you create an outline of your work because this is a very important step. In this interactivity, use the previous and ext buttons to learn how to properly outline your research paper. Click the player button to get started.
View a printable version of this interactivity.
Once you have created an outline, you can start writing your draft. But there are some things to review about the parts of a paper that will help make this easier.
The Introduction: You will want to start your paper with a solid introduction and an appealing opening. Just like first impressions are important with people, they are also very important when writing. You want to hook your reader and make sure he or she wants to continue reading your paper. Make sure to include your thesis statement at the end of your introductory paragraph. This will let the reader know what your opinion is on the subject and the points you will make to support it.
The Body Paragraphs: In a research paper, you are expected to write multiple body paragraphs on each subtopic or section of your paper. Each body paragraph follows the same structure. The paragraphs should have a clear and focused topic sentence and details that support or elaborate on that topic sentence. Remember to use parenthetical citations to give credit to the sources you used to find that information. See the Developmental Module on using MLA, or APA, to create parenthetical citations if you are not familiar with what details to put inside the parentheses. Then, you will close each body paragraph with a transition or concluding sentence that will help you move easily onto the next topic. Typically the topic sentence and transition sentence are not cited.
The Conclusion: Your conclusion should sum up the main points of your paper and include a reworded version of your thesis statement. You will not introduce any new information in this paragraph, but you should make some connection to your life or the world in which you live.
Works Cited Page: After you have finished the content, you will create your Works Cited Page. Your Works Cited Page, is just as the name suggests, a list of all of the sources you cited in the body of your paper. The heading of the page should be titled, "Works Cited Page," with no bold, italics, or underline. The list is alphabetized by authors’ last names (or by title when a work has no author). The first line of each entry is at the left margin; extra lines are indented one-half inch. Each entry contains all the citation information needed for a reader to look up the source. If you need assistance on writing a Works Cited Page, please visit the Developmental Module for more information.
The Format: The entire paper should be formatted following MLA or APA guidelines. The basics include one-inch margins, page numbers with your last name included, and double spacing throughout the paper.
Once you have completed all of these steps, you will have the first draft of your research paper completed.
The First Draft and Works Cited Page Review
You have now learned how to properly structure your rough draft. Before you begin the actual writing, it is time to test your knowledge. In this non-graded interactivity, read the statement and decide if it is true or false. To check your answers click SUBMIT. Click the player button to get started.