My thanks to FSU's Anthropology Department who put together many of these suggestions for "a good paper" in their syllabus for a Globalization course. I did some revision to add my own emphases. The responsibility for any egregious errors is my own!
 
 

OVERALL STRUCTURE

And please remember to number the pages and put your name on the project!

• Does the paper begin with a clear topic and thesis statement?

What is the topic of this paper?

Why is it important for the reader to know about this topic?

What, specifically, will this project add to our knowledge about this topic?

(Or more simply put: what is your project about? Why should we care? What, specifically will you do?)

• Does the introduction outline the structure of the paper to come?

• Does the body of the paper correspond to that structure?

• Does the conclusion summarize the thesis and body of the paper and bring the paper to a COMPELLING close?

• Does the author present evidence from his/her readings to support the paper's central thesis?

• Does the author consider contradictory evidence (and what is the ratio of supportive to unsupportive evidence)?

• Does the author clearly explain the relevance of the evidence to the thesis of the paper?

• Does the author interpret and analyze the evidence rather than merely summarize it?

        ( And those summaries should be SHORT and to the point!)

• Avoid "laundry lists" which describe the author of an article (or book) and simply summarize the writing. Instead explain WHY the article or book is important and how the evidence relates to the main points of YOUR paper.

• Does the author use the citation form correctly? (Review the American Psychological Association Manual, 2009.)

• Is the author consistent in their use of citation referrals?

• Do citations appear as necessary and in the right place in the paragraph?

• Is there a bibliography or reference section?

• American Psychological Association reference style (2009 edition) strongly urged.

• Is the passive voice avoided whenever possible? Even journals generally don't demand the passive voice anymore!

• Avoid sentence fragments (each sentence should have a subject and a verb).

• Avoid run-on sentences.

• Use the spell-checker in your word processor

• Check your use of apostrophes (')

• Does your verb agree with the subject in terms of singular or plural?

• Transition sentences between paragraphs--and especially across sections of the paper--are important

• PLEASE, PLEASE: NUMBER YOUR PAGES (how can I reference something on page 5 if there is no page number system?)

 

FINAL THOUGHTS

You won't solve the world's problem in one paper so keep to suggested page boundaries.
 

Go back to the first section above. What's your topic? Why is it important? What, specifically, will you add or do? And if it doesn't relate to these three issues--it doesn't belong in THIS paper!