How to Write Essays

匪兵N

All your written work will involve attempts to answer questions about the past. Markers are looking for answers that are as convincing and as carefully argued as they can be, given the time and evidence available to you. The skills you must mobilise are as much those of a debater as of a researcher. General Advice

• Relevance Try to answer the question that is set. Quite a few essays manage to miss the main point entirely. Consider very carefully what the question or problem means, then organise your evidence as an answer.
  Every point of your answer must bear directly on the subject, and you must say in so many words how it helps to answer the question. It is no good leaving it to the reader to make the connection. This is YOUR job, not the reader's.
  Try giving your essay to a friend to see if he or she can work out the question simply by looking at your answer. If you have done the job properly - linking each point explicitly to the question - your friend will have no trouble.
  These are the sort of questions we will ask when marking a piece of work:
  
  • Has the question been understood?
  • Have the terms of the question been defined? (Use a dictionary; or, even better, an encyclopaedia or a book such as Raymond Williams' Keywords. See also Appendix A – Key terms.)
  • Have the hidden assumptions of the question been winkled out? Does the question assume things that are not necessarily true
  • Has the significance of the question been understood? What other questions can be tackled once this one has been understood? Is the question important?
• Construct your own argument: Never simply repeat sections from books or lectures. At best, this is lazy; at worst, it is a dishonest attempt to pass off others' ideas as your own. It will also lose you marks, because we want to see how you can argue. Occasionally, you may experience the thrill of working out and defending a truly novel conclusion. More often, you will end up largely agreeing with one historian or another. This is fine, but you must support that historian with your own synthesis of the evidence.
  We will ask:
  
  • Is the argument convincing?
  • Is the argument logically organised?
  • Have alternative answers been considered?
  • Does the conclusion follow from the premises and evidence?
• Read as much as possible but read wisely: Concentrate on material relevant to the question. You should normally start with a general book, to get an overview of your topic, but then you must move to more specialised works. While encyclopedias and survey textbooks can be useful for gaining a general knowledge about your topic, such reading is not citable research. The bulk of your research should be from specialised scholarly books and articles.
  Try to read critically. Historians must be sceptical. History students should start weighing up the evidence used by scholars, comparing one person’s work with another’s. This is why it is always important to read several books and articles. You should understand the historical debate before deciding which viewpoint you support. Second, third and fourth opinions help to inform and enliven a debate.
• Note-taking:
  See the section ‘Study Methods’ later in this booklet for advice on note-taking. Always record full details of each source that you use. For books this means the author, title, place of publication, year of publication and of course the page numbers. For articles, note the author, title, name of the journal, volume number, date of the issue and page numbers. Some of these details will save you much needless effort if you wish to consult the source again; and all of them are needed when later you cite sources in footnotes or the bibliography of your essay. It is often useful to note the library’s call number for the item as well. Try to organise the material that you are collecting for your essay. This can be done by following a series of points or themes, or dividing your evidence for and against a particular argument. Try to be logical, systematic, and coherent. Phrases copied word for word from your readings should be enclosed in quotation marks in your notes; this will prevent inadvertent plagiarism.
• Argue from evidence: We are less interested in your conclusion than in the skill with which you support it. Avoid vague, unsupported or sweeping statements. Always argue from evidence, backing up your generalisations with relevant facts. If your statements of fact are contentious, support them with evidence too. It is best not to turn a blind eye to evidence which favours your opponents. You should devise an argument which as far as possible does justice to all the information available.
  We will ask:
  
  • Is the argument soundly based on supporting evidence?
  • Has the evidence been evaluated critically or merely accepted at face value?
  • Have alternative answers been considered?
• Analyse your evidence: It is not enough to present the facts and arguments you have gathered in your research. You must evaluate the evidence. How reliable is it? Are the sources biased? Is material downplayed in some accounts because it casts doubt on the most comfortable explanation? What does the evidence actually mean? Most quotations, for example, should be followed by your interpretation: if you recount that Louis XIV said "I am the State," you should then explain that he meant that his power as the king of France was absolute. If you fail to interpret your evidence, or your analysis is unconvincing, your overall essay will be weaker.
• Beware narrative: As a general rule, if you find yourself telling a story, you have probably drifted from the point. Ensure your writing is relevant to the question asked. Our questions require direct answers, and they require you to construct clear arguments in favour of your answers. (See the example of Tom and Jerry.) This means that you have to arrange your material in the best logical order. This will rarely coincide with the chronological order in which events occurred.
• Quote sparingly: Quotations should be brief and relevant. Used well, they can add colour and drive a point home. When they are over-used, they may make your essay disjointed and prevent you from developing your argument. Quotations should never dominate your essay
  

^ Top of page Locating Source MaterialBooks

• Identify books on your topic: If key readings are suggested either in class or in course bibliographies, read these first. Books that your lecturer has placed on reserve are often major sources that should not be ignored. Refer to your textbook or assigned readings to begin to compile a list of key authors and works – check both for works referred to in the text and those in the footnotes and bibliographies. If your list of books is still thin, or you are unclear about the basic events of your topic, read encyclopedia articles on your topic. Carefully note the major people involved and the names of key events; use this list to conduct searches in the library catalogue for further books.
• Locate scarce or high-demand books: Books unavailable at Otago may be available from another library in New Zealand. Ask a librarian about interloaning books from another library. If a book you require is owned by Otago but is checked out to another borrower, you have two options. You can place a hold on the book which will let you be the next person to borrow it once it is returned, or you can recall a book, shortening the borrowing period for the current borrower. In general, books with due dates at the end of the semester should be recalled.
• Evaluate the books: When you find books, quickly assess their usefulness: does the table of contents suggest the author addresses your topic substantively? Is the writing and presentation professional, or is the book mainly a pictorial or juvenile light overview? Quickly glance through the footnotes: the more substantial the footnotes, the more likely it is that the work is credible. Review the bibliographies: the more often a work is referred to in the various bibliographies, the more likely it is a key work for investigating your topic. As you evaluate books, you may also identify further works you will want to use in your research.

Articles

History students ignore journal articles at their peril. The Central Library has multiple electronic databases online and on searchable CD-ROMs that will allow you to search for articles relevant to your topic. Search terms can be identified just as for books. Some of the databases will present the full text of articles to you electronically. Other articles can be found on the library shelves in the journals section. If the article you want is not available at Otago, you can order a copy, free, through the library.
If you are unsure how to proceed, where to locate the databases, how to use the CD-ROMs, or even how to recall a book, please ask a member of the library staff. A request for help is never regarded as an intrusion. Even if you have already had something explained, but have forgotten or are still uncertain, don’t hesitate to ask again. The library is there for you to use, and the staff are there to help you.

Internet

Materials found through searches on the World Wide Web are less reliable than books and articles – they can be posted by highly biased or ill-informed sources and contain errors and distortions. For this reason, the History Department has the following policy on the Web as a source for research:

• 100-level refer to your individual course books.
• 200-level up may cite from web addresses (URLs) containing the suffixes:
  

  .gov - these are government sites (.govt in NZ)
  .ac - academic institution
  .edu - tertiary institution in U.S. and Australia.
  

• 300-level and above may cite from any website, but the information used must be critically evaluated as any other source would be.
  

All levels may cite from websites listed in the syllabus or specifically approved in lecture; also websites indicated on the course’s Blackboard Courseinfo page.
Note that articles found through the library’s electronic databases are journal articles – they exist primarily in print form and have been made available electronically as a convenience. If you are unsure whether you have located an article or a webpage, ask a tutor or your lecturer.

Writing and Expression

You are marked not only on what you know but on how well you express it. You should have an introduction, development, and a conclusion. Your work should meet the word limit of the assignment. Remove unnecessary, overly complex, or unworkable arguments. In your writing you should aim at clear, concise, exact expression. Remember that dictionaries are writers’ friends, and you should get in the habit of using them frequently. Too many students misuse words because they do not understand their exact meanings.

What’s in a word? Consider the difference between wise guy and wise man. - anonymous

Carefully re-read your essay, checking that you have observed the SEVEN COMMANDMENTS:

• Check your spelling carefully.
• Check to see if you left any words out.
• Punctuate appropriately, with special care in the use of full stops.
• Avoid using unnecessary words.
• Learn the correct use of apostrophes.
• Keep your sentences clear. Avoid overlong sentences with many subclauses and parentheses.
• Avoid contractions (don’t, can’t) and abbreviations (NZ).

Note that the spellcheck feature available with word processing programs will not catch mis-used words. You should always check spelling and grammar personally.

I have a spelling checker
It came with my PC
It clearly marks four my review
Miss steaks eye ken knot

Common Errors

• Misplaced apostrophes Its = possessive form, for example its meaning, its life span, its courtyard
  It’s = It is; this contraction has no place in a history essay
  Proper use of possessives
  Peasant’s revolt = one peasant, one revolt
  Peasant’s revolts = one peasant, multiple revolts
  Peasants’ revolt = multiple peasants, one revolt
  Peasants’ revolts = multiple peasants, multiple revolts
• Misused commas Instead of full stops: Students frequently use commas when full stops are called for.
  

  Poor: King Henry VIII smelled terrible, this was because he never bathed.
  Better: King Henry VIII smelled terrible. This was because he never bathed.
  

  Even better: King Henry VIII smelled terrible because he never bathed.
  Excess: Students also sometimes sprinkle extra commas through their writing.
  

  Poor: The treaty, which was signed by Jackson’s government and the Cherokee Indians, was not, in fact, rigorously, upheld by the U.S.
  Better: The treaty which was signed by Jackson’s government and the Cherokee Indians was not, in fact, rigorously upheld by the U.S.
  

• Wrong word Sight refers to vision; you cite a reference; a site is a place.
  

  Sight ? cite ? site.
  

  You can have too much, or go to a place, or have two of something.
  

  Too ? to ? two.
  

  The populace are the people; a populous place has many people
  

  Populace ? populous.
  

• Punctuating quotations In general the punctuation at the end of the quote goes inside the quotation mark (sometimes called inverted comma). The footnote mark goes outside the quote mark. Thus Norman Kirk’s saying:
  

  ‘Let us have a sense of pride in being New Zealanders. Let us recognise the value of the unique way of life we have built here – a humane, non-violent society, free from the social and economic injustices that plague so many societies.’1
  

  If you cut short a quotation, put in three dots – an ellipsis – to indicate the change:
  ‘Let us have a sense of pride in being New Zealanders. Let us recognise the value of the unique way of life we have built here…’2
  Long quotes, such as the first quote above, are called block quotes and should be indented on both the right and left margins. Use block quotes only sparingly: readers tend to skip over them. Shorter quotes – those of two lines or less – go in the text. Very short quotes, usually three words or less, can have punctuation outside the quote marks.
  If you add anything to a quote, enclose it in square brackets:
  

‘We have stood on Maungakawa [the hill of bitterness] and we have looked down on Horotiu [the land fallen to pieces at the blow of a weapon] and shed tears, and now the pain is constantly gnawing in our hearts.’3

If a quote contains an error and you want to clarify that the error is in the original, insert the word sic in brackets:
‘Cortez conquered the Na?ve [sic] Americans.’

ReferencingWhen to provide referencesAcknowledging the sources you have consulted in the preparation of your essays and assignments is a process known as referencing. In Humanities subjects, references usually take the form of notes that are separated from the main text.
Taking into account the foregoing provisos, you should provide reference notes giving the source of all the following:

• All arguments and ideas which you borrow from someone else's work. You are expected and encouraged to display familiarity with the ideas and research of scholars who have published work in the area you are working on. However, you must acknowledge this work: it is simple dishonesty to pass off other people’s ideas as your own. This intellectual theft is called PLAGIARISM, and it is a serious academic offence. It will be penalised severely, usually by failure in the essay concerned. See the section on plagiarism later in this guide.
• Information which is not well known, which might be contentious, or which a reader might want to verify. For example, you would not need to give your source for the statement that 'women's suffrage was introduced in New Zealand in 1893,' because no one who knows any New Zealand history will doubt what you say. But you would need to footnote the less commonplace claim that the suffrage bill passed the lower house because the politicians mistakenly thought that the upper house would reject it.
• Quotations
• Statistics
• All information important for your argument. Unless you do this, you will be unable to convince a sceptical reader. You should also provide references for:
• Photographs or maps. References should indicate the source of the image and the source for any explanatory statements. These references are often given as credit lines and placed in parentheses after the text of the caption rather than footnoted.
  

Notes placed at the bottom of the page are 'footnotes'. Those collected together at the end of the essay are 'endnotes'. They are numbered consecutively throughout the assignment. Fourth-year long essays that contain several chapters should footnote each chapter separately. The superscript numerals, in standard arabic (1, 2, 3 – and NOT i, ii, iii or a, b, c), should be inserted at the end of a quotation, or the end of a sentence, or if appropriate at the end of a paragraph. The number follows after any punctuation. Note that footnotes usually refer to specific pages within a text.
In your essays we require that you present your notes and the bibliography in accordance with the following guidelines, which are based on the practice of many historical journals. This form is called the Chicago style, and is based on The Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed., (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003).
First references:For a first reference to a book use the following form:

      1 Erik Olssen, Building the New World: Work, Politics and Society in Caversham, 1880s-1920s (Auckland: Auckland University Press, 1995), 52.

Note that the author’s name is presented in the normal order, with the given name first. At the end of the citation, the specific page number cited is given. The first line of each note is indented five spaces, while subsequent lines go to the left margin.
First reference to a journal article:

      2 Deborah Montgomerie, “GI Joe Down Under: American Infantrymen in New Zealand During World War II,” New Zealand Journal of History 34, no. 2 (October 2000): 262.

A journal is any periodical publication containing scholarly articles. This article would be in volume 34, issue 2 of the New Zealand Journal of History.
Reference to works with two authors:

Regardless of the type of work, simply supply both authors’ names. For example:
     3 Martin Horn and Talbot Imlay, “Money in Wartime: France’s Preparations for the Two World Wars,” International History Review 27, no. 4 (2005): 709.

Reference to the second or any subsequent edition of a book:

      4 Tom Brooking and Paul Enright, Milestones: Turning Points in New Zealand History, 2nd ed. (Palmerston North, N.Z.: Dunmore Press, 1999), 23-25.

Reference to an essay or article contained in a book:
An edited volume is a collection of essays/articles, usually by different authors, which have been compiled into one volume by one or more editors.

      5 Paul Antony Hayward, "Demystifying the Role of Sanctity in Western Christendom," in The Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity and the Middle Ages: Essays on the Contribution of Peter Brown, ed. James Howard-Johnston and Paul Antony Hayward (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 120.

Reference to an edited book where the entire book is relevant:

      6 Barbara Brookes, ed., At Home in New Zealand: Houses, History, People (Wellington, N.Z.: Bridget Williams Books, 2000).

Note however that if you are using a specific essay contained within such a work, that essay is your reference, as in the previous example.
Reference to a direct quotation found in an historical work:
Use this format when you want to reference a quotation that you have located in another historian’s work. It indicates that you have not read the original work, except as it is quoted in the secondary source. The example below references F.J. Hickie’s words that have been quoted in Judith Bennett’s work. Note that both the original and the secondary sources must be listed.

      7 F. J. Hickie, "Coconut Planting in the British Solomons," The Planters Gazette (May 1923), 8, quoted in Judith A. Bennett, Pacific Forest: A History of Resource Control and Contest in Solomon Islands, c. 1800-1997 (Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 2000), 48.

Or if an older work is cited and not all the publishing details are available, the following would suffice:

      8 Adam Smith, The Wealth of Nations, 1776, quoted in Jonathan Dewald, The European Nobility 1400-1800 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), 75.

Reference to the foreword or introduction to a book:

      9 Isaac Kramnick, introduction to The Portable Edmund Burke, ed. by Isaac Kramnick (New York: Penguin Books, 1999), xli.

Reference to published primary sources that have been edited, such as a diary, journal, notebook or collection of letters:

      10 Benjamin Franklin,Benjamin Franklin's Experiments: A New Edition of Franklin's Experiments and Observations on Electricity, ed. I. Bernard Cohen (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941), 55.
      11 Katherine Mansfield, The Collected Letters of Katherine Mansfield ed. Vincent O’Sullivan and Margaret Scott (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 23.

Reference to a primary source contained in a published documentary collection:

12 Sydney Morning Herald, 8 September 1905, in A Documentary History of Australia. Volume 4. Modern Australia 1901-1939, ed. Frank Crowley (Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1978), 81.
       13 Peter Brown to Colonial Secretary, 20 July 1840, West Australia Colonial Secretaries Office, CSO 1840/89, in Dispossession: Black Australians and White Invaders, ed. Henry Reynolds (Sydney: Allen & Unwin, 1989), 129.

Reference to a book review:

      14 Judith Collard, review of Made in God’s Image: Eve and Adam in the Genesis Mosaics, Venice, by P. H. Jolly, Parergon 16 (July 1998): 175-177.

Reference to a thesis or dissertation:

      15 Nuran ?inlar, "Marriage in the Colonial Chesapeake, 1607-1770: A Study in Cultural Adaptation and Reformulation" (Ph.D. diss., The Johns Hopkins University, 2000), 220.

Reference to an older published work or a reprinted older work:
If you are using the original, give as much of the standard publication information as you have available. Many older works do not give a publisher’s name; some do not give a city of publication. Retain any unusual spelling, capitalisation and punctuation in the original. If the original title is extremely long, you may truncate it. Place four full stops at the end of the title to indicate that it is shortened.

      16 Cotton Mather, The world alarm'd: A suprizing relation, of a new burning-island.... (Boston, Massachusetts, 1721).

You are more likely to use a reprint of an older work, such as:

      17 Edwin A. Abbott, Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions (1884; reprinted with an introduction by Alan Lightman, New York: Penguin Books, 1998), 114.

Note that some older works use a character that looks much like an "f" - the character ? - to mean "s". Words with this character are spelled with "s" in your footnotes, bibliography, and any quotations. Thus a "wi?e" man will be written up as a "wise" man.
Reference to an oral interview:

      18 Hew MacLeod, interview by Shaun Broadley, Dunedin, New Zealand, 1 December 2000, tape recording, Hocken Library, University of Otago.
      19 Dorothy Page, interview by the author, Dunedin, New Zealand, 9 July 2001.

The first reference is to a recorded interview conducted by a third party, in this case Shaun Broadley, which can be accessed at the Hocken Library. The second note refers to an unrecorded interview conducted by yourself, the author of the essay in which the note appears.
Reference to archival materials:
When referencing archival material, whenever possible identify first the item, the date of the item, then the collection, the reference number, and the archive holding the collection. It may be that not all of this information is available. Include as much as you have.

      20 Christina MacDonald diary, 17 October 1879, Hocken Library, University of Otago.
      21 Governor Fitzroy to George Clarke, 15 September 1845, George Clarke Letters and Reports, 1842-1847 (MS-0288), Hocken Library, University of Otago.

Note that after the first identification of the collection, subsequent footnotes need only read:

      22 MacDonald diary, 10 October 1879.

Reference to a course tutorial programme or reader:

      23 Angela Wanhalla, History 104: Reader (University of Otago, 2007), 62.

Reference to a text reproduced in a course tutorial programme or reader:

      24 Donna Awatere, Maori Sovereignty (Auckland: Broadsheet, 1984) in Angela Wanhalla, History 104: Reader (University of Otago, 2007), 30-32.

Reference to a newspaper:

      25 Joanna Norris, "Doctor Claims Bouwer Murdered Wife for the Challenge: Bouwer Killed ‘Because He Could,’" Otago Daily Times, 24 November 2001.
      26 Editorial, Daily Telegraph (London), 15 March 1985.

The amount of information in a newspaper reference will differ according to the part of the newspaper you use. Whenever possible include the name of the author and the title of the article or column. The date of publication and the name of the newspaper are essential. If the city of publication is not obvious from the title of the newspaper, indicate in parentheses the place of publication.
Reference to an image or table from a book:

      27 Sasha Grishin, John Wolseley: Land Marks (Sydney: Craftsman House, 1998), 30, plate 7.

Use fig. for a figure, or map or table when appropriate.
Reference to a slide collection:

      28 Eric J. Doudnet, Maori Sculpture (Newport, R.I.: Media for the Arts, 1968), slides.

Reference to a DVD or videocassette:

      29 The Devil’s Playground, videocassette, directed by Barry Paine, Jeffrey Thomas, and Rod Morris (Dunedin, N.Z.: Natural History New Zealand, 1999).
When referencing the DVD or videocassette version of a film originally released in the cinema, include the original release date:
      30 Forbidden Planet, DVD, directed by Fred M. Wilcox (1956; Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2002).

Reference to a website:

Include as much of the following information as can be determined: author of the content, title of the page, title of the site, URL.
        
      31 Tim Beaglehole, “Peter Fraser, 1884-1950,” The Dictionary of New Zealand Biography, http://www.dnzb.govt.nz/dnzb/default.asp?Find_Quick.asp?Pers onEssay=4F22.html.
If there is no author listed, the owner or organisation that runs the site may stand in for the author:
      32 New Zealand History Online, “New Zealand and the Vietnam War,” http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/ ... r/vietnam-war.html.

Reference to a primary source accessed via the internet:

When referencing a primary source accessed via the internet, use the same format as you would for referencing archival materials. The name of the website and the URL take the place of the name of the archive holding the collection. For example:

      33 Tony Blair speech, “The Death of Diana, Princess of Wales,” 31 August 1997, 10 Dowling Street Website, http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1050.asp.  
      34 The Declaration of Independence, 4 July 1776, One Hundred Milestone Documents, http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=2&page=transcript
      35 Captain James Cook journal, 29 July 1768, South Seas Voyaging Accounts, http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17680729.html

Reference to a CD-ROM or DVD-ROM:

Works issued on CD-ROM or DVD-ROM are referenced the same way as the print versions, except that the word CD-ROM or DVD-ROM is inserted after the title:
      37 David Eltis et al., eds., The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM, CD-ROM (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

Second or subsequent references (of all types):
Second and subsequent references to a work that has already been cited need only give the author’s surname and the relevant page number(s). Thus:

      38 Olssen, 161.

Where you have cited more than one work by the same author, distinguish the works by using abbreviated titles. For example:

      39 Olssen, Building the New World, 161.
      40 Olssen, History of Otago, 76.

Where you refer to the same work in two successive references, you might want to use the abbreviation ‘ibid.’ (From the Latin ibidem, meaning ‘in the same place’).

      41 Olssen, Building the New World, 169.
      42 Ibid., 88.
      43 Ibid.

Without a page number, the ‘ibid.’ refers to the same work and the same page as the previous reference.
Alternatively, it is acceptable to use the brief citation form. For example:

      44 Olssen, Building the New World, 169.
      45 Olssen, Building the New World, 88.

We advise you to use the brief citation form consistently as you write your essay. Thus if you move any of your paragraphs around, your citations will remain accurate. Only change the brief citations to ‘ibid.’, when appropriate, in your final version.
Other items: See the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2003) for information on how to cite other materials. Another useful guide is Kate L. Turabian, A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations, 6th ed., rev. and exp. Bonnie Birtwistle Honigsblum (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996).
^ Top of page Bibliography

At the very end of the essay, list under the heading 'Bibliography’ list all the sources which you have consulted. Bibliographic references differ from footnotes in several ways.
Bibliographies:

• Give the author’s last name first, e.g. Olssen, Erik.
• Are alphabetized by the authors’ last names, not numbered.
• Use full stops where notes tend to use commas and parentheses.
• List entire books or works rather than indicating the specific pages used.
• Have a hanging indent of five spaces rather than a normal indent of five spaces (note this may display incorrectly in some browsers).
• For longer works such as Honours Theses, bibliographies are normally divided into two sections, one for primary sources and one for secondary sources.

Standard forms:Books:
Garside, W. R. British Unemployment, 1919-1939: A Study in Public Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990.
Articles:
Note that the page numbers for the entire article are given.
Montgomerie, Deborah. “GI Joe Down Under: American Infantrymen in New Zealand During World War II.” New Zealand Journal of History 34, no. 2 (October 2000): 262-276.
Note that the page numbers for the entire article are given. If a work has two authors, the second author’s name appears in the normal order.   
The references are to be listed alphabetically, by the authors’ surnames. If you have two or more works by one author, list them by title – see the sample bibliography below.
The place and date of publication of books are required to identify the edition used. This is important because different editions usually have different page numbers. For place of publication, the city is sufficient if the city named is well known: London, New York, Auckland, Sydney. Cities that occur in multiple parts of the world or that are obscure should have either a country or, in the case of the U.S., a state specified. Thus Wellington, N.Z.; Chapel Hill, North Carolina. If multiple cities of publication are given in the book, use the first one named.
Edited books
are a slightly special case. List the essay(s) used from such a work individually in your bibliography, then list the entire book under the editor’s name as well.
Book reviews
cited in your text and footnoted should be included in your bibliography.
Quotations
can also be a special case. If you take a quote by Karl Marx from a book by Jon Wiener, the bibliography should only have the Wiener book. The reasoning is that you have used the Wiener book, but not actually read the original Karl Marx text. Thus your footnote to this quote will cite the Marx text and the Wiener text, but the bibliography will only include the Wiener.
Do not pad your bibliography
Include all relevant items cited in your essay, and other major works that contributed significantly to informing your work. Most bibliographies will include only the items cited; some will have one to three other sources.
Sample BibliographyPrimary SourcesAbbott, Edwin A. Flatland: A Romance of Many Dimensions. 1884. Reprint with an introduction by Alan Lightman. New York: Penguin Books, 1998.
Blair, Tony. Speech. “The Death of Diana, Princess of Wales.” 31 August 1997. 10 Dowling Street Website. http://www.number-10.gov.uk/output/Page1050.asp.
Burke, Edmund. The Portable Edmund Burke. Edited with an introduction by Isaac Kramnick. New York: Penguin Books, 1999.
Clarke, George. Letters and Reports. MS-0288. Hocken Library, University of Otago.
Cook, James. Journal. 29 July-31 August, 1768. South Seas Voyaging Accounts. http://southseas.nla.gov.au/journals/cook/17680729.html
Crowley, Frank, ed. A Documentary History of Australia. Volume 4. Modern Australia 1901-1939. Melbourne: Thomas Nelson, 1978.
Declaration of Independence. 4 July 1776. One Hundred Milestone Documents. http://www.ourdocuments.gov/doc.php?doc=2&page=transcript
Doudnet, Eric J. Maori Sculpture. Newport, R.I.: Media for the Arts, 1968. Slides.
Eltis, David, et al., eds. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM. CD-ROM. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Forbidden Planet. DVD. Directed by Fred M. Wilcox. 1956. Burbank, CA: Warner Home Video, 2002.
Franklin, Benjamin. Benjamin Franklin's experiments: A new edition of Franklin's experiments and observations on Electricity. Edited by I. Bernard Cohen. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1941.
MacDonald, Christina. Diary. Hocken Library, University of Otago.
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^ Top of page Presentation of Essays

• Essays must be typed or written legibly on one side of the paper only. It will be a great advantage to you if you learn how to wordprocess. A wordprocessor makes it much easier to rewrite and improve your essay, and will also make it much easier for markers to read. Wordprocessing is also a valuable job skill you can learn for next to nothing at the university computer labs.
• Number your pages, and write your name and course number on every page in case the pages are separated.
• You should leave a wide margin on the left for the marker's comments. Double space your text (leave a blank line between each line of text).
• Separate paragraphs either with a blank line OR by indenting the first line of each new paragraph.
• Pages must be fastened together securely, preferably stapled at the top left corner.
• Ensure your name, course, and tutor's name is written on the front page.
• Essays must be placed in the assignment boxes in the corridor. Do not give essays to lecturers or to tutors directly.
• It is your responsibility to keep a copy of your essay as a precaution against loss or theft. Remember that the easier it is to mark your essay, the more likely you are to get full credit for your ideas and your work. If we have difficulty reading your work, either because of poor writing or poor presentation, it is easy to miss some of your points.
  

^ Top of page Plagiarism

Many students may be unsure of what plagiarism is, or why it is penalised heavily. Here is an explanation (and a warning!).

• Definition: Plagiarism means copying or paraphrasing someone else’s work and presenting it as one’s own. Plagiarism is a form of cheating. It may involve copying or paraphrasing without sufficient acknowledgment another student’s work, a tutor’s comments, or published works or websites.
  Copying from textbooks, articles, or the internet is plagiarism. Paraphrasing a textbook or other work without sufficient acknowledgment is plagiarism. Even if sufficient attribution is given, i.e. acknowledgment through footnotes, the proportion of paraphrased text in work presented as one’s own may be so great as to attract a charge of plagiarism.
  Students are encouraged to discuss course work and assignments but any assignment or research paper you present must be your own work.
• How to avoid the charge of plagiarism:
  • If you take a fact or idea directly from someone else, you must give a footnote reference. Use your common sense about this. You do not footnote everything. The basic rule is to give a footnote for any information which is not easily available, or is contentious, or is particularly important for your argument. An insight that is explained by another author should be cited. In each case, the purpose of the footnote is to allow the reader to assess the validity and originality of your argument.
  • If you also use the exact words of your source, that is, you quote from your source, then you must enclose the whole quotation in inverted commas. Key phrases or even single words may require quotation, e.g. "bowling alone," Robert Putnam’s shorthand term for loss of a sense of community. More commonly, if you use three or more words in a row from a source, it is considered a quotation.
• Why not plagiarise?
  • Plagiarism of facts. If you do not explain where your information comes from, your reader can have no idea of how trustworthy your information is, and will, quite rightly, refuse to take your conclusions seriously.
  • Plagiarism of words and ideas. This is dishonest. But, equally important, plagiarism stunts your own intellectual development by encouraging habits of mechanical, imitative thinking. Finding the right language is an essential part of the construction of a historical argument. Relying on the language or ideas of others prevents you from developing a creative, independent approach to intellectual problems. If you continually rely on the ideas and arguments of others, and even on their way of expressing those ideas, you will never develop the capacity to think things through independently, and to express the results of your own thinking in the only appropriate language, which is your own.
  • Intellectual property is an increasingly litigious category of knowledge. It is essential you develop the ability to recognise and respect intellectual property now, while still a student, so you can avoid potentially expensive and very damaging consequences of infractions in future.
• The Penalty:
  • Work that contains plagiarism will be regarded as valueless, and may be given no marks at all. There will be no automatic right of resubmission for plagiarised work.
  • Students who allow their work to be copied may also be penalised.
    The Assistant Vice-Chancellor, who determines the penalties for plagiarism, warns that students involved in serious or repeated cases of plagiarism will normally be barred from sitting the final examination. These penalties are currently under review and may become harsher soon.

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