Writing Research Papers: A Complete Guide (10th Edition)

If your English class requires it, this is a great book. If you are looking for some enthralling reading, this is not it. This is a style manual for writing research papers. It is what it is.

So far so good. I had to have this book for my required English class, but it's an easy read.

If you need a book you can reference while writing a paper look elsewhere. Information is vague, if you can even find it. The book seems designed to be read cover to cover. For instance, MLA in-text citations and MLA bibliographies are separated by 20 pages on introductions and conclusions.

While there are sections on specific formats, like CSE and APA, there is little that couldn't be gleaned from looking a properly formatted paper. To get an idea, the section on proper formatting for an MLA paper is spread out over nine pages broken up by a 13 page paper on water use and a nine page essay on Hamlet.

While 45 (forty five) pages are devoted to MLA bibliographies, only nine are provided for APA. CMS gets only four or five pages of examples without explanations. CSE gets only a handful of examples. I had to buy a second book just to fill in the gaps that this one left.

Save your money and pick up a writer's reference. Any other book, just not this one.

Interesting to note: the title of every single sample paper had a colon in it ("Arranged Marriages: The Revival Is Online"). It was so prevalent that some students thought it was a requirement of research papers.

This was not mine and should have been removed from my review area. The book was returned.

The book is very helpful to those students being busy on the thesis like me.