17 Questions for Self Review. Check off the boxes as you answer the questions.

1. Do I do something in the first five lines of my introduction to catch the reader's attention? (interesting facts, eyecatching statistics, true anecdotes, startling quotations, etc.
2. When quoting sources with authors ("authored sources"), the author's last name, year, and page number in
parentheses should follow the quotation. For example: (Jones, 2007, p. 45) or Jones (2007) confirms that (p.
45). Have I done this? (Note: if there is no page number, do not "invent" one. If it is an Internet source, write the
number of the paragraph in which the quotation can be found -para. 6 )
3. When directly quoting authored sources in the text of your essay, use a signal phrase (such as, According to
Jones, "... ") to introduce the quotation. Have I done this?
4. The source title should not (usually) appear in the signal phrase. Have I avoided doing this?
5. When incorporating authorless sources into your essay, which you should have probably already paraphrased,
follow up the paraphrase with the source title in parentheses (e.g., "Legalizing Drugs"). Have I done this?
6. ALL authors or sources cited (except for personal communications) in the body of the essay should appear in the
list of references (References). Do they?
7. Each work listed in the References MUST appear cited somewhere in the essay itself. Am I sure of this?
8. The entries in the list of References should be arranged alphabetically. Additionally, they should be double
spaced, with the second and other succeeding lines of each entry indented. Are they?
9. Each entry on the References page should contain all the necessary information APA style requires: author's
name, date of publication, title (and other information if a newspaper or journal, and so on), city of publication,
publisher/publishing house, and, date of access, url, etc. Does each entry contain all the information required?
10. In particular with your list of References, when citing from Academic Search Premier/Complete, the journal
name should be listed (not just "Academic Search Premier/Complete"). With Lexis Nexis, in addition to listing the
newspaper name and page number, you should be careful not to list the 5 line temporary link, but rather just the
root link (similar to Academic Search Premier/Complete). Have you done this?
11. Do I have my ID number and page number on each page?.
12. Does each of my paragraphs have a clear, singular, focus to it?
13. Does each of my paragraphs begin with a topic sentence that describes the main point of the paragraph and is
related to my thesis statement?
14. Do I have any run-on (also called fused) sentences in my essay? These are INCORRECT. A run-on sentence
is a sentence that contains two clauses improperly joined. Sometimes students put no punctuation between them or
join them with commas, but they really need to be joined with a semi-colon, or broken with a period.
15. In my conclusion, do I offer a memorable thought, such as a clever ending idea, twist, brief stunning quotation,
etc that connects well with the way I started my introduction? (You might also end by answering a general
question, such as, Why is the issue of combating violation of childrens rights important? Or, Why is it essential to
introduce casinos now? Sometimes answering a general question works well here. You could also end with a wellcrafted rhetorical question which would invite the reader to think deeply about the perspectives you presented.)
16. Have I proofread my sentences about forty million times?
17. Plagiarism. Your work must be your own. You cannot have someone edit the language of your papers to bring
them up to a level of sophistication not representative of your own ability. If the style of your final examination
essays is significantly different from the style on your previous drafts, you will be penalised for plagiarism. This
does not mean that you should not try your best to proofread and polish your sentences to perfection. It means that
you must make sure your edits are truly your own, not someone else's. Is the work I am submitting truly my own?

Adapted from http://www.aucegypt.edu/academic/writers/