Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers

Transcription

1 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers Information Systems Department Prof. Dr. Paul Alpar

2 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers I Table of Contents 1. Completion time and manuscript length Style References References in the manuscript References in the bibliography Other requirements... 6 Appendix 1: Cover page for a seminar paper... II Appendix 2: Cover page for a thesis... III

3 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 1 1. Completion time and manuscript length The time span between the date of topic assignment at the chair and handing in of the completed thesis at the examination office must not exceed - Bachelor thesis: 9 weeks, - Master thesis (Msc. BusAdmin.): 6 months, - Master thesis (Msc. International BusMgmt.): 4 months. The length of the manuscript, including figures and tables, but excluding appendices, the cover page, the table of contents, and the bibliography, should not exceed the following number of pages, depending on the type of the work: - Seminar paper: 15 pages - Bachelor thesis: 25 pages - Master thesis (Msc. BusAdmin. and Msc. International BusMgmt.): 60 pages A deviation from the given length is not allowed without the consent of the respective supervisor. Without agreement, a considerable deviation is judged as a formal deficiency. 2. Style The manuscript can be typed with any kind of word processing (including Word and LaTeX). The preferred font type for the main text is Times New Roman with a 12-point font size and 35 lines on each page (1.5 line spacing). Hyphenation and justification are to be activated. Headlines are to be formatted as follows: Headlines of 1 st order: Headlines of 2 nd order: Headlines of 3 rd order: Headlines of higher order: Arial, 16-point, bold, left-justified Arial, 14-point, bold, left-justified Arial, 14-point, italic, left-justified Arial 14-point, normal, left-justified Note that the use of headlines of 4 th or higher order usually indicates a too fine-grained sectioning.

4 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 2 The page margins are to be set as follows: Top margin: Bottom margin: Left margin: Right margin: 2.5 cm 2.5 cm 2 cm 4 cm Page numbering: All pages except the cover page should be numbered. Pages within the manuscript should be numbered using Arabic (1, 2, 3, ) digits, all other pages with Roman (I, II, III, ) digits. The numbering of pages subsequent to the manuscript should continue the numbering of pages preceding the manuscript (use this document as an example). Figures and tables should be numbered consecutively with separate numberings for figures and tables. Below each figure (table), a caption prefixed with the word Figure ( Table ) and the respective consecutive number is to be inserted. The caption includes a short description of the figure (table) and a reference to the source (if applicable). It should be formatted as Times New Roman, 12-point, bold, centered. Figure 1 illustrates these captioning guidelines. Figures (tables) that are contained in the manuscript have to, supplementary figures (tables) given in an appendix need not to be referred to within the text. customer major client minor client Figure 1: Generalization/Specialization in the Entity-Relationship-Model If the manuscript contains more than one figure (table), a list of figures (tables) has to be inserted after the table of contents. However, if many figures (tables) are used, the author should carefully decide which of them should be placed in the manuscript and which in the appendices.

5 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 3 Footnotes are to be numbered consecutively within the document. They should be formatted as Times New Roman, 10-point, normal, justified with 1.0 line spacing and end with a period (.). The footnote section should be separated from the main text through a short line. Within the text, footnotes are referred to using superscript numbers. 1 Appendices are used to provide supplementary material such as detailed tables. They should be numbered with Arabic (1, 2, 3 ) digits and prefixed with Appendix (e.g., Appendix 2: Cover Sheet Thesis). The number of appendices should be kept to a minimum. If abbreviations are used that are not included in the German language dictionary Duden (or an English dictionary if the work is written in English), a list of abbreviations has to be inserted after the table of contents in a space-saving way. The table of contents includes all sections, subsections, appendices, the lists of abbreviations, figures, and tables (if applicable), and the bibliography. The respective page numbers should be given at the right margin. Subsections should be indented rightwards. See the table of contents of this document for an example. 3. References 3.1 References in the manuscript The aim of references is to mark the verbal or paraphrased adoption of the thoughts of other persons accurately. Therefore, incorrect referencing can be judged as plagiarism. References should always point to the original source. Quoting a reference from a secondary source is only acceptable if the original source could not be found with reasonable effort and has to be indicated. In this case, the author is responsible for the correctness of the reference. Verbal quotations have to be indicated with quotation marks. While complete references are given in the bibliography (see below), short references have to be given within the manuscript that point to the bibliography using footnotes. Each footnote should appear on the page of the corresponding reference. Short references consist of 1 This is an example footnote.

6 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 4 - the surname of the first author (n.u. if the name is unknown), - a comma (,) and the surname of the second author if there are two authors, - the words et al. if there are more than two authors, - the year of publication (n.d. if there is no date), and - the page number (if applicable), prefixed by p.. Examples (each in a footnote): - Lehner 2007, p Messing, Foster 2007, p Bitkom n.d., p n.u. 2007, p Schneider et al. 2006, p. 1. Alternatively, the APA style can be used. However, the format chosen has to be used consistently throughout the entire document. 3.2 References in the bibliography The aim of the bibliography is to arrange all references that have been used with complete bibliographic information. In order to ensure an easier detection in the manuscript, the literature references should not be separated by reference type but be ordered alphabetically and disclosed separately. All references used in the manuscript must be found in the bibliography and all entries of the bibliography must be referred to in the manuscript. Expert interviews have to be included in the bibliography, too. The usage of such reference, however, should be the exception. Each literature reference consists at least of the following information: - All authors separated by ; with surnames and abbreviated forenames, separated by, (n.u. if the names are unknown). Note that no et al. is used. - Year of publication (n.d. if there is no date) - Title - Location - DOI (if available) Depending on the kind of source, each bibliography entry consists of the following lines (with the second and subsequent lines being indented):

7 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 5 Examples for books: Ansoff, H. I The New Corporate Strategy, New York, USA, Wiley. Alpar, P Kommerzielle Nutzung des Internet, Berlin, Germany, Springer-Verlag. DOI: / Example for articles in compilations: Ansoff, H. I Mutmaßungen über die Zukunft des strategischen Managements. In: Henzler, H. (Ed.). Handbuch Strategische Führung, Wiesbaden, Germany, Gabler, pp Examples for articles in journals: Ferstl, O. K.; Sinz, E. J Ein Vorgehensmodell zur Objektmodellierung betrieblicher Informationssysteme im Semantischen Objektmodell (SOM), Wirtschaftsinformatik (33:6), pp Alpar, P.; Donthu, N Productivity of Internet Shops, International Journal Electronic Business (5:3), pp DOI: /IJEB Examples for conference contributions: Myaeng, S.-H.; Jang, D.-H.; Kim, M.-S.; Zhoo, Z.-C A flexible model for retrieval of SGML documents. In: Proceedings of the 21st Annual International ACM SIGIR Conference on Research and Development in Information Retrieval. New York: NJ, pp DOI: / Alpar, P.; Kalmring, D Inter-Organizational Knowledge Management with Internet Applications. In: Proceedings of the 9th European Conference on Information Systems. Bled: Slovenia, pp Examples for not otherwise published contributions (e.g., working reports): Nandhakumar, J The practice of executive information systems development: an indepth case study. PhD Thesis, Department of Engineering, University of Cambridge, Cambridge: England. Alpar, P Expert Systems Delivery for Decentralized Decision-Making. Working Paper, Center for Research in Information Management, University of Illinois, Chicago: Illinois.

8 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers 6 Examples for online references: Feldman, S The high cost of not finding information. Articles/Editorial/Features/The-high-cost-of-not-finding-information-9534.aspx, , Access on Kava, J Better data centers through machine learning /05/better-data-centers-through-machine.html, , Access on Note that before citing online sources, it should be clarified whether the text also exists in printed form. This can be assumed, for example, if extracts from dissertations are concerned. In the simplest case, the existence of an identical publication is noted within the electronic source. In the case that a publication also exists in printed form and it can be acquired with an acceptable effort, the printed version is to be preferred. When citing online sources, the date of access has to be provided in the format YYYY-MM-DD (Y=year, M=month, D=day). If the source is no longer available online, this has to be stated. 4. Other requirements Computer programs which are part of the work have to be documented. The precise extent of documentation should be arranged with the respective supervisor. Furthermore, programs have always to be submitted in electronic form. When citing online sources, the author is obliged to store a copy of the cited URL document (in printed form or electronic form) and to provide it to the supervisor upon request. This holds until the process of assessment is completed.

9 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers II Appendix 1: Cover page for a seminar paper Information Systems Department Prof. Dr. Paul Alpar Seminar SS 2014 Electronic Business Price Comparison Engines Author: Address: Emily Grashüpfer Froschteich 15, Krötenhausen Marburg, May 28 th, 2014

10 Formal Guidelines for Authoring of Academic Papers III Appendix 2: Cover page for a thesis Information Systems Department Prof. Dr. Paul Alpar A Comparison of Industry-specific Application Architectures Submitted in Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Business Administration Philipps University at Marburg Submitted by: Emily Grashüpfer Enrolment Number Froschteich Krötenhausen Marburg, May 28 th, 2014