Format:

1.  All papers must be typed or word-processed.  Double-space, use a normal 12-point font, and make sure that your margins are no more than one inch on all sides.

2.  You are not required to have a separate title page for your paper.  Instead, at the top left corner of the first page, type something like the following:


 Name
 Course number or title
 Assignment (i.e., Essay #1)
 Date


Single space this part, then skip a line and type your title (centered, without underlining or quotation marks).  Each page after the first should be numbered in the top right corner.

3.  Underline or italicize the titles of books, films, television shows, magazines, and newspapers. Put the titles of articles, essays, short stories, essays, and poems in quotation marks.

4.  Use MLA documentation style in your papers.  (See separate handout).

5.  Staple your paper.
 

Content:

1.  Come up with a clear, specific title, e.g., The Politics of Race in the 2000 Selma Mayoral Election.  You might also precede your title with a short, particularly relevant quotation or well-known reference: Laughter Is the Best Medicine: Coping with the Holocaust in Life Is Beautiful.

2.  Give your paper a clear, arguable thesis statement in the first paragraph.

3.  Organize your evidence according to the needs of your paper, generally working from weaker points or less important ones to stronger, more decisive points.

4.  Make points once and discuss them fully at their most appropriate place.  Do not reiterate points already made.  Do not cite the same quotation more than once.

5.  Your conclusion paragraph should be a firm one, growing directly out of the thesis and out of the developing paragraphs.  In the conclusion, do not merely summarize the points you have made.  You want to remind readers of the ground you have covered and then leave them with a new sense of the importance of your study.

6.  Support your ideas with concrete examples or brief, relevant quotations.  Make sure you follow up those examples or quotations with analysis that explains how they relate to the point you are trying to make.  Introduce lengthy quotations with a key word or phrase that emphasizes what you think the reader should keep in mind.

7.  Do not let quotations stand mysteriously by themselves; a quotation should be related to your own sentences by phrasing or punctuation (a colon is often helpful here).
 

 BAD:  The Houyhnhnms are the perfection of reason.  "The inhabitants have not the least idea of books or literature" (281).  This does not seem to bother Gulliver.

 GOOD:  For Gulliver, the legal profession epitomizes humankind's misuse of language:  "I said there was a society of men among us, bred . . . in the art of proving by words multiplied for the purpose, that white is black, and black is white" (295).
 

Style and Grammar:

1. Be careful not to repeat the assignment-prompt verbatim in the introduction to your essay.  For instance, do not open Paper 1 with a statement like, “The release of The Patriot caused something of an uproar in both the United States and Britain because of its biased, misleading portrayal of British war tactics, but I feel this uproar is unjustified.”

2.  Do not use "quote" to refer to a quotation; use the word "quotation" (and make sure that is what you mean--and not something like "statement.").

3.  Avoid very short paragraphs (i.e., one or two sentences).  Overuse of short paragraphs makes your analysis seem hurried and simplistic.

4.  Avoid contractions.  Do not confuse "it's"--the contraction of "it is"--with "its"--the possessive form of "it."

5.  Avoid beginning sentences with wordy, expletive constructions like "There are . . .", "There is . . . ", "This is . . . " and "It is . . . ".

6.  Avoid clichés and slang.  Avoid vague filler words like "very," "interesting," and "really."