Sample paper (for format purposes)

I.  Basic Grammar and Usage

I have urged you to purchase either Diana Hacker’s A Pocket Style Manual or Rules for Writers, either of which will always help you with grammar, but here are some mistakes I have noticed a lot of people make:  

PLEASE NOTE: Periods and commas go inside quotation marks when there is no citation after the quotation and outside when there is a citation:

In his article, “Corn-Pone Opinions,” Mark Twain discusses social pressure to conform.

In “Corn-Pone Opinions,” Twain writes, “You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is” (Twain 1).

(1)   PROOFREAD!!  This means more than just hitting the spell-check button.

(2) The Oxford Comma:  In American English, it is correct to include a comma (what is known as a serial comma) following each item in a series, including the second to last item (ie, preceding and in a list).  For example: “I enjoy listening to Beethoven, the Beatles and Eminem.”  Unless you are implying that the Beatles ever did a duet with Eminem, you must include a comma here to avoid ambiguity: “I enjoy listening to Beethoven, the Beatles, and Eminem.” This is sometimes called the Oxford Comma (or the Harvard Comma):  consider it the UCC Comma in this class.

(3)   Avoid use of you, I, me, and we, in your writing if at all possible.

(4)   When you discuss a work of literature or an essay, discuss the author’s act of writing and the action of the text in the present tense: “Woolf writes in ‘Professions for Women.’”  Discuss past events in the author’s life in the past – “Virginia Stephen married Leonard Woolf in 1912.”  This is called the historic present and is a convention of writing about literature and authors.

(5)   Women means more than one woman; woman means only one.  Please do not confuse the two words.

(6)   Female and male are generally used as an adjective: female author.  Man and woman are nouns: the man dated the woman.

(7)   Could is a conditional verb form – it means maybe, in the future, not definitely, and probably not now.  Used with “if” statements – “If I wanted to, I could fly to the moon” – it doesn’t mean you will fly to the moon, it means you might -- you are able to, but it’s just a possibility.  Many times when people use could they mean can.  Can is not necessarily more definite; it refers to ability.  “Can I go to the bathroom” means am I able to.  In an “if” statement, it means NOW, not in the future, and the verb changes as result: “If I want to I can fly to the moon.”  -- I have the ability to do it now.  Be aware of this – it’s a common error, but one that can be easily avoided.

(8)   Even though is two words.

(9)   Mother, Aunt, Grandfather, and other such names are only capitalized when they are names: I called out to my mom, “Mother!”  Do not capitalize them if they are nouns: I called out to my mother.

(10)   Put into quotation marks the titles of short poems, songs, chapter titles, and short stories: Sylvia Plath’s “Daddy”; Mark Twain’s essay, “Corn Pone Opinions”; the song, “Amazing Grace.”

(11)    Put into italics or underline the titles of longer poems, novels, plays, book titles,   movies, works of art, software programs, and album titles: Homer’s Odyssey, Jane Austen’s Persuasion, Shakespeare’s Hamlet, the film Million Dollar Baby, Microsoft Word, The Best American Essays of the Century, by Oates and Atwan.

(12)   Abbreviate only very well-known names that are known by their abbreviations, like the YMCA, FBI, or CIA.    Do not abbreviate names that are not formally abbreviated, like United States, days of the week, months, Christmas (never X-mas), or state names, such as New Jersey.

(13)    Spell out numbers that are one or two words, such as three hundred or five million or twenty-two.  Use numbers for numbers that would be three words or more, like 501 or 6,023.

(14)     Numbers are acceptable for dates, addresses, fractions, and the time of day: July 4, 1776; 500 Morris Avenue; 1/3, 2:25pm.

(15)     Underline or italicize foreign words in English sentences: The French word for blue is bleu.  

(16)     Underline a word that is used as a word or defined: Love is defined in many ways. 

(17)     Affect is a verb; Effect is a noun: The effect of a drought .  The drought affected the crops.

 (18)    When you want to join two parts of a quotation together, do it with three dots (called an ellipsis) :  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal. That they are endowed  . . .  with certain unalienable rights” (Declaration of Independence).

(19)     Any time you add anything to a quotation, always bracket the added information “To be or not to be, that is the [important] question.”

(20)    Its is the possessive pronoun, meaning belonging to It.  It’s is a contraction meaning it is, and should be avoided in formal writing.

(21)     As above, avoid contractions.  This will clear up the confusion between their and they’re; you’re and your. 

(22)    Their is a pronoun (their book).  There is an adverb (Sit down over there).

(23)     In A Pocket Style Manual there is a whole section on spelling and homophones which should help you with avoiding confusion with accept and except, then and than, loose and lose and others.  

(24)  Who is a subject; Whom is an object (usually accompanying a preposition).  With whom are you having dinner?  Who is your date for dinner?  

(25)  When including a quotation within a quotation, use single quotation marks:

  “‘What they’re saying,’ she pressed on, ‘is that last night Voldemort turned up in Godric’s Hollow’” (Rowling 15). 

(26) The correct meaning of thing is an assembly or meeting of counselors (after the Anglo-Saxon word, Þing)  If you use thing in that context, it’s fine.  Otherwise, do not use this word -- it is much too vague!!

(27)  Modern pop culture abbreviates everything and shortens words to fit with slang and product sales.  For example:  a famous coffee/sweet snack establishment spells one of its products donuts, which is misspelled -- it should be doughnuts.  Please try to refrain from using these catchy modern errors (another common example is "drive-thru" -- the correct spelling is through -- thru is not a word).  At the very least spell-check.  If you are really concerned with how you are perceived in your writing, proof-read scrupulously and find the correct words -- not the easiest ones.

(28)  I know you spend most of your life sending and receiving text messages.  Even so, you should not allow the spelling of text messages to spill over into your academic work.  C U L8R may be cute on a cell phone; it is not appropriate for a paper, even an informal one, or a form of communication with an instructor.  If you send me an email and use U for you or R  for are I will probably not reply.

(29) In A Pocket Style Manual there is a section on Conjunctions.  Please read this over.  Each type of conjunction has a different usage (outlined below):

Coordinating Conjunctions: and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so.  Sometimes they require commas, sometimes they do not -- if this is a mistake you make frequently, ask me or check in A Pocket Style Manual..

Correlative Conjunctions: either/or, neither/nor, not only/but also.  If you use the first half of this type of conjunction, you have to use the other half.

Subordinating Conjunctions: after, because, even though, unless (and others).  These generally do not require commas, but check with Hacker if you are not sure.

Conjunctive Adverbs: however, besides, otherwise, therefore (and others).  Generally you will use a semi-colon to join two sentences when one of these subordinating conjunctions begins the second sentence.  But check with Hacker to be sure.

Format and Documentation

(1) When you quote a text, cite it by using the author’s name and page number from which the quotation is taken. 

“You tell me whar a man gits his corn pone, en I’ll tell you what his ‘pinions is” (Twain 1).

(2) With works of literature, sometimes you will use line number, act numbers, etc.  No commas, no abbreviations, no titles.  Here are some examples:

A poem with line numbers: “You do not do” (Plath 1) --line 1 of the poem--
A short story or essay with page numbers: “There’s no real pleasure in life” (O’Connor 43) --page 43 of the short story--

Shakespeare (act, scene, line): “Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” (Shakespeare III.ii.75) -- Act III, Scene ii, line 75 of the play--

(3) When you cite the same author using two works, either use the date (when it is a newspaper or magazine article or some kind of critical review or reading) or part of the title (for a literary work) to distinguish between the two.

“You do not do” (Plath “Daddy” 1)      “Stasis in darkness” (Plath “Ariel,” 1)

“Sure, I shall never marry like my sisters, / To love my father all” (Shakespeare Lear, I.i.103-4)

“Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears” (Shakespeare Caesar, III.ii.75)

(4) When you cite lines of poetry within a paragraph, separate lines using slash marks (/):

Shakespeare writes, “Let me not to the marriage of true minds / Admit impediments” (Shakespeare 1-2).

(5) When you cite a work of literature of three lines or more or fifty words or more, use block format (no quotation marks, indented on the left margin one inch):

            In his poem, Shakespeare comments on the fact that his lady is beautiful on the inside, in contrast to the beautiful (but artificial) women described in the works of other poets:

                        My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun

                        Coral is far more red than her lips’ red;

                        If snow be white, why then her breasts are dun;

                        If hairs be wires, black wires grow on her head.  (Shakespeare 1-4)

(6) Remember to document paraphrases (when you use someone’s ideas but do not use the exact words or quotation marks) just as you would a quotation: Example: Shakespeare refers to his mistress’ breasts as grey and dull and her hair as wiry and ugly (3-4).

(7) Cite the book, chapter, and verse of a Bible quotation:  Consider the words of Solomon: "If your enemy is hungry, give him bread to eat; and if he is thirsty, give him water to drink" (Prov. 25.21).  Do not include the Bible on your list of Works Cited.  If you want to include the version of the Bible that you used, put it into your parenthetical reference (Prov. 25.21, RSV) -- that refers to the Revised Standard Version of the Bible.

(8) Cite a dictionary definition parenthetically by citing the word you looked up in parentheses: The definition of love is “an emotion denoting affection” (“Love”).  On the Works Cited page, begin the citation with the word you looked up (see sample below)--you do not have to include the page number.  

(9)  When you cite an electronic database in your paper, identify the author (if you know it) in the parentheses, but not the page number, unless you are looking at a PDF of the original document.  For example, in Literature Resource Center, the author's name is not always given.  So you would have to give the title of the article in parentheses:

Article titled "Virginia Woolf" in LRC with no author would be cited as follows:

"Virginia Woolf was one of the most innovative and influential literary figures of the twentieth century" ("Virginia Woolf").

Article titled "J.R.R. Tolkien" in LRC with an author given (Michael W. George) would be cited as follows: 

"The place in fantasy literature earned by J. R. R. Tolkien is indisputable" (George).

Citing an online database on your Works Cited page is tricky, too.  See Hacker, pp. 141-145 and see examples on the sample Works Cited page below.

Sample Works Cited entries:  See the following website for additional help: http://www.bedfordstmartins.com/resdoc.  You can also go to http://www.easybib.com -- but only as a last resort.  In print, Diana Hacker's A Pocket Style Manual is the handbook that I recommend to my students. Below is an example of a citation from your textbook and almost all the other resources you will use.  If you run across a problem with one of your sources, please let me know. PLEASE NOTE that in your works cited list should always be double spaced. Also, where the database services are italicized below they should be underlined (but the underlining won't show up in the hyperlinks).