1. Do not use "you," "we," or "us." You may use "I" when you are talking about your own original argument ("I argue that..."), but don't overuse.
Instead of: "We see that the speaker is distressed because of the violence he/she witnesses."
Try: "The speaker is distressed because of the violence he/she witnesses."
Notice that in the alternate version, the emphasis is on what happens in the text, rather than on "we," as in the first version; by using "we" in a case like this, you are assuming that your reader interprets the text exactly the way you do. That assumption could create resistence in your reader--instead, your argument should persuade the reader of the strength and validity of your interpretation, so keep the focus on the text and your analysis.Instead of: "You feel pity for the narrator when she starts creeping around the room."
Try: "The narrator is pitiful when she starts creeping around the room." OR "The narrator becomes an object of pity when she starts creeping around the room."
Notice that in the original version, you are telling your reader what he or she feels: if your reader does not agree, you have lost him or her. But, if you rephrase to make "pity" a characteristic of the character in the text rather than asserting it as the feeling of your reader, your reading is better focused and more persuasive--the alternate versions are statements that can actually be supported by evidence from the text, but you cannot provide support for an assertion about how your reader feels.
2. Keep focus on analysis of the text instead of interpretation of the reader. For example:
Instead of: "The reader notices that the wallpaper is becoming an obsession to the narrator."
Try: "The wallpaper becomes an obsession to the narrator." OR "The narrator is obsessed with the wallpaper."
Notice in the two alternate versions, the stress is on what is happening in the story instead of the reader; this is the emphasis you want to achieve to keep the focus on your analysis.
3. Remember that the author is not the same as the speaker of the poem or the narrator of the story. You can analzye the speaker and narrator, but you can never really know what the author thinks or believes.
Instead of: "Shakespeare describes his mistress with negative imagery."
Try: "The speaker describes his mistress with negative imagery."
4. Format titles of works correctly:
Individual poems and short stories are in quotation marks: "Aunt Jennifer's Tigers," "Janus," etc.
Poems that do not have titles are titled by their first lines. These titles are given in square brackets in your textbook to indicate that it is not the author's title, but the first line of the poem. You should also use square brackets for these titles: [My life had stood a loaded gun--] or [My mistress' eyes are nothing like the sun]
Full length dramas are italicized: Streetcar Named Desire, Raisin in the Sun, The Doll House
5. Commas go inside quotation marks (when applicable):
Don't: In the texts "Certain Lady", "Yellow Wallpaper", and "The Jewelry"...
Do: In the texts "Certain Lady," "Yellow Wallpaper," and "The Jewelry"...
6. Do use quotations from the text that are properly cited as evidence for your claims, but be selective. If you find yourself using many lengthy quotations, go back and trim to use the most relevant part of the quotation. If you do use a lengthy quotation (4 lines or more), you should be providing a proportionate amount of analysis of that quotation.
7. Don't leave quotations hanging:
Don't: The speaker's mistress is described negatively. "My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground" (Shakespeare 1074).
Do: The speaker's mistress is described negatively: "My mistress, when she walks, treads on the ground" (Shakespeare 1074).Quotations should be connected with correct punctuation to your analysis--you should provide the interpretation, not leave it to the reader to figure out how the quotation is connected to your argument.
8. Quoting poetry
Remember, when quoting poetry, use " / " to indicate line breaks if you are quoting fewer than three lines:
Example: Abuse is implied by the description of Aunt Jennifer's hands: "The massive weight of Uncle's wedding band / Sits heavily upon Aunt Jennifer's hand" (Rich 660).
If you are quoting 3 or more lines of poetry, it should be indented one inch and the line breaks in the original preserved:
Example:
In Linda Pastan's "love poem," the description of the creek uses enjambment in conjunction with a simile to create the headlong feeling of the poem:
I want to write you
a love poem as headlong
as hour creek
after thaw
when we stand
on its dangerous
banks... (620-21)
9. In your Works Cited section, you should have a separate entry for each of your literary works, not one entry for the anthology, for example:
Melville, Herman. "Bartleby, the Scrivener." 1853. The Norton Introduction to
Literature. Shorter 10th ed. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J.
Mays. New York: Norton, 2006. 153-78. Print.Shakespeare. "Sonnet 130 ."The Norton Introduction to
Literature. Shorter 10th ed. Ed. Alison Booth, J. Paul Hunter, and Kelly J.
Mays. New York: Norton, 2006. 1074. Print.