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| Authors' names. Use the full name on the first mention (Robert Coover). Thereafter, you may use last name (Coover) except when desiring stylistic variety. |
| Foreign Languages. Italicize or underline all foreign terms. Reproduce by hand or in type all accent marks. If the word has been naturalized (made common in English usage), you do not need to italicize it although you still need to incorporate the accent marks. Do not italicize quotations that are entirely in another language. |
| Shortened Titles. If you wish to use a shortened title for a piece, use the full title on the first mention followed by its shortened title in parentheses. This shortened title is usually one or two key words, but might also letters. Example:
"Ashputtle; or, The Mother's Ghost" ("Ashputtle")
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| Tense. Describe fictional events, whether in drama, poetry, or prose fiction, in the present tense. |
| Titles. Use quotation marks for titles of works included within larger works. This includes short stories; short poems; songs; chapter titles; articles in journals, magazines, and newspapers; and published works such as dissertations and master's theses. |
| Examples: "The Lottery" in The Story and Its Writer or "Analyzing Literature" in Writing Essays about Literature. |
| Titles. Underline or italicize (but not both) the titles of works pubhlished independently, such as books, plays, long poems published as books, periodicals, pamphlets, novels, movies, works of art, works of music, and radio and television programs. An exception is sacred writings such as the Bible, books of the Bible, the Koran, and the Talmud. (Note: in webpages, italics are often used because of webpage-building tools.) Examples: Catch-22 (the book), Catch-22 (the film), The Company of Wolves (the film but not the short story "The Company of Wolves"). An alternative construction: Catch-22. |
| Title Case. Capitalize the first letter of all words in a title except articles, short prepositions, and conjunctions. Captalize the first word of a title and the first words after a colon. Example:
Burning Your Boat: The Collected Short Stories |
| Your Own Work. Do not underline, italicize, or put in quotation marks the titles of your own work. Likewise, do not place your titles in bold or all uppercase letters. Simply place your title in title case. Also note the use of the author's full name in the title. Correct
example: Luck in D.H. Lawrence's "The Rocking-Horse Winner"
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| Your introduction, sometimes only the first paragraph in shorter works, should contain a unifying thesis--one which clearly states one central idea which all of your body paragraphs support. |
| Poor thesis: In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred is interestingly developed through point-of-view, tone, and plot. Beside the large scope of this project, notice how this thesis doesn't have a specific theory about Offred's character or a justification for choosing those three elements for the analysis (why not dialogue? Or symbolism? Or any other elements?). It is also very generic: what character isn't developed through these elements? Interesting means nothing. |
| A strong thesis makes a point, one that you as the writer of the essay must prove. It should take evidence from the text, and other sources, to support your analysis. It should not be obvious. Nor should it be so broad as to try to cover everything about the work. |
| Better
thesis: In Margaret Atwood's The
Handmaid's Tale, Offred's sexual encounters with the Commander illustrate
how she separates her body and soul in order to survive being a Handmaid.
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| In examining your protocols' thesis statements, one of the things you should keep in mind is avoiding "the obvious." In other words, if your statement is immediately obvious to anyone who has read the story, you probably haven't constructed a strong thesis for an analytical essay. You need to reconstruct your thesis, and probably your evidence, to move beyond the obvious. (Note: obvious is a key word here.) The following have been reworded to provide a uniform structure for the comparison of ideas. However, please note that this is only one way to introduce your thesis statement, and a rather conventional one at that. |
| A poor thesis: In Guy De Maupassant's "The Necklace," Mathilde Loisel's life changes after she loses the necklace. (This is obvious, a fact.) A poor thesis: In Guy De Mauppsant's "The Necklace," Mathilde Loisel is a spoiled brat. (Not only judges the character, but is rather obvious.) A poor thesis: In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the black box represents death. (An analysis, yes, but obvious.) A poor thesis: In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery," the names of the characters, such as Mr. Graves and Mr. Summers, foreshadow the sinister end of the story. (Too narrow and self-explanatory--and doesn't it reword the question? Why read the paper?) A poor thesis: In Guy De Mauppasant's "The Necklace," the paste necklace symbolizes Mathilde because both are fake. (Good point, but seems obvious. Why is this important--what new angle that isn't apparent to everyone will you use?) A poor thesis: In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" there is a lot of foreshadowing that reveals the sinister feel of the story. (Basically just restates the prompt--doesn't say anything.) A poor thesis: In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" unfolds, we see Tessie's attitude change as we learn about the lottery. (Says nothing.) |
| A better thesis: In Shirley Jackson's "The Lottery" the objects in the story all foreshadow the story's dark undertone. (It narrows to only the objects in the story, but doesn't create a list of what exactly the author is talking about, so I have to read the essay.) A better thesis: In Guy De Mauppasant's "The Necklace," Mathilde's life is defined in the moment after the ball, when she looks in the mirror and discovers the loss of the necklace. (Deals with one scene's effect on the character and as part of the whole story, but doesn't tell me how her life defined, so I have to read the essay.) |
| Although many of you have interesting and worthwhile ideas, you can work on refining your thesis to reflect a higher level of critical analysis rather than broadly identifying commonly-held assertions about the text. For instance, if it is obvious that "The Necklace" represents what Mathilde does not have, your thesis should specify what lack is rather than assert the story's general meaning. Furthermore, a higher level of critical analysis speculates as to why Mathilde's lack of (?) is important to the tale. |
| Some questions to ask yourself if you're wondering about the strength of your thesis: |
| One very common error involves comparison/contrast: don't just list a few items that the characters or stories have in common or not; you also need to tie together the items (tell us what these similarities and differences demonsrate about the characters or stories). |
| A successful analysis convices the reader that your thesis is reasonable and supported with textual evidence, not merely your opinion or reaction to the story. In developing a thesis, remember that you are expected to not merely present information but to argue a point. Arguing about a point refers to supporting your analytical assertions (your topic sentences, which support your thesis) with relevant textual evidence (either specific references or quotes) in the body of the essay. Your paper can't just focus on telling the reader what you liked or disliked about the work; you need to convince her that your interpretation is valid--and never assume that the reader already agrees with your interpretation.
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| 1) Quotes: keep them as brief as possible and make sure that you introduce and integrate them into the text of your paper carefully. Quotation marks must always appear around any passage taken word-for-word from the original, and quoted material must be 100% accurate. Block format can be used for lengthy quotations (a quote that is more than four lines long). Just remember that too many quotes (over approximately 20% of the paper) will make your paper seem like just a collection of the author's own words rather than your analysis of a work. Check style guides and handbooks for how to introduce, integrate, and format quotes. (See accompany webpage for more specific information on using Quotations & Paraphrase.) |
| 2) Textual references: keep them as specific as possible, so the reader can easily recall which part of the story you are referring to. For example, instead of writing "Jig's references to things that surround her reveal she is does not want the abortion" as your textual support, write, "after Jig says that desired things taste like licorice (page number), her reference to absinthe illustrates her true feelings for her situation." You must then go on to explain: what are Jig's true feelings about the situation, and why does this reference to absinthe tell you that?
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