ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Mrs. Cobbs’ Essay Writing Guidelines

1 Do not use contractions

2 You should not use first person (I, we, me, our) or second person (you, your) in essays.

3 Every paper should have an introduction paragraph with a thesis statement and a conclusion paragraph.

4 Do not use the words in conclusion at the beginning of your conclusion paragraph

5 Don’t make announcements. Things like “I am going to discuss” or “This paper is about” is not an appropriate thesis, nor should you use it as part of an introduction.

6 Don’t relate your first sentence back to your title. In other words, the first time you mention your story in the essay, you should write out the entire title of that story, not say, “This story is about…”

7 When discussing an author’s name, use the author’s entire name the first time you mention that author. After that, use only the author’s last name.

8 Each body paragraph should have one correctly documented quote that supports the thesis statement.

9 Never end a paragraph with a quote. The significance of the quote should always be explained to readers. Don’t assume readers get the connection between the quote and your topic.

10 Use present tense when discussing literature. Anything that happened before the start of the story should be discussed in past tense.

11 Titles should be punctuated correctly. Longer works (plays, books, movies, newspapers, magazines, etc.) should be italicized. Shorter works (short stories, newspaper articles, poems, etc.) should be placed in quotation marks.

12 All quoted material must be documented using MLA format. That means all quotes must be introduced, have quotation marks around them, and have the correct citation at the end of the quote. Periods go after the citation. Here are two examples:

a. Chekhov claims, “In one of the corners a young man gets up” (86).

b. Rose is a character who “lacks emotion” when talking to men (Williams 287).

13 The following heading must be used on all essays. On the left hand side of the paper using one-inch margins, double space the following:

Name

Mrs. Cobbs

English 102-section (Ex: English 202-975)

Date

14 Use Times New Roman 12 point font, double space everything, have one-inch margins, print your papers using black ink. Also, every paper should have an appropriate title after the heading.

15 If class time is allotted for a peer review of your essay, you must bring a typed hard copy of your rough draft to class and participate in the revision in order to be allowed to submit a final copy of said paper.

16 When turning the final copy of your paper in, put a clean hard copy in the right-hand side of your folder. Any revisions are to go in the left-hand side.