paperchecklist

Checklists and Formatting for All Papers

Formatting , Checklist , Thesis , Tone , Conventions of Academic Prose , Discussing the writing of others, grading rubric , written comments

Formatting for all papers:
All papers should be typed or computer printed, in 12 point font, double-spaced and either paper clipped or stapled. No binders, no folded corners, no cover sheet or title page, though a title is required. Please do not bend the pages of any work you turn in. See the library website for specific citation information. Further details on each specific paper will be forthcoming.

Tone: You should use an academic or formal tone in all your papers. Do not assume your audience has too much familiarity with the time period or any familiarity with your argument. Do, however, try to sound like you have familiarity with the time period. For example, if writing about Beowulf, avoid “In Beowulf’s time” and “In the medieval period.” Feel free to refer to “the eleventh century” (which is date of the Beowulf manuscript) or the “early middle ages” or “Anglo-Saxon England.” If writing about Chaucer or later medieval literature, avoid "In Chaucer's time" and "in the medieval period." Refer to "the fourteenth century" or to the "late middle ages." Do not give any plot summary that is not necessary to your argument because you can assume that your audience can go read the work themselves. Avoid statements praising the author or the work you are writing about (do not say “the poet did a very good job in writing Beowulf” or "Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are well written").

Checklist of things to do for all papers

Observe the rules of standard grammar and usage
Make sure your paper has a central thesis clear and up front in your first paragraph
Make sure none of your paragraphs are longer than 2/3 a page or shorter than three sentences.
Italicize or underline the title of the work each time you use it
Italicize or underline book or the titles of book-length poems
Place quotation marks around titles of articles, chapters or smaller units of a larger published item or shorter poems
Spell all proper names and titles correctly
Cite the page number of the quotes you use "Quote" (35).
Put your name on the paper and give the paper a title descriptive of your analysis
Spellcheck and proofread
Type or computer print the paper
Use the author's full name the first time, then only the last name
Give the author and title at least once at the beginning
Meet the page requirement
Include a “Works Cited” page when appropriate
Cite all your sources (see note on Plagiarism in syllabus)
Always cite the text itself to support your points when doing literary analysis (papers that don't cite the text at all can be automatically failed)
Always acknowledge the complexity of your issues and any evidence from the other side (think of why someone might not agree with you and take that into account in persuading your readers to your point of view)
Always give any explicitely stated motivation for something you are analyzing even if that motivation seems questionable to you. Example: "Why Silence ran away from home to become a minstrel is unclear, though she mentions that she wants an activity to fall back on."

Checklist of things to avoid for all papers

Avoid ending your paragraphs with long quotes
Do not leave quotes hanging as their own sentences. Connect them to the previous sentence or the following sentence whichever is more relevant with a colon. Example: Nature's argument in Silence is convincing: "quote" (45).
Do not at any time make reference to the paper as an assignment or to your writing of the paper
Do not suggest that you did not understand the work
Do not suggest that Chaucer didn’t know what he was doing
Do not suggest that Chaucer was boring or long-winded
Do not use “you” to speak directly to your audience
Avoid obvious singular/plural inconsistencies: "The reader always has their interpretation"
Avoid unnecessary plot summary and unnecessary information. Example: only mention the translator or editor of a work if you are going to talk about that translator or editor: "In Beowulf, translated by Seamus Heaney, Hrothgar is a good king."
Avoid ending your introductory paragraph with a question/ the cliffhanger intro.

Note about the checklists: Pay special attention to these checklists as you proofread/revise your paper before turning it in. If I find three errors regarding the checklisted items in any of your papers, I will lower the grade by one letter grade. If I find five or more of these items, I will fail the paper automatically. Any paper containing plagiarism will be automatically failed as well.

Plagiarism: When you put your name on your papers, you are saying that all the words and ideas in that paper are yours unless you specifically cite your sources. You need to acknowledge when you are using the ideas or words of others. Follow this link for more on plagiarism.

What makes a good thesis?

Your thesis is what you are arguing. It is more specific than a general topic and makes a specific point.
It is something someone could argue with—that is, not completely obvious or not something everyone agrees on.
Your thesis should say something significant about the literary work—your interpretation of the work that shows us something we didn’t know before.
It should be narrow and specific—avoid generalizations (In the world today..., men are all... or women are all..., the time of Homer was ...) always qualify your statements when appropriate.

Use this formula to test your thesis

WHAT (what is going on in the work, what aspect of the topic are you focusing on?)
WHY (why is the author doing that or why is this?) and
SO WHAT (what's so important about knowing that?).

You are essentially asking yourself what is important about this thesis? Why would someone want or need to hear more about it?

Basic Grading Rubric for all formal written essays

Here are a few specific topics on which I base my evaluation of each essay. There is no way I can comment on every aspect of every essay. My main comments will be directed toward the most important things that need revision but that does not mean that the essay is perfect in other areas just because I didn’t comment on them directly. This rubric is my guideline for assigning grades on written work. Although you will not find a specific point value attached to this rubric or to your essay, in general I give a C grade to papers that respond adequately to all these categories, an A or B grade to papers that show particular mastery of all or most of these categories, and Ds or Fs to papers that do not respond adequately to a majority of the categories. Exceptions may be papers that are technically well written (Presentation) or well organized (Focus) but do not respond to the assignment or do not have a center (thesis). So, the first two categories are more important in that regard.

Responsiveness: Does the essay respond thoroughly to the specific terms of the assignment? Does the revised paper respond thoughtfully to the comments you've received from your instructor and your peers?
Center (thesis): Does the paper have a clear conceptual center? Does it make an argument that is arguable (can you argue with it)? Does the thesis have impact; does it make the audience care and want to read the paper?
Focus (organization): Is the essay clearly focused around the thesis? Does each paragraph contribute to the thesis or do any stray off track? Is the essay organized in a logical way? Are there paragraph breaks and transitions which help the reader follow the argument?
Specifics: Every argument needs evidence to support it. Does the paper have enough specific examples or quotes and are these examples relevant. Do they really prove the writer's point?
Presentation ( grammar & usage): How well have you edited your paper? Surface or grammatical errors can get in the way of your thesis. Does the essay display mature control of word choice, sentence variety and grammatical conventions and punctuation?

Explanation of written comments on papers

A word or phrase is circled: Indicates that there is a grammar mistake which you need to correct. Sometimes I will us sp to indicate a spelling error—but usually I just circle.

awk or awkward: Indicates that a phrase or a whole sentence just doesn’t work right. Either there is a grammar problem or you’ve chosen a word that doesn’t seem to fit into the sentence or it seems to me that you aren’t saying what you think you’re saying (or should be saying). You’re best bet is to 1) rethink what you want to say and 2) rewrite the sentence.

Qualify: Indicates that you have made a claim that is too broad or general as you’ve formulated it and that you need to add more precision to the statement to make it more persuasive. This might also mean you need to contextualize your statement within the critical debate on your topic.

Contextualize: When this appears next to a quote, it indicates that you have not explained in enough detail how the quoted material fits into your argument or that you have not adequately explained what the quoted material means.

diction or w/c: Indicates that your word choice isn’t exactly right for the meaning or tone or effect you are trying to get across.

tone: Indicates that you have used a word or written a sentence which either 1) breaks with the tone of the rest of the paper or 2) conveys a tone that is not as effective as it could be for getting your point across.

fragment: Indicates a sentence without either a main subject or a main verb or something else essential to the sentence missing. To find the missing element try reading the sentence outloud to yourself--usually you can tell. Your best bet, if you can’t find the missing piece is to break the sentence into two smaller units that you can control..

Run-on: Indicates two independent clauses (sentences) run together without a conjunction or the correct punctuation.

Transition means that you need a better one—your ideas need to logically move from one thing to the next and you need to make sure your reader is following how your points are connected to each other.

Paragraph break: or means that your paragraph is too long.

Develop: means to rethink and deepen your analysis of the point as well as support it better with examples.

Vague: indicates that your sentence or idea is not specific enough. Ask yourself “what do I mean?” by each of the terms or concepts you have introduced. Needs specific example and/or more clarification.

Support for this claim: means that you either need quotes to back up your idea or that I am drawing your attention to a claim that you are making that is controversial and/or too big to handle in the paper.

Fused Sentence: Indicates that you have two sentences--two or more different thoughts embedded in one ungrammatical sentence. Try taking them apart and giving each separate thought its own sentence.

Any other marks will hopefully be self-explanatory.

Some conventions of Academic prose to keep in mind:

Content/Values:

Academics value certain things such as complexity, accuracy, historical context, precise language, making fine distinctions (qualifying statements), further investigation, talking about complex theories, and making arguments about things external to themselves.
The goals of academic prose are often to argue a point or present a theory: to convince an audience in a reasoned, thoughtful way.

Style/Tone:

Academic prose employs an educated vocabulary and varied sentence types (long sentences and short, simple and complex). Often irony or other rhetorical strategies such as metaphors and parallelisms will be used.
It conforms to the conventions of standard grammar and usage rules—this helps ensure accurate communication
Formal introduction of the work under discussion is necessary (give author and full title at beginning so reader knows what you’re talking about).
This formality also includes courtesy. Be clear but not condescending.
A clear organization beginning with point to be argued and following with supporting materials
Academic prose has an authoritative tone (avoid admitting that you don’t know something or that you didn’t understand something or were confused by it—make sure you do understand what you are writing about)
It employs a formal and unbiased/fair tone and avoids use of pronouns (esp. “you” when referencing the reading audience—but also “I” which can be distracting to the reader).
It makes few emotional or passionate remarks because reasonable argumentation not passion or emotional appeals is valued.
On the whole there is less use of personal narratives and more impersonal discussion of theories.
Academics praise each other only sparingly ("In Jane Smith’s insightful analysis of ...")
Academics have no need to praise the author of the literary work ("Chaucer did an excellent job in the Canterbury Tales")—there is an assumption already in place that the work is valued and worthy of being written about.

Audience:

Academic prose tries not to insult its audience. It assumes its audience knows or can find out certain things (like the plot of the work) but not everything (like remembering all times or dates etc.) It also assumes that the audience is willing to participate in the fiction of your authority (they are willing to participate in the unfolding of your point.)
An academic audience will have assumptions about you as an academic writer: for instance that you have a point to make, that you will have thoroughly researched your point so as not to waste their time, that you will provide convincing evidence of your point, and that you will ethically use your sources.

Style of argumentation/what kind of evidence is valued:

Literary analysis in particular values use of quotes from the literary work to support your points, but citing of authorities is also important.
Academic prose values discussion of the critical works of others (example: People working on Milton or Chaucer will often discuss in depth other scholars’ interpretations and theories when advancing their own in an attempt to fit their scholarship into the on-going discussion—this often results in a metaphor of building—we are building our understanding of Milton or Chaucer on the foundation of other theories or studies but also differentiating our own from those earlier works).
A fair and unbiased tone is necessary for sounding persuasive, reasonable, courteous and authoritative. Even when criticizing other scholars, academics often use a very understated way of criticizing (“Smith fails to focus on this issue in depth…”) because to sound angry at someone or to use strong words (“he’s an idiot”) makes the writer sound too personally involved.

Things to remember when discussing the writing of others in your writing:

Read the essay or work that you’re discussing several times and take notes on it.
Look up all the words you don’t know
Make absolutely sure you’ve got the person’s point exactly before you say anything about it
Remember that you are working on two skills here and that both are necessary for an analysis of any kind 1) understanding the reading in a subtle way and 2) picking it apart in a subtle way
Take the needs of your audience into account. What do they know? What do they need to know to understand your point? How much of the other writer’s point do you need/want to provide?
Do not let the other writer’s words overshadow your own point. Never leave a quote ending a paragraph or forget to explain why you provided the quote.