See A Writer’s Resource pages 202–42 & Section 22b, pages 186–7
All page numbers/sections from A Writer’s Resource
Essay format
(Section 27, pg. 228–9)
All pages are numbered in upper right-hand corner, ½ inch from the top
Your last name should precede the page number on each page
i.e.: Chaple 2
Top, bottom, side margins=1 inch
double space everything
Heading is one inch from top of page, flush w/ margin, double space
your name
my name
course
date of submission
Title centered following heading
Text begins (Indent all paragraphs 5 spaces (tab))
no extra returns between paragraphs
12 pica type
Quotations/Quotation marks:
Quotation marks cue the reader that what is coming/contained is not your material/your words
2 kinds:
—4 or fewer typed lines
· end punctuation appears outside parenthetical documentation
—block quotations (see pg 232 for example)—more than 4 typed lines
· entire quoted text indented five spaces (one tabs)
· in this case no quotation marks are needed b/c the indentation indicates that the text is from an outside source
· end punctuation appears directly next to quoted text, followed by parenthetical citation
Parenthetical documentation—way of attributing source material, also called a citation
(Section 24, pgs 204–11)
· Parenthetical citations refer your reader to the Works Cited page at the end of your paper
· Citations immediately follow the quotation
· Normally, the parenthetical citation includes the author of the text’s last name and the page #—these two items are separated a single space
i.e.
Holden Caufield’s rebellion in the novel against the establishment as well as against his peers manifests
itself in small ways, as occurs with his smoking: “You weren’t allowed to smoke in the dorm [. . .] .
Besides, I did it to annoy Stradlater. It drove him crazy when you broke any rules” (Salinger 54).
If the author is included in your text, then only the page number should be included in the parentheses:
Salinger’s use of voice in The Catcher in the Rye is that of a teenager, complete with all the asides and
exaggerations: “My aunt’s pretty charitable—she does a lot of Red Cross work and all—but she’s very
well-dressed and all, and when she does anything charitable she’s always very well-dressed and has lipstick
on and all that crap” (148).
If you cite authors with the same last names, you must refer to both first and last names inside the parentheses:
i.e.:
texts by Charlotte Bronte and Emily Bronte:
(Bronte, Charlotte 12)
(Bronte, Emily 54)
If you cite multiple texts by the same author, you use an abbreviated version of the title and the last name of the author:
i.e.:
The World According to Garp John Irving
A Prayer for Owen Meaney John Irving
Cider House Rules John Irving
(Irving, Cider 65)
(Irving, World According 105)
If you cite a text with an anonymous author, you again use an abbreviated form of the title:
i.e.:
“The Highwayman Goes Riding”
(“Highwayman” 83)
If you are using a short story or essay from a collection with an editor, you use the author of the piece you are using:
i.e.:
“Hills Like White Elephants” Ernest Hemingway included in The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction
(Hemingway 792)
Brackets: (Sections 62f-g, pages 470-3)
brackets indicate that you as an author have changed something about the quotation you’re citing
change capital letter to lower case
change lower case to capital
add ellipses (SEE 2ND QUOTATION IN NOTES FOR EXAMPLE)
add word to continue flow of your sentence
for clarification identify pronoun with proper noun or specific noun
i.e.:
Addenizio challenges us as writers because “[t]he trick is to find out what we know, challenge what we
know, own what we know, and then give it away in language” (21).
As we as writers are aware, “[g]ood writing works from a simple premise [that] your experience is not
yours alone, but in some sense a metaphor for everyone’s” (21).
Quotation marks inside your quotation: (Section 61c, pg 460)
When you are quoting something that contains quotation marks, change those double quotation marks inside the author’s text into single ones (apostrophe on the key board):
i.e.:
Caufield describes the nun, persuading himself toward women in some sense: “She had a pretty nice smile
when she looked at you. She had a big nose, and she had on those glasses with sort of iron rims that aren’t
too attractive, but she had a helluva kind face. ‘I thought if you were taking up a collection,’ I told her, ‘I
could make a small contribution. You could keep the money for when you do take up a collection’”
(Salinger 143).
Block quotations follow all the same rules of parenthetical documentation but simply take a different format. Block quotations are indented from your text in order to indicate that it is being quoted. You do not use quotation marks, and you use block quotations only if the typed text is longer than 4 lines: (Section 22b5, pg 187)
i.e.:
Caufield’s encounter with the nuns indicate the first real human interaction that Caufield has in the novel, a
phenomenon that does not recur until he sees his young sister, Phoebe, toward the end of the book:
They let me give them ten bucks as a contribution. They kept asking me if I was sure I
could afford it and all. I told them I had quite a bit of money with me, but they didn’t
seem to believe me. They took it, though, finally. The both of them kept thanking me so
much it was embarrassing. I swung the conversation around to general topics and asked
them where they were going. they said they were schoolteachers and that they’d just
come from Chicago and that they were going to start teaching at some convent on 168th
Street or 186th Street or one of those streets way the hell uptown. (Salinger 143)
Following the block quotation your text continues normally . . .
Works Cited page –style/format (Section 24, pgs 204–211)
Works Cited page should be numbered consecutively just as all previous pages in the essay.
The words ‘Works Cited’ should be centered as a title, one inch down from the top of the page and double-space between this title and the first entry.
Only include works that you cited inside the body of the essay.
Alphabetize the entries according to last author’s last name. Each entry should begin flush with the left margin. Lines after the first are indented five-spaces (tab):
i.e.
Beverly, John. “The Real Thing (Our Rigoberta).” Modern Language Quarterly 57.2 (1996):
129-39.
If you have more than one work by the same author, further alphabetize by the first important word in the title, and do not list the author in the subsequent entries—put three dashes and a period, followed by a space. The following are also examples of how to cite books with one author (38e Harbrace):
i.e.:
Bronte, Charlotte. Jane Eyre. London: University of Oxford Press, 1973.
- - -. The Professor. London: University of Oxford Press, 1973.
(author’s name—last, first. title. city of publication: publishing house, most recent copyright year.)
If you are citing a short story or an essay from a collection or anthology, the citation looks as follows:
Hemingway, Ernest. “Hills Like White Elephants.” The Norton Anthology of Short Fiction. Ed. Jerome
Beatty. New York: Harper Collins, 1999. 792-800.
(author’s name of essay/short story—last, first. “title.” title of anthology or collection. Ed. [meaning
editor or editors] followed by names of editors—first name last name. anthology’s city of
publication: anthology’s publishing house, most recent copyright year of anthology. beginning and ending page numbers of short story or essay.)