-Quotation marks around short stories and poems: "A Good Man is Hard to Find," "Cathedral"

-Italicize novels, plays, and novellas: Never Let Me Go (novel or novella) Hamlet (play)

-Provide the author's full name the first time--afterwards, only the last name

-If you are only referencing our primary texts (Hamlet and /or Never Let Me Go, you do not need a Works Cited page.

--If you reference other sources, you MUST provide a Works Cited page and you must reference the works on that page in the paper with in-text citations.

-Synonyms for literature: text, work

-Don't refer to any text as a story--reference the genre: novel, play.

-Correct MLA heading and header--last name and page number in upper right-hand corner

Clint Smith

Mrs. Bishop

ENG 471--block 3

4 April 2024

-Use present tense when writing about literature* (There are a few exceptions)

--Parenthetical citations: Use page numbers for Oedipus because it doesn't give you line numbers. For the two short stories, you don't need a page number. You don't always need a parenthetical citation as long as you have referenced the author.

-Punctuation belongs inside quotation marks! "In A Good Man is Hard to Find," O'Connor illustrates that....

-Ctrl F for "This"--especially beginning a sentence

-Ctrl F for "talks about"--see Literary Analysis Handout

-Times New Roman, 12-point font, double space, no extra spaces between paragraphs

-Don't start out too broad in your introduction--no "since the dawn of time" introductions

-No first or second person (No I, we, or you)

--the words "many," "different," and "various" are almost always signs that a writer is being vague

--Your essay needs a specific title, correctly capitalized and centered. NOT LITERARY ANALYSIS ESSAY

-Refer to the text(s)! Shorter quotations are usually better.

-Read your paper aloud before submitting it!

Topic Sentences

Analyze more than summarize