Paper Writing Tips

Academic TitlesAn academic title should indicate the text

you’re writing about and your “angle” on it.

You are not required to follow this formula, but many academic writers use two part titles: a “hook” and a “topic” separated by a colon.

“The Hook” The Hook can be a quote from the text

that’s very relevant to your argument, or an original and striking way of describing your topic.

Examples: “Break, Blow, Burn” “No, No Means Yes”

The Topic The Topic following the Hook should

inform the reader of the text you’re examining and your specific interest within that text.

Examples: “Alliteration in John Donne’s ‘Holy

Sonnet 14’” “Coercive Grammar in Sidney’s Sonnet

63”

HOOK: TOPIC Break, Blow, Burn: Alliteration in John

Donne’s “Holy Sonnet 14”

No, No Means Yes: Coercive Grammar in Sidney’s “Sonnet 63”

Author vs. Speaker The author is the person who wrote the

text. The speaker is the narrator of the text. We can never assume that the author

and speaker are the same, even if the text is in the first person and seems autobiographical. A speaker is always a construction of the text.

Phillis Wheatley is the author of “Liberty and Peace.”

The speaker in the poem “Liberty and Peace” is overjoyed by America’s victory in the Revolutionary War and believes that Freedom will prevail throughout the world.

The Literary Present When we write about what happens in a

work of literature, we always always always use the present tense.

Yes, even for events that happen before the text even begins.

Yes, even for events that happen earlier in the text than the events we are currently discussing.

No, not for events that pertain to the author’s life or the actual/historical/real context of the work.

Edmund Spenser wrote “Amoretti” in 1595. The sonnet sequence was inspired by his courtship of Elizabeth Boyle.

In Sonnet 67, the speaker compares himself to a hunter and his lover to a deer.

In line 7, the deer returns to the brook where the hunter is resting.

The deer surrenders herself to the hunter, even though earlier she has beguiled his hounds and has escaped capture.

Citation To cite poetry in MLA format, use the line number

rather than the page number.

If you have already stated the author and title of the poem, you need not include them in the parentheses.

Place the parenthetical citation AFTER the closing quotation mark and BEFORE the end punctuation.

Use a slash / to represent the breaks in between lines.

Example: Hannah More writes that “millions feel

what Oronoko felt” (16).

Exception:When the quote you’re using ends with punctuation other than a period or comma, preserve the original punctuation. However, still place a period after the parentheses.

Hannah More implores, “Perish the illiberal thought that would debase / The native genius of the sable race!” (19-20).

Integrate a quote by… 1.) Making it fit into the grammar of

your sentence: In Anna Laetitia Barbauld’s “To The

Poor,” the speaker states that “the Lord above” is not “like lords below” (18).

In John Donne’s Holy Sonnet 14, the speaker asks God to “break, blow, burn, and make [him] new” (4).

Integrate a quote by… 2.) Introducing it with a synonym for

“says” (declares, writes, argues, states, cries, laments, etc.), using a comma and a capital letter:

The speaker of Sidney’s Sonnet 47 asks, “What, have I thus betrayed my liberty?”

Integrate a quote by… 3.) Explaining it and then using a colon:

The speaker of Sidney’s Sonnet 47 considers the possibility that his state of enslavement is an innate weakness of his character: “[O]r am I born a slave, / Whose neck becomes such yoke of tyranny?” (3-4).