A Guide to Writing Papers
Format
1. Papers should be double-spaced throughout, including
quotations, footnotes, endnotes, lists of works cited–everything. The text of the paper should be justified on
the left-hand margin only. Do not
center-justify your paper (but do center your title).
2. At the upper left corner, type, on separate
lines (1) your name, (2) course and section number, and (3) the date on which
the paper will be handed in.
3. Include page numbers, in the upper right
corner of the page, for all pages after the first. Include your name as well.
4. Fasten your pages with a paper clip or
staple. Do not use plastic folders for
papers.
5. Papers should be typed on 8½ by 11"
paper. Students who need to send me
papers as e-mail attachments bear the responsibility for my opening them. Students sending papers by e-mail should
nonetheless print out a copy and revise it before sending it to me. (Errors are hard to see on the computer
screen.) Papers sent as Word
attachments or as e-mails in RTF or HTML format will retain their original
formatting (e.g., italics and underlining), but ordinary text files will not.
6. Students should make sure they have at least
one extra hard copy and (if possible) one electronic copy of any paper they
hand in. I never lose papers, but
sometimes I misplace them for months.
Quoting
1. Quotations provide useful sources of
evidence, set forth passages for close analysis, and add variety to the writing
of a paper. But quote only when
necessary or truly helpful. Avoid
giving the impression that you are quoting merely to fill space.
2. Quotations in the text. Relatively short quotations (less than four
lines of prose, less than three lines of poetry) should be included within your
text. A quotation may stand as a
separate sentence, or it may be incorporated in your own sentence, in which
case you should enclose the quotation in double quotation marks but otherwise
use the same punctuation you would use if the language were your own To refer to the source of a quotation, you
should follow the final quotation mark with a parenthetical reference, usually
to the author and page. After the
parenthetical citation should come the punctuation appropriate to your own
sentence. For example: Some scholars
argue that Thomas Paine “destroyed in one book century-old taboos” (Thompson
92). When quoting poetry within your
text, you should put a slash after each line you quote, if you quote more than
one line, and begin the next line with a capital.
3. Block quotations. More than four lines of prose or three lines of poetry should be
treated as a block quotation. Indent
each line ten spaces (or one inch--usually two tabs). Do not use quotation marks.
End the quotation with the original punctuation, followed, in most
cases, by a parenthetical reference, without further punctuation. York argues against Richard’s seizure of
Gaunt’s lands:
Take Hereford’s
rights away, and take from time
His charters and
his customary rights,
Let not tomorrow
then ensue today;
Be not
thyself. For how are thou a king
But by fair
sequence and succession? (2.1.195-99)
4. Ellipsis.
An ellipsis, or three spaced dots (. . .), indicates an omission, and
must be used when you are leaving out material from a passage you are quoting. But ellipsis is now seldom used at the
beginning or end of a quotation, unless the quoted sentence is grammatically
incomplete without the material you are leaving out. When the ellipsis comes at the end of a sentence, you should add
a period as a fourth spaced dot.
Citation
1. In identifying a quotation or acknowledging the
source of ideas, use a parenthetical reference that in turn refers to an
alphabetical list of “works cited” at the end of your paper. If your sentence makes clear what work you
are citing, your parenthetical reference need only include the appropriate page
(or, for a poem, the line, or, for a play, the act, scene, and line). In cases of poems where books and lines need
to be cited, or plays where act, scene, and line are cited, use periods without
spaces to separate the numerals (Richard II 4.1.114-49). Where the work is not apparent from your
sentence, include the name of the author and the page or pages in the
parenthetical reference (Neale 371). Do
not use any punctuation between the author and the page. For materials in the course packet or handouts
of previously published material, use the page or line of the original. (I note that the original pagination of
MacCaffrey’s chapter on Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart did not survive the
photocopying; in this case use the page of the packet.)
2. You need to document everything that is not
original with yourself or is common knowledge.
You can assume that information that you find in more than one source
and that is not documented is common knowledge. Basic historical information, such as that found in the
chronologies of Richard II and Elizabeth, is common knowledge. Interpretation of that information needs to
be documented. It is also useful to
document information that may be controversial–so as to shift the burden of
proof to your source. Thus you do not
need to provide citations for the birth of Queen Elizabeth in 1533 or the death
of Richard II in 1400, but if you assert that Richard was killed by his
jailors, you had better cite an authority.
3. Parenthetical references should lead readers
to a list of “Works Cited” that should appear at the end of your paper,
starting on a new page. The list of
works should be arranged by the last name of the author, in alphabetical order. In cases where the author is unknown, use
the title, disregarding “a,” “an” and “the,” and place the citation in
appropriate alphabetical order. Thus Gawain
and the Green Knight appears after Froissart but before Holinshed.
4. Citations of books should provide the
author’s name (last name first), followed by a period; the title of the book,
followed by a period; and the bibliographical information, including the
principal place of publication, followed by colon, the publisher, followed by a
comma, and the date, followed by a period.
MacCaffrey, Wallace. Elizabeth I. London: Edward Arnold, 1993.
If the book has a translator (as in the case of Froissart) or an editor
(as in the case of Richard II, that information should follow the title:
Shakespeare, William. Richard II. Ed. Kenneth Muir. New York: Signet, 1963.
Froissart, Jean. Chronicles. Trans. Geoffrey Brereton. London: Penguin,
1978.
5. Citations of articles in periodicals use the
following format. Last, First Name of
Author. “Title of Article.” Title of Journal volume # (date):
pages. Hunt, Maurice. “The Conversion
of Opposites and Tragedy in Shakespeare’s Richard II.” Explorations in Renaissance Culture
25 (1999): 1-18. For articles
originally published in journals but reprinted elsewhere, provide as much
information about the journal publication as you can (certainly enough to allow
your reader to find it), but add a specific reference, including pages, to the
reprint. If the book that includes the
reprint already appears in your list of works cited, you can abbreviate the
reference. S. Schoebaum, “Richard II
and the Realities of Power.” Shakespeare Survey 28 (1975). Rpt. in
Shakespeare. Richard II. Ed. Muir. 249-62.
6. Citations of web pages should include the
name of the author, the title of the page you are using, the date of publication
(if available), the date of access, and the URL <enclosed in angle
brackets>. Knight, Charles. “An
Elizabethan Chronology.” 11 October 2001. <http://www.faculty.umb.edu/charles_knight
/Elizchrn.htm>.