Susie Student

Mrs. Cunningham

World Literature 2nd Period

August 29, 2006

The Best Essay in the World

            Indent all paragraphs from the left margin.  Double space ONCE between the title and your first paragraph.  Do NOT underline your own title, or put it in quotes, or use a larger type size, or put it in bold or italics.  Underline the titles of books and plays, like The Secret Life of Bees and Julius Caesar.  Titles of short stories, such as “The Lie,” should be placed in quotation marks.  Make sure the body of your essay is double spaced.  Do not use extra spacing between paragraphs.  Use 12-point Times New Roman type (like this!) throughout your essay.  Do not use script or novelty typefaces.  Do not use colored ink to print out your essay.

            When quoting from a piece of literature, “first introduce the quote, so that it will flow smoothly along with your own writing” (Miller 34).  Note that the period comes after the citation, and not after the word “writing.”  Not that the citation includes the author’s last name and the page number on which the quote can be found.  Note also that there is no comma between the name and the page number.

            Some quotations may be longer than four lines of type.  When this occurs, introduce the quote, and then present it like this, usually following a colon:

            Block quotes should be indented from both the left and right margins

of your essay.  You should NOT use quotation marks to indicate that it

is quoted material (instead, the indentations will indicate that to the

reader).  The citation comes at the end of the block quote, after the final

period.  Note that there is no period following the citation.  (Jackson 124).

Please note that while long, block-indented quotations are often used in long scholarly articles or books, they are NOT a good idea for a short, 2-5 page essay.  Don’t do it in World Literature class!

            When writing an essay about one particular piece of literature, where your only source is that piece of literature, “you may omit the author’s name in your citations and use only the page number” (57).  If, however, you are using more than one source, “use the author’s last name along with the page number” (Williams 259).

            Remember to always include a Works Cited page, listing all of the books, articles, websites, and other materials you have used in writing your paper.  Every work on your Works Cited page should be cited somewhere in your essay (that’s what “works cited” means!).  See the sample Works Cited page, attached, to see how it should be formatted.  Note specifically that it is double-spaced and that the second line of each listing is indented from the left margin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Works Cited

Lee, Harper.  To Kill a Mockingbird.  New York: Warner Books, 1960.

Shakespeare, William.  The Tempest.  World Literature.  Ed. Donna Rosenberg.  Lincoln

            Wood, IL: NTC, 1997.  727-794.

Sophocles.  Oedipus the King.  Trans. Bernard Knox.  New York: WSP, 1959.

Svetkey, Benjamin.  “The Truman Pro.”  Entertainment Weekly.  5 June 1998: 24-30.

 

 

 

 

For FAST AND EASY help in formatting Works Cited listings and internal citations, go to www.citationmachine.net and click on the MLA tab at the upper left side of the screen.  Enter the information for the type of source you are using and the “citation machine” will do the formatting for you.  It will also tell you how to format your internal citations.