- Do not begin your conclusion paragraph with “In conclusion.”
- Do not refer to your paper in your paper. In other words, completely avoid sentences that begin with “In this paper, I am going to tell you about . . . ” or “This paper will focus on . . .”
- Entitle your work. Titles do not have quotation marks (unless a short story or poem title is included in the title), nor are they underlined (unless a novel or play title occurs within the title). Invent your own original title for your essay. Do not use the title of the work of literature about which you are writing as your title. Your title should give readers a clear idea of what your paper will be arguing.
- If you are providing a literary analysis, when you actually analyze the story, you should write that part of your paper in present tense. “The theme is . . .” (not was).
- For any literature-based paper, all events from the work of literature should be related in present tense in your paper. For example, you would write, “Phoenix walks slowly because she is old,” instead of “Phoenix walked slowly because she was old.”
- Limit your use of directly quoted material. Your instructor wants to know that you can synthesize and analyze the material and write your own essay. Do not make a paper by piecing together strings of quoted material.