IF YOU HAVE ME FOR WORLD LITERATURE, JUST SCROLL DOWN TO FIND THE UNIT YOU ARE STUDYING!

World Literature Syllabus for 2011-2012

Gifted and Talented English 10 is a humanities approach to World Literature that follows a chronological order in coordination with World History and places an emphasis on multiculturalism and real audiences.   Students use computers to facilitate research, collaborations, and presentations with a multi-discipline approach.  World Literature focuses on four areas of study:  literature, composition, vocabulary, and grammar. Literature is the inspiration for most writing assignments, including creative writing and writing using formal research skills and documentation.  First semester assignments include eighteen creative writings and five essays.  Second semester includes seven creative writings, three research papers, and two essays.  All creative writings will be presented in class. Grammar instruction is a part of writing, with formal study in areas where students need additional practice. Students learn vocabulary through literature and by formal instruction using a vocabulary text.  Each of these areas exceeds the Caddo Parish Curriculum Guide's requirements for English 10.

General Information

       Do you know that you will be absent?  Turn in your work and take any tests before leaving. Feel free to e-mail assignments to me.   It is your responsibility to make up any work that you missed, without being told.  Check your calendar and the board to know exactly what needs to be done.   You may come in before school or during Activity Period to make up a test.  You may not make up tests during class.  Since I get to school each morning by 7:30 AM, I can help you or give tests at that time.

 

Late Papers: 1 day  late = 75% is highest grade; 2 days late = 70% etc.

 

 My e-mail address is:  DMOREHEAD@caddo.k12.la.us

 

World Literature Final Research Paper    

Due May 18 for A and May and May 21 for B

 

Be prepared to read your paper to the class and answer questions.

2 typed copies of paper    12 pt. Ariel Font           

5 pages plus Works Cited

Handout for each student – at least thesis statement - typed out 

Minimum of 6 sources - No encyclopedias - One credible Internet source

Students may not print out the paper during class or it will be late.

 

General Reminders

Good research requires the use of a variety of sources and various opinions.

Use names of authors in your sentences to give your paper more credibility.

Do not rely heavily on one source.

Do not use quotes of more than 5 lines.

Always lead in to your quotes.

Use formal writing rules with MLA format and documentation.

Review the “13 Most Common Mistakes” and “Morehead’s Marvelous Method.”

 

Reminders About Taking Notes

You may use notebook paper - do not write on back.

Write the author’s name at the top of each page.

Place page numbers in the margin and repeat when you change pages.

Clearly mark any quotations.

Write all of your Works Cited information on separate sheets.

You will need a minimum of 15 full pages of notes to write a 5 page paper.

Look at your calendar for note checks.

 

Automatic Deductions – These will not add up to 100!  I would not expect anyone to miss all of these.  After having worked on research the entire semester, you know how to write this paper!)

  -5       One copy

  -5       No handout of thesis statement

-10       Internal documentation consistently incorrect

-15       Paper does not support thesis

-10       Works Cited consistently incorrect

  -5       More than five typographical errors

  -1       For each grammatical or usage error

  -8       Thesis statement does not clearly outline paper

-15       No conclusion

  -8       Did not use the correct number or kind of sources

-16       Primary use of one source

  -5       Incorrect MLA format (see pamphlet)

-8 to -30 Incorrect length

-5 to -10 Inability to answer questions or obviously did not practice reading

-15       Did not turn in rough draft or notes before due date of paper

 

If your paper is late, the highest grade you can make is 75%.

 

Comparison Research Paper Topics: Literature to History or Literature to Philosophy

            Think about a book or short story that you particularly like.  It must be one that you read for World Literature or World History.  Compare this book or philosophy to a period of history or a particular theory.  These are suggestions: however, you may create your topic, with teacher approval:

 

*The Good Earth - a reflection of changes in China during that time period

 

*Ibsen’s Women – reflection/prediction of the changing roles of women in society

 

*Compare Chaucer’s characters in the Prologue of Canterbury Tales to people at that time

 

*Machiavelli’s The Prince – How do current politicians exemplify the principles described in The Prince

 

*Evidence of a great flood  - archeological, scientific, historical

 

*Dante’s Divine Comedy - reflects his life, politics, and religious beliefs of that time

 

*Compare All’s Quiet. . . to WWI 

 

*Moliere’s writings reflect that period in history

 

*Count of Monte Cristo to politics & culture in the early 1800’s 

 

*Plutarch’s Julius Caesar and Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar provide similar views on Caesar’s death; whereas, the Modern Revisionists approach the death from a different angle.

 

* Tempest, Much Ado reflect love, courtship, and marriage of the 17th century

 

*Franz Kafka - His fiction is autobiographical, psychoanalytic, Marxist, religious, Existentialist, Expressionist,    Naturalist

 

* Daughters in Shakespeare’s plays - how they reflect life during that time

 

*Siddhartha to Buddism

 

*Revenge in literature and real life (Tempest, Count of Monte Cristo, Frankenstein)

 

OR

 

These ideas relate to specific medical areas:

 

*Mind and Body in Renaissance and Early Modern Medicine

 

*Mind and Body in Shakespeare and his Contemporaries

1. Research ideas about a particular physical disease over a long period of time, perhaps a century or more—heart disease or asthma, for example—and examine the respective roles that biological and psychological factors were thought to have played in the disease you have studied. Try to identify periods in medical history when psychological factors were given particular prominence in the explanation of the disease you have investigated.
2. Explore how mental illness was understood in various periods and by different individuals, and investigate what factors seem to have influenced whether a particular physician looked primarily to biological or psychological causes and treatments for the mental symptoms and behaviors studied.
3. Research the ways in which different physicians at various times understood how their patients’ emotions influenced the onset, intensification, or amelioration of physical symptoms and syndromes. Be alert to ways in which these physicians may have differentiated symptoms and syndromes into several categories, some of which were highly responsive to emotional influences and others were not.
4. Research groups of physicians in different periods to determine whether some individuals were more biologically-prone and others more psychologically prone in the same period of time. Explore what scientific, philosophical, professional, and personality factors may have influenced physicians to be more inclined one way or the other.
5. Track down detailed biographies or autobiographies of physicians in the twentieth century and study them closely for indications of sensitivity or insensitivity to psychological vs. biological circumstances in their patients’ illness experiences. Consider how these sensitivities may have been influenced by the contemporary popularity of psychoanalysis, stress research, molecular medicine, or psychopharmacology.

OR

Is there a particular topic you would like to research that relates to any area that we read about this year?  Talk with me about this, and we will find a topic that fits you.

IF YOU ARE GOING TO DO ONE OF THE PAPERS THAT RELATE TO MEDICINE, HERE ARE SOME SOURCES:

Online Resources

• Emotions and Disease, an online exhibition by the National Library of Medicine. Accessed on 1/27/2012.

Primary Sources

• Descartes, Rene. Philosophical Works; Translated by E.S. Haldane and D.R.T. Ross, Vol. I. New York:  Dover Publications, 1955, 331–356.
• Hoffmann, Friedrich. Fundamenta Medicinae. Translated and Introduced by Lester S. King. London:  Macdonald, 1971, 39–47, 55–58, 103–108.
• Maimonides, Moses. “Two Treatises on the Regimen of Health.” In Transactions of the American  Philosophical Society 54 (1964): 16, 23–26.
• Shah, Mazhar H. The General Principles of Avicenna’s Canon of Medicine. Karachi: Naveed Clinic, 1966, 5–14, 154–156, 180–182, 228, 254, 364–366.

Secondary Sources

• Ackerknecht, Erwin. A Short History of Psychiatry. New York: Hafner Publishing Company, 1959.
• ———. “A History of Psychosomatic Medicine.” In Psychological Medicine, vol. 12 (1982): 17–14.
• Aronowitz, Robert. Making Sense of Illness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998.
• Braslow, Joel. Mental Illness and Bodily Cures: Psychiatric Treatment in the First Half of the Twentieth Century. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997.
• Brumberg, Joan Jacobs. Fasting Girls: The Emergence of Anorexia Nervosa as a Modern Disease. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1988.
• Conrad, Lawrence I. et al. The Western Medical Tradition:800 BC to AD 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Duffin, Jacalyn. History of Medicine: A Scandalously Short Introduction. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999.
• Ellenberger, Henri. The Discovery of the Unconscious. New York: Basic Books, 1970.
• Frankel, Richard M. et al. The Biopsychosocial Approach: Past, Present, Future. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2003.
• French, Roger. Medicine Before Science: The Rational and Learned Doctor from the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003.
• Grob, Gerald. The Mad Among Us: A History of the Care of America’s Mentally Ill. New York: The Free Press, 1994.
• Hale, Nathan G. Freud and the Americans: The Beginnings of Psychoanalysis in the United States, 1876–1917. New York: Oxford University Press, 1977.
• ———. The Rise and Crisis of Psychoanalysis in the United States: Freud and the Americans, 1917– 1985. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.
• Harrington, Anne. The Cure Within: A History of Mind-Body Medicine. New York: W.W. Norton, 2008.
• Healy, David. The Creation of Psychopharmacology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002.
• Healy, David. Let Them Eat Prozac. New York: New York University Press, 2004.
• Herzberg, David. Happy Pills in America: From Miltown to Prozac. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2009.
• Howells, John G. The Concept of Schizophrenia: Historical Perspectives. Washington DC: American Psychiatric Press, 1991.
• Jackson, Mark. Allergy: The History of a Modern Malady. London: Reaktion Books, 2006.
• ———. Asthma: The Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Jackson, Stanley W. Melancholia and Depression from Hippocratic Times to Modern Times. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1986.
• Jackson, Stanley W. Care of the Psyche: A History of Psychological Healing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999.
• Lain Entralgo, Pedro. The Therapy of the Word in Classical Antiquity. Edited and Translated by Leland  J. Rather and John Sharp. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1970.
• Lawrence, Christopher, and George Weisz (eds.), Greater Than the Parts: Holism in Biomedicine, 1920–1950. New York: Oxford University Press, 1998.
• Leese, Peter. Shell Shock: Traumatic Neuroses and the British Soldier of the First World War. New York: Palgrave, 2002.
• Lerner, Paul. Hysterical Men: War, Psychiatry, and the Politics of Trauma in Germany, 1890–1930. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003.
• Lunbeck, Elizabeth. The Psychiatric Persuasion: Knowledge, Gender, and Power in Modern America.  Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994.
• MacDonald, Michael. Mystical Bedlam: Madness, Anxiety, and Healing in Seventeenth-Century England. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981.
• Makari, George. Revolution in Mind: The Creation of Psychoanalysis. New York: HarperCollins, 2008.
• Martensen, Robert. The Brain Takes Shape: An Early History. New York: Oxford University Press,  2004.
• Metzl, Jonathan. Prozac on the Couch. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
• Micale, Mark S., and Roy Porter, eds. Discovering the History of Psychiatry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
• Nutton, Vivian. Ancient Medicine. London: Routledge, 2004.
• Oppenheim, Janet. "Shattered Nerves": Doctors, Patients, and Depression in Victorian England.  Bridgewater NJ: Replica Books, 1991.
• Porter, Roy. Mind-Forg’d Manacles. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987.
• Pressman, Jack David. Last Resort: Psychosurgery and the Limits of Medicine. Cambridge University  Press, 1998.
• Rather, Leland J. Mind and Body in Eighteenth-Century Medicine. Berkeley: University of California  Press, 1965.
• Reiser, Joel Stanley. Medicine and the Reign of Technology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1978.
• Scull, Andrew. Hysteria: The Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
• Shorter, Edward. Bedside Manners: The Troubled History of Doctors and Patients. New York: Simon &   Schuster, 1985.
• Shorter, Edward. From Paralysis to Fatigue: A History of Psychosomatic Illness in the Modern Era. New York: Free Press, 1991.
• Shorter, Edward. A History of Psychiatry: From the Era of the Asylum to the Age of Prozac. New York; John Wiley & Sons, 1997.
• Shorter, Edward, and David Healy. Shock Therapy: A History of Electroconvulsive Treatment in Mental Illness. Piscataway, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2007.
• Showalter, Elaine. The Female Malady: Women, Madness, and English Culture, 1830–1980. New York: Penguin Books, 1985.
• Simon, Bennett. Mind and Madness in Ancient Greece. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1978.
• Stepansky, Paul. Psychoanalysis at the Margins. New York: Other Press, 2009.
• Sternberg, Esther. The Balance Within: The Science Connecting Health and Emotions. New York: Freeman, 2001.
• ___. Healing Spaces: The Science of Place and Well-Being. Cambridge MA: Belknap Press, 2009.
• Sulloway, Frank J. Freud, Biologist of the Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1979.
• Swazey, Judith P. Chlorpromazine in Psychiatry: A Study of Therapeutic Innovation. Cambridge, MA:   MIT Press, 1974.
• Tomes, Nancy. A Generous Confidence: Thomas Story Kirkbride and the Art of Asylum-Keeping, 1840– 1883. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984.
• Tone, Andrea. The Age of Anxiety: A History of America’s Turbulent Affair with Tranquilizers. New York: Basic Books, 2009.
• Tracy, Sarah W. Alcoholism in America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2005.
• Valenstein, Elliot. Great and Desperate Cures: The Rise and Decline of Psychosurgery. New York: Free Press, 1991.
• Viner, Russell. “Putting Stress in Life: Hans Selye and the Making of Stress Theory.” In Social Studies of Science, vol. 29 (1999): 391–410.
• Whorton, James. Nature Cures: The History of Alternative Medicine in America. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002.
• Young, Allan. The Harmony of Illusions: Inventing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1995.

 

A COPY OF MOREHEAD'S MARVELOUS METHOD IS AT THE BOTTOM OF THIS PAGE!

 

 

STUDENTS WILL RECEIVE A SHEET OF SHORT STORIES TO READ AND WILL MAKE NOTES ON THE BACK OF THE SHEET. Here is the list:

Make notes by each story.  Write down the theme or truth you gleaned.  These will be read in your spare time in class.  I am sure you will like them!  We will discuss each selection!

 

Gray Book

 

1357 – "No Witchcraft for Sale" - Lessing

 

1366 – "Snapshots of a Wedding" - Head

 

1375 – "An Astrologer’s Day" – Narayan

 

Purple Book

716 - "Pulse of the Land" - Nuyda

 

725 – "Handful of Dates" – Salih

 

757 – "Stay Alive, My Son" – Yathay

959  "War" Pirandello

1012 "Myth of Sisyphus"

1173 "Love Orange" - Senior

1164 "A Canary's Ideas" Assis

 

Blue Book

969 – "The Cat, the Goldfinch, and the Stars" – Pirandello

 

977 – "The Bees and the People" – Zoshchenko

 

981 – "The Princess and All the Kingdom" – Lagerkvist

 

1015 – "Rhinoceros" – Ionesco

 

1031 – "Life is Sweet" – Nicol

 

 

 

 

May 14 – 18

 

Monday 5/14 for A and Tuesday 5/15 for B

take the voc. Post test (there is a copy in back of your voc. Book)

read and discuss

 

Wednesday 5/16 for A and Thursday 5/17 for B

turn in rough draft and works cited and I will go over it with you

continue reading and discussing

 

Friday 5/18 for A

turn in 2 typed copies of research paper and copies of thesis statements for each person

begin presenting

 

May 21-25 and 29 - 31

 

Monday 5/21 for B

turn in 2 typed copies of research paper and copies of thesis statements for each person

begin presenting

 

Tuesday 5/22 for A and Wednesday 5 23 for B

present papers and discuss

 

Thursday EXAMS for A 1^st and 3^rd         continue presenting

 

Friday EXAMS 5/25 for B 5^th and 7^th      continue presenting

 

NO SCHOOL ON MONDAY MAY 28

 

Tuesday 5/29 EXAMS for A 2^nd and 4^th  continue presenting

 

Wednesday EXAMS 5/30 for B 6^th and 8^th

(last day to present papers and last day of school)

MMM


STUDENTS USE THIS REFERENCE BOOKLET FOR BOTH RENAISSANCE RESEARCH PAPERS, THE NATIONAL HOLOCAUST PAPER, AND THE END OF YEAR COMPARISON RESEARCH PAPER
Students need to keep this booklet all semester -- most take this one to college with them!

Morehead’s Marvelous Method of

Writing Research Papers

A Fast & Easy Approach by Deborah Morehead

 

(WARNING:  This method could be hazardous to your grade in any other English class that checks your progress.  Use this approach when the teacher requires a final copy, such as science papers and college papers.)

 

History:    Each year, college students return to Magnet and thank me for teaching them how to write papers with this method.  They say that their friends are amazed at how quickly and efficiently my students write papers.  When I was working on my first Master’s, I wrote ten to twelve research papers each semester for two years.   The length of each paper varied from ten to twenty pages.  I gradually developed this research paper method because I did not have the time to use the method my English teachers taught me.  I began to enjoy writing papers and still do.  I hope that this information will help you to stop cringing at the idea of writing a research paper and cause you to actually enjoy the treasure hunt for information.  Please do not gag at my enthusiasm.

 

A Few Thoughts About Research in General

1.  Avoid the lazy approach to research.  The lazy way is to stand in front of a bookshelf and look in the books that have the exact title or topic you are researching.  A good researcher learns to look in the table of contents and index.   Even an Internet search may just give you what is in a title. The information will not come to you; you must go to it! 

2.  At this stage in your life, do not use general encyclopedias because compilers have done the research, and you are now at the level where you need to do your own research.  You may use specific encyclopedias such as those on art, music, or medicine.  Signed articles are always superior.

3.  Be sure that you explore all sides of an issue.   You may end up changing or even disproving your thesis.

4.  Remember to use formal writing rules.  You do not need to use first person, because the reader knows that if information is not documented, it is yours.   

 

Step One:  Choosing Your Topic

      If you have any leeway in choosing your topic, think about subjects that interest you.  A paper can be so much fun when you like the area of research or can prove an original idea.   One time I was taking a class on Romantic literature and the teacher said we needed to write a research paper on a piece of Romantic literature, and we could choose the direction.   I had recently taught Poetics.  As I read Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, I could clearly see elements of tragedy; therefore, I asked the professor if I could prove that Frankenstein had elements of tragedy as defined by Aristotle.  He agreed and had never thought of that idea.  I really enjoyed proving my point.  Developing an idea, when you know there is some guide to lean on, is really exciting and fulfilling.  I assign my students a comparison research paper for their final exam.  I tell them to think about all the books they have ever read and compare literature to literature, literature to history, or literature to present-day life.  One year, as we were reading Song of Roland, a student looked at me with that kind of expression that tells the viewer a light has gone off inside the person’s head.   He recognized people and objects in the epic that were in a series of science fiction books that he enjoyed reading.  He asked if he could compare the series he was reading to Song of Roland and show the similarities.  He thoroughly enjoyed writing that paper because he came up with the original idea and proved it.

 

Step Two:  Taking Notes

     A.  This is where my method differs from what normal English teachers require.    I use regular notebook paper.  (If this makes you feel guilty, buy large note cards!)   First of all, I get three or four sheets of lined paper and staple them together.   I use these for all my bibliographic information that I will later need on my Works Cited page.  You may choose to use a spiral notebook.  In that case, use a section in the back for this information.  Every time I am about to take notes from a book, I write down all the pertinent information on these sheets.  I do not take the time to put this in the correct order, but write it down as I find it.   I jot down the author, title, city, company, and publishing date.  If there are editors or translators instead of authors, I write them down.   If the book is one of a series, I include the name of the series.

 

     B.  Whether you use lined leaf paper, cards, or a spiral notebook, follow the format I am about to explain on each page or card. 

 

1.  At the top of the page, write the author’s or translator’s last name.   Use the name instead of a library number.  This helps in research because you need to identify your expert with the information he or she gives you.   Each time you change pages, write the same person’s last name at the top of the page and the page number.  If you already know that your information can be divided into different categories or opinions, include the category or opinion at the top of the page or at various times in your notes.

 

2.  WRITE ONLY ON ONE SIDE OF THE PAPER AND PLACE PAGE NUMBERS IN THE MARGIN.  In the left margin of your notes, write the book’s page number, and each time you change pages in the book show the correct page number in the margin.  When you change pages, write the book’s page number from the page before in the margin at the top of the page, even if you are continuing on the same page.  Trust me that you need to do this. Later on you will need the exact page numbers for proper documentation.

 

3.  Write your quotation marks very dark, underline, or choose some other method to make sure that you can easily tell the difference in what you quoted and what you paraphrased.

 

4.  Try to avoid the easy way of just writing down a few words.   Go ahead and take really good and thorough notes.  By writing in complete sentences now, you are saving yourself time when you are ready to put your paper together.  If you come to a conclusion or make a connection that is yours alone and did not come from the book, make a note of that.

 

5.  NEVER, NEVER, NEVER, TAKE NOTES WITHOUT GETTING THE BIBLIOGRAPHIC INFORMATION AND WITHOUT WRITING DOWN THE PAGE NUMBERS.

 

7.  If your teacher asks you to write a five-to seven-page, double-spaced, typed paper, you will need about twenty, full handwritten pages of notes--that is, if your handwriting is about normal size.  If you write tiny, you may not need as many pages.  

Step Three:  Writing the Paper

     Here comes the fun part and the reason this is such a quick and easy method.  Get a pair of scissors and some scotch tape.  Yes, you heard me right.  Get the scissors and tape.  Read all of your notes and make sure your thesis holds true.  If you need to change it, do so now.  If you took notes in a spiral notebook, tear out all of the pages you used.  Now, spread all of your cards or pages out on the floor in front of you and begin putting them in the order of your thesis and into categories or opinions.  To do this you will need to cut apart the information.  Now you should understand why it is so important that you write only on one side of the paper and that each page have the author’s name at the top and the page numbers in the left margin.  As you cut off a section of a page, write the author’s name in the top of the left margin and the page number, if it is not included in that section.  Tape sections together by page and set them down in order.  Number these so you do not get confused.  Continue this until you have all of the paper in the order you like.

      

      If you took thorough notes, you should now be looking at the body of your paper.   You can probably go directly to the computer for the writing of the first paragraph.  Be sure your thesis outlines your paper.   Type your paper in the order that you cut and taped and add whatever is needed to connect the paragraphs and ideas.  When you have typed in all that you have except the conclusion, stop.  Go back to the very beginning and read your paper.  Now write the conclusion and make connections by tying together all of the ideas you have researched.  Remember that you must not put any new information in the conclusion.      

 

     Be sure that you do all of your internal documentation correctly.  It is really simple.  Every time you use an idea or any information from a source, place the page number and the author’s name at the end.  This way we know that all of the information above came from that source.  You must document at the end of every paragraph, except the first and last.  If you change sources within a paragraph, be sure to document.  Also, you must document at the end of each quote.  All of the in’s and out’s of documenting are on the pages I have made for you from the MLA Handbook. 

 

Step Four:  Works Cited

     Go back to those sheets that you stapled together, to the back of your spiral notebook, or to the note cards with all of your bibliographic information.  Cut them apart, using only those that you documented in your paper.   Tape them together in alphabetical order by last name of author or editor.  The specific directions for order are found on the sheets about MLA documentation.  After this has been done, type the bibliographic information on a Works Cited page that will go at the end of your paper.

 

Summary

     This method is a bit questionable for English teachers because it leaves out the tedious task of each note card adhering to a specific format.  In my opinion, that old method takes up valuable time and is wasted effort.  However, if your grade depends on that, follow directions.  The Morehead Method can be used when you are required to show the final product and not the process.  Think of writing research papers as putting a puzzle together.  If you look at it as fun and challenging, you will be surprised at how painless the process is and will be pleased with your results.  Enjoy!

 

Most Common Mistakes Found on Research Papers

 

Mistake #1  Thesis statement does not outline the paper

     The paper must be in the exact order of the thesis statement and clearly support your thesis.   You may even start out with a working thesis that you have to change after thorough research.  Be sure to support your thesis with examples from the literature you are using.

 

Mistake #2  Placing the period before internal documentation

     The documentation goes inside of the period.  

Correct example -  “To be or not to know” (Morehead 10).

Incorrect example - “To be or not to know.” (Morehead 11)

 

Mistake #3  Placing a comma after the author in internal documentation or using the word page

     In MLA there is no comma between the author’s last name and the page number.

Correct example (Morehead 44).       Incorrect example (Morehead, page 44).

 

Mistake #4  Paragraphs with no documentation

     You must document at the end of any section where you use ideas or information that is not your own.    Place the author’s name and page number at the end of every paragraph, except the first and the last.    If you change sources within a paragraph, be sure to document before moving to the new source.  This way we know that all of the information in front of the documentation came from that source. 

 

Mistake #5  Documenting at the end of the first paragraph or the end of the paper

     The last sentence in the first paragraph should be your thesis statement and does not need documentation because it is your idea.  If you used information from sources in your first paragraph, internally document before the last sentence.   Since you are not to introduce any new material in the conclusion and since that information is where you tie together ideas, you should not need documentation at the end of the last paragraph.   You may choose to use a short quote somewhere in the paragraph, but do not use it in the last sentence.

 

Mistake #6  No documentation after a quote

       You must document at the end of each quote, even if there is only one sentence left in the paragraph.  Document after the quote and again at the end of the paragraph.

If the first four sentences come from page ten and the fifth sentence is a quote from page eleven, you must document before and after the quote.  If there is still more information from that source following the quote, you must document again.

 

Mistake #7  Only a page number at the end of the paragraph, but no

                   author’s name in the sentence

      The only way you do not have to place the author’s name and the page number at the end of the sentence is if the author’s name is in that particular sentence.

 

Mistake #8  Numbered Works Cited or incorrect spacing

     Your Works Cited is to be in alphabetical order and not numbered.  You are to double space the entire page.  Do not single space the source and double space between sources.

 

Mistake #9  Reversing the city and the publishing company in the Works Cited

     The city comes before the publishing company. Correct example:

Victor, Olivia E.  The Technology of Wellness.  New York:  Macmillan, 1988.

 

Mistake #10   Giving the last page a title of Bibliography or Sources Cited                   

     In MLA documentation you should have a Works Cited page to give bibliographic information on the works that you used in the paper.

 

Mistake #11  Placing quotation marks after internal documentation

     Correct example:  According to Bell “researchers designed six motors” (81).

     Incorrect example:  According to Bell “researchers designed six motors (81).”

 

Mistake #12  Placing a quote with no lead

     Leading into quotes makes your paper stronger.

Correct:  According to Will Durant, “Jefferson was not as popular as his opponent” (41).

Incorrect:  “Jefferson was not as popular as his opponent” (Durant 41).

 

Mistake #13  Incorrect use of indirect sources

     When an author quotes someone else, this is an indirect source.  Most college professors have you look up the original source in order to quote the person;  however, I let you use indirect sources if you acknowledge the correct source.

Correct example:  Will Durant quotes Thomas Jefferson from his first speech as saying  “. . . . . “ (quoted from Durant 10).  

Another correct example:  In Will Durant’s book Civilization, he quotes Thomas Jefferson “. . . . . . . .” (34).

 

 

 

Internal Documentation

 

When Do I Document?          What Do I Document?

     The books say we do not need to document information that is general knowledge.  My philosophy is, “When in doubt, document.”  The reader needs to know pertinent ideas, facts, quotes, or statistics that come from your sources.  This enables readers to check out the information for themselves.  This also avoids plagiarism on your part.  Document anytime you use someone’s exact words or when you paraphrase ideas or other information.     Internal documentation is easy!  Simply place the author’s name and a page number in parentheses after the information.  This tells us that all of the preceding information in the paragraph came from that source.

 

Author’s name in your sentence

Examples:

Mrs. Morehead describes the difficulties that Kaki has in keeping attendants (33-44).

Will Durant notes that “hardly an ancient people went without a flood story” (330).

 

A work with two authors

Example:

     Manu, in a Hindu story, was warned by gods and built a ship in which he escaped from a deluge that destroyed all creatures (Halley and Asminov 14).

 

A work with three or more authors

Example:

     In 1929 the English archaeologist Sir Charles Leonard Wolley reported finding water-deposited layers as much as ten feet thick in his excavations near the Euphrates (Asimov et al. 332-333).

 

A work with no author or editor

     Use the title or shortened version of the title and a page number.

Example:

     This implies that Ararat is a region or nation containing a mountain range on which the ark landed (“Archaeology” 2).

 

Source on a page with no page number

(This example applies to books only – not to Internet sources.)

Example:

A huge tidal wave swept upstream, northwestward toward Ararat (Asimov n. page).

 

More than one source at a time

Example:

     Picasso rolled up the just-finished Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and stored it for over twenty years (Penrose12; McCully 86).

Quotation of more than four lines

     Place the reference at the end of the passage, after the final period, and do not use quotation marks.  There is an example of this on the pages that show a sample paper in this booklet.

 

 

More than one work by the same author

     Use the author’s name, an abbreviation of the title, and a page number.

Example:

(Morehead, Disabilities 67)

 

Two authors with the same last name

     Give the initial of the author’s first name in the reference.

Example:

(D. Morehead 33). 

If you use the author’s name in the sentence, use the entire first name.

Example:

Stephen Jay Gould argues that traditional composers will never change (228).

 

A work with multiple volumes

     Show which volume of the work you used.  After the volume number, place a colon and a space, followed by the page number.

Example:

     Frankenstein is one of the best examples of Romantic Literature (Pope 3:433).

 

A literary work

     Because literary works may be available in various editions, give enough information to allow readers to find the passage in their copies.  Give page number in your edition, followed by a semicolon; then, give other relevant information, such as the section or chapter.  Use lowercase abbreviations.

Example:

     Bronte felt that female characters should possess strength, intelligence, and above all, courage.  Thus, Jane Eyre expresses a desire ”to seek real knowledge of life amidst its perils” (99;ch.10).

 

A play

When documenting a play, place the act, scene, and line numbers at the end of the sentence.  Example: 

     Hidden behind Prospero’s speech is Shakespeare’s farewell to his public (II, iv, 15-17).

 

 

 

 

 

An Online Book

Austen, Jane.  Pride and Prejudice,  Ed.  Henry Churchyard.  1996.   10 Sept.  1998  

     <http://www.pemberley.com/janeinfor/prideprej.html>.

 

Part of an Online Book

Keats, John.  “Ode on a Grecian Urn.”  Poetical Works.  1884.  Project Bartleby.  Ed.  

     Steven van Leeuwen.  May 1998.  Columbia U.  8 May 1998

     http://www.columbia.edu/acis/bartleby/keats/keats43.html.