1. Apply these tips to you essay!
Essay 2 Tips
Apply these tips to you essay!

2. Use the “Essay 2 Checklist” in Blackboard!

3. Use the feedback on your graded Essay 1 to help you strengthen your Essay 2.

4. Use at least three quotations from the story in each body paragraph of your essay.

5. Integrate all quotations
Complete sentence: “quotation.”
Someone states, says, asks, yells, thinks, “quotation.”
If the rules above do not apply, no punctuation (usually).

6. Complete sentence: “quotation.”
Thoreau ends his essay with a metaphor: “Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in.”

7. Someone states, says, saying, asks, yells, thinks, “quotation.”
Thoreau suggests the consequences of making ourselves slaves to progress when he says, “We do not ride on the railroad; it rides upon us.”

8. If the rules above do not apply, no punctuation (usually).
According to Thoreau, people are too often “thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails.”
Thoreau argues that people blindly accept “shams and delusions” as the “soundest truths.”

9. Commas and periods go inside of quotation marks, “like this,” and “like this.” Commas and periods should not appear “like this”, and “like this”.

10. Delete the final punctuation from quoted words if the punctuation does not make sense in your sentence:
“Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.”
When Woodifield mentions the grave of the boss’s son, the narrator says that “the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.”, suggesting that the boss is trying to hide his feelings about his son’s death. (incorrect)

11. Delete the final punctuation from quoted words if the punctuation does not make sense in your sentence:
“Old Woodifield paused, but the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard.”
When Woodifield mentions the grave of the boss’s son, the narrator says that “the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard,” suggesting that the boss is trying to hide his feelings about his son’s death. (correct)

12. One Excellent Pattern to Use
Who is speaking and when (the context)
“Quotation”
Interpretation/explanation

13. Example
When Woodifield mentions the grave of the boss’s son, the narrator says that “the boss made no reply. Only a quiver in his eyelids showed that he heard,” suggesting that the boss is trying to hide his feelings about his son’s death.

14. Example
When Laura questions if it is a good idea to bring leftovers from the party to the widow, the narrator says, “Again, how curious, [Laura] seemed to be different from them all,” indicating Laura’s own awareness of how different she is from her family.

15. Example
When Mrs. Sheridan hears about the man’s death, she says, “Not in the garden?” suggesting that she is only concerned with her party.

16. What to do with quotation marks in passages that you quote:
The word from the story “My son!” groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.
The quotation in an essay
After Woodifield leaves, the boss tries to weep for his son: “My son!” groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.

17. What to do with quotation marks in passages that you quote:
The word from the story “My son!” groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.
The quotation in an essay
After Woodifield leaves, the boss tries to weep for his son: ‘My son!’ groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.

18. What to do with quotation marks in passages that you quote:
The word from the story “My son!” groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.
The quotation in an essay
After Woodifield leaves, the boss tries to weep for his son: “‘My son!’ groaned the boss. But no tears came yet.”

19. Quoted words should appear in your essay exactly as the words appear in the story.

20. Quoted words should appear in your essay exactly as the words appear in the story.
But …

21. Brackets can be used to clarify quoted words:
When Laura questions if it is a good idea to bring leftovers from the party to the widow, the narrator says, “Again, how curious, [Laura] seemed to be different from them all,” indicating Laura’s own awareness of the differences between her and her family.

22. Ellipsis points … can be used to delete unnecessary information from quotations:
“It’s all the fault, she decided, as the tall fellow drew something on the back of an envelope, something that was to be looped up or left to hang, of these absurd class distinctions.”
“It’s all the fault, she decided, … of these absurd class distinctions.”

23. Avoid referring to what “the story says”
The story says, “The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine.”
The narrator says, “The gardener had been up since dawn, mowing the lawns and sweeping them, until the grass and the dark flat rosettes where the daisy plants had been seemed to shine.”

24. Miscellaneous Information
Remain in the present tense as you explain what happens and what is said in the story.
Laura says, not Laura said.
The Kelvey girls are, not the Kelvey girls were.

25. Miscellaneous Information
The title of the story goes in “quotation marks.” The title of the story should not be italicized.

26. Miscellaneous Information
The title of your essay should not be the same as the title of the story.

27. Miscellaneous Information
When you refer to more than one Sheridan, Burnell, or Kelvey, use Sheridans, Burnells, or Kelveys (not Sheridan’s, Burnell’s, or Kelvey’s).

28. Miscellaneous Information
Refer to the boss, not The Boss, the Boss, Boss, or “the boss” (no quotation marks).

29. Miscellaneous Information
Note the possessive form of the boss: the boss’ son or the boss’s son, not the bosses son.

30. See the “Essay 2 Checklist” in Blackboard for more Essay 2 tips!