1. Introductions and Conclusions Some Basic Guidelines

2. Identify the Text Your opening paragraph should identify the author and the title of the work you are setting out to discuss. ITALICIZE THE TITLE OF THE WORK. Do NOT underline it. Make sure that you write it out exactly as it appears on the book’s cover. The book is NOT called “How To Kill A Mockingbird.

3. Identify the Text. You don’t need a unique sentence to introduce the author and the title; you should build it into a sentence in the introduction. For example: – “Most readers of Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre find Mr. Rochester an attractive and sympathetic figure…”

4. Thesis Statements You should use your thesis statement to awaken interest in your topic. Take time to make sure that your thesis is the focal point of your introduction. You should state your thesis towards the END of your introduction.

5. The Essay’s Title Your introductory paragraph might pick up and develop an idea or image in your title. However, the introduction should not repeat the topic of your title.

6. False Starts—Please Avoid These Things. Avoid Discussion of your Paper: – Open your paper with a statement about the literary work, not about your own paper. Instead of saying—”In the following pages I shall attempt to prove that…” Say— “In Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird…”

7. False Starts—Please Avoid These Things. Avoid Random Judgments / Generalizations: DO NOT WRITE THE FOLLOWING— “To Kill A Mockingbird is a great book and the story is so awesome.”

8. Sample Beginnings Begin with a direct quotation: Example: – “Samuel Taylor Coleridge begins his poem “Kubla Khan” with the lines, “In Xanadu did ….”, immediately pulling his readers into an exotic, foreign world composed of caves…”

9. Sample Beginnings Begin with a Character: Example: – “Willy Loman suffers from a failure of confidence. As the hero of Arthur Miller’s Death of A Salesman, he infects his family and entire atmosphere of the play with his sense of failure.”

10. Sample Beginnings Begin with the Theme: – Example: Graham Greene’s The Destructors provides several examples of the theme that humans are senselessly destructive.

11. Conclusions End with your Thesis: – Leave the reader with the feeling that you, the writer, have concluded your argument and proved your point. – A concluding paragraph should return to the thesis. – The most difficult papers to conclude are those without a thesis.

12. Conclusions-False Endings Avoid Discussion of your Paper– DO NOT WRITE– “This paper has demonstrated that…” Avoid Repetition of your Findings— DO NOT SUMMARIZE THE EXAMPLES YOU HAVE DISCUSSED EARLIER IN THE PAPER.

13. Conclusions-False Endings Avoid Judgments of Approval or Disapproval: – DO NOT WRITE— “Harper Lee was a great writer…”

14. Conclusions-False Endings Avoid a Focus on Your Reactions. – DO NOT WRITE— “I found To Kill A Mockingbird a fascinating work because I could relate so easily to Scout…”

15. Conclusions-False Endings Avoid the Introduction of a New Topic: – DO NOT— Move on to another idea…