2. Writing About Literature

3. Your Title Your title should reflect your thesis Don’t underline or put your title in quotation marks

4. Structure Let the structure of your paper take priority over the structure of the text Organize your paper first, and then arrange your notes and evidence to fit that organization

5. Evidence Tie each piece of evidence into your thesis statement Show the connection between the evidence and your thesis statement

6. Interpreting Give your interpretation of a text Do your own reading and develop your own opinions Don’t let the experts do the writing and thinking for you

7. Praising the Author Do not praise the author or text no matter how great they are Concentrate on how an author achieves his/her great effects

8. Referring to the Writer When you first refer to a writer, give his/her first and last name In subsequent references use the last name

9. Quoting Prose Incorporate direct quotes into your sentence Break up quotations with your own words If a quote is longer than 4 lines, set it off from your own writing by indenting five spaces

10. Ellipsis Three spaced periods (...) form an ellipsis The ellipsis shows that you have deleted words from a quotation without changing its meaning