1. Things you need to fix in your essays

2. Right now Take out your essay and make edits and notes as we go through this slideshow.

3. Header In the upper left corner, make sure you have the following: Your Name Instructor’s Name Class Date

4. Unique Title Examples of bad titles: MIELcon, Paper, Essay #1, I-America Essay Example of a good title: Heroes from Home

5. Center your title Always center your title Center by justifying center. Do not just tab or space over to where you think the center is.

6. Formatting Font: Always use Times New Roman font for any writing that appears anywhere in your essay. Indent: Always indent the beginning of each paragraph. Indent by pressing the tab key. Double Space: Make sure the entire text is double spaced.

7. Embedding evidence You must always embed your evidence with speaker tags Example Wrong: “My daddy left home when I was three” (Cash 1). Correct: Sue explains, “My daddy left home when I was three” (Cash 1).

8. Citations and Its Punctuation Remember citation rules and how to punctuate evidence. Short Stories – Author’s last name and page number The narrator states, “The Dursleys knew that the Potters had a small son, too, but they had never even seen him” (Rowling 2). Poems – Poet’s last name and line numbers The narrator states, “And looked down one as far as I could / To where it bent in the undergrowth” (Frost 4-5).

9. Capitalization and Spelling Capitalize all first words of sentences. Capitalize proper nouns (names of people, places, things, and ideas). Capitalize the word “I” Check the spelling of your words. Spell check your document.