Paragraph and Essay Writing – Things to Avoid

As we begin writing stronger paragraphs and essays, there are three guidelines you must follow: Use third-person pronouns, not first- or second-person pronouns Write about stories in the present tense, not the past tense Lead in to quotations correctly

First-person pronouns refer to yourself (or yourself and a group of other people) I, me, my, myself, we, us, ourselves, etc. Second-person pronouns refer to someone else (whom you are speaking to) You, your, you all, etc.

Both of these are forbidden in your literary-analysis writing. In your paragraph and essays, you are never allowed to talk about yourself, and you are never allowed to talk to your reader (using the word “you,” etc.).

When you write about events from a story, you want to write about those events in the present tense, not the past tense.

Past tense Present tense He was He is He walked He walks He flew He flies He opened He opens

Correct all errors Harrison Bergeron was arrested by the H-G men in April, but he was able to escape. After escaping, he broke into the television studio and danced with a ballerina. Rainsford accidentally dropped his cigar, and when he reached for it he fell off the yacht he was on. He had to swim to shore in order to avoid drowning. Mme. Loisel and her husband purchased a new necklace in order to the other one. Mme. Loisel was nervous when she gave this replacement one to Mme. Forestier, but Mme. Forestier didn’t open the case and didn’t realize the other one was lost.

There are three rules you must follow when inserting quotations into your essay: Do not change anything about the passages you will include in your essay. All quotations must be placed inside quotation marks and properly cited. In your essay, a passage should never stand alone as a sentence.

MLA guidelines for citations require you to place the author’s last name and the page number of each quotation in parentheses. “He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided” (Connell 26). However, you can drop off the author’s last name if you are only writing about one story and you have already given the title and author’s name. “He had never slept in a better bed, Rainsford decided” (26).

Any ending punctuation should be included after the parentheses. “He looked about him, almost cheerfully” (16). Question marks and exclamation marks from a passage should remain inside the quotation marks, and a period should still follow the parentheses.   “But what kind of men, he wondered, in so forbidding a place?” (16). If the passage you are quoting contains a quotation, the quotation inside the passage should appear within single quotation marks. “ ‘One of us is to furnish a repast for the hounds. The other will sleep in this very excellent bed.’ ” (28). “ ‘Rainsford!’ screamed the general. ‘How in God’s name did you get here?’ ” (28).

Your passages must be part of a larger sentence.   Examples of what to do: In The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad explains that the company manager “was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect” (87). In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens wrote, “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (5).

Examples of what not to do: In The Heart of Darkness, Joseph Conrad writes about the company manager. The company manager was not respected by others. “He was obeyed, yet he inspired neither love nor fear, nor even respect” (87).   “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times” (5). Charles Dickens wrote this at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities. In both sentences, a quotation is the entire sentence. This is not OK. A quotation should only be part of a sentence.

How could we correct the following passages so that they follow our rule? Nick Carraway, the narrator, ends The Great Gatsby with his final thoughts. These thoughts form the famous last sentence of the novel. “So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” (147).

In Slaughterhouse-Five, Kurt Vonnegut explores the suffering of soldiers fighting during World War II. Even though it is a very serious book, it is also written in an almost comical tone. A good example of this is the first line of the book. “All of this happened, more or less” (3).