On this page, I will try to address grammar and style issues that we need to address as a whole class.
1. When referencing a scholar in your paper, you should not use titles like “Mr.” or “Ms”. You should say the scholars whole name the first time you introduce the them. For ex: “According to Janae Smith, the problem with looking at literary children is they are never still.” You do not have to use the whole name every time you refer to the author. After you have introduced them, you may refer to them simply by their last name. For example, you might follow the previous sentences with, “Smith explains that motion is a defining element in the animation of what we recognize as children.”
2. If you are referencing a word (as a word and not for its meaning) in your sentence, it needs to be set apart by quotations. For examples: “Dog” and “hog” are hard rhymes, but “slate” and “spades” also have similar sounds are are what we call, “near rhymes.”
3. Titles of books, newspapers, and journals should be underlined or italicized. Titles of poems, short stories, and articles in newspapers, journals, and magazines should be in quotation mark.
4. History paper involves minimal research of an object or specific detail that is part of the material reality of the story. You look up the history of that item/element, particularly either in the time period the story was set OR (more fun) in the time period the story was first read OR (even more fun) both. Below is a sample student paper. The first link is to the student paper with no comments from me. The second link includes my comments and the grade. Please note that the student did really well, and I still had a number of comments.
5. Slide Show from class on Using Scholars names, Punctuating with Quotation Marks, Passive Voice, and Dangling Modifiers (and floating pronouns)
6. All titles should be capitalized. As a rule (unless it is the first word in the title) you do not need to capitalize articles or prepositions. Titles to novels, newspapers, journals, plays, collections of poetry should be either underlined or put in italics. Titles to poems, articles, short stories, or any smaller piece that will be found under the title of a larger collection should be put in quotations.
For Example: The Adventures of Alice and Wonderland or The Adventures of Alice and Wonderland
not: “The Adventures of Alice and Wonderland” (issue with underlining/italics) or the adventures of alice and wonderland (issue with capitalization) or The Adventures Of Alice And Wonderland (issue with over capitalizing).
For Example: “Little Annie’s Ramble”
not: Little Annie’s Ramble or Little Annie’s Ramble or “little annie’s ramble”
For more on when to underline, italicize or use quotation marks check out: https://web.cn.edu/kwheeler/documents/Punctuating_Titles_chart.pdf and http://grammar.ccc.commnet.edu/grammar/italics.htm (this site thinks about when to use italics in general, which can be helpful)