Useful suggestions and guidelines for writing papers in the humanities. This series is a supplement for lecture and discussion in the college classroom. While this presentation is primarily intended for writing research and other general topic papers in literature, cultural studies, history, and other disciplines within the humanities, the concepts it addresses may also be useful for writers from other disciplines.

1. … T H AT Y O U M AY H AV E F O R G O T T E N
WRITING TIPS AND
GUIDELINES…
ENGL:1200
INTERPRETATION OF
LIT
KATIE OSTDIEK
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2. RESEARCH TREE
• Don’t limit your research. Start with your main topics and
adjust your searches to suit your research needs.
Slaughterhouse-
Five & Valley of
the Dolls
Valley of the Dolls
Free Will
Drug Culture /
Celebrities
Postmodern
Literature
Form: Narrative
style
Etc.
Literature of the
’50s and ’60s
Postmodern
Literature /
Aesthetics
Non-linear
narratives
etc
Slaughterhouse-
Five
Theme: Free will Genre
War literature Science fiction
Postmodern
Form: non-linear
Non-linear
narrative
Etc.

3. ???QUESTIONS IN YOUR PAPERS???
• When you draft you might use questions to prompt your
own writing.
• As you revise, turn your questions into statements.
This makes your voice more confident and convincing.

4. WHEN DO YOU CAPITALIZE TITLES?
• Capitalize the first and the last word.
• Capitalize nouns, pronouns, adjectives, verbs, adverbs, and subordinate conjunctions.
• Lowercase articles (a, an, the), coordinating conjunctions (but, and…), and prepositions
(unless they’re used adjectivally or adverbially).
• Lowercase the "to" in an infinitive (I want to play guitar).
When Do You Capitalize Titles?
First word: When Last word: Titles
Articles: Coordinating
conjunctions
Prepositions:
Unless Prepositions are use
adjectivally or adverbially:
Do
Verbs:
Capitalize
Nouns:
Titles Pronouns:
You
Adjectives: Adverbs:
Subordinate
conjunctions:
When

5. COMMA SPLICE
• A comma splice is particular kind of comma mistake that happens when you use a comma to
join two independent clauses. Here’s an example:
• Peanuts are not actually nuts, they are legumes.
• How can you tell that’s a comma splice? Look at the group of words before the comma.
• Peanuts are not actually nuts
• Did you notice that this group of words can stand by itself as a complete sentence? That
means it’s an independent clause.
• Now look at the group of words after the comma.
• They are legumes
• This group of words can also stand by itself as a complete sentence. It’s another
independent clause.
• When you have two independent clauses, a comma is not strong enough to glue them
together.

6. COMMA SPLICE
There are 3 common ways to fix a comma splice:
E.g. Billy Pilgrim is not crazy, he is not psychologically healthy, either.
1) Add a conjunction:
1) Billy Pilgrim is not crazy, but he is not psychologically healthy, either.
2) Change the comma to a semi-colon:
1) Billy Pilgrim is not crazy; he is not psychologically healthy, either.
3) Make separate sentences:
1) Billy Pilgrim is not crazy. He is not psychologically healthy, either.
For more, check out:
http://www.chompchomp.com/terms/commasplice.htm.

7. SEMI-COLONS
• A semi-colon typically acts like a soft period. The most
common way to use a semicolon correctly is to connect two
independent clauses.
• Independent clauses can stand alone as a sentence.
• For example:
• Billy Pilgrim became unstuck in time. He often woke up in different
times and places.
*enter the semi-colon
• Billy Pilgrim became unstuck in time; he often woke up in different
times and places.
• DON’T use semi-colons with conjunctions (i.e. and, but, or,
not, for, so, and yet)
*that is when commas are necessary

8. SEMI-COLONS
When should you use a semi-colon?
1) To form a bond between two statements / independent clauses
2) To connect sentences that contain internal punctuation
1) When Billy and Roland were captured, they were taken to a prisoner of
war (POW) camp; there were already British POWs at this camp.
3) To make a list of items that are separated with a comma. This
often occurs when listing locations, names, dates, and
descriptions.
1) At the University of Iowa, I’ve had students from Iowa City, Iowa; Ames,
Iowa; Tawau, Malaysia; Seoul, South Korea; Omaha, Nebraska; Des
Moines, IA; Cedar Rapids, Iowa; Waterloo, Iowa; Moline, Illinois;
Chicago, Illinois; Kansas City, Kansas; and Los Angeles, California.

9. USING QUOTES
• When you quote a source, you need to give it context, but you also need to
integrate it into your paragraph smoothly. To do this, you must introduce
your quotes:
• As Vonnegut suggests in his novel, an error in numbers can have a huge effect. “A
clerical error early in the war, when food was still getting through to the prisoners had
caused the Red Cross to ship them 500 parcels instead of 50” (94). The narrator shows
the slight error in number of parcels resulted in an excess of food at the British POW
camp.
• Corrected with an introduction:
• As Vonnegut suggests in his novel, an error in numbers can have a huge effect. The
narrator describes the effect of the ICRC’s error on the British POW camp,
stating, “A clerical error early in the war, when food was still getting through to the
prisoners had caused the Red Cross to ship them 500 parcels instead of 50” (94). The
narrator shows the This slight error in number of parcels resulted in an excess of food
at the British POW camp…
• Your introductions don’t have to be long:
• Vonnegut says in an interview, “…”
• Katie Wetzel claims, “…”
• John Oliver laments the new policy: “…”
• According to Charles Dickens, “…”

10. USING QUOTES…
AND PUNCTUATION
• When you use quotations, periods and commas will
always go inside the quotation marks…
• …Except when you use an in-text citation.
• …Wetzel claimed that periods and commas always go inside
quotation marks “except when you use an in-text citation” (Wetzel
22).
• Other forms of punctuation (; : ! ?) only go inside the
quotations when they are part of the original quote.

11. BOOK VERSUS NOVEL
What is a book? How is it different from a novel?
• A book can be anything ranging from non-fiction to fiction. As
a result, “book” should only be used when you purposely
want to refer to a wide range or category of texts, such as a
non-fiction work, a collection or work of poetry, a novel, a
textbook, or a written work on any discipline. The person who
writes a book is the author or writer.

12. BOOK VERSUS NOVEL
What is a book? How is it different
from a novel?
• However, a novel is a book on
fiction. The term “novel” only refers
to a written work that contains a
story, often described elaborately.
• A “novel” is a subset of a book.
• And while the writer is most certainly
the author or writer, in this instance
they are also referred to as a
novelist.
BOOK
NOVEL

13. BOOK VERSUS NOVEL
What is a book? How is it different
from a novel?
• Autobiographies bring new
complexities to these terms.
• Usually, an autobiography is
considered non-fiction because it
tells the author’s real-life story.
However, authors will sometimes
include fictional elements with the
autobiographical elements.
• The fiction takes precedence and
these “autobiographies” are
considered novels.
• Not to worry, though, there is
actually a subcategory of novels
that acknowledges these kinds of
novels: the autobiographical
novel.
BOOK
NOVEL
AUTO-
BIOGRAPHY
THE AUTO-
BIOGRAPHICAL
NOVEL

14. AUTHORIAL INTENT
• Authorial intent is the meaning or interpretation of a fictional work that
the author had in mind when he or she was writing.
• Interpreting a work based on authorial intent results in what literary
critics term intentional fallacy
• Intentional fallacy (in literary criticism):
• An assertion that the intended meaning of the author is not the only or most
important meaning;
• This is a fallacy involving an assessment of a literary work based on the author's
intended meaning rather than on actual response to the work.
• For our papers, it also poses difficult restrictions to our writing process.
• To prove intent, you must have evidence.
• Once you have evidence—often journals, interviews, lectures from the author—
you may be able to establish intent, but you might also lose the “arguability” of
your thesis.
• Ignoring the intentional fallacy of an argument about authorial intent
is a sticky trap that can be difficult to pull off in a paper.

15. AUTHORIAL INTENT
• Arguments over authorial intention – and the relevance of this to
the interpretation of a text – go back many centuries, having a
notable force and currency in the discussion of religious texts.
• Contemporary debates about authorial intention in the literary
sphere can be quite precisely dated to the publication of a seminal
article, entitled “The Intentional Fallacy,” by W. K. Wimsatt and
Monroe Beardsley, which first appeared in 1946 in the Sewanee
Review. In that article, Wimsatt and Beardsley, who are generally
associated with the school of literary criticism known as new
criticism, argue that
• “the design or intention of the author is neither available nor desirable as a
standard for judging the success of a literary work of art” (1962[1946]: 92).
Kaye Mitchell, “Authorial Intention,” The Encyclopedia of Literary and Cultural Theory, edited by Micheal Ryan, Blackwell Reference Online, 2011 DOI:
10.1111/b.9781405183123.2011.x

16. AUTHORIAL INTENT
• Questioning the notion of authorial intention has been part of a
recent development in literary criticism (i.e. D.F. McKenzie and
Jerome McGann).
• Specifically, the editing of texts that are meant to represent or
reconstruct an authorially intended version has been criticized
for idealism…
• Such criticism, perceiving the creation of texts as fundamentally a
social action by collaborative forces in production—book designers,
compositors and printers, binders (and, according to some scholars,
readers)—views the pursuit of authorial intention as an ultimate
impossibility…
Adam Rounce, “Authorial Intention,” The Oxford Companion to the Book, edited by Michael F. Suarez and H. R. Woudhuysen, Oxford UP, 2010,
Oxford Reference, 2010, URL: www.oxfordreference.com.proxy.lib.uiowa.edu/view/10.1093/acref/9780198606536.001.0001/acref-
9780198606536-e-0333.

17. PARALLELISM… IN WRITING
• Parallel sentence elements in grammar are just like parallel lines in
geometry: they face the same direction and never meet.
• Parallelism in grammar is defined as two or more phrases or clauses in a
sentence that have the same grammatical structure.
• A sentence with parallel construction makes your writing effective, classy,
and certain to impress anyone who reads your stuff.
• Here’s a handy trick for testing parallelism: rewrite the sentence for each
element that should be parallel. For example:
• A sentence with parallel construction makes your writing effective. A sentence with
parallel construction makes your writing classy. A sentence with parallel
construction makes your writing certain to impress anyone who reads your stuff.
• Effective, classy, and certain are all adjectives. Even though “certain to
impress anyone who reads your stuff” is a mouthful compared to the other
two, each sentence element is the same part of speech. That makes the
sentence balanced, and therefore, parallel.

18. PARALLEL STRUCTURE IN YOUR
SENTENCES: COMMON ERRORS
Verb Forms
• Olympic athletes usually like practicing, competing, and to eat ice cream sandwiches.
• In this sentence, practicing and competing are gerunds (verbs functioning as
nouns) and “to take” is an infinitive. It sounds pretty awkward—just like being
an athlete with a sweet tooth.
• Instead:
• Olympic athletes usually like practicing, competing, and eating ice cream sandwiches.
or
• Olympic athletes usually like to practice, compete, and eat ice cream sandwiches.
• Note that you don’t need to repeat the “to” in each instance of the infinitive
form of the verb. As long as the form of the verb is the same in all three cases,
you’re good to go.

19. PARALLEL STRUCTURE IN YOUR
SENTENCES: COMMON ERRORS
Nouns vs. Verbs
• For dinner we like lamb chops and to fry brussel sprouts.
• Lamb chops is a noun. Brussel sprouts is a noun too, but
to fry is a verb. Tsk tsk.
• For dinner we like lamb chops and brussel sprouts.
• or
• For dinner we like to grill lamb chops and fry brussel sprouts.
• Delicious.

20. PARALLEL STRUCTURE IN YOUR
SENTENCES: COMMON ERRORS
Noun Number
• Public transit such as buses or a train can help reduce air pollution.
• Multiple buses, one train? That’s not going to solve any environmental
issues. Here’s a better solution:
• Public transit such as buses or trains can help reduce air pollution.
More Mismatched Parts of Speech
• The detective deftly and with pizzazz outlined how the crime had been committed.
• What’s the adverb of “pizzazz”? Great question. Both deftly (adverb) and
with pizzazz (a prepositional phrase) need to be the same part of speech
for this sentence to be properly parallel. And if “pizzazzilly” isn’t a word, that
means two nouns are needed.
• With deftness and pizzazz, the detective outlined how the crime had been committed.

21. PARALLEL STRUCTURE IN YOUR
SENTENCES: COMMON ERRORS
Subject Matter
• He decided to cover the gown in sequins, and had a steak for dinner.
• Huh? Unless being a fabulous designer is a recipe for steak, these
two actions don’t seem to have much in common.
• Parallelism in subject matter means that everything discussed in a
sentence should have at least some amount of clarity and
relatedness.
• He decided to cover the gown in sequins, and to celebrate, he had a steak
for dinner.
or
• He was hungry after he covered the gown in sequins, so he had a steak for
dinner.
• The possible connections are endless, but for proper parallelism,
that connection must be clear to the reader.