This document provides an agenda and instructions for an English writing class. It discusses MLA formatting style, including how to format a paper, integrate quotations, and create a works cited page in MLA style. It also covers topics like using signal phrases, formatting long quotations, and writing tips. Students are assigned to submit paragraphs from their Essay #2 and complete reading for the next class.

1. Class 18
EWRT 1A

2. AGENDA
 Presentation: MLA Format
 Editing Strategies: Wordiness
 Discussion: Open for questions
 In-Class Writing: Writing Workshop Editing

3. MLA Formatting Style

4. MLA format: on our website under “MLA
Guidelines.”
Download “Hapi Tobia Student”
MLA (Modern Language Association) style is most commonly used to
write papers and cite sources within the liberal arts and humanities.
MLA style specifies guidelines for formatting manuscripts and using the
English language in writing. MLA style also provides writers with a
system for referencing their sources through parenthetical citation in
their essays and Works Cited pages.
Writers who properly use MLA also build their credibility by
demonstrating accountability to their source material. Most importantly,
the use of MLA style can protect writers from accusations of plagiarism,
which is the purposeful or accidental uncredited use of source material
by other writers.
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/

5. Paper Format

6. Margins and
Formatting
 Double Click in
Header Area
 Type your last
name
 Justify right
 Go to “insert” and
click on “page
number
Header: Last Name 1
 1” all around
 Go to “Layout” and
adjust margins or
use custom
settings
 Times New Roman
12
 Indent body
paragraphs ½ inch
from the margin

7. Heading: Double
Spaced
 Your Name
 Dr. Kim Palmore
 EWRT 1A
 3 May 2014
Title
 Original Title (not the
title of the essay we
read)
 No italics, bold,
underline, or quotation
marks
 Centered on the page
 No extra spaces (just
double spaced after your
heading and before the
body of your text.

9. Making A Works
Cited Page MLA
Style
Ensure that you have a properly formatted works
cited page

10. Integrating
Quotations

11. According to the St. Martin's Guide, there are
three main ways to set up a signaling phrase:
1. With a complete sentence followed by a colon.
 The effects of Auld's prohibition against teaching Douglass to read
were quite profound for Douglass: "It was a new and special
revelation" (29).
2. With an incomplete sentence, followed by a comma.
 Douglass argues that Auld's prohibition against literacy for him was
a profound experience, saying, "It was a new and special revelation"
(29).
3. With a statement that ends in that.
 The importance of Auld's prohibition to Douglass is clear when he
states that "It was a new and special revelation" (29).

12. Using Signal Phrases:
 One common error a lot of people make when they
include a quotation is that they tend to put the
quotation in a sentence by itself. Unfortunately, we
cannot do this. We need to use what Diana Hacker
calls a signal phrase to introduce the quote and give
our readers a context for the quote that explains why
we are taking the time to include it in our paper.

13. Take, for example, this section from a student
paper:
Incorrect: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees
in her head. “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is
despicable” (65).
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement, but she agrees in
her head: “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is
despicable” (65).
Or
Correct: Katniss doesn’t respond to Cinna’s statement. However, she
thinks, “He’s right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable”
(65).

14. Long Quotations
 For quotations that extend to more than four lines of
verse or prose, place quotations in a free-standing
block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the
quotation on a new line, with the entire quote
indented one inch (10 spaces) from the left margin;
maintain double-spacing. Only indent the first line of
the quotation by an additional quarter inch if you are
citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical
citation should come after the closing punctuation
mark. When quoting verse, maintain original line
breaks. (You should maintain double-spacing
throughout your essay.)

15. The classroom was noisy as the MUN students filed in[. . .] Mr. Mustard
began in the middle of the program, and the room quieted down as we strained
to hear the narrator‟s voice:
I look up at the buildings, these immense buildings They are so
enormous. And along the edges of each enormous building are
the nets. Because right at the time that I am making this visit,
there has been an epidemic of suicides at the Foxconn plant.
Week after week, worker after worker has been climbing all the
way up to the tops of these enormous buildings, and then
throwing themselves off, killing themselves in a brutal and
public manner, not thinking very much about just how bad this
makes Foxconn look. Foxconn's response to month after month
of suicides has been to put up these nets. (Mr. Daisey and the
Apple Factory) Period goes before
the parenthesis
For example, when citing more
than four lines of prose, use the
following example:
Hanging
indent for
long
quotation: 10
spaces

16. Katniss thinks about how difficult it would be to get a meal like this in District 12:
What must it be like, I wonder, to live in a world where food appears
at the press of a button? How would I spend the hours I now commit to
combing the woods for sustenance if it were so easy to come by?
What do they do all day, these people in the Capitol, besides
decorating their bodies and waiting around for a new shipment of
tributes to roll in and die for their entertainment?
I look up and find Cinna‟s eyes trained on mine. „How despicable
we must seem to you,‟ he says. (65)
Katniss doesn‟t respond to Cinna‟s statement, but she agrees in her head: “He‟s
right, though. The whole rotten lot of them is despicable” (65).
Although our world does not really…..
When citing two or more paragraphs, use block quotation format,
even if the passage is fewer than four lines. Indent the first line of
each quoted paragraph an extra quarter inch.
Indent 12.5
Indent 12.5

17. Writing Tips
 Write about literature in present tense
 Write about your experience in past tense
 Avoid using “thing,” “something,” “everything,” and
“anything.”
 Avoid writing in second person. (Don‟t use “you”
unless it is in dialogue.

18. HOMEWORK
 Post #20: Your best two paragraphs
of Essay #2
 Study: Vocabulary (1-16)
 Read: HG through chapter 16; SMG
134- 148 and answer the following
questions: Be ready to talk about
these in class!
 Bring: SMG
 Send essay #2 as an MS Word
document to
palmoreessaysubmission@gmail.com
before class Thursday.
palmoreessay
submission@
gmail.com