Number of Pages: 4 (Double Spaced)

Writing Style: MLA

Number of sources: 3

Which story’s main character undergoes the biggest epiphany in your opinion? Why? (In other words, which main character undergoes the biggest change?)
Specific examples and direct quotations from the story below are HIGHLY REQUIRED plus an additional Works Cited page. Text: Kirszner, Laurie G., and Stephen R. Mandell. Lit. Boston: Wadsworth/Cengage, 2012. ISBN 1111348839. (use this text it must be exact)

O’Brien The Things They Carried

(Tip: Your paper should be formatted like the sample student papers in the MLA section of your Brief Wadsworth Handbook (and in the literature book) with the same heading, spacing, etc.) )
In addition this check list is what am expecting:
Thesis
· Your thesis must list the topic and make a claim. A claim (an argument) must be arguable. If you can’t argue an opposite

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or alternate to it, then your thesis is not a thesis.
· Everything in the paper answers to (ties back to) the thesis.
Paragraph Construction
General Facts about Paragraphs
· set of related sentences
· begin, end with important information
· serve as mini-essay within larger essay
· a paragraph will make sense as a whole; words, sentences related
Purpose of body paragraphs
· To introduce one of the main points supporting your thesis and to develop that point with examples, facts, and other supporting
evidence
· change in paragraphs indicate to reader that new idea is coming
· give the reader a rest; says to reader, Have you got that? If so, I’ll go on.
Unified
· Unified means paragraph has general idea and discusses ONLY that idea
· Readers have learned to expect a paragraph to contain this main idea
(Remember looking for main idea in grade school?)
· Topic Sentence
– acts as a mini-thesis
– a topic sentence usually works best at the beginning of a paragraph but can, at times, work at the end.
– For the kind of essays we’ll be writing, it works best at the paragraph’s beginning.
– if you look at a paragraph (yours or someone else’s and you can’t find the topic sentence easily, then something is wrong.

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· Relate all other sentences to the paragraph’s main idea (topic sentence)
· Unified means that you avoid digression – If everything in your whole paper must answer to (tie back to) the thesis, then everything
in your paragraph must answer to the topic sentence.
· A paragraph that holds together is unified.
· To check to see that your paragraphs are unified, ask yourself these two questions.
Is there a main idea and do all the sentences relate to it?
Coherent
· Checking for coherence asks if the paragraph follows a logical order that the reader can see.
· A paragraph is coherent if the reader can see how it holds together.
· A coherent paragraph places information in the proper sequence.
· To achieve paragraph coherence: organize effectively
· There are many tried and true ways to organize a paragraph’s info in a logical manner – general to specific, specific to general.
The main thing is that the writer knows and the reader can see an organizational strategy – a plan within the paragraph.
· To make sure that your paragraphs are coherent, ask yourself this question. Can the reader easily see that the paragraph is unified?
Developed
· Solid info must be provided to support your mini-thesis (topic sentence) Info like: facts, details, examples, illustrations.
· A unified, coherent paragraph may still be inadequate if there are few or no details
· most good academic writing backs up general statements with specifics
· Illustrate your points with concrete examples (in our class, the concrete examples will come from the stories and poems we have read
and then covered in class)
· To check to see that your paragraphs are developed, ask yourself these questions: Are the points I’m making cemented?
Will the reader buy my assertions based on these facts?
MLA Documentation
· Every paper needs to have a Works Cited Page and documentation within the paper (internal documentation). 1301 should have taught you how to do a basic works cited page. There are examples in your textbook at the end of the student papers that show how to do one.
· Use parenthetical documentation in your papers to give credit where credit is due (when you are using someone else’s words or ideas)
· If the author is named in the sentence, then parenthetical citations will look like this – Updike’s character Sammy describes the customers as sheep pushing their carts down the aisle (16).
· If the author is not named in the sentence, then your citation will include the author’s name – like this – Sammy pictures a world where men like the girl’s father and the other men were standing around in ice-cream coats and bow ties (Updike 18).
· Any changes you make to the original text to maintain tense and person should be bracketed. Example: Updike’s character Sammy realizes how hard the world was going to be for [him] hereafter (20).

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