Students should know that every academic discipline requires  writers to conform to certain standards of visual  presentation or "format."  Most disciplines' formats differ from  one another, but all are important to readers.  Because this course is taught in the English Department, papers should conform to the MLA Style sheet, a summary of which is presented  below. For full instructions, see the  MLA Handbook for Writers of  Research Papers (2009 edition or later), a copy of which is available at the Writing Center or at the library, or the Bedford, Freeman, and Worth web page to support Diane Hacker's Handbooks: http://image.mail.bfwpub.com/lib/feed1c737d6c03/m/1/Hacker_MLA2009Update.pdf.  "MLA" stands for the Modern Language Association, a major professional organization in the field of English literature and composition studies.  These rules help writers share resources with their readers, and advertise the writers’ willingness to have their facts checked.  Both of those functions are essential to the creation of intellectual property. Ask your instructor and Writing Center tutors  for help. 

Overall Paper Format:

     All papers must be typed or computer printed, double-spaced, with appropriate margins.  Papers should not include separate pages for titles or Works Cited sections, and no blank pages or special binders should be used.  All papers must identify themselves on  the first page by title, author, course and section  number, and date.  All pages must be numbered.  Each paper must end with an accurate and properly constructed "Works Cited" section.  All sources quoted, paraphrased, or summarized (including handouts you get in class) must be acknowledged in  parentheses in your text, as in this direct quotation of a claim that "the cost of elective pregnancy termination . . . must be approaching $500 million a year" (Wilson 19).

     Do not use endnotes to provide bibliographic information like publishers' names, dates, or page numbers.  That is a confusion with U. Chicago footnote style.  Use endnotes only to explain complex indebtedness.  The  course encourages discussion outside of class.  If your paper has  benefited in any important way from the ideas of others,  acknowledge them in an endnote to the first sentence which says  something like this:

 1)  This paper benefited from conversations in Mary Marchand’s English 250 class, especially from Edith Piaf's comments  on poverty and arts funding.  I also thank my Writing Center  tutor, Nancy Atwell, whose conferences helped me define my thesis  about Ginsberg's struggles to write in poverty. 

This note protects its author from violation of the Honor Code,  explaining how it might be that Edith's paper might contain  similar ideas about poverty and the arts, or how another writer  who talked with Nancy Atwell might have had a similar thesis about  Ginsberg.  Remember, acknowledged collaboration on a paper is not  plagiarism unless your teacher has told you specifically not to  collaborate (e.g., on a take-home exam, etc.).

 Common Types of "Works Cited" Citations:

 Book by one author read in print format:

 DeLillo, Don.  White Noise.  N.Y.: Penguin, 1986.  Print.

Book  by one author from the library catalog read in electronic/online format:

Estes, Kenneth W.  A European anabasis: western European volunteers in the German army and SS, 1940-1945.  New York : Columbia University Press, 2008.  ACLS Humanities E-Book electronic edition.   Goucher Library.  Web.  1/11/10  Available: http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=acls;;idno=heb99002

 Book by two or three authors read in print format:

 Fornara, Charles W., and Loren J. Samons II.  Athens from  Cleisthenes to Pericles.  Berkeley: U of California P, 1991.  Print.

 Books containing collections of essays edited by one or more editors read in print format: 

Chafe, William H., and Harvard Sitkoff, eds.  A History of Our   Time: Readings on Postwar America.  3rd ed.  N.Y.: Oxford U  P, 1991.  Print.

An article read in an online-only peer-reviewed journal:

De Gagne, Jennie C. and Kelley Walters, “Online Teaching Experience: A Qualitative Metasynthesis (QMS),”  MERLOT: Journal of Online Learning and Teaching.  5:4 (December 2009)  Web.  1/11/10  Available http://jolt.merlot.org/vol5no4/degagne_1209.htm.

An article read in an online database but originally published in a peer-reviewed print journal:

Lyons, John D.  “Meditation and the Inner Voice.  New Literary History 37:3 (2006) 525-538.  Web.  EbscoHost.  Project Muse.  1/11/10  Available http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/new_literary_history/v037/37.3lyons.html

An article in a print format magazine or newspaper (note that a translation credit comes after the title of both articles and books):  

Tolstaya, Tatyana.  "In Cannibalistic Times."  Trans. James  Gambrell.  The New York Review of Books  XXXVIIII:7  (April 11, 1991) 3-6.  Print.

 An article published for the first time in a print format collection (e.g., an edition of essays on a theme or author or work): 

Cherewatuk, Karen.  “Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Grete Booke’.”  In D. Thomas Hanks, Jr. ed., The Social and Literary Contexts of Malory’s Morte Darthur.  42-67.    Print.   [Note that the whole book would have been given a separate citation, unlike the reprint, below.]

A single article reprinted in a print format collection (e.g., Norton Anthology): 

Tolkien, J.R.R.  "Beowulf: The Monsters and the Critics" (1936)    Rpt. in R.D. Fulk ed., Interpretations of "Beowulf": A  Critical Anthology.  Bloomington, Ind.: Indiana U P, 1991.  Print.

Oxford English Dictionary (OED) definition:

“Psalm.” Def. 1. Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd ed. 1989. Web.  10 Oct. 2006  <http://dictionary.oed.com>

 A movie or video:

Casablanca.  DVD.  Dir. Michael Curtiz.  Perf. Humphrey Bogart, Ingrid Bergman, Claude Raines, Conrad Veidt, Peter Laurie, Sidney Greenstreet.  Warner Brothers, 1943.  [1999]

 Internet web page: 

"Gilman Inducted into National Women's Hall of Fame."  Charlotte Perkins Gilman Newsletter 5.1 (Spring 1995): n. pag. Web. 8 Dec. 1995.  Available https://sites.google.com/site/gilmansociety/newsletter

Blackboard Discussion Forum Posting:

Kimura, Camden.  “love and labrats.”  Posting to English 221 2009 Blackboard Course Discussion Forum, Mahria, Camden, Michael and the Davids 11/19/09 2:52 AM  Accessed 1/11/10 12:23 PM.

Email:

Woodson, Amanda Thom.  "First year courses Fall 10."  Email.  1/11/10  9:50 AM.

A Sample "Works Cited" Section--of course, this would be located after the last endnote, or after the last paragraph of text, and not all papers have so many sources as to require "Primary Sources" to be separated from the Secondary Sources--just don't neglect to cite the primaries!:

Works Cited

 Primary Sources 

Augustine.  The "Summa Theologica." Trans. Fathers of the English Dominican Province, 2nd Edition, Rev. (N.Y.: Bensiger, 1922).  Print.

Julian of Norwich.  Julian of Norwich's Revelations of Divine Love: The Shorter Version ed. from B.L. Add. MS 37790.  Frances Beer, ed.  Heidelberg: Carl Winter, 1978.  Print.

Malory, Sir Thomas.  The Works of Sir Thomas Malory.  Ed. Eugène Vinaver and P.J.C. Field.  3^rd Edition.  3 Vols.  Oxford: Clarendon P, 1990.  Print.

The Prophecy of Merlin (Bodley MS).  [Oxford University, MS Ashmole 59, f. 78r].  Ed. James M. Dean.  Teams Middle English Texts.  Web. Available at http://www.lib.rochester.edu/camelot/teams/merldub.htm  2/12/02 

Wright, Thomas, ed.  Political Poems and Songs Relating to English History Composed During the Period from the Accession of Edw. III to that of Ric. III.  London: Longman, Green, Longman, and Roberts, 1859.  2 Vol.  Print.

Secondary Sources 

Brown, Michelle P.  and James P. Carley.  “A Fifteenth-Century Revision of the Glastonbury Epitaph to King Arthur.”  Arthurian Literature XII.  Ed. James P. Carley and Felicity Riddy.  Rochester, NY: Boydell & Brewer, 1993. 179-91.  Print.

Carpenter, Christine.  “Sir Thomas Malory and Fifteenth-Century Local Politics.”  Bulletin of the Institute of Historical Research  53 (1980)  31-43.  Print.

Cawsey, Kathy.  “Merlin’s Magical Writing: Writing and the Written Word in Le Morte Darthur and the English Prose Merlin.  Arthuriana 11:3 (Fall 2001) 89-101.  Print.

Field, P.J.C.  The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory.  Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993.  Print.

Green, Richard Firth.  A Crisis of Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England.  Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania P, 1999.  Print.

Jeremy, Mary.  “Caxton’s Golden Legend and Voragine’s Legenda Aurea.”  Speculum 21:2 (April 1946) 212-21.  JSTOR  Web.  10/21/09  http://www.jstor.org/stable/2851318

Kerby-Fulton, Kathryn.  “Prophecy and Suspicion: Closet Radicalism, Reformist Politics, and the Vogue for Hildegardiana in Ricardian England.”  Speculum.  75:2  (April 2000) 318-41.  Print.

Lerer, Seth.  “The Wiles of a Woodcut: Wynkyn de Worde and the Early Tudor Reader.”  The Huntington Library Quarterly 59:4 (1996) 381-403.  JSTOR Web.  10/21/09 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3817694

Malory, Sir Thomas. King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales by Sir Thomas Malory.  Ed. Eugene Vinaver.  London: Oxford UP, 1975.  Print. 

--------.  Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, The Seventh and Eighth Tales.  Ed. P.J.C. Field.  N.Y.: Holmes & Meier, 1977.   Print.

--------.  The Winchester Malory: A Facsimile.  Ed. N. R. Ker.  London: EETS, 1976.   Print.

--------.  The Works of Sir Thomas Malory.  Ed. Eugène Vinaver.  2^nd  Edition.  3 Vols.  Oxford: Clarendon P, 1967.  Print. 

--------.  The Works of Sir Thomas Malory.  Ed. Eugène Vinaver and P.J.C. Field.  3^rd Edition.  3 Vols.  Oxford: Clarendon P, 1990.  Print.

Post, J.B.  “Ravishment of Women and the Statutes of Westminster.”  Legal Records and the Historian: Papers presented to the Cambridge Legal History Conference, 7-10 July, 1975 and in Lincoln’s Inn Old Hall on 3 July 1974.  Ed. J.H. Baker.  London: Royal Historical Society, 1978.   Print.