English 211 Style Sheet
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 Stylesheet, 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.).
Middle English and Other Non-Modern-English Quotations and Titles:
Be careful to cite your primary source properly, and to proofread your quotations carefully. Middle English, because it is a form of English, is not treated typographically as a "foreign language," so it is not set in Italics or underscored as a passage in French or Latin would be (e.g., "Hic iacet Arthurus, Rex quondam Rexque futurus" [Malory, Vinaver 2nd ed. 1242]). Use a virgule or "slash" (/) to mark line breaks in quoted poetry if you are setting the verse into your prose text without line breaks. Cite poems by line numbers, unless they are multi-part works, as in a citation of Chaucer's Troilus, a five-"book" poem, which might look like this (V.120-300) to refer the reader to lines 120 through 300 of book five.
As always, major works (multi-part, or just very long, usually published alone as a modern edition) should have their titles Italicized or underscored (e.g., Troilus, Le Morte Darthur [and leave out the "sic" for the pronoun gender error--everybody knows about it], Piers Plowman). You will find disagreement about some works of medium size and arguably independent significance, like Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is a four-part work that also is one of five works found in the unique MS by the anonymous Gawain- or Pearl-poet, or Chaucer's Knight's Tale, a long, four-part work that always is found as part of the first fragment of the Canterbury Tales. Sometimes both are set in quotation marks because they are being treated as smaller works in relation to works with which they are related (e.g., "Sir Gawain and the Green Knight" and "Pearl," or "Knight's Tale" and "Miller's Tale"). You will find variety in referring to Chaucer's great tale-cycle: Canterbury Tales implies the writer is speaking of them as an aesthetic unit and individual tales would be in quotes; Canterbury Tales implies the writer is speaking of them as a generic type of tale Chaucer invented but never as a single, New Critical "poem."
Titles of persons in England, that is, their proper names, create their own wonderful problems. Any man who is knighted ordinarily will become known by his title (Sir) and his first name, so Sir Philip Chetwynd, uncle to Sir Thomas Malory, would have been known as "Sir Philip" and never as "Sir Chetwynd." The latter error is a mistake American students sometimes because they want to avoid over-familiarity ("My good friend Bill Shakespeare says...") and they have not been familiar with the antiquated concept of knighthood from youth. Authors, like Sir Thomas, still may be referred to by their last names, using the upper-class British convention of familiarity, as in the statement that "Malory uses few subordinate clauses." The other titles (earl, duke, baron) work with the lords' and ladies' given and family names (e.g., Richard Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick). Only the kings and queens are usually known only by one name and their title in common usage (e.g., Richard, called "my lord, the King of England," by his courtiers) but only as a name and number to scholars (e.g., Richard I, or II or III). Powerful aristocrats also sometimes are known by their first name and the place of their birth, like Chaucer's famous patron and protector, John of Gaunt (duke of Lancaster, uncle of Richard II). He was born in the city we know as "Ghent," in Belgium. His birthplace is used to distinguish him from other "Johns" in his family.
Common Types of "Works Cited" Citations:
Your primary source for literary analysis if the work is reprinted in the Norton Anthology of English Literature:
Chaucer, Geoffrey. “The Miller’s Prologue and Tale.” Stephen Greenblatt, et al. eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Vol. 1. 9th Edition. (N.Y.: W. W. Norton, 2012) 264-80. Print.
Book
read in print format with one author:
DeLillo,
Don. White Noise.
N.Y.: Penguin, 1986.
Book from the library catalog read in electronic/online format with one author:
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
read in print format with two or three authors:
Fornara, Charles W., and
Loren J. Samons II. Athens from
Cleisthenes to Pericles. Berkeley:
U of California P, 1991.
Book
read in print format composed of essays edited by one or more authors:
Chafe, William H., and Harvard
Sitkoff, eds. A History of Our
Time: Readings on Postwar America.
3rd ed. N.Y.: Oxford U
P, 1991.
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.
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
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.
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.
A
single article reprinted in a print format collection (cf., the Norton Anthology
above):
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.
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
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.
Woodson, Amanda Thom. "First year courses Fall 10." Email. 1/11/10 9:50 AM.
Primary
Sources
Augustine.
The "Summa Theologica." Trans. Fathers of the English
Dominican Province, 2nd Edition, Rev. (N.Y.: Bensiger, 1922).
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.
Malory,
Sir Thomas. The Works of Sir Thomas Malory.
Ed. Eugène Vinaver and P.J.C. Field.
3rd Edition. 3
Vols. Oxford: Clarendon P, 1990.
--------. King Arthur and His Knights: Selected Tales by Sir Thomas
Malory. Ed. Eugene Vinaver. London: Oxford UP, 1975.
--------. Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte Darthur, The Seventh and Eighth
Tales. Ed. P.J.C. Field. N.Y.: Holmes & Meier, 1977.
--------. The Winchester Malory: A Facsimile. Ed. N. R. Ker. London:
EETS, 1976.
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.
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.
Carpenter,
Christine. “Sir Thomas Malory and
Fifteenth-Century Local Politics.” Bulletin
of the Institute of Historical Research
53 (1980) 31-43.
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.
Field,
P.J.C. The Life and Times of Sir Thomas Malory. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer, 1993.
Green,
Richard Firth. A Crisis of
Truth: Literature and Law in Ricardian England.
Philadelphia: U Pennsylvania P, 1999.
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.
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
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.