Essay Submission Checklist Guide

The following consists of explanations that are meant to accompany the Essay Submission Checklist. The guide here is based on the Modern Language Association (MLA) guidelines for preparing essays.

Margins
Your essay must have one inch (2.5 cm) margins on all sides. The one exception is for the page number heading (which includes your last name followed by the page number), which is placed half an inch from the top of the page (and in the right corner of the page with the usual one-inch margin on the right). Note that some versions of Microsoft Word default to a one and a quarter inch margin on the left and right; if your version of Word does this, then you must manually change the margins.

Submission Information
Your essay must have at the upper left corner of the first page the submission information. This includes four lines of information: your name, the instructor’s name (or, sometimes, the grader’s name), the course code and/or name, and the date you submit the essay. Note that you do not include the date you start your essay, nor do you include the date the essay is due: the date is the date you hand in the essay. If you need to include your student number, include it on the same line as your name.

Font
The font size for your essay must be 12 points. Do not use any other size for anything in your essay. (And do not increase or decrease the font size in an effort to conform to the page number requirements.) Use a standard font: the most common is Times New Roman. Avoid using a sans serif font, such as Ariel; always use a serif font.

Spacing
The essay should be printed with a blank line between each line: that is, it should use double-space lineation. You can set your word processor to double spacing and then you won’t have to worry about it. Some instructors have no problem with single spacing in two parts of the essay: the header information on the first page and block quotations. Note that the Works Cited list is also double spaced.

Justification
Use left justification for your essays. Do not use full justification (where the right margin also gets justified): the ends of the text on the right margin should appear jagged.

Paragraphs
All paragraphs (with the possible exception of the first) must be indented from the left margin by half an inch. You can usually use the Tab key for this. Do not include any extra spacing between paragraphs: there should just be the regular double spacing throughout the essay. Note that some versions of Microsoft Word are by default configured to include extra space between paragraphs. If you have a version of Word that does this, you need to change the settings or the formatting for all your paragraphs.

Archaic Words
You should always use modern, formal English in your essays. Many people use the words amidst, amongst, and whilst because they think these words create formality in writing. These three words are archaic words: they are not modern English words. Instead, use their modern equivalents: amid, among, and while. Adding -st to a word does not make your writing better or more formal.

Words
When you quote a word from a passage, you can place that word in quotation marks. But when you talk about a word as a word, such as when you supply a definition of the word, you italicize the word. For example: The word whilst is very common in modern writing, while amidst is less common.

Possessives
Errors in the use of apostrophes in essays are very common, especially with the indication of possession. Be sure you understand the differences between commonly confused word pairs such as: its and it’s, societies and society’s, ones and one’s. Be sure you understand the difference between such words as: human (singular), humans (plural), human’s (singular possessive), and humans’ (plural possessive). When indicating possession with a singular noun ending in an s, always add ’s (rather than just the apostrophe); for example: “Dickens’s novel” and “Keats’s poem.”

Fragments
Sentence fragments usually occur when: 1) there is no main, finite verb in a sentence, with an associated subject, or 2) the sentence is a subordinate clause without the corresponding main clause. While sentence fragments may be permissible in creative writing and informal writing (The Hunger Games has lots of sentence fragments), they are not allowed in formal writing. Learn to identify fragments and avoid them.

Italics
The MLA has (finally) changed its guidelines about underlining. Never use underlining (for anything) in your essays: use italics instead. Underlining and italics are completely equivalent: underlining is for hand writing, while italics are for printing. The only time underlining might appear in your essays is when you quote something that has underlining in it: no underlining anywhere else. (When hand-writing an exam, use underlining to indicate titles of books.)

Titles
There are two ways to indicate titles in your essay: italics or double quotation marks. Use italics for the titles of longer works, such as: books, plays, book-length poems, newspapers, magazines, journals, web sites, online databases, movies, television shows, operas, long musical compositions, paintings. Use double quotation marks for shorter works, such as: essays (from a journal, a book, a magazine, etc.), stories, poems, individual web pages, titles of episodes from a television show, songs, short musical compositions.

Quotation Accuracy
When you quote something, you are signaling to your reader that all the words in your quotation are someone else’s. You must always represent quotations accurately, especially by including all the words from the quotation in the correct order. If you change the words or omit words from a quotation, you can signal these by using editorial (square) brackets ( [ and ] ) for changes and an ellipsis (...) for omissions.

Block Quotations
Quotations are usually incorporated into your prose using quotation marks to set the quotation off from your own words. This is an inline quotation. If your quotation is long, then you can set it off from your own words by using a block quotation. Block quotations are indented by one inch from the left margin and do not use quotation marks. Use block quotations for prose if the passage you are quoting would otherwise exceed four lines of your essay. Use block quotations for poetry if the passage you are quoting contains more than three lines of the poem.

Quotation Marks
Use double quotation marks throughout your essay. The only time you use single quotation marks ( ‘ and ’ ) is when you have a quotation within a quotation. Note that there is absolutely no difference between single and double quotation marks: by convention, single quotation marks are used in Britain and double quotation marks are used in North America. If you want to use “scare” or “ironic” quotation marks, use double quotation marks.

Commas in Citations
Familiarize yourself with proper MLA citation format. When you need to include the author’s name in your citation with a page number or a line number, do not place a comma between the author’s name and the number. For example, use “(Dickens 354),” not “(Dickens, 354).” The only time commas appear in parenthetical citations is when you need to include two or more elements of information in addition to a number, such as author and title: “(Shelley, “West Wind” 23-24)” and “(Shelley, “Mont Blanc” 1-4).”

Citing Poem Lines
Familiarize yourself with proper MLA citation format. When you refer to or quote lines from a poem, you need to indicate which lines you are talking about. Do not include the page number for the quotation, just the line numbers. If the poem lines are not numbered and the poem too long for you to count the lines, then use page numbers for poetry quotations.

Works Cited
Always include a Works Cited page with your essay, unless your essay really does not refer to any other works. English essays (almost?) always refer to other works, usually at least the work that is being analyzed by the essay. Include references to all dictionary and encyclopedia entries referred to in your essay; include references to all web sites referred to in your essay. Your Works Cited list can be renamed “Work Cited” if there is only one entry in your list. The list should always be on a separate page: standard formatting (including margins and double spacing) apply to the page.