There are many, many ways to write a good paper, but all good papers have some things in common. They are all clearly and grammatically written; they all develop an argument; they all give evidence for the argument they make; and they are all focused on the topic. What follow are guidelines rather than hard and fast rules, but they are designed to help you improve your paper-writing skills, so it’s worth taking note of them.
1. Title your paper. Your title should indicate your topic or thesis (even if it was assigned). Don’t use the title of the novel as your title!
2. Your first paragraph should give an introduction to the topic of your paper. Outline the specific argument that you will be making and explain why it’s important for an understanding of the novel as a whole. Keep your introduction as specific as you can. First sentences that say things like: ‘From the beginning of the time the family has been an important theme in literature’ are so general as to be practically meaningless. Often, starting with a quotation from the text can be a good way in.
3. The basic structure of your paper is its argument .An argument makes a claim about a text. It is not simply a statement of fact (for example, ‘death is an important theme in Frankenstein’) but an interpretation of the text (for example, ‘Frankenstein is concerned with border-states: the borders between life and death, male and female, public and private, human and non-human’). An argument might be disagreed with; a statement of fact (if it’s correct!) can’t be. Keep your argument specific: make a limited claim about a particular issue in the text.
4. Make sure your paper follows a logical sequence. Does each sentence follow on from the one before? Have you made sure that you have a transition from paragraph to paragraph? Your paper should be like a chain of ideas, each linking to the one before and the one after.
5. Give evidence, in the form of direct quotation from the text, or detailed reference to a scene in the text, for every point you make. If you are quoting directly, make sure you place your quotation in context, so that the reader can make sense of it and knows where it occurs in the text. For example, ‘when the monster confronts Frankenstein on the sea of ice, he says:...etc’. Make sure you don’t take statements by characters as evidence of the author’s or narrator’s views. Introduce long quotations with complete sentences in them with a colon (:).
6. Give details of the edition you are using at the end of the paper. For example: Mary Shelley, Frankenstein (Calgary: Bedford Press, 1995). Write the page number of every quotation in parentheses after the quotation.
7. It is very important that you acknowledge all your sources. See attached paper on plagiarism.
8. Don’t evaluate the text. Sentences that praise the author for her ‘brilliant choice of words’ don’t add anything to your argument.
9. Analyze, don’t describe or tell the plot. Your argument should be the result of some work and thought on your part; it shouldn’t be something that is immediately obvious on reading the book.
10. Use the present tense when you’re describing events that happen in a novel. For example: ‘when Frankenstein goes to Ingolstadt, he quickly becomes obsessed with his own research’.
11. Make sure you spell the author’s and the characters’ names correctly.
12. Your conclusion should summarize your argument and its significance.
13. Revise your paper! It’s very difficult to get it right the first time. Try to write a first draft a little in advance of the due date, so that you have time to work on it, with these guidelines in mind.
14. Proof-read your paper! A reader can’t tell whether a grammatical mistake is a typing error or your own mistake.
Below are some of the general guidelines Therese and I will be using in grading your work for this course.
| A | The ‘A’ paper is outstanding: it addresses its thesis thoughtfully and perceptively. It takes intellectual risks, but is always clear and well-structured. It contains few, if any, typing, grammatical or spelling errors. A straight ‘A’ indicates truly exceptional work: very few papers get a straight A, or even an A-. |
| B | The ‘B’ paper aspires to an ‘A’ but doesn’t quite make it. It shows thought and work, but perhaps its structure isn’t quite in place, or the writing is sometimes a little confused or ungrammatical, or its argument isn’t quite fully developed, or it fails to give evidence for some of its claims. |
| C | The ‘C’ paper is acceptable: it carries out the assignment, but in a way that could be improved upon. It might contain good ideas that are not clearly expressed; or it may be clearly written but unadventurous, with an unambitious argument. |
| D | The ‘D’ paper is weak: it fails to engage the topic, contains too many errors, is unstructured and unclear. |
| E | The ‘E’ paper is a disaster: it shows little or no thought, and is so poorly written as to be unreadable. Plagiarized papers will always get an ‘E’. |