The Creative Title of Sample Essay
(change his name to your name!) Jeremy Smith
p.3
9/2/10
Be sure to indent the first line of every paragraph by pressing the “Tab” button. Some people think that pressing the space bar five times works the same. This was true years ago when typewriters were used. But with computers, pressing the space bar five times doesn’t indent the first line as far as needed. Also, when typing the first paragraph of the essay at Nipomo High School, remember that the thesis statement should be the last sentence of this paragraph.
No extra spaces have been put between paragraphs or even before or after the title of the essay; the typing is simply double-spaced throughout the entire essay. The margins of this paper are 1” on all sides, which is explained on the “MLA Format” paper. In these two paragraphs are quotes from the book Animal Farm. Notice that the title of the book is in italics because titles of books, newspapers, magazines and paintings are always in italics; titles of short stories, articles, songs, and poems are in quotation marks. The rule of thumb is this: if it takes a long time to create/read, the title should be in italics; if it takes a short time to create/read, the title should be in quotation marks. Also, the next sentence could be one taken from an essay a student has written on the book. For instance, three days after the wisest pig told his dream to the other animals, “old Major died peacefully in his sleep”(15). Notice that there is no punctuation at the end of the quotation; the period actually goes after the citation. The format for citing a quote used in an essay is this: quotation mark, parenthesis, page number, parenthesis, period. The example of this is in the next paragraph.
Whenever using exact words from a book, the words are surrounded by quotation marks, even if the words are not what a person has said. Also, the essay needs to be sure to make it clear what is going on before the quote is typed. For example, in the book Animal Farm, there is much debate between the two leading pigs on how to run the farm, but “whatever suggestion either of them [makes], the other [can] be counted on to oppose it”(31). The lead in to this quote tells the reader that the suggestions are being made by two pigs and that the suggestions are about how to run the farm. Without that information, the reader doesn’t know what is going on. Also, the quote—the exact words—were written in past tense in the book, but this essay is written in present tense. As such, brackets are put around the words that are changed from past tense to present tense. Doing this admits to the reader that the words have been changed, keeping the essay writer from plagiarizing.
The final draft of an essay will not be printed on both sides of a paper, but this one is because your teacher is trying to save unnecessary paper waste. Finally, the header’s number is different on this page than it is on the first page. This can only be done by following the instructions on the “MLA Format” page.