Venice High School
English Department Writing Standards
Essays and Research Papers
Educated writing includes well-thought-out ideas as well as the style and form standards that are required for formal, academic writing.
The Venice High School English Department uses the MLA Handbook, by Joseph Gibaldi, as the official standard for the writing of essays and research papers. This style sheet summarizes the basic style guidelines of the MLA Handbook applicable to most high school papers. For more specific questions, please refer to the MLA Handbook.
Mechanics of Writing
- Take pride in presentation!
Typing is preferred. Use a classic type font such as Times New Roman (not script or fancy typefaces) and use 12-point type. Double-space your lines, leaving one-inch margins on all sides. Indent the first line of each paragraph by five spaces (½ inch). Indent 10 spaces (one inch) for quotations that are more than four lines. Print on white paper, one side only. Do not leave extra space between paragraphs. Leave two spaces between sentences.
Neat, hand-written essays are acceptable. Use college-ruled paper, blue or black ink, one side of the paper only. Do not submit “fringed” papers, torn out of spiral notebooks. Check with your teacher whether you should skip lines.
The heading of your paper should begin one inch from thetop of the first page and flush with the left margin. Type your name, your instructor’s name, the course number, and the date on separate lines, double-spacing between the lines. Double-space again and center the title. Double-space also between the lines of the title and double-space between the title and the first line of the text. (See last page of this guide.)
Write a catchy title, specific to your paper. Do not use the title of the literary work as your title.
Do not divide words at the ends of lines. Do not justify the right margin (do allow right side of essay to be ragged).
Place page numbers on the upper right corner of each page, ½ inch from the top of the paper and flush with the right margin. Begin your page numbering on page 2. The number should include your last name, a space and the page number (only).
Example heading on page 2: Smith 2
If your paper has a title page, do not number that page, but begin numbering on the first page of text, referring to it as page number 1.
2.Writing Format
Commit to writing as a process: idea generation, drafting, revising and more revising are essential.
Set off titles correctly. Underline or italicize titles of full-length works such as books, plays, epic poems, periodicals, works of art, movies, television series and long musical works. Use quotation marks to set off titles of short works such as short stories, poems, essays, articles, songs, chapters of books, and episodes of a television series.
Write about literature in the present tense.
Acceptable: The House on Mango Streettells the story of Esperanza Cordero, whose neighborhood is one of harsh realities and harsh beauty.
Avoid using the second person– “you,” “your,” “you’re.” Do not refer to your audience.
Unacceptable: The passage really grips you. You really feel for the character.
Acceptable:The passage is gripping. The character is appealing because...
Do not use first person (“I,” “we,” “our) in formal essays.
Unacceptable: I will prove that Lady Macbeth couldn’t sleep because she felt such guilt...
Acceptable: Lady Macbeth couldn’t sleep because she felt such guilt...
Weak: Our society is becoming saturated with materialistic values.
Improved: America is saturated with materialism.
First person is appropriate when writing reflection, autobiography or narration.
3. Writing Style
Use precise terms. Avoid “thing,” “got,” “a lot,” “nice,” “hard,” “stuff,” “guy,” “kid.”
Avoid contractions (won’t, can’t, shouldn’t), slang, colloquialism, clichés, and profanity in formal essay writing. DO NOT USE conversational contractions (gonna, wanna, shoulda).
Each of these choices can be replaced by better, more precise wording.
When writing about literature, avoid beginning a paragraph with a statement of plot. Instead, write about the point that you want the topic sentence to establish in the paragraph as it connects to the thesis. Use plot to support/show original ideas about the text.
Unacceptable: In To Kill a Mockingbird Jem breaks his arm.
Acceptable: Harper Lee begins her flashback in To Kill a Mockingbird when she tells the reader that Jem broke his arm.
Try to make your writing vivid by “showing” instead of just “telling” the reader what you have in your mind. Be specific.
Develop each paragraph with three to five reasons, incidents, and/or specifics. Respond to and reflect about these details before beginning a new thought.
Know the purpose of your writing and the audience and write to that audience.
4. Grammar and Punctuation
*Write in complete sentences.
*Keep verb tenses consistent. If you are writing about literature, use present tense of verbs. If you are writing a narrative or fiction or report, select present or past tense and consistently use that tense throughout your writing.
*Observe rules for punctuation, capitalization
5. Quoting Sources
When using direct quotations to illustrate ideas, always introduce quoted material and ease it into your writing. Before you give the quote, provide a context for the quote (what is happening and when/where the quotation takes place), and the name of the person who said the quote (attribution). After you present the quotation, explain what point you think it makes.
Prose quotations of no more than four lines should be enclosed in quotation marks and
incorporated into the text. If your essay uses only one source, such as the novel, play, or
poem you are analyzing, simply include the page number of the quotation in parenthesis
after the quotation. Place the period after the parenthesis and not inside the quotation.
Semicolons and colons are placed outside quotation marks.
Acceptable: For Charles Dickens the eighteenth century was both “the best of times” and “the
worst of times” (35).
If your quotation ends with a question mark or exclamation point, place that inside the quotation marks and then include the period after the page number.
Acceptable: General Zaroff asks Rainsford, “But may I not venture to suggest that you will find my idea of sport more diverting than Ivan’s?” (18).
Prose quotations of five lines or longer, called block quotations, should begin on a new line and be indented ten spaces from both right and left margins. Block quotations are not enclosed in quotation marks. When quoting four our more lines of poetry, use this same block indentation style.
When quoting up to three lines of poetry, enclose the lines in quotation marks and incorporate them into the paragraph. Use a slash with a space on either side to indicate where the original poem begins a new line.
Acceptable: Langston Hughes wrote in his poem “Suicide’s Note,” “The calm, / Cool face of the river / Asked me for a kiss.”
To place a quotation within a quotation, use single quote marks within the double quote marks.
Acceptable: As Lennie and George sit on the riverbank, Lennie explains his dream: “‘An’ I got you. We got each other [. . .].’ Lennie cried in triumph” (104).
Whenever you wish to omit a word, a phrase, a sentence, or more from a quoted passage, you substitute the omission with brackets (or parentheses) enclosing three spaced periods. Punctuate the sentence as you would without the brackets. Be sure that you do not change the meaning of the author’s message by removing some of his/her words. (See example above.)
6. Use of Numbers and Numerals
Spell out numbers written in one or two words (one, thirty-six, ninety-nine, one hundred, fifteen hundred, two thousand) but represent other numbers by numerals (2½, 101, 137, 1,275). To form the plural of a spelled-out number, treat the word like an ordinary noun (sixes, sevens). For large numbers, you may use a combination of numerals and words (4.5 million). Express related numbers in the same style (“exactly 3 automobiles and 129 trucks,” “from 1 billion to 1.2 billion”).
If your report calls for frequent use of numbers, use numerals for all numbers that precede technical units of measurement (16 amperes, 5 milliliters) or for numbers that are presented together and that refer to similar things.
Acceptable: In ten years, the number of participating institutions doubled, reaching 90, and membership in the six-state region rose from 4 to 15.
Do not begin a sentence with a numeral. Use numerals for addresses, dates, page references, decimal fractions, and with abbreviations.
Acceptable: Nineteen ninety-five was the first year of the program. Twenty thousand people joined the organization that year.
Acceptable: 6 lbs., 8 KB, 4:20 p.m., 3%, $9.00, 2", April 1, 2002, page 7
7. Plagiarizing
A quotation is any passage taken from a copyrighted text, not material already in quotation marks in that text (dialogue). You should acknowledge (give credit to) your sources for all direct quotations, all paraphrases of an author’s works, and all points of view particular to a certain author. If you use the exact words from another work without using quotation marks and crediting the source, you are plagiarizing. If you paraphrase another author without giving credit to that author, you are plagiarizing. If you block and copy work on the internet and paste it into your document, or if you take a report written by another person and turn it in as your own, you are plagiarizing. Teachers easily can find documents and passages that you download off the computer and frequently identify students who have plagiarized.
The penalties for plagiarizing are severe. Depending on the situation, your paper will earn a “0" (not “F”), your parents may be notified, you may fail the class, and/or your permanent school file may be marked.