CHECKLIST FOR PAPERS FOR PORTFOLIO

Before you hand in a final paper, it's always a good idea to do all of these things (listed below) to make sure that there aren't any errors that you could easily avoid, especially in the portfolio, where, since your work must represent you, it should be free of errors and "finished."

1. SOME BASIC PAPER SPECIFICATIONS:

--All papers should have a title that is interesting and that gives its reader a clear idea of what the essay contains.

--Font: Use Times New Roman 12-point or some reasonable font (like New Courier 10 point).

--Double space throughout, even for long quotations. Indent block quotations one inch on the left and none on the right. After block quotations, do not indent unless you're beginning a new paragraph.

--Don't bother justifying your right-hand margin.

--No need for a title page. Just put your title on the first line and your name, course, section number, etc. underneath it.

--Last name and page number in the upper right-hand corner of each page, 1/2 an inch from the top, and 1/2 an inch from the right edge of the paper.

--One inch margins on all sides.

2. READ YOUR PAPER ALOUD. You will catch 90% of your errors and awkwardnesses this way. Better yet, read it aloud to a friend who has high standards. That way, the friend not only will help you to catch errors, but also will help you to anticipate the questions that your readers will ask. Spellchecking is not enough.

3. Check your use of verb tenses and get them right (see Simple Ways to Clean up Your Prose).

4. Delete all uses of passive voice except those that improve the paper (see Simple Ways to Clean up Your Prose).

5. Locate every "to be" verb and, wherever possible, rewrite the sentence (see Simple Ways to Clean up Your Prose).

6. His/her, he/she: The best thing to do is to avoid using "he or she" altogether. Either make the entire sentence plural (and use "they"), or else rewrite the sentence to get rid of the pronouns entirely.

7. Sentences Ending with Prepositions: In written English, you should not end a sentence with a preposition because prepositions should always be attached to some object. To fix this: 1) Drop the preposition and see if it makes sense without it, or 2) reorder the words in the sentence (see Rewrite #2).

Example: "Everyone needs something to believe in."

Rewrite #1: "Everyone needs something to believe."

Rewrite #2: "Everyone needs something in which to believe."

8. Semicolons (;): If you have two sentences that you wish to combine into a single sentence, do so with a semicolon. The key here is that both halves of the sentence must be able to stand alone and make sense.

Example of incorrect sentence: "Victor Frankenstein wants power, therefore, he makes a monster."

--See how both halves can stand alone? "VF wants power. Therefore, he makes a monster."

--You can keep them separate, or use a semicolon: "VF wants power; therefore, he makes a monster."

Example of incorrect sentence: "Because VF wants power; he makes a monster."

--See how the halves don't stand alone? "Because VF..." doesn't work alone; it is not a complete thought.

--Example of correct sentence: "Because VF wants power, he makes a monster."

9. Colons: There are two places where you should use colons in your paper: 1) before you list something, and 2) preceding a quotation. Notice that in the previous sentence I used a colon before setting up my list. For how to punctuate a quotation see the handout I gave you on citing passages from text, and pay special attention to the punctuation.

10. its vs. it's: "Its" is possessive (belonging to it); it's is short for "it is." "Its" makes sense when you think that words like "theirs" and "hers" do not contain apostrophes. A more general rule is simply to write out "it is" and therefore never use "it's." Since standard critical prose doesn't contain contractions (in other words, you write out "do not" instead of "don't," and "is not" instead of "isn't," etc.), it's should not appear in your paper. So, use the "FIND" function in your computer, find all the "it's," and make them "its" or "it is," depending on what makes sense.

11. Double-Check All Citations from Texts: Check each quotation and make sure that you've done the following: 1) punctuated it correctly, and 2) prepared your reader for the passage you are quoting. This is especially important for longer passages. The best way to do this is to refer your reader to the moment in the text you are quoting from before you quote from it.

12. Apostrophes: You wouldn't believe this, but at least one-half of the undergraduates at the University of Pennsylvania do not use apostrophes correctly. In standard essay writing, you should only use apostrophes to signify possession. In other words, it is "Mary's car," not "Marys car." NOTE: you do not use apostrophes when you have a possessive pronoun (see above: words like hers, theirs, ours, yours).

13. who vs. that vs. which: Use "who" in place of "that" when you are talking about a person. Which should only come after a comma. Otherwise, there's a very basic rule: use "that" unless it sounds incorrect.

--Example of "who": I have a friend who drives Mary's car.

--Example of "that": I have a friend who drives a car that I used to own.

--Example of "which": I have a friend who drives Mary's car, which she bought from me last year.

--Best way to fix this on a computer: When in doubt, use "that"; then, at the end, use the FIND function to find all the "that"s, and look at each carefully. Making sure you are using "who" when you should is more important than using "which" correctly (as people commonly botch it all the time).

14. seems, perhaps, and maybe: Check your essay for vague uses of "seems" and the like. It is always better, if you can't be certain about a conclusion you wish to draw, to be precise about why you can't be sure and about where your certainty ends and where your uncertainty begins. For similar reasons, examine closely the moments in the essay where you speculate. Do your speculations arise out of your analysis? Are they a means of asking questions? Or are they acting merely as substitutes for more rigorous, text-based analysis? Put another way, have you earned the right to speculate by taking such analysis to its limit and then (by speculating) pushing even further?

15. Make sure you've italicized all titles of Books and Films, and that you've placed all "Essays," "Poems," and "Television shows" in quotation marks.