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Writing Advice
UMUC
Effective Writing Center
PLEASE NOTE
October 1, 2013
Dear Andrew,
First of all, I’d like to say welcome to the EWC!
Congratulations on your progress in writing this
assignment for ENGL 457. This draft of your paper
includes a lot of useful information and content.
Good job on your progress so far!
My name is Leigh Ann, and it’s my pleasure to
work with you today.

Advisors may not be experts in the
topic your paper covers.

Advisors will not make any judgment
about the grade your paper may
receive.

Advisors do not copyedit papers.
Sections of your paper will be used to
model the editing you should do.

Advisors know only as much about the
assignment that you share. Please
provide an assignment description in
the submission form.
You are welcome to come to the Effective Writing Center for help at any stage in the writing
process, whether you are having trouble understanding an assignment or want feedback on a
rough draft. At the EWC we are attentive readers who help you improve as a writer by
explaining and modeling effective writing skills. For a more detailed discussion of our
services, please visit the Effective Writing Center’s web site.
Advice Overview
Resources to help you revise your writing assignment are hyperlinked within this letter and in
the More Resources section at the end. Before reading this advice, please review the writing
that you submitted and have a copy handy.
Throughout this advice, you will see links (underlined in blue) to websites that supplement
the advice I’ve provided. To use these links, be sure that you are connected to the internet
and then hold down the CTRL key (for Macs, use the Apple Command key) on your
keyboard and click the link. At certain points in this template, I will include links to videos
within my advice. You can also find these videos and more at the Effective Writing Center
Web Index here. If you would like to speak with an advisory in a live, one-on-one setting,
click here.
In this template, I will focus on your argument itself.
Assignment Requirements
* Though you’ve given your assignment prompt in the “Description” section of your
request, it helps to put a more detailed assignment description in that text box. By offering
details about your assignment, you give the writing advisor more context for their advice and
allow them to comment on how well you’ve met these requirements.
Right now, I can’t tell the exact scope of your assignment, but I will do my best to provide
insightful feedback.
Thesis & Organization
* The thesis is arguably the most important aspect of a paper in a sentence or two. It
should state the central argument of a paper. This argument must be proved in the body of
the paper. It should be as specific as possible, and its language should be as concise as
possible: boiled-down, not wasting any words.
When looking for the thesis of your essay, I found this statement: “This identifies her
journey, experiencing through three marriages to find happiness. But at what expense we
might wonder how it affects her psychologically, moving from one male to another.” But
does this passage really get at the central purpose of your paper?
This thesis gives a wide brushstroke of your topic, but it should be followed up with more
specific language. In order to provide your readers with details strong enough to carry
the rest of your paper, try answering these questions:
 What expense are you discussing here?
 What do these events in the book mean? (How do you interpret them?)
A thesis should be able to stand alone and offer a complete purpose statement for the
entire paper. In order to do this, your thesis needs detail that’s missing here.
As you revise your paper’s thesis, ask yourself the following questions:
 Is this thesis an argument?
 Does this argument match what is proven in the paper? Or, does the body of the
paper surprise the reader?
 Is this thesis as specific as possible?
 Is the language used in this thesis as clear and concise as possible?
Once you revise your thesis to address these issues, you may find that your paper must be
rewritten or rearranged in order to adapt to this new thesis.
This worksheet from the EWC lays out what should be expected and avoided
when constructing a thesis statement. The video on this page defines the
thesis as a topic and your opinion on that topic; it also provides examples of
how thesis statements can be used to outline the argument of the rest of your
paper.
And here’s a link that might help out with forming a successful thesis statement:
“Tips and Examples for Writing Thesis Statements,”
Owl Online Writing Lab
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/545/01/
* When constructing an argument, it’s important to prove the “thesis” or “main claim” of
your paper by using effective sub-claims. Usually, each of these sub-claims will have a
paragraph of their own, which can be organized in this way:
1. Start the paragraph with a claim or assertion (This is sub-claim of the thesis
statement.),
2. Give evidence to back up this claim, and
3. Provide analysis of this evidence to prove the claim (In other words, explain how
the evidence backs up the claim.).
When using this paragraph formula, treat each claim like a mini-thesis statement for the
paragraph. As you prove this claim, your evidence will come from outside sources,
personal narratives, and other examples. Try to confine your use of research to this portion
of your paragraph. In the analysis of the paragraph, you will discuss the claim in light of
the evidence and ultimately explain to your readers how the evidence proves the claim of
the paragraph. This explanation must be logical. Here, you may consider and respond to
counterarguments to the paragraph’s claim. Analysis should also tie the claim in this
paragraph back to the paper’s thesis statement.
For example, if we were constructing an argument about Paris Hilton’s character, we might
follow this order of things:
Thesis/Main claim: Though Paris Hilton has served jail time, her philanthropic endeavors
since her DUI arrest argue that she has turned over a “new leaf.”
And, a sample paragraph from this paper might follow a pattern like this:
The first sentence will make a sub-claim about how Paris Hilton’s jail time was
covered by the media. Now, you will describe the events surrounding the news
coverage of Hilton’s story with the sub-claim in mind. Once you’ve given enough
evidence about the story, you then explain how this evidence proves the sub-claim,
which is the “analysis” portion of the paragraph. Also, it doesn’t hurt to have a
transition either at the beginning or end of each paragraph to make your paper
“flow.”
As you revise your paper, attempt the following:
1. Create a clear main-claim or thesis.
2. Break this thesis into sub-claims that will help prove the paper’s main argument.
3. Prove these sub-claims through evidence and analysis that is also directed toward proving
the thesis.
In order to help you with more information on the arguments and claims of your paper, I’ve
included this website. The section titled “Making a claim” will most likely be helpful:
“Argument,”
The UNC Online Writing Center
http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/argument.html
Be sure to look for other statements in your paper that may be missing the step of analysis
between information and statement. Good luck!
Ultimately, this paper spends too much time summarizing the events of Their Eyes Were
Watching God and not enough time analyzing those events.
Development & Research
* It seems the quotations you include from your research were inserted into your paper
rather than fully integrated into your writing. In your paper, I’ve found that you use quotes
without offering any commentary on them. In academic writing, these are called a
“dangling quotation.” This first occurs on in your paper here:
. . . starts from where she left her last marriage and returns back home alone to
Eatonville (Hurston 2). “So the beginning of this was a woman and she had come
back from burying the dead” (Hurston 1). Janie Crawford’s life can be examined
using the courtship narrative . . .
Dangling quotations often indicate lazy writing to an audience. Without commentary,
quotations make the writer’s voice disappear. It’s your job as writer of an academic research
paper to comment on each quotation and its purpose for your argument. Meaty quotes
don’t make a good paper. Good reasoning and writing do.
Here are some strategies for combating dangling quotations:
 Break up quotes by paraphrasing them while still giving credit to the speaker.
 Use introductory phrases for quotes, such as “X states that,” or “According to the
X.” (Make sure you correctly identify the speaker.)
 Explain how the information within the quotation affects the rest of your paper.
You can do this by answering questions like these:
o What information does this quotation contribute to my paper?
o Why is this quotation important to my paper?
o What is different about this quotation when compared to other points of
view?
When in doubt, comment on a quote!
The video on this webpage from the EWC shows us how to successfully
integrate quotations as evidence into our writing by signaling, citing, and
commenting on the quotation. The video also includes a quick self-test to apply
your knowledge!
And here’s a website that speaks in more detail about how to effectively integrate quotations
into a paper and/or argument:
“Using Quotations,”
University of Toronto Writing Workshop
http://www.utoronto.ca/ucwriting/quotations.html
This is a very detailed handout involving when and how to use quotes and is delivered in a
question and answer format.
Formatting & Citations
* Every citation style has a system of in-text citations included throughout the paper and a
references list or bibliography page included at the end of a document. A sentence
should include a citation whenever information from an outside source is quoted directly or
indirectly. Here, I will go over some general information about MLA Style as published in
the seventh edition of the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers.
Formatting Requirements
Unlike other citation styles, MLA requires a heading not a title page. In the video on this
webpage from the EWC, you will learn how to use Microsoft Word 2007 to
format a paper in MLA Style. Formatting topics include margins, font, headers,
spacing, and the first page. Then, the formatting of a block quotation in the text
of the paper and the Works Cited page are also discussed. If you scroll further
down the worksheet, you will also find a link to view a model paper in MLA
Style. Notice that you will not need a cover page.
In-text Citations
MLA style is cited in the text in its simplest form as the author’s last name and the page
number without a comma, i.e. (Smith 30). These citations appear at the end of a sentence
except in special circumstances. Be sure to punctuate in-text citations in this way:
 End of quotation” (Hale 22).
In other words, place the end punctuation mark after the in-text citation. You can omit the
author’s name from the in-text citation when you directly mention the name in the sentence,
like this:
For example, Cather explains the different cloud formations that form over the
mesas, “every mesa was duplicated by a cloud mesa” (95).
Works Cited Page
In MLA Style, you also use a Works Cited page at the end of your paper, much like the one
you’ve already included. However, I’m concerned that you may be using an outdated format
for some of your sources.
Format an entry this way for a periodical article found in a subscription database
online:
Author’s last name, first. "Title of article." Title of Newspaper, Magazine, Journal Volume.Issue
number (year of publication): page numbers. Database name. Medium. Date of access.
Or more specifically—
Andreadis, Athena. "The Enterprise Finds Twin Earths Everywhere It Goes, But Future
Colonizers of Distant Planets Won't Be So Lucky." Astronomy 10.4 (1999): 64-66.
Academic Search Premier. Web. 7 Feb. 1999.
Be sure to check your Works Cited page against a formatting sample before you turn your
paper in. My biggest piece of advice for you is to remain consistent with your level of detail.
Make sure that every punctuation mark is in the correct space in your entries.
Here is a website that is very thorough and covers a lot of information about MLA Style if
you would like more specific advice:
“MLA Style,”
The Purdue OWL
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/section/2/11/
From the UMUC library, here are a few websites to help with your Works Cited page:
“MLA Citation Examples,”
Information & Library Services – UMUC
http://www.umuc.edu/library/guides/mla.shtml
Just in case you have any questions or want to double-check your citations, I found a great
website with lots of works cited entries at the Duke Library website:
“Assembling a List of Works Cited,”
Duke University Libraries
http://www.lib.duke.edu/libguide/cite/works_cited.htm
You can find information on how to format your in-text citations here.
Grammar & Mechanics
* Here are two websites on proofreading from the Purdue Online Writing Lab. The first is a
list of common comma errors—a grammatical area that often strikes fear into the heart of
writers. 
“Commas: Quick Rules,”
The Purdue OWL
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/607/01/
This site contains (almost) an excess of information on proofreading and revision (global
and local). It not only gives suggestions on how to fix structure and content, but it also states
why proofreading is important.
“Finding Common Errors,”
The Purdue OWL
http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/561/02/
Summary
Good luck! As you continue your work on this project, be sure to:
1. Take your thesis a step further.
2. Work to analyze more and summarize less, making claims that connect to the thesis
you come up with.
3. Avoid dangling quotations.
4. Correctly format your paper in MLA Style.
5. Proofread, as always! 
If you have any questions about or want a “virtual tour” of the Effective Writing Center,
follow this link. Also a supplementary PDF file with frequently asked questions about the
EWC can be found here. And, again, if you would like to see an advisor in a live, chat-room
setting, follow this link.
Writing Advisor:
LAR
Leigh Ann Ruggiero
The Effective Writing Center
www.umuc.edu/ewc
University of Maryland University College
3501 University Boulevard East, Adelphi, Maryland 20783
More Resources
UMUC Effective Writing Center
www.umuc.edu/ewc
"How to Use the EWC" and the “Virtual Tour”
http://polaris.umuc.edu/ewc/web/best_use_ewc.html
Effective Writing Center Web Index
http://effectivewritingcenter.org/
Live, One-On-One Advising
http://polaris.umuc.edu/ewc/web/live_advising.html