The essay assignment for each week is given on my website. A link to the assignments is on your course outline. To do the essay assignments properly and to get a good grade, follow the directions below:

1. Read the essay assignment carefully so you know what you need to do.

2. If the assignment asks you to define a literary term, research the term before you read the literature. If you do not understand the term before you read, you cannot see how it is used in the literature. Look at the sources listed below. Always use A Handbook to Literature by Harmon and Holman. An ordinary dictionary will usually not be of much help since many of the words have a specialized meaning when applied to the study of literature.

   I define some literary terms in my glossary. The link is given below. Use your grammar handbook for rhetorical terms.

   • The UVic Writer's Guide

   • Gale Group Glossary of Literary Terms

   • MY Glossary of Literary, Rhetorical, and Linguistic Terms

   • Harmon, William. A Handbook to Literature. 9th ed. Upper Saddle       River, New Jersey: Prentice Hall, 2005.

3. Read the assigned literature. Allow time to reread since you may not fully understand a story or poem on the first reading.

Write your essay using Microsoft Word. I will not accept files in other word processing formats. If you have Microsoft Works, save your work in Rich Text Format.

For English 111, 241, 242, and 365, remember to paste in the question you are responding to at the top of your paper. I need this to remind me of what I want you to do in the assignment.

If you are smart, you will have started on your essay early enough so that you will have time for revision. Each completed essay must be at least 500 words. There is no limit on length, but all essays should be concise, informative, and correct. Longer essays that multiply errors simply provide more justification for a poor grade. Microsoft Word will tell you how many words there are in a document.

Be sure that you have done everything that the Checklist for Writing Assignments tells you to do in your essay. This checklist and many other helpful documents are listed on my Links page.

Refer to the chapter your grammar handbook on documenting sources using MLA style, for guidance in parenthetical documentation, and for help in constructing a works cited list. Models are given which cover most situations you will encounter. But remember that for some sources, elements from several different models must be combined. For example, this would be true if you were documenting a story from an anthology which had several editors and was a later edition of the book.

Also look at this page.

Use this convention in naming your files:

• Give the initials for your full name.

• Give the number of the assignment.

Remember that an incorrect file name will incur a ten point grade penalty on the assignment.

Submit your finished work to me as an email attachment. Note that including the document in the body of an email message is not the same thing as attaching a file to an email message.

Your email program will have an icon or menu item you can select to attach a file to a message.

Get your assignment in by the due date to avoid a grade penalty. and remember to put the correct information in the subject line of your email message.