Paper Checklist

By Miranda Banks

I. Things to think about while you are drafting your paper

II. Common word choice problems
III. Common colloquialisms or problematic phrases to avoid
IV. Making a strong thesis statement
V. When and how to cite
VI. Suggestions for further assistance:

I. Things to think about while you are drafting your paper

1. Avoid plot summary. You know the media (series, game, film, etc.) and expect that your reader has, as well.
While at certain points you may need to discuss a plot point in order to prove your argument or situate the scene
that you are discussing within its narrative context, keep your summary to a bare minimum.

2. Explain the significance. The difference between writing at the high school level and writing at the college level
is that college writing is about asking the question, “Why?” Continually as you write ask yourself, “What is the
significance of what I just said?”—both to this particular argument that I am trying to make, as well as to my
larger thesis statement.

3. Do not rely solely on grammar programs and spell check. Check you paper for grave errors or spelling—like
director’s names, the film’s title, my name. Also, do not use contractions or colloquialisms in your papers.
These are formal essays, and therefore you should write in a formal style. Read your paper over for typos,
misspellings, etc.

4. If you are talking about the content of a piece of media or writing, use present tense. If you are talking about it
as a historical document, it should be in past tense. Films and articles come alive again every time someone
views or reads them. Therefore, write in present tense.

5. Beware of using passive voice! Do you want the verb to describe what the subject does or to describe something
that is being done to the subject? If the latter is true, it is the only case where passive voice is correct. An easy
way to make sure that you talk this way is to discuss a media maker as the active force behind a piece of media.

6. Underlining, italics, periods, and quotation marks. Titles of films, novels, albums, plays, newspapers, and
magazines must be italicized. Smaller things, such as title of articles, songs, or sequences within films should be
put in quotation marks. Underlining was used before typewriters could create italics; they are equivalent in
meaning. Choose one or the other, but always be consistent. Periods always come inside quotation marks,
unless you are quoting a source and are using MLA formatting. In that case, you will then place your period
after and outside the parentheses. See in the examples in section V about placing periods, quotation marks, etc.,
in the correct places.

7. Formatting: All papers should be 12-point Times font, double-spaced, 1-inch margins. Because you have a title
page, you do not need to repeat any of this information on the first page of your paper; start your paper at the
top of the first page. Do not triple space between your paragraphs. Papers should have a title that is not simply
the name of the film you are analyzing. Identify director and date of release (in parentheses). After giving the
full name of director, thereafter use only his or her last name.

8. Harrison Ford, Han Solo, and my best friend Shonda. Make sure you make a distinction between the actor and
the character he or she portrays. They are not interchangeable. And unless you are the very best of friends with
the actor or director you are speaking of, use their last name (e.g., Dash or Lee). No need to use Mr. or Ms.

9. Read your paper aloud. I am your professor, not your proofreader. Therefore, when your paper comes to me it
should be without a single grammatical or typographical error. This means that you will need to read through
your paper at least twice to catch these mistakes. I would also recommend taking your paper to a writing tutor,
or to a friend who is an excellent writer. Resources are available to you, and you should take complete
advantage of them. You should never turn in sloppy work filled with careless errors.
II. Common Word Choice Problems
Avoid vague terms
Verbs like deals with, does, is, has, as well as terms like great, very, interesting, different, or a lot (NB: not alot), do not
say much. Make your words specific—what are you really trying to say? At the same time, do not pick randomly from
the thesaurus—the point is to be more precise, not lofty, in your use of language.

Accept/ Except
To accept something is to take it or agree to it.
Except means “other than.” It can also be a verb—to exclude or leave out.

Affect/ Effect
If you are referring to a thing (a noun) 99% chance you mean effect
If you mean an action (verb) 99% chance you mean affect
One out of a hundred:
Affect: as a noun (accent on first syllable) a psychological term for air or pretense
Effect: to achieve or bring about

Compliment/complement
A compliment is an expression of praise or admiration
A complement is something that completes or makes perfect

Farther/further
Farther when referring to physical distance
Further when you want to refer to abstract ideas to indicate a greater extent or degree

Its/it’s
Its = possessive
It's = it is

i.e./e.g.
i.e. short for Latin “id est” “in other words”
e.g. exempli gratia “for example”
Both have commas before and after –unless, of course, they are proceeded by a dash or a parenthesis.

Than/then
Than when making a comparison
Then when discussing time

That/which
Ask yourself, can you drop the clause and not lose the point of the sentence? If yes, use which. If no, use that. A which
clause goes inside commas. A that clause does not.

Their/There/They’re
Their is possessive
There is a place
They’re, short for “they are,” is a contraction, and therefore should not be used in a formal paper.

Who / whom
Who does something. Who is the subject of the sentence.
Whom has something done to it. Whom is not the subject, but rather the direct or indirect object in the sentence.

III. Common colloquialisms or problematic phrases to avoid

Movie/film or TV/television
The term movie is an abbreviation of moving picture, much like TV for television. We discuss going to the movies as a
cultural experience. Generally in an academic course, what we are studying are films or television series.
Great/a classic/the first
A game is great or a classic according to whom? Are you sure that the television series was the first to do X,Y, or Z? If
so, you should be ready to back up your argument with a citation. Avoid saying something is great and instead give
data—top of the box office, ratings data from Nielsen.

Really unique/the best/the greatest

First, something is either unique or it isn’t. Much like being the most original. There is no gradient on the scale of
uniqueness. On that point, as well, be careful of vague evaluative words like the best or the most.

We/you/the viewer/viewers/the audience

You, the writer, have no idea what we, your readers think of a film. It is very hard to convince a reader of your opinion
by using “we.” Try instead to use a term like the viewer, viewers, or the audience—but when you do, make sure to stick
to either the singular or the plural. Don’t switch back and forth.

IV. Making a strong thesis statement

A thesis statement is a clear, assertive statement that comes near the end of the introduction and explains to the reader
what the paper will prove or demonstrate. It summarizes the central idea of the paper and can be defended by facts and
evidence gathered in research.

Your thesis statement must:

1. rule out most of the material of a text, focusing tight enough to make a specific claim.
2. capture your whole argument in one sentence, both the what and the how.
3. have a narrow focus.
4. be a statement, not a question. It should show confidence, avoiding any hesitant phrases like “I think” or “In
my opinion.”
5. be a complete sentence, not a fragment.
6. express an argument or point of view, which is supported by evidence.

Your thesis should not:

1. make a claim that can be applied to other texts. If you can insert the title of another novel or film in your
thesis and it is still true, your thesis is too general.
2. invoke or rephrase a cliché.
3. make any claim about Society, The History of Mankind, People Since the Beginning of Film, All the People
of the World, Everyone Who Ever Saw this Film, etc.
4. express judgments about the characters in the texts as though they are human beings that exist outside the
text. (You must show awareness that the character is a carefully constructed representation inside the text.)

V. When and how to cite

You write academic papers to display independent thought—not simply to explain what other people have said about a
topic. However, you should understand how to identify, locate, evaluate, and incorporate outside research to support and
build upon your own ideas. When you cite someone else’s work, you are helping the reader understand how you have
developed your ideas. In other words, using other authors’ writing should help you to prove your argument—not make it
for you. You must explain and expand upon the quotation—as well as any other evidence you use in your
argument—showing your reader the significance of this information to the particular argument that you are making
in that paragraph, as well as its significance to your thesis statement. Do not expect that simply by the choice of the
quotation you have picked to place into your argument, your reader will understand why it is there or how it is useful to
your thesis. A paragraph should never end with someone else’s quotation, nor should your paper look like a string of
long quotations of other people’s thoughts. A paper like that does not show much intellectual work; it has been
assembled rather written. Introduce quotations: both to differentiate your voice from that of the author you are citing, as
well as to guide your reader’s interpretation of the quotation. You must always contextualize and explain the
significance of the cited material to your own analysis. I cannot recommend to you enough that you invest in a copy of
the MLA Handbook or some other university level writing guide.
Citation:
Sometimes it is difficult to judge what needs to be documented. Generally, knowledge that is common to all of us, ideas
that have been in the public domain and are found in a number of sources, and facts that are accepted by most
authorities do not need to be cited. Grey areas do exist, though, and at times it is difficult to be sure how to proceed. If
you are in doubt, err on the side of over-documentation.

Gray areas:
Whether you are citing a unique sentence or phrase, or even the structure or progression of a certain detail from
someone else's work, you must acknowledge your source. If you have compressed an author's opinions into fewer
sentences by omitting several phrases and sentences, you must still cite the work. Your compression, or paraphrasing, of
their argument does not disguise your reliance on this text for the concepts that you do not want to pass off as your own.
You must acknowledge your indebtedness to your sources by putting in quotation marks (or eliminating) any borrowed
phrases, and crediting your paragraph as a paraphrase of the original material by citing your source. Please note, though:
paraphrasing requires more than just changing a word here and there—most of the words and also the sentence structure
within a paraphrase need to be your own. As soon as you have written three words in a row that are identical to three
consecutive words in your source, you are doing more than paraphrasing—you are quoting. If you can imagine the
reader saying, "What was the source of that idea?" then you should cite it, even if you rewrote it in your own words.

How to cite a quotation in your paper:

The general rule is to footnote or make a parenthetical reference after, rather than before, your resource material.

Short quotations can be included in the body of your text in double-quotation marks with a citation in parentheses. For
example: “Warner Brothers loaned McCall to Columbia to write Craig’s Wife, largely, Arzner said, “because of her
reputation for writing dialogue” (Mayne, 69).

Long quotations of three lines or more of text should be indented two tabs (10 spaces), single spaced, and without
quotation marks. You should never pull a quotation longer than two or three sentences, at most. Remember, you are
going to need to explain completely why you chose this entire quotation and why and how it is significant to your
argument. Note, this is one case where punctuation should come before documentation:

Works cited:
When referring to an outside source in your paper, give its full title, author, and publication details in a Works Cited list
at the end of your paper.

VI. Suggestions for further assistance:

Visit: The Lacerte Writing and Academic Resource Center (WARC), 216 Tremont Street, 5th floor
Or to schedule an appointment: call 617-824-7874 or sign up online at https://emerson.mywconline.com

Books that are helpful:

Gibaldi, Joseph. MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Sixth Edition. New York: Modern Language
Association, 2003.

O’Conner, Patricia T. Woe is I: The Grammarphobe’s Guide to Better English in Plain English. New York: Riverhead
Books, 1998.

Strunk, William Jr., E.B. White, and Roger Angel. The Elements of Style, Fourth Edition. White Plains, NY: Longman,
2000.