Creating an introduction

and Laying Out the rest of

your paper
A map through your Kindred paper
 THESIS: Butler complicates the idea of “home” in Kindred in order to
question the notion that the pain of slavery has passed, ultimately
suggesting that the oppressive systems of institutional racism persist into
the present.

TS #2: Butler includes

TS #1: The fact that Kevin TS #3: When Dana comes
references to racial tension
has trouble readjusting to back to the present for the
in 1976 in order to draw a
his home after being in the last time, she does not
parallel between the
past for five years suggests come back whole; her
institutional racism of the
that power has corrupted amputated arm echoes the
antebellum South and the
him. lasting pains of slavery.
narrative present.

Quotation #1 Quotation #1 Quotation #1

Quotation #2 Quotation #2 Quotation #2
Quotation #3 Quotation #3 Quotation #3
 THESIS: Octavia Butler complicates the idea of “home” in Kindred in
order to question the notion that the pain of slavery has passed,
ultimately suggesting that the oppressive systems of institutional racism
persist into the present.

BLUEPRINT: The lasting effects of slavery and racism are

demonstrated through Kevin's troubled readjustment to his Los Angeles
home, references to racial tensions in the narrative present, and Dana's
amputated arm.

TS #2: Butler includes

TS #1: The fact that
Kevin has trouble
readjusting to his home
after being in the past for
five years suggests that
power has changed him.
TS #3: When Dana
references to racial
comes back to the
tension in 1976 in order
present for the last time,
to draw a parallel
she does not come back
between the institutional
whole; her amputated
racism of the antebellum
arm echoes the lasting
South and the narrative
pains of slavery.
present.
The HOOK

Think of the "hook" as an invitation into your

paper. Your goal here is to make your reader
interested.
Possible Hooks
1) An interesting fact or bit of information (sometimes
you need to do outside research)

Example
Ninety-two citizens were arrested as witches during
the Salem witch scare of 1692. Eventually nineteen
were hanged, and another was pressed to death
(Marks 65).
Possible Hooks
2) A bit of dialogue between two characters or an
important quotation from the book you’re examining. (This
isn’t my favorite kind of hook, since I don’t generally like
quotations without context, but it is an option.)

Example
“It is another thing. You cannot know about it unless
you have it.”

“Well,” I said. “If I ever get it I will tell you” (72).

With these words, the priest in Ernest Hemingway’s A

Farewell to Arms sends the hero, Frederic, in search
of the ambiguous “it” in his life.
Possible Hooks
3) A general idea (but don’t say, "since the beginning of
time...")

Example
The terrifying scenes a soldier experiences on the
front probably follow him throughout his life—if he
manages to survive the war.
Possible Hooks
4) Pose a question or outline a problem.

Example
What does it mean to feel at home? This seemingly
simple notion is, in fact, fraught with complications: for
example, while the word "homely" can mean cozy and
comfortable, it can also mean simple and ugly.
What NOT to do...

● Don't begin with a dictionary definition.

○ Webster's defines "home" as...

● Don't use "I" or "you."

● Don't open with an overly broad or general

statement.
○ Throughout human history....
○ Mankind has always searched for love.
Context
Your context should be no longer than three
sentences. You should ensure that you
include the author’s full names and the title of
the text. With context, you want to summarize
what is important to our understanding of the
text only as it pertains to your topic. You want
to assume the reader has read the text you are
examining; however, you want to remind your
reader and direct them to your specific
viewpoint of the text.
Blueprint
Your blueprint tells your reader what you’re going to talk
about. The blueprint, usually located within the thesis
statement or just after it, is a brief list of the points you plan
to make, compressed into just a few words each, in the
same order in which they appear in the body of your paper.

Since your three-level thesis statement already gives the

reader a pretty good idea of what you’re going to argue in
your paper, you don’t always need a blueprint. The
blueprint can be handy, however, if you want to get more
specific about how you will argue your points in each
paragraph. Your blueprint is basically a quick summary
outlining the arguments you’ll be making in your three
body paragraphs.
Thesis Statement

The thesis statement is usually the last

sentence of your introduction. You’ve spent a
good amount of time working on your thesis
statement already, but now is a good time to
check--does your thesis have its three levels,
and are levels 2 and 3 truly arguable?

Observation--What do you see?

Interpretation--What does it mean? (Arguable)
Significance--Why does it matter? (Arguable)
Body Paragraphs
You know what to do with these!

Body Paragraph 1: Prove your interpretation. (Your “P”

should be a rephrasing of your interpretation level.)

Body Paragraph 2: Prove your interpretation in a new

way by acknowledging and then disproving a potential
counter-argument.

Body Paragrah 3: Prove your significance. (Your “P”

should be a rephrasing of your significance level.)
 Introducing Quotations: The “C” of
PCEAT
When you use quoted passages from a literary text, you need to introduce the quotations carefully: each
quotation you include needs CONTEXT, also known as the who/what/when/where of a quotation. That
might seem like a lot of material to incorporate, but you can do it quickly. Note the efficiency of the
following sample introductions and quotes.

EX 1: On a fishing trip with Quoyle, Dennis admits that he resents his father: “I never learned nothing
from Dad. He kept everything to himself, like his knowledge was precious and would be wasted on me”
(138).

EX 2: Returning to Chicago from his Mexican adventures, Augie March views his hometown in a state of
admiring rapture: “Here it was again, the gray snarled city with enormous industry cooking and its vapor
shuddering to the air, the climb and fall of its stages in construction or demolition like mesas” (425).

EX 3: When Jenny Fields meets Sergeant Garp in the military hospital, she notes that his brain damage has
turned him into a child: “A small, neat man, the former ball turret gunner was as innocent in his demands
as a two-year-old” (19).

Note: In EX 3, the introduction does not mention who the speaker is because we can infer from the quote
that the speaker is the narrator.
Punctuation of Quotations
There are three ways to integrate quoted material into your essays.
1. When the introduction to the quotation is an independent clause (that is, it could stand alone as a
complete sentence), use a colon before the quotation.
Ex 1: When Dana challenges him, Rufus expresses confusion and disbelief: “What’s the
good
of sitting here trading threats? I don’t believe you want to hurt me any more than I want to hurt
you” (226).

2. When the introduction ends with a phrase like “she says” or “he writes,” use a comma before the
quotation.
EX 2: In response to Quoyle’s request for help with his boat, Dennis says, “Only take this thing
out on quiet days. If it looks rough, you’d better get a ride with your aunt” (110).

3. Sometimes you can integrate the quoted phrases directly into the grammar and syntax of your own
sentences. In this case, you don’t need introductory punctuation (other than quotation marks, of
course).
EX 3: Jenny Fields’s editor warns her that readers will either think that she is “the right voice at
the right time” or they will “put her down as all wrong” (132).

NOTE: If you choose this method, be sure that your entire sentence makes grammatical sense.
Quotations within a Quotation
Use single quotation marks to enclose quotes within another quotation.

The reporter told me, “When I interviewed the quarterback, he said they simply

‘played a better game.’”

Note: The examples on the next slides come from a VERY helpful site: Purdue’s OWL,

or Online Writing Lab. You should consult them with any questions you have about MLA

formatting.

owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/
 Long Quotations
For quotations that are more than four lines of prose or three lines of verse, place
quotations in a free-standing block of text and omit quotation marks. Start the
quotation on a new line, with the entire quote indented once from the left margin;
maintain double-spacing. Only indent the first line of the quotation by an additional
quarter inch if you are citing multiple paragraphs. Your parenthetical citation should
come after the closing punctuation mark.
Example:

Nelly Dean treats Heathcliff poorly and dehumanizes him throughout her narration:

They entirely refused to have it in bed with them, or even in their room, and I had no more

sense, so, I put it on the landing of the stairs, hoping it would be gone on the morrow. By

chance, or else attracted by hearing his voice, it crept to Mr. Earnshaw's door, and there he

found it on quitting his chamber. Inquiries were made as to how it got there; I was obliged to

confess, and in recompense for my cowardice and inhumanity was sent out of the house. (78)
Dialogue With More than One
Character
When you quote dialogue between two or more characters in a novel, the quotation should be in
block format. The dialogue should appear as it is in the book. Write each person's spoken words,
however brief, as a separate paragraph. Use commas to set off dialogue tags such as "she said" or
"he explained." If one person's speech goes on for more than one paragraph, use quotation marks
to open the dialogue at the beginning of each paragraph. However, do not use closing quotation
marks until the end of the final paragraph where that character is speaking.

Example:

Clarisse and Montag are so dramatically different that each considers the other odd. One day they meet on the
sidewalk and carry on a conversation that leads them to express their feelings about each other 's peculiarities:
"You're [Clarisse] peculiar, you're aggravating, yet you're easy to forgive. You say you're
seventeen?"
"Well--next month."
"How odd. How strange. And my wife thirty and yet you seems so much older at times.”
"You're peculiar yourself, Mr. Montag" . . .
"How did it start? How did you get into it? . . . You're not like the others." (23)
REMEMBER THIS
1. Periods and commas always occur inside quotation marks when
you’re not citing text:

This set of intersecting lines is what we call a “grid.”

When you say someone is “square,” do you mean he is antisocial or

merely old-fashioned?

2. Semicolons and colons always occur outside quotation marks:

Toynbee began his Study of History with “the annihilation of distance”; he

ended it with “the annihilation of man.”

The teacher predicted that three things will shatter what he calls “the
American dream”: the bigness, the buck and the bomb.
Happy writing!