1a. MLA Format: 12 point font, Times New Roman, standard margins, double spaced, all pages numbered with your last name and page number on top right of header; on the top left of document on page 1 four lines are devoted to (1) your full name, (2) course, sect #, (3) Professor’s full name, and (4) date.
1b. Page Count: Your story is limited to 3 pages. Do not go over. For the rough draft, however, it is okay if your essay is 4 pages. One of the things your peer reviewers will help you with is finding ways to cut your ideas or “kill your babies” so that you can meet the 3 page maximum. Often that quotes in the rough draft are what need to be edited down to become more concise.
2. Title: There is no title page. Title is centered under the four lines to the right with your name, course, professor’s name, and date. For literary titles, your reader needs to know the subject and your prompt position, so use the colon. Type the Title of the Play (italicized), followed by a colon, followed by your clear, concise, and creative position on the prompt you chose.
3. Opening Strategy: Your Opening Strategy is your attention grabber, and it must be a story based example: Either Personal Experience (PE), Other People’s Experience (OPE), Case Scenario (CS), Hypothetical (Hypo), or Hypo-Combo (HC).
4. Thesis Statement: Your thesis statement is the main idea and focus for the entire essay. You can reference example thesis statements from PDF download titled Death of a Salesman Essay Structure Topic Points. Your thesis should end your introduction as the last sentence of the final paragraph of the introduction. Remember: Introductions should be limited to three paragraphs or less.
5. Topic Sentences: You must have clear topic sentences. One clear and concise sentence that begins each body paragraph. Topic sentences set up what the paragraph is to be about. They should directly relate back to the three points that are listed in your thesis statement.
6. Paragraphs: You should have a minimum of 5 paragraphs: one minimum for your introduction, one paragraph for each of the three topic points in your body, and one minimum for your conclusion. You can have more than five paragraphs. Generally, Introductions are limited to three paragraphs, body paragraphs are determined by the number of topic points, and conclusions are usually one, sometimes two paragraphs.
7. Signal Phrases: You need detailed signal phrases to set up quotes so that your reader understands the context of the quote. If it’s a quote of dialogue, the reader must understand who is speaking to who and under what circumstances. If the quote is from the narrator, the reader still needs the context of the situation as well as knowledge that the quotes is coming from the narrator.
8. Quoting: Be concise. This is key. Long quotes are almost always poor execution. Your job is to pull out the shortest, most dynamic, most memorable quote possible and set it up with a proper signal phrase followed by a detailed response. You will need a minimum of three quotes per topic point. That equates to a minimum of nine quotes for the essay if you have three topic points.
9. Response: This is the analysis part. Your job as a writer is to illustrate, comment on, explain, explicate, compare and contrast, argue, reveal, uncover, and so on. This is the most important part of the essay and what makes it your own. So we expect that after you present a quote, you clarify in detail how or why the quote is important.
10. Conclusion: You must conclude your essay with a Book End that revisits the Opening Strategy (OS) example you started your essay with in the introduction.