Advice on Cutting Words — A list of signs of wordiness; use it as a checklist to improve concision in your own writing.

Comment Key — an explanation of the symbols and abbreviations I use when marking your writing

Some Stylistic Conventions for Papers in the Humanities — Conventions simply means the generally accepted way of doing something.  Follow these rules for your exercises and papers (not for listserv posts).

Format Rules — Explanations of proper formatting for exercises and papers in this course.  Here also is a sample of the first two pages of a paper using the proper format.

The List of Incredibly Annoying Errors — A list of errors (with explanations) I never want to see on papers written in my courses.

Guidelines on Thesis Statements, Form, Introductions, Conclusions — A few rules and examples to help you identify and create good theses for all kinds of papers, with links to sample closed-form and open-form essays.

The Writing Center — Where you can receive peer tutoring and advice on all aspects of the writing process.  They get extremely busy towards the end of the semester, so it is a good idea to go early and establish a working relationship with a tutor you find helpful.

A Closed Form Literary Essay — This essays analyzes the character of Ben in Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman.  Note how the introduction begins with a thesis that then becomes divided and specific as the introduction continues.  Note also how this essay avoids the problem common to closed-form essays of repetition in the conclusion.

An Open-Form Literary Essay — This essay discusses a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson about King Arthur and Guinevere.  This essay is slightly longer, and the introduction actually consumes the first two paragraphs.  The question comes at the end of the second, and while the question is of the either/or variety — does Tennyson represent typical Victorian attitudes or go beyond them in some way — the essay goes into considerable detail explaining the answer, i.e. the how and why of it.  Note how the concluding paragraph of the essay answers the question asked in the introduction.

An Explication Essay — This is a close reading of the sonnet “The Soldier” by Rupert Brooke.  Note how thoroughly the essay analyzes the poem, and how the author breaks the quotations in places that make sense.  This essay is also open-form.

Mason Libraries Main Page — Where your research should start.

Mason Libraries Databases Page — Where you can access the MLA Database, J-STOR, The Oxford English Dictionary, among many other research materials. 

OneLook.com — a useful site that gives you definitions from many different dictionaries with only one click.  It also offers a translation function.

The OWL (Online Writing Lab) at Purdue University Resources and Citations Resources page — A site that has the latest updates to APA and MLA citation formats, as well as many other helpful materials.