Guides: ENGL 5020/4410 Chaucer: Writing Resources

Poetry

Writing About Poetry
Writing about poetry can be one of the most demanding tasks that many students face in a literature class. Poetry, by its very nature, makes demands on a writer who attempts to analyze it that other forms of literature do not. So how can you write a clear, confident, well-supported essay about poetry? This handout offers answers to some common questions about writing about poetry.
Image in Poetry
What is an image? This is a question that philosophers and poets have asked themselves for thousands of years and have yet to definitively answer. The most widely used definition of an image these days is:"...an intellectual and emotional complex in an instant of time" (Ezra Pound).
Images and Their Uses
The image is often seen, after it has been written, as being one of two things. It is either something that represents a thing in the "real" world, or it is seen as its own thing, divorced from the burden of representing anything other than itself.
Exercises

Sample Essay for Summarizing, Paraphrasing, and Quoting from Purdue OWL
This handout compares and contrasts the three terms, gives some pointers, and includes a short excerpt that you can use to practice these skills.

Summarizing

Paraphrasing

Quoting

Must reference the original source
The text is much shorter than the original text. (For example, one may write a single page to summarize a four-page article.)
Must use your own words, usually with a very limited use of quotations.

Must reference the original source
The text produced is the exact length of the original text quoted (unless ellipses are used)

Use the original author’s exact words
Put quotation marks around the original author’s exact words
Include the page number of the original source from which you borrowed the author’s original language.

MLA Guide from Purdue OWL
These OWL resources will help you learn how to use the Modern Language Association (MLA) citation and format style. This section contains resources on in-text citation and the Works Cited page, as well as MLA sample papers, slide presentations, and the MLA classroom poster.
MLA Sample Paper
Sample Paper
Chicago Manual of Style from Purdue OWL
This section contains information on The Chicago Manual of Style method of document formatting and citation. These resources follow the seventeenth edition of The Chicago Manual of Style, which was issued in 2017.
Chicago Manual of Style, Author Date Sample Paper
Author Date Sample Paper

more...
Chicago Manual of Style, Notes and Bibliography (NB) Sample Paper
Notes and Bibliography (NB) Sample Paper

ePortfolio LibGuide
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