BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING

1 Titles
2 Primary and Secondary Sources Although the basic course bibliography will provide you with
3 Reading Primary Sources all the necessary information to write your PECs, you may
4 Writing a First Draft want to use other sources, such as books, journal articles,
5 Using Secondary Sources and web sites.
6 Paraphrasing and Quoting Plagiarism consists in presenting somebody else’s words or
7 Writing the Final Versions of Your PECs ideas as though they were your own. This is unacceptable in
8 Content Notes academic writing (such as a PEC or a paper) and one of the
9 Documenting Sources (MLA Style - 8th ed.) course objectives is to make students aware of the necessity
9.1 PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION to document sources, if used.
9.1.1 Books and Journal Articles This guide contains basic instructions for academic writing,
9.1.2 Online Sources including citing and referencing conventions.
9.1.3 Two or More Works by the Same Author
9.2 THE LIST OF WORKS CITED 1 Titles
9.2.1 Monographic Books Underline or italicize the titles of books, plays, poems
9.2.2 Anthologies and Collections published independently, journals, web sites, films, TV
9.2.3 Journal Articles programs, musical and sound recordings and works of art in
9.2.4 Online Sources general (e.g. a symphony or a painting). If the title of a work
9.2.5 Films and TV Programs appears within another title, you can either not underline /
9.2.6 Music and Spoken-Word Recordings italicize it, or write it between double quotation marks. For
9.2.7 Lectures example:
9.2.8 A Sample List of Works Cited. Format Aspects Herman Melville's Moby-Dick
10 Final Note Herman Melville's “Moby-Dick”

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 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
Use double quotation marks (“ ”) for works that are part of a
larger work, such as – typically – poems or short stories in a
collection, articles in a journal issue or chapters in a book. Single
quotation marks (‘ ’) are used for titles within titles:
“Poe’s Use of Macbeth in ‘The Masque of the Red Death’”
Note that, in English, all words in titles are capitalized, with the
exception of articles, prepositions and conjunctions (this is not
the case with most Romance languages, which follow other
conventions). This rule does not generally apply to quotes within
titles (see 9.2.4 below).
2 Primary and Secondary Sources
In literature research, the literary texts that are analysed, those
which are the basic focus of attention, are called primary
sources. On the other hand, books and articles on literary texts
(literary criticism on the primary sources) are called secondary
sources or secondary literature. For example, in an essay on
Henry James, Daisy Miller is a primary source, whereas Daniel
Mark Fogel’s “Daisy Miller”: A Dark Comedy of Manners is a
secondary source.
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3 Reading Primary Sources
PECs will require you to write texts on set topics: typically, to
analyze how an aspect of literary theory is used in literary
texts by at least two different authors. It is important to have
a clear idea of what the topic requires and plan the reading
and writing accordingly. Ideally, the primary source should be
read at least twice: a first reading for a general impression
and a second reading, more focused and analytical. This is
easy to do in our course, since the set readings are poems,
short stories or extracts from longer narrative texts.
Take notes as you read and select specific verse lines,
stanzas or paragraphs that seem especially relevant and that
you can refer to in your PECs to exemplify your points. This
is the most important stage in the process: it is essential that
your careful reading of the primary texts shows through.
Needless to say, you should have read the primary sources
involved before planning and writing a PEC.
4 Writing a First Draft
You should begin by organizing your reading notes. Once
you have a list of ideas to write on, consider whether these
can be associated, compared or contrasted. Structure these
ideas in the most suitable way, depending on the topic.
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
Decide which of these ideas should or could be illustrated with
specific references to the primary sources. Although you may
need to make changes to it, your original plan will make the
writing process a lot easier.
5 Using Secondary Sources
In general, it is a good idea to read secondary literature after
reading the primary source (when you have your own ideas
about it) and after writing the first draft of your text. Your draft
may be complemented and enriched by references to what critics
and scholars have said about the primary source.
Since PECs are relatively short, you will need to be very
selective with bibliography. Although the WWW is an invaluable,
readily accessible resource, do not rely exclusively on it and
consider whether the information provided by certain web sites is
authoritative enough (the online course contains links to useful
and academically acceptable web sites).
You may refer to secondary literature by paraphrasing or
quoting. Do not feel, however, that you have to refer to other
sources: make your bibliographic references – if any – relevant
and functional. PECs without any bibliographic references will be
given a good mark, as long as they are well structured and
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written. Conversely, including abundant bibliographic
references will not grant you a good mark.
6 Paraphrasing and Quoting
If you paraphrase, you express what another person has
written in your own words. You still need to acknowledge
authorship, since the idea you choose to paraphrase is
somebody else’s (see “Documenting Sources” below).
If you quote, you reproduce what another person has written
verbatim, i.e. word per word. Use double quotation marks
and, if necessary, single quotation marks within double
quotation marks.
Prose quotations of four lines or shorter, and verse
quotations of three lines or shorter can be incorporated to the
main text using quotation marks (separation of verse lines
should be marked by a slash [/]). In word processed texts,
dramatic dialogue, verse quotations longer than three lines
and prose quotations longer than four lines are set off from
the main text and not enclosed by quotation marks. All
quotations of this length should be indented 2.5 cm from the
left margin.
To indicate an ellipsis in a quoted text (either in the middle of
a sentence / paragraph / poem, or at the end) the easiest
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
thing is to type three periods in square brackets, with spaces
between them. The following is a quotation from A Narrative of
the Captivity and Restauration of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, with an
ellipsis in the middle:
I carried the knife in, and my master asked to give it him, and I was
not a little glad that I had anything he would accept of, and be
pleased with. [. . .]. My son being now about a mile from me, I
asked liberty to go and see him; they bade me go, and away I went;
but quickly lost myself, traveling over hills and through swamps,
and could not find the way to him.
7 Writing the Final Versions of Your PECs
Even in short texts like PECs, it is a good idea to include a clear
introduction and conclusion. In your introduction, you may briefly
refer to the theoretical concept at hand: rhetorical strategies,
characterization, binary oppositions, and so on. In your
conclusion, you may summarize the content of the text and / or
insist on its main idea(s).
If you touch on various aspects, make sure that the final version
of your text is coherent and cohesive: avoid contradictions,
establish connections between ideas and do not deviate from the
main point. If you include quotations from secondary sources,
these should be inserted in your text naturally and effectively.
Revise your PECs for grammar and spelling mistakes. The
student forum of the online course will give you an opportunity to
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discuss your drafts with fellow students, to give and receive
constructive feedback.
8 Content Notes
Do not use footnotes or endnotes to document sources: use
parentheses in the main text (see 9.1 below). Footnotes and
endnotes are meant to provide additional information, or to
clarify certain points. They should appear only if the
information they provide is relevant but cannot be easily
included in the main text. Examples:
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The edition of Uncle Tom’s Cabin used contains the
original illustrations by Hammatt Billings.
2
Quotations of Emily Dickinson’s poems reproduce
the printing type, spacing and indentation of the edition
used.
9 Documenting Sources (MLA Style - 8th ed.)
Both if you paraphrase or quote, your sources must be
properly documented, for two reasons: it is only fair to
acknowledge somebody else’s work and also, your reader
may be interested in the sources that you use or in the
specific references or quotes.
All the details about the sources used must appear at the
end of your text, in a list of “Works Cited.” In the text, these
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
sources can be identified through information provided between
parentheses (parenthetical references or in-text citations).
9.1 PARENTHETICAL DOCUMENTATION
9.1.1 Books and Journal Articles
It is generally enough to provide the author’s family name and
the page number, with no punctuation between them. A
reference to Charles Child Walcutt’s American Literary
Naturalism should be given as in the example:
Stephen Crane can be considered to have introduced pure
naturalism into American fiction (Child Walcutt 250).
If you refer to a book by several authors, list their names using
commas (if more than two) and / or the conjunction “and”:
Anne Bradstreet’s sense of isolation as a female poet has
been connected with the difficulties experienced by
Charlotte Brontë and Emily Dickinson in pursuing their
literary careers (Hedges and Wendt 79-80).
Follow the same rule for articles appearing in periodicals or
volumes by collective authors:
The Twain scholar defined T. S. Eliot as “a writer who is as
different from Mark Twain as it is possible for one
Missourian to be from another” (Trilling 83).
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If the author’s name appears in your sentence, you will only
need to specify the page number (this applies to all kinds of
paginated sources):
Lawrence Buell has referred to the contemporary
parodies of Emerson’s imaging himself as an animated
transparent eyeball (92).
According to Lawrence Buell, “the transparent eyeball
image is regularly taken as the quintessence of
Emersonianism” (92).
All parenthetical references correspond to entries in the list
of works cited, so that bibliographic information about the
sources cited is readily available.
9.1.2 Online Sources
If you refer to a signed online article with page numbers,
follow the guidelines in the preceding section. Less often,
online sources have numbered paragraphs, in which case
you should provide the paragraph number preceded by the
abbreviation “par.”. If your online source does not specify
authorship and if it has neither page nor paragraph numbers,
you should identify your paraphrased or quoted source in the
text. For example:
The W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. web site ranks
Frederick Douglass’s narrative as one “among the
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
classics of nineteenth-century American autobiography.”
(For instructions on how to include web sites in a list of works
cited, see 9.2.4.)
9.1.3 Two or More Works by the Same Author
If you have used more than one source by the same author, you
will need to distinguish sources in order to avoid confusion.
Either in the main text or in parentheses, include the work’s title
(if short) or an abbreviated version of it. If the work’s title
(complete or abbreviated) appears in parentheses, place it
between the author’s name and the page numbers (the author’s
name and the work’s title must be separated by a comma). In an
academic text that cites The Educated Imagination and The
Great Code. The Bible and Literature (both by Northrop Frye),
we could find the following parenthetical references:
In The Great Code, Frye distinguishes between demonic
and apocalyptic imagery (139-140).
It has been argued that the teaching of literature should
begin at the Bible and classical mythology (Frye, Educated
Imagination 110-112).
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9.2 THE LIST OF WORKS CITED
If readers are interested in the complete bibliographic details
of the works referred to, quoted or paraphrased in your text
(and identified through parenthetical documentation) they will
find them in the list of works cited. In the sections that follow,
examples of the most common kinds of sources are given.
9.2.1 Monographic Books
The information needed is: author’s family and first name,
book’s title, publisher and year of publication. These details
should appear in this order and punctuated as follows:
Child Walcutt, Charles. American Literary Naturalism,
a Divided Stream. Minnesota Archive Editions, 1956.
If the book is by several authors, their names must appear in
the same order as they appear on the title page. The entry
begins with the first author’s family name, with the other
authors’ names following (first their name and then their
family name). Names are separated by commas and linked
by the conjunction “and,” as follows:
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle and James Arthur
Levernier. The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900.
Twayne, 1993.
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
9.2.2 Anthologies and Collections
If your reference is to the entire work, the entry in the list of
works cited should begin with the editor’s name, followed by
“editor:”
Baym, Nina, editor. The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. 7th ed., Norton, 2007.
(Specific details about the edition, such as “7th ed.” or “Rev. ed.,”
must be placed after the work’s title.)
If your reference is to a specific work or section of the anthology,
the entry begins with the author’s name and the title of that
particular work or section (in quotation marks or italicized; see 1
above). The editor’s name follows the title of the anthology and
the page sequence where the specific work appears is given at
the end. Example:
Irving, Washington. “Legend of Don Munio Sancho de
Hinojosa.” American Literature to 1900. Edited by Teresa
Gibert, 2nd ed., Ramón Areces, 2009, pp. 149-154.
9.2.3 Journal Articles
These entries begin with the author’s name (as above) and the
article’s title in quotation marks. Other necessary data follow: the
name of the journal, volume number and/or issue number
preceded by “vol.” and “no.” respectively, the year of publication
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and the page sequence preceded by “pp.” – all separated by
commas:
Kirk Thomas, Heather. “Kate Chopin: A Primary
Bibliography, Alphabetically Arranged.” American
Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 2, no. 28, 1996, pp.
71-88.
In some academic journals, issues are instalments of an
annual volume and their pages are numbered continuously.
In this case, specifying the volume number is enough:
Lee, Jee Yoon. “‘The Rude Contact of Some Actual
Circumstance:’ Hawthorne and Salem’s East India
Marine Museum.” ELH, vol. 73, 2006, pp. 949-73.
9.2.4 Online Sources
For online articles that have not appeared in print, after the
author’s name and the article’s title, add the title of the
journal, the volume number, the year of publication, the URL
and the date of access. For example:
Panay, Andrew. “‘God was with me in a wonderful
manner:’ The Puritan Origins of the Indian Captivity
Narrative.” American Studies Today Online, vol. 19, 2012,
http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Online_2012/Captivit
y.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
If you refer to an entire web site include, after its name, the
name of the organization or institution that hosts it, the year
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
when it was created, the URL and the date of access, as follows:
Atlantis Online. AEDEAN (The Spanish Association of Anglo-
American Studies), 2013, http://www.atlantisjournal.org/.
Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
9.2.5 Films and TV Programs
Most film entries contain the following information, in this order:
title (italics), director (“directed by”), main performers
(“performances by”), distributor and year. Example:
The Last of the Mohicans. Directed by Michael Mann,
performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine Stowe,
Morgan Creek Productions, 1992.
A standard entry for a TV program would include the following
information, in this order: the name of the episode or specific
broadcast (quotation marks), the name of the program (italics),
the name of the channel, the broadcast date and – if the program
is available online – the name of the web site and URL.
“Edgar Allan Poe.” Programación UNED, La 2 de
Televisión Española, 5 June 2009. Canal UNED,
https://canal.uned.es/video/5a6f694bb1111f5c3e8b46c1.
9.2.6 Music and Spoken-Word Recordings
These entries begin with the name of the artist (for musical
recordings) or the name of the narrator (for spoken-word
recordings). The title of the recording, the name of the company
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or publisher and the year follow. These two examples can be
taken as models:
Britten, Benjamin. Billy Budd. Virgin Classics, 2008.
Fleetwood, Harry. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s
“The Song of Hiawatha”. Saland Publishing, 2008.
9.2.7 Lectures
Begin with the speaker’s name, followed by the title of the
lecture (italics). If the lecture is part of a conference or
symposium, give its title and the name of the organizing
institution, separated by periods. Include also the place
where the lecture was delivered and the date. You may also
add a descriptor: “Address”, “Keynote Lecture”, “Conference
Presentation”, and so on. For instance:
Söder, Hans-Peter. “Marginalizing the Canon: National
Literature in the Age of Globalization.” New
Literatures of Old. Dialogues of Tradition and
Innovation in the Literatures in English, Universitat
Jaume I de Castelló, 25 Nov. 2006, Castelló (Spain).
Keynote Lecture.
9.2.8 A Sample List of Works Cited. Format Aspects
The list must appear following the main text, on a separate
sheet titled “Works Cited” – this title must be centered. All
entries are ordered alphabetically, taking the author’s family
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING
name or – if there is no author – the first word of the entry,
ignoring articles. Hanging indention must be used for entries
longer than one line.
If there is more than one entry for the same author, write the
name only in the first entry. In the other entries, the author’s
name is replaced by three hyphens and a period (---.). (See
“Frye” below.)
The following list includes most sources referred to in the
preceding sections:
Works Cited
Atlantis Online. AEDEAN (The Spanish Association of Anglo-
American Studies), 2013, http://www.atlantisjournal.org/.
Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
Baym, Nina, editor. The Norton Anthology of American
Literature. 7th ed., Norton, 2007. 2 vols.
Bloom, Harold. Herman Melville’s Moby Dick. Infobase
Publishing, 2007.
Britten, Benjamin. Billy Budd. Virgin Classics, 2008.
Buell, Lawrence. Emerson. The Harvard UP, 2003.
Chandran, Narayana. “Poe’s Use of Macbeth in ‘The Masque
of the Red Death’,” Papers on Language and Literature,
vol. 29, no. 2, 1993, p. 236.
Child Walcutt, Charles. American Literary Naturalism, a
Divided Stream. Minnesota Archive Editions, 1956.
Derounian-Stodola, Kathryn Zabelle and James Arthur
Levernier. The Indian Captivity Narrative, 1550-1900.
Twayne, 1993.
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“Edgar Allan Poe.” Programación UNED, La 2 de
Televisión Española, 5 June 2009. Canal UNED,
https://canal.uned.es/video/5a6f694bb1111f5c3e8b46c
1.
Fleetwood, Harry. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The
Song of Hiawatha”. Saland Publishing, 2008.
Fogel, Daniel Mark. “Daisy Miller”: A Dark Comedy of
Manners. Twayne, 1990.
Frye, Northrop. The Educated Imagination. Indiana UP,
1964.
---. The Great Code. The Bible and Literature. Hartcourt
Brace, 1982.
Gibert, Teresa. American Literature to 1900. 2nd ed.,
Ramón Areces, 2009.
Hedges, Elaine and Ingrid Wendt. In her Own Image. The
Feminist Press, 1980.
James, Henry. Daisy Miller, A Study. The Norton
Anthology of American Literature, edited by Nina
Baym, vol. 2, 4th ed., Norton, 1994, pp. 277-315.
Kirk Thomas, Heather. “Kate Chopin: A Primary
Bibliography, Alphabetically Arranged.” American
Literary Realism, 1870-1910, vol. 2, no. 28, 1996, pp.
71-88.
The Last of the Mohicans. Directed by Michael Mann,
performances by Daniel Day-Lewis and Madeleine
Stowe, Morgan Creek Productions, 1992.
Lee, Jee Yoon. “‘The Rude Contact of Some Actual
Circumstance:’ Hawthorne and Salem’s East India
Marine Museum.” ELH, vol. 73, 2006, pp. 949-73.
Panay, Andrew. “‘God was with me in a wonderful
manner:’ The Puritan Origins of the Indian Captivity
Narrative.” American Studies Today Online, vol. 19,
2012,
 BASIC GUIDELINES FOR ACADEMIC WRITING

http://www.americansc.org.uk/Online/Online_2012/Captivi The MLA Style Center. Modern Language Association,

ty.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019. 2019, https://style.mla.org/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.
Saasweb. SAAS (Spanish Association for American Studies),
http://www.saasweb.org/. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019. Of course, the general guidelines presented in this document
Söder, Hans-Peter. “Marginalizing the Canon: National
must be adapted to the characteristics of the text you are
Literature in the Age of Globalization.” New Literatures of
Old. Dialogues of Tradition and Innovation in the asked to produce and to the specific requirements of your
Literatures in English, Universitat Jaume I de Castelló, 25
lecturer / supervisor.
Nov. 2006, Castelló. Keynote Lecture.
Trilling, Lionel. “The Greatness of Huckleberry Finn.” Huck
Finn Among the Critics. A Centennial Selection, edited by
Thomas Inge, University Publications of America, 1985,
pp. 81-92.

10 Final Note
Accurate and consistent referencing will improve the quality of
your written texts. There are several, widely used citation
systems. The guidelines set forth in this document conform to
those contained in the eight edition of the MLA Handbook, which
you should use if you require more detailed information and
examples, or help on referring to other kinds of sources:
Modern Language Association. MLA Handbook. 8th ed.,
MLA, 2016.
Dídac Llorens Cubedo
The following two websites are also useful:
Departamento de Filologías Extranjeras y sus Lingüísticas
“MLA Style”. Purdue Online Writing Lab. Purdue
University, 1995-2019, Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia (UNED)
https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style
/mla_style_introduction.html. Accessed 5 Dec. 2019.

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