A little something fun....

While you are slaving away on your research papers, this internet hoax might provide a little relief....

But don't spend get stuck wasting too much time! It can be addicting!

You can read about it here and actually play the game here.

Topic Questions

The following is a list from some of my students from last year.  These were not their thesis statements, but the questions that they used to form  their theses.  I have removed the names, but I thought that this might be helpful for you to see how some of them structured their questions.

Name	Topic	Question
Ms. M	The American Dream	How does Gatsby represent the impossibility of the American Dream?
	Analysis of Love	How does love affect/link all the characters in the Great Gatsby?
	Symbolism	How does F. Scott Fitzgerald portray symbolism in The Great Gatsby?
	Imagery	How does Fitzgerald use imagery to capture the essence of the 1920s?
	The American Dream	How Does F. Scott Fitzerald portray the "American Dream" in Gatsby's character ?
	Deception	How does Gatsby use deception to continue living his 87wealthy lifestlye?
	Human Nature	How does human nature affect the tragedy of The Great Gatsby?
	American Dream	How did Gatsby and his American Dream fail and show the flaws of the "Dream"
	Character Comparison	How does the author describe Tom and Gatsby throughout the novel?
	Power of Love	Hoe does Gatsby's undying love for Daisy set the course for his life?
	Role of Women	How are women portrayed in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest?

Some help with MLA formatting

In response to some of your questions, here are some helpful tips for MLA formatting.  You can find more details using some of the resources I posted in previous prompts.

Also, please check out sample papers in the dropbox folder, to use as a model of a literary criticism paper in MLA format.

Quotes of Four Lines or More

When inserting a quote of four lines or more, you need to format it differently than a regular quote.  

• Introduce the quote with a colon (not quotation marks)
• Indent an inch from the left (total margin from the edge 2 inches)
• Single space the quote
• Cite as normal (author's last name page number)
• Remember that if you introduce the source in your sentence, you only need to put the page number.

It should look like this:

If you have other questions, please feel free to e-mail me or post them and I (or others) can respond!