In the final revision of your analysis, you will include a minimum of one quotation, introduced by a signal phrase and followed by a parenthetical citation. The rough draft that you will begin in class tomorrow does not need to include a quotation because you may still be focused on determining which of the texts will serve as your subject. However, as your analysis progresses, you should be sure to review the citation notes in this blog post (and on the handout you will receive in class tomorrow) to ensure that you are citing the text correctly.
Parenthetical Citations
In your analysis, you will include parenthetical citations for quotations and paraphrases. Since you are writing a textual analysis, I recommend quoting rather than paraphrasing because the writer’s particular word choices are vital to the text’s overall effect. If your subject is one of the unpaginated texts (“The Day Language Came into My Life,” “The Power of the Pun,” or “The Falling Man”), your parenthetical citations will include the abbreviation par. for paragraph, followed by the paragraph number. If your subject is one of the paginated texts (“Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “Back Story,” or “The School”), your parenthetical citations will include the page number by itself.
Including the author’s last name as well would be redundant because you have established in your introduction that your essay focuses solely on a work by him or her. When you write a paper in which you cite multiple sources, you will need to include the author’s last name in the parenthetical citation to clarify which of your sources you are citing.
Here are some examples of how to use parenthetical citations in your analysis:
For “Me Talk Pretty One Day”:
- The nonsense words “meimslsxp” and “lgpdmurct” underscore his utter lack of comprehension in French class (167).
For “The Day Language Came into My Life”:
- The line “‘like Aaron’s rod, with flowers’” alludes to Numbers 17.8 (par. 9).
For “The Power of the Pun, from Shakespeare to Walter Cronkrite to Roy Peter Clark”:
- He observes that in Act I, Scene IV of Hamlet, “Four words collide with multiple meanings: memory, seat, distracted, globe” (par. 10).
For the excerpt from “The Falling Man”:
- He notes that in contrast to the Falling Man, the others who jumped appeared “confused, as though trying to swim down the side of a mountain” (par. 1).
For “Back Story” (the first chapter of The Blind Side):
- He employs the “One Mississippi . . . Two Mississippi . . .” count to mark the seconds leading up to Joe Theismann’s career-ending injury (15).
For “The School”:
- With the words, “[I]s death that which gives meaning to life?,” the story shifts from realism to surrealism (10).
Work Cited Entries
At the end of your analysis, you will include an MLA-style work cited entry. Refer to the models below.
Barthelme, Donald. “The School.” The Best American Short Stories 1975, edited by Martha Foley, Houghton Mifflin, 1975. pp. 8-11.
Clark, Roy Peter. “The Power of Pun, from Shakespeare to Cronkite to Roy Peter Clark.” The Neiman Storyboard, 23 Apr. 20204. https://niemanstoryboard.org/stories/writing-language-linquistics-puns-walter-cronkite/.
Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.
Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life.” The Story of My Life. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/life.html.
Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009, pp. 15-23.
Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little Brown, 2000. pp. 166-73.
Next Up
In class on Wednesday you will begin planning and drafting your analysis of one of the texts we have studied in class: “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” “The Day Language Came into My Life,” “The Power of Pun . . . ,” the excerpt from “The Falling Man,” “Back Story” (Chapter One of The Blind Side), or “The School.” If you were not in class on the day that I distributed copies of one of the texts or you misplaced your copy, you can download and print the text file posted in the readings folder on Blackboard.
Looking Ahead
A week from tomorrow, October 2, I will return your analysis drafts with my comments, and you will have the remainder of the class period to begin revising on your laptops. Because fall break is the week of October 7, you will have an additional week to continue revising before your revision is due on Blackboard and on your WordPress blog. The due date is Wednesday, October 16 (before class). The hard deadline is Friday, October 18 (before class).
Jane Lucas 