Blog Post Writing Tips

OPENING SUMMARY SENTENCE EX: Author-title info + SIGNAL WORD+ Overview

In other words, please make sure you include/blend ALL of the identifying article information somewhere in your 1st or 2nd sentence:  author’s name, title of essay, the applicable present tense 

 SIGNAL verb (argues, believes, suggests, illustrates etc.) and the MAIN IDEA;

EXAMPLES: 

• Juliet Ortiz Cofer’s adolescent novel Call Me Maria describes a young woman’s coming of age journey from her island homeland in Puerto Rica to the concrete hardness of a New York City barrio.

• In the essay “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” activist/author Martin L. King wrote a thoughtful response to a newspaper letter written in 1963 by eight Birmingham, Alabama clergymen. King’s famous letter is a poignant rebuttal….

• In the anthology Growing Up Ethnic in America, the short story “American History” by Latina author Judith Cofer chronicles (or traces) Elena’s hope of achieving her American dream.

IN-TEXT EXAMPLES:

• In her book, First Year Writing, Miller Smith examines the frequency with which students “write without editing or revising a completed document” (23).

NOTE: If (as above) the author’s name appears IN THE SENTENCE (that is, IN TEXT), then the name is NOT included in the parenthetical documentation; thus (23) not (Miller Smith 23)! ON THE OTHER HAND,

• The book, First Year Writing, offers advice for instructors who…. in college ( Miller Smith 23).

• Author’s name is NOT in the text, therefore, we add the name at the end.

Never begin with,

On page 120, Sula attacks….