Writer's name: ________________
 

Editor's Name: ________________

     1. OVERVIEW/ FULFILLMENT OF ASSIGNMENT

TECHNICAL

• Does the paper have a title? Is it an interesting, appealing, and descriptive title?
• Is the paper long enough?  Is it at least 5 full typed pages (1250 wds.) long?
• If it isn't long enough, what has been left out?
• Where could the writer add in more quotes or explanations of quotes?
• Does the writer quotefrom at least three critical essays?
  
• Does the writer of the paper clearly differentiate him/herself from the critics and authors s/he is writing about with attribution tags, making sure they separate what they think from what others think?
• Are there at least five direct quotations, properly punctuated?
• Are all paraphrases legal?  Are there no garbled paraphrases (GPP) which accidentally plagiarize?

CONCEPTUAL

• Do you buy the basic interpretation?  Does it seem to make sense?
• Are the critics used relevant and supportive of the paper's main ideas?

• Fully identify the topic of the paper, including author, title, date of all texts mentioned?
• Provide enough background about the author, date, source, and general topic so that the  average reader can understand the historical context and the basic issues?
• Have a thesis about the plot and/ or mode of the work being analyzed?
• Is the thesis not merely descriptive?  Does it make a proposition which the rest of the paper proves?
• Provide some kind of map of the structure and concerns of the rest of the paper without resorting to stage directions?

• Is there a clear logic to the structure of the paper?
• Does the order of paragraphs make sense?
• Does the paper more or less follow the structure of the work analyzed?
• If it doesn't, is there some other structural logic which is not arbitrary but has a reason?
• Does the paper signpost enough; does it always keep you orientated as to where you are in the story?

• Are there enough examples?  Does the writer actualy prove their thesis using examples?
• Do examples make sense?  Are they relevant to the point being made?

• Has the writer stated the major ideas instead of letting quotes  take over his/her voice and authority?  Does the writer make the claims and use quotes only as support?
• Has the writer quoted enough? Is all the evidence actually included in the paper so that the reader does not have to read through the story or see the film to get the point?
• Is every quote introduced so that context and significance are clear?  DO we always know who is speaking to whom?
•  Do all quotes flow smoothly and clearly into the grammatical structure of sentences?
•  Are all quotes properly punctuated?  (Periods go after parentheses for inserted quotations; before parentheses in block quotes.)
•  Are all direct quotations (except those from web pages) accompanied by a page number citation?  Is this page citation put at the end of the sentence where it will not interrupt the reader's concentration?
•  Are quotes that are longer than three lines indented?  Has the writer remembered not to put quote marks around indented quotes?
• Are there quote marks around titles of essays?  Are book and magazine titles underlined?  (NB: The title of the student's paper should not be in quotes, or underlined, or written out in block caps)

        * FRAG -- fragment (no IS and/or IV)
        * CS or FS -- comma splice or fused sentence (ISIV, ISIV or ISIVISIV)
        * SVA -- lack of subject-verb agreement
        * MC -- Mixed Construction (sentence starts out with one structure and switches midstream)
        * GCMSP -- grammatically crucial misspelling (mixes up parts of speech: its/it's; there/their/they're; then/than)
    Commas
    Look especially for commas introducing quotes.  Make sure that the writer has not created comma splices by connecting a         sentence to a quote using a comma instead of a colon.  Use a colon to connect full, independent sentences to quotes.
        * CSquote -- comma slice created by joining a quote which is a full sentence with an introduction which is a full sentence.

 6. MANUSCRIPT FORM
Some suggestions on format