Verb Phrases

A verb phrase contains a verb in the form of a participle. A participle is a form of a verb that ends in ing or… Read More

On Editing Your Own Writing: Some Advice

by Susan Doose

Editing your own writing can be challenging, but it's not impossible Read More

The History of Scholarship Project

by Farrah Lehman Den

Students will apply research skills from the online course and develop a presentation that demonstrates their understanding of how scholarship on a single work of literature changes over time. Read More

Analyzing Rhetorical Appeals: A Lesson for College Students

by Ruth Li

A lesson for college students on rhetorical appeals Read More

How do I create a vertical list in which each item includes a quoted fragment and a complete sentence?

Follow the guidelines on how to create a vertical list. Since the quotes are fragments, you may lowercase them. Either a colon or a period… Read More

Is it OK to italicize a word for emphasis in my paper?

The MLA style discourages the use of italics in academic prose to emphasize or point, because they are unnecessary—most often, the unadorned words do the… Read More

Five Commonly Misattributed Quotations

by Joseph Wallace

Quotations are frequently misattributed to famous people. This post examines five common examples. Read More

Nouns

Nouns are words that refer to persons, places, things, feelings, or characteristics. They can be divided into two main categories: common nouns and proper nouns. Read More

If I use a quotation that is already in quotation marks in my source, how many quotation marks should I use?

As the MLA Handbook notes, “When your quotation consists entirely of material enclosed by quotation marks in the source work, usually one pair of double… Read More

Can a copyright date be used as a publication date for a web source?

If the Web page you are citing does not provide a publication date, you should use the copyright date. Read More