Essay Expectations Essay Expectations Presentation and Format Essays and drafts must be typed, double spaced, stapled together, with pages numbered. Essays must have a title, though they don't have to have a cover sheet. Your title should not be the title of the work you are studying. Titles should give an idea of what you have to say in your essay, inform or excite the reader, intrigue or guide readers about what they will read.
Titles can be a powerful element in the essay.
Essays need to match up to the title, so change the title if your essay ends up veering, or centering in a new direction. References should follow the format for MLA style as explained in the MLA Handbook or your Bedford Handbook. In scene journals, when discussing the assigned scene, references after quotes are not necessary, but if you quote from other passages, provide page number, or act, scene, and line. Use the parenthetical style within the paper, and at the end provide a complete bibliography of works cited with full information about author, title, place of publication, date, and inclusive page numbers. Follow MLA guidelines for citing sources.