The Perfect Paper

Simple Power Writing

1. Every paragraph has a topic sentence.
2. Topic sentences are declarative sentences that make a claim.
3. Every sentence in the paragraph works for the topic sentence.

Definitions, Explications, Examples

Getting All the Basics Right

1. Quoted passages get full references with page number (Ryan 2012:23).
2. Periods and commas "go inside quotation marks."
3. Unless there is "a reference" (Ryan 2012:29).
4. Contractions are not used. We spell out "isn't" and "it's" and "can't" and "won't" and all the others.