What you ought NEVER to do in your essays for this class:

• Use "you," "the reader," or "one" because you are assuming that any possible reading will have the same opinion that you are presenting

• Use "I" or "me" unless you are using personal experience to back up your argument(s)

• Use "I believe" or "I think" because those phrases allow you to hedge your arguments instead of just saying "this is so"

• Use contractions because they are informal language structures

• Use questions because you, as the writer, should be answering questions not asking them

• Use "there is/are" or "it is/are" because in using this sentence structure you are avoiding clearly signaling to your reader who/ what is the subject of your sentence 

What you ought ALWAYS to do in your essays for this class:

• Use commas after  introductory clauses, connecting two independent clauses, and with items in a series

• Look up any questions you may have about parenthetical documentation or grammar in The Writer's Reference

• Ask me about things you are unsure about