English: Literature, Rhetoric & AP Essays · Module 9 of 13
Poetry & Research Skills
Reading poetry closely for form and meaning, and starting a research project the right way.
Poetic Form & Meter
- Meter is the rhythmic pattern of stressed and unstressed syllables in a line; iambic pentameter — five iambs (an unstressed syllable followed by a stressed one) per line — is the most common meter in English poetry, as in Shakespeare's sonnets.
- A poem's form shapes its structure: a sonnet is 14 lines with a set rhyme scheme, a haiku is three lines (5-7-5 syllables), and free verse follows no fixed pattern at all.
"Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?" is a line of iambic pentameter. How many stressed syllables does it have?
Solution. Iambic pentameter has 5 iambs per line, and each iamb contains exactly one stressed syllable, so the line has 5 stressed syllables.
Reading & Analyzing a Poem
- Read a poem more than once: first for overall meaning and feeling, then again paying attention to word choice, structure, and sound devices like rhyme, alliteration, and assonance.
- Identify the poem's speaker (not necessarily the poet), its tone, and any shift in mood or perspective — many poems include a "volta," a turn partway through.
A poem describes a garden in bright, cheerful language, then shifts in its final stanza to describe the garden "withering" and "fading to grey." What technique is this, and why might a poet use it?
Solution. This is a volta, a turn in tone or mood partway through the poem — often used to reveal a change in perspective or an underlying darker theme beneath an initially pleasant image.
Starting Research: Questions & Sources
- A good research question is specific and answerable with evidence — not too broad ("What happened in WWII?") and not a simple yes/no question — and requires synthesizing multiple sources.
- Evaluate sources for credibility: check the author's expertise, the publisher's reputation, how recent the information is, and whether other reliable sources agree.
Which is the better research question for a short essay: "What is climate change?" or "How has rising sea temperature affected coral reef ecosystems in the last 20 years?"
Solution. The second — it's specific and focused, and answerable using targeted evidence, rather than requiring a textbook's worth of background to address.
MLA Citation & Avoiding Plagiarism
- Plagiarism is presenting someone else's words or ideas as your own — whether copied directly, paraphrased without credit, or an idea used without acknowledgment. Always cite the source.
- MLA in-text citations give the author's last name and page number in parentheses, e.g. (Smith 42); full source details go in a Works Cited list at the end, alphabetized by author.
You paraphrase an idea from page 15 of a book by an author named Garcia, without quoting directly. Do you still need a citation?
Solution. Yes — paraphrasing still uses someone else's idea, so it needs an in-text citation, e.g. (Garcia 15), plus a Works Cited entry. Only common knowledge needs no citation.
Common mistake: Changing a few words of a sentence without citing the source is still plagiarism — paraphrasing removes the need to use quotation marks, not the need to cite.
Check yourself
2 of this module's 5 quiz questions. Pick your answers, then check them in the app, with an explanation for every question.
1. What is iambic pentameter?
2. A poem shifts sharply in tone or perspective partway through. What is this shift called?