I shouldn't have to say this again, but someone wasn't listening!

1. "Works Cited" means what it says: a list of works that you have actually cited within your paper. There's a reason it's not called "Works Assigned" or "Works Vaguely Referred To" or "Works I May Have Heard My Professor Say Something about But Never Actually Opened Or Read." 

2. There is another way to start a sentence aside from "there is"; in fact, there are many other ways. Learn some verbs! More than one!

3. "Similar in some ways and different in others" is just boring. Don't bore me. I'm not happy when I'm bored, and you don't want unhappy hands controlling the gradebook. 

4. If I tell you a certain idea needs further development, I'm not asking you to restate the same idea three different ways without adding anything. That's not development; that's the written equivalent of a needle stuck in the same groove on a record. (I know you don't know what I'm talking about but I can't currently retrieve a more effective metaphor from my drivel-drenched brain.)

5. Plot summary is not analysis, and summarizing what I said in class is not even close to analysis, but if you're going to write an entire paper summarizing something I said in class, please get it right. Better yet, read the book! You might like it if you give it a try.