Class Session: November 10, 2020

Agenda

  • DISCUSSION PAGE: Self-Assessment of RE Draft 1
  • Workshop drafts
  • Citation Practices

Self-Assessment of RE Draft 1

Please go to this page free-write a self-assessment of draft 1 of your Research Essay.

Workshop Drafts

30 minutes

In your peer review group, please present (by email is best) your draft to your peers. There should be no more than 3 peers per group, so each person will be reading 2 papers.

Though we have 30 minutes, this is not a lot of time, so you will need to focus your reading and questions/suggestions for the writer on specific areas. I recommend focusing on two areas: the introductory paragraph and a body paragraph that presents evidence from an outside text, and the writers synthesis of that evidence withe their own writing.

Here are some questions you can keep in mind when reading:

INTRODUCTORY PARAGRAPH:

  • As you look at the introduction sentence by sentence, how soon does the writer start to introduce their topic? Recall that we looked at model for an introductory paragraph in class on October 27, 2020. You can go to that page if you want to review.
  • Does the text of introductory paragraph build towards the thesis in a way that makes sense to you as a reader?
  • Does the writer have a clear thesis?
  • Can you make out the writers stance on their topic? Can you make out what their argument is likely to be?

NOTE: Not everyone will construct their opening paragraphs in the same way, so we are not looking to see if the writer followed a formula. Rather, what we are looking for is to see if the writer has given their reader a clear sense of what you can expect in their paper.

BODY PARAGRAPHS: You may only have time to really read one or two, but you can look for certain things:

  • Does the writer make a transition into presenting evidence in a way that makes sense and guides the reader?
  • Is evidence introduced clearly? This can be done by announcing the name a text being introduced.
  • Does the writer present evidence as either a quotation, summary, or paraphrase? Is this evidence CLEARLY cited and attributed to the author of the evidence presented?
  • Does the writer make commentary on the evidence and show how it is presented in service of their thesis? REMEMBER, sometimes evidence is used to make a counter-point, but does it to you (as a reader) feel like it is working in the overall scheme of the essay?
  • Does the evidence that the writer has chosen feel like it’s clearly connected to the writer’s thesis?

Citation Practices

As we all know, citing our sources is essential in academic writing. One of the reason, and sometimes people will say the MAIN reason is that we want to avoid any appearance of plagiarism – a serious offense in college, or any writing situation.

But we also want to show that we are engaged with scholarly work, and we want to give attribution to the many scholars that have done serious and diligent work and shared it with the world.

I would also offer that when we cite and give attribution, we are also signaling to our reader that WE are entering into the world of scholarship not merely as student writers, but as scholars ourselves that are entering a conversation; we are adding our voices to the conversation when we read others, and incorporate their work into our own.

MLA 8th edition: In-Text Citations

There are several different styles of citation practice. APA, Chicago Style, and ours, MLA, to name just a few. As you move into writing for your majors, you will likely specialize into the preferred style for that discipline, but for our purposes we will be using MLA (Modern Language Association) style.

There is much to learn in any citation style or practice, and the more you write in different situations, and the more you use varied sources in varied ways, the more you will need to become familiar with how to cite appropriately.

But we can keep it somewhat simple here, while we acknowledge there is more to learn.

We are able to keep it simple because IN GENERAL when we are citing outside work, the practice GENERALLY FALLS into a few types of moves. Those we will explore here. Remember, what we are looking here are IN-TEXT citations – places in your writing where you are introducing your sources.

There are three essentials when introducing work:

  • The author, or authors, or the work.
  • The title of the work
  • The page from which the evidence is drawn.

Let’s look at some examples and how the citation format can vary, but bearing in mind we are always aiming to give attribution by citing.

“MLA format follows the author-page method of in-text citation. This means that the author’s last name and the page number(s) from which the quotation or paraphrase is taken must appear in the text, and a complete reference should appear on your Works Cited page. The author’s name may appear either in the sentence itself or in parentheses following the quotation or paraphrase, but the page number(s) should always appear in the parentheses, not in the text of your sentence.”

For example:

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (263).

Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263).

Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

Both citations in the examples above, (263) and (Wordsworth 263), tell readers that the information in the sentence can be located on page 263 of a work by an author named Wordsworth. If readers want more information about this source, they can turn to the Works Cited page, where, under the name of Wordsworth, they would find the following information:

Wordsworth, William. Lyrical Ballads. Oxford UP, 1967.

The above text is from “MLA In-Text Citations: The Basics,” on the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) website. You can find that page here. You can also go to the main page of their MLA guide.

Let’s take these one-by-one and examine them.

Wordsworth stated that Romantic poetry was marked by a “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (263).

  • In the example above, we note that the LAST name of the author, Wordsworth, is signaled in the sentence – in this case, it is the first word. Therefore, his name need not be given again in the parenthetical citation at the end of the sentence, only the page from which the quotation is taken in given then.
  • ALSO, notice the construction of the quotation and citation: the quotation is given and it is clearly set of by quotation marks, then the open parenthesis, the page number, close parenthesis, and then the period.
  • NOTE: When introducing an author for the first time in your text, you give the FULL name, and then any further appearance you provide just the LAST name. It is considered incorrect to refer to the author by their first name throughout your writing.

Romantic poetry is characterized by the “spontaneous overflow of powerful feelings” (Wordsworth 263).

  • In the example above, note that the writer has chosen to simply present a quotation from a text of Wordsworth. Note that it is the same quotation, but presented differently. In this case, since the author was NOT named in the sentence, you need to provide that in the parenthetical citation. So in this case we have (Wordsworth 263).

Wordsworth extensively explored the role of emotion in the creative process (263).

  • The above example is the writer paraphrasing Wordsworth, in particular (we may assume from the context clues) the quotation used above. BUT DO NOTE, that when you are paraphrasing, or summarizing, you still need to give a page number in a parentheticval citation, as is shown here.

OTHER NOTES

  • Article name are put in quotation marks. So, if you have a source from the databases, that article name will be in quotation marks.
  • Books, journals, websites, albums, blogs, movies, tv shows, magazines, and newspapers should all be italicized. Examples: New York Times, Washington Post, The Dark Knight Rises, Time, etc…
  • Remember, you are putting the PAGE NUMBER in your citation, not the year the work was published.

Finally….

There are many resources out there for you to use when using MLA. I have linked the Purdue OWL site above, but here it is again. Please familiarize with some of these sites, and use them as needed.

But remember, we are going more for citing our sources and clearly signaling when we are using an outside source. I am less concerned that you get it perfect, but do try to follow at least the conventions we have looked at today.