Today’s Plan:
- Attendance
- Review Last Class
- Review Chapters 17 and 6
- Discussion of “Where the Wild Things Should Be”
- Topic Exploration Assignment
Review Chapters 17 and 6
A few passages from chapter 17 I want to highlight:
- What is academic argument? (380)
- Notions of Audience (381) [Don’t assume your audience knows specialized terms]
- Centrality of Sources, Evidence (383)
- Conceptualizing your relationship to the Audience (386-387)
- Consider organization: parts of an academic report
A few passages from chapter 6 I want to highlight:
- List of rhetorical questions (89-90)
Exercise 3 on page 394.
Where the Wild Things Should Be…
I want to point out a few of the strengths and weaknesses of this essay.
Introducing Sources in Academic Arguments
One thing I want to stress is the importance of introducing sources in academic arguments in such a way that creates a bit of ethos for them. The first (best?) step toward avoiding plagiarism is to craft a quality signal, my term for a transition that introduces and builds some ethos for a source. Here is an example of my blueprint in action:
Shakespeare’s Renaissance tragedy Romeo and Juliet documents the titular characters’ intense love and foolhardy demise. Shakespeare’s play leads us to question both the sincerity of young love.
I came up with this sentence while prepping high school students to take placement exams, hence the literary material. But the semantics of the sentence make it useful for virtually every kind of writing. I especially want to highlight the importance of the verbs in this sentence, because choosing the proper verb often reveals both our appraisal of the source and our thinking on the questions it raises.
[Author]’s [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [plot summary]. [Author] [verb] [theme/purpose].
Ok, so in reality I have two sentences here. But, when dealing with non-fiction works, they can often be combined into one:
[Author’s] [time period] [genre] [title] [verb] [purpose].
As I indicated above, it is the verb that is the silent star of the show here. Consider for a minute the following example:
Malcom Gladwell’s 2005 book Blink exposes how subconscious part of our brain think in ways we are not consciously aware.
Exposes. How does the meaning of the sentence change if I use the verb:
- suggests
- argues
- questions whether
- supposes
- explicates
- details
- reveals
- offers a theory of
- explores
- claims
Each of these verb choices subtly alters the way I approach the work discussed. Exposes suggests something secret and perhaps mysterious is being uncovered. Suggests suggests that an amount of doubt surrounds the issue. Supposes implies that I am hostile or at least quite skeptical toward the idea. This subtle indicator allows my an opportunity to softly align or distance myself from the source I am using. Good authors do this all the time to subconsciously prepare readers for their arguments.
Topic Exploration Assignment
Our first major project this semester is the topic exploration assignment. The purpose of this assignment is to help you explore possible topic choices for the final research paper. After completing topic worksheets 1 and 2, and visiting the library next week, I will ask you to synthesize that information and research into a 300-400 word discussion of two potential topic choices.
For each topic, you need to include:
- A general introduction to the topic [What is it?]
- A brief background of the topic [What is its history?]
- Major conversations within the topic [What do people who do/like/are in it say?]
- Any controversies surrounding the topic [Both what do people in it really disagree on, and what do people outside of it criticize it for?]
- The answers to your focusing questions [see below–how will you narrow it down]
- A list of people/publications dedicated to your topic [preliminary research]
- A list of keywords associated with your topic [preliminary research]
Note that while brief, these write ups should use sources with in-text citation and a Works Cited page (MLA).
Homework
Read Chapter 18, “Finding Evidence”
Complete Topic Worksheet #1. I have emailed out Topic Worksheet #1. To get started, think back to our first day of class in which I asked you to imagine potential paper topics:
- Question One: What is one piece of indie/popular culture that everyone should be experiencing?
- Question Two: What is one idea/person that you’ve always wanted to know more about?
- Question Three: What is one idea/issue/problem that you wish you understood better?
For Thursday’s class, I would like you to select two of those topics and fill out the Topic Worksheet #1 as a Google Doc. Simply copy and paste the document that I emailed out to you into the Google Doc you previous shared with me (sadly, this will require you delete your sample sentences). Paste the document twice. I will check these documents Thursday afternoon before class.
Be sure to identify and read at least one source for each topic prior to Thursday’s class. Thursday we will put that reading to work in the computer lab–for Thursday’s class we will meet in Ross 1240.
