Langley The Basics On Good Writing

The Basics of Good Writing
D. Langley 2009
D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Latest Revision 04/25/06
The Basics of Good Writing

Table of Contents Part 1 Introducing the Essay................................................................. 3 Part 2 Choosing Appropriate Words .................................................. 12 Part 3 Creating Clear Sentences......................................................... 15 Part 4 Composing Effective Paragraphs............................................ 23 Part 5 Using Logic and Evidence [unfinished].................................. 40 Part 6 Finding, Recording, and Using Sources in a Research Paper ................................................................. 44 Part 7 Writing the Literary Research Paper and Avoiding Plagiarism ................................................................... 57 Part 8 Using the Internet to Do Academic Research ....................... 68 Part 9 Basics of Grammar ................................................................... 81 Part 10 Basics of Punctuation and Mechanics.................................. 82 Part 11 Exercises.................................................................................. 94 Appendix 1 Dictionary of Commonly Confused Words ................. 103 Appendix 2 Commonly Misspelled Words....................................... 109 Student Suggestions Page................................................................... 112

Part 1 - Introducing the Essay

Defining the Essay An essay is a relatively short piece of nonfiction that tries to make an interesting point. Relatively short means that an essay generally runs between two and twenty typed, double-spaced pages, so the essay can be read in one sitting. Essays in English 101 should run two to four full, typed, double-spaced pages. Nonfiction means that the essay is not a poem, short story, or similar piece of imaginative writing. The essay discusses actual people, places, and events. If writers include imaginative materialthat is, fictionthey clearly identify that imaginative material in the context of the essay, and that material serves to some point about the actual material of the essay. An interesting point means that an essay contains a thesisthat is, a main point or a central assertion and that the author then supports by making an emotional appeal, by using logic and evidence, or by using both. It tries to give readers a sense of the authors perspective about those topics.1 Finally, an essay tries not only to say something but also to say it well. That is, the essay tries to arouse the readers curiosity, to convince readers that its topic is worth discussing, or to prove that the audience can benefit somehow from having the knowledge contained in the essay or by adopting the opinion expressed in the essay. To build a stable, long-lasting house, you must start with a solid foundation. Creating an attractive sweater requires knowing major knitting techniques and knowing how to assemble the knitted pieces of the overall garment. Similarly, you should know several strategies for creating a strong foundation on which to build a finished essay: 1. Distinguish among a subject, a topic, and a thesis. 2. Know how to focus a subject to a thesis. 3. Identify your purpose and your audience. 4. Use idea-generating techniques such as freewriting, brainstorming, clustering, and asking reporters questions. 5. Take notes and/or keep a journal, especially when preparing to write about literature. Subjects, Topics, and Theses A subject is a broad category of information. Subjects would cover large areas of discussion such as colleges and universities, teenage experiences, the writings of James Baldwin, or games and sports. A topic is a narrow area of discussion, such as the open admissions policies of community colleges, the most embarrassing experience you had in high school, James Baldwins views on race relations in the 1950s through the 1970s, or the long-term health benefits of walking and jogging. A thesis would be a specific point about a specific topic. The following are quickly developed theses that I thought up while writing this section of the booklet: o An open admissions policy helps borderline high school students obtain an affordable college education and is a policy that New York State needs to preserve. o My most embarrassing high school situation involved reading off to a bus driver the stops on his route, exposing my suburban-based ignorance of city commuting systems.
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Note that the plural of thesis is theses, not thesises.

o o
James Baldwin was an eloquent spokesman for the rights of black Americans in the 1950s through 1970s who helped readers understand the need for civil rights progress at that time. The long-term benefits of walking and jogging include a stronger heart, healthier arms and legs, and a more attractive physique.
Focusing a Subject to a Thesis If you have only a large subject area to begin with, first move towards a thesis by dividing your subject into smaller and smaller areas. For example, when writing about a subject such as college life, you can divide your subject as follows: College life / university life. Commuter students / residential students Traditional students / non-traditional students Second, take one of your subdivided subjects and divide it even further by creating topic-sized categories related to the subject. For example, if discussing traditional students, you could add the following facts about them: Ages 17-22 / High school graduates Financed by parents, loans, and scholarships Changing from daily high school schedules to two-day / three-day schedules More responsibility and self-discipline required Third, take your more specific topics and ask questions about them: What social and intellectual limits do traditional students have that might cause problems for them when attending college? Does todays high school education prepare students well enough for college life? What obligations, if any, do college students have to their parents or other financial supporters? What specific skills do traditional students need to be responsible and self-disciplined in college? Fourth and finally, answer the questions you have posed. Such answers will become the working theses that you could use in the first draft of an essay: Too many traditional students may not have the social networks and intellectual curiosity required to succeed in todays competitive college atmosphere. High schools need to do more to prepare students for understanding the purpose of different college educations and the level of maturity that college professors and administrators expect them to have when they arrive at college. College students should do well in school not so much to satisfy their parents, bankers, or the government, but to satisfy the duty they have to themselves to become intelligent and mature people ready to succeed in their personal and professional lives. Traditional students need to know how to act in adult settings such as the college classroom, how to read and study for essays and examinations, and how to organize their social lives so they can develop supportive friends and academic partners. Testing the Quality of Your Thesis After you have come up with a thesis, you should verify that it will work well as the controlling idea for your essay. The following five guidelines, complete with examples of weaker and stronger theses, can help you to determine if your thesis is worth defending.

1. A good thesis is a single sentence. Poor: Situation comedies present single-parent families unrealistically. These television shows say it is easy to succeed financially. They also suggest that these families have view major emotional challenges. And finally, they dont portray the world very realistically. Poor: Teenagers often dont have strong family units or good friends. So these teenagers look to their fellow mall rats for help. They also look for help from people at casual events like parties or from dangerous groups like gangs. Better: Situation comedies on television often present single-parent families as fully competent units, but such portrayals mislead us about the economic and emotional hardships usually faced by these families in the actual world. Better: Teenagers who lack intimacy with their families and friends often turn to peers they meet at malls, casual and one-time social events, or even dangerous entities such as gangs to provide them with emotional guidance and support. 2. A good thesis asserts one controlling idea. Poor: EBay is a good Web site for making money, and you can save a lot of money when buying new products by using comparison-shopping sites like MySimon.com. Poor: People can make good investments using Web sites like Hoovers.com, and you can learn a lot about investing from Fool.com too. Better: People with good-quality products to sell, a basic ability to work with computers, and the discipline needed to maintain an online business can make regular profits on Web sites like Ebay.com. Better: People with effective business research and investing skills can make a livable annual salary through online business portal such as Bigcharts.com, Fool.com, and Hoovers.com. 3. A good thesis says something definite and substantial about your topic. Poor: A recycling law can be very controversial. Poor: Some people favor recycling laws and some people oppose them. Better: To be effective, recycling laws must cover key types of materials, include regulations that are easy to follow, and be fairly enforced. Better: The general public initially opposed strict recycling laws but has begun to see their value in the face of increasingly fewer dumping grounds, the need to recycle oil-based products, and the simplicity of most recycling laws. 4. A good thesis has an appropriate tone and clear purpose. Poor: My essay is going to talk about stuff related to lousy college policies. Poor: It really stinks that we cant trust politicians and liars like that to tell us the truth about things. Better: Poor campus facilities, a low percentage of full-time faculty, and confusing or vague advice from administrators often prevent college students from completing their college career in four years. Better: President Clintons misleading statements about sexual harassment charges against him and President Bushs over-reliance on false intelligence before the Iraq war have caused both Republicans and Democrats to drop out of the political process. 5. A good thesis has the focus appropriate to the length of the essay that will support it. Poor: Yard sales reflect the times we live in. Poor: Lawyers can help you avoid lots of problems.

Better: Yard sales help circulate needed low-cost goods during times of high inflation, poor employment, and similar difficult economic times. Better: Despite the stereotypes about them, lawyers can help people avoid significant financial problems by preparing last wills and testaments, living wills, and similar documents. Understanding Purpose, Audience, and Tone To create an effective essay, identify the purpose and audience for it. In this regard, you may think that the purpose of writing is to earn a good grade, and that your audience is your instructor. Nope. Getting a good grade may be your motivation for writing the essay, but it should never be your purpose. Likewise, your teacher is only the grader of the essay, not its audience.2 Finally, you may think that you can write almost any essay in a personal, even folksy, tone of voice. However, just as you would choose different words for speaking to adults rather than to children, so also you should consider carefully how informal or formal the tone of your essays should be. In general, the purpose of any essay is to write about a worthwhile topic and to make an interesting point about it. More specifically, your purpose may be to entertain people about an amusing life situation; inform people about an important social, cultural, or religious issue; speculate about the possibilities of how to solve an important public problem; or persuade people to adopt your view on a controversial topic. Your purpose also may vary according to the type of essay you are writing. For example, essays often have a dominant rhetorical mode. Rhetoric is the art of using the most effective word in the proper place to achieve a desired effect. The rhetorical mode is the main method or way of communicating your essays information. The four main rhetorical modes are narration, description, exposition, and argumentation. The table on the next page defines each mode, gives sample essays for each mode, and lists the potential purpose of that essay:
Rhetorical Mode
Narration
Definition
Telling a story about a person, place, or event Using concrete words to create a visual image Explaining or informing about a noncontroversial topic3 Attempting to persuade readers to adopt your view about controversial topics4
Sample Essays
Maya Angelou, Graduation Annie Dillard, The Death of a Moth Bruce Catton, Grant vs. Lee: A Study in Contrasts George Orwell, Politics and the English Language
Purpose
To tell how a black eighth-grader restored the dignity of his classmates after a visiting education official displayed discriminatory attitudes To compare the death of a moth in a candle flame to the sacrifices that writers must make to be successful at their craft To explain the similarities and differences of the personal and military qualities of Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E. Lee to show why Grant was the more successful Civil War general To persuade people that the misuse or corruption of a language leads to misguided political results
Description Exposition
Argumentation
There may be one exception to this advice. When writing examination answers to prove that you paid attention in class during a semester, think of your instructor as your audience. If you dont know how to approach the exam, ask ahead of time. Many instructors will offer advice on how to succeed at the test. 3 While people may endlessly debate the morality of war, they can generally agree as to who won a series of battles by looking at statistics on number of casualties, amount of ground gained, etc. 4 A topic is controversial if it involves how you think people ought to treat other people, animals, the environment, and so onthat is, if there is some debate about ethical or moral aspects of an issue.

The audience for an essay is its intended readership. When you write an e-mail to a friend, your intended reader probably is about your own age and is likely to share your personal interests.5 When you write a thank-you note to a loved one, your intended audience may be older and more mature, and may or may not share your interests. When you write an essayespecially an academic essayyour audience could be any number of people with any number of interests. However, for the purposes of a writing class, you may assume that your intended audience is a general readership of reasonable people. In other words, your audience will vary in age, race, religious views, political positions, and so on. However, they also will have either a pretty good formal or informal education, and should be open-minded enough to consider a logically presented presentation backed up by evidence.6 If you have trouble picturing a general readership of reasonable people, think of your fellow students as your audience. Choose topics that will interest a broad readership and that can endure the scrutiny of classroom experts. Use fresh and original language to capture peoples attention. Come up with arguments that skeptical classmates will find convincing. Most of all, challenge them to think about the opinions that they uncritically accept so they can live fuller and richer lives. The tone of an essay is the mood or feeling that it conveys. Since you dont have body language and voice volume to work with when writing an essay, your tone will come through only in your word choice, sentence and paragraph structure, and punctuation. When you decide on the tone for an essay, remember to consider also your purpose and audience. If you are trying to entertain your classmates, even to get people to laugh, then an informal tone of voice will be appropriate. If you are informing people in general about relatively non-controversial topics, then a middle-level tone might be more proper. And if you are writing about serious political and/or cultural issues for a large college or public audience, then you probably should adopt a formal tone. Using Idea-Generating Techniques Many writing teachers tell their students to develop essays as follows: Pick a topic, decide on a thesis, write an outline, and then write a rough draft and a final draft. There can be at least two problems with such advice: people usually dont write this way and usually dont succeed at writing this way. In other words, we dont know what to write about until weve actually written about it. Therefore, before you even choose a thesis, you may want to try the following prewriting techniques to get your mental powers flowing. Freewriting - Write without stopping for about five to ten minutes. If you become stuck, keep writing the last word that you wrote down, or write down something like I cant write, I cant write.... At the end time, stop writing even if you are in the middle of a sentence. Put the material away and look at it at least a few minutes later. Leaving the material alone for a few minutes will promote further thought about your topic. Printed below is an example of freewriting. Notice that the paragraph repeats and wanders. Thats OK, because the purpose of freewriting is not to create a beautifully finished essay. Rather, it is just to help you work out ideas or feelings that keep you from writingto help you get unstuck at the start of the writing process. I am going to write about working at two jobs. It can be fun working two different jobs but I, I dont know what to write, but the jobsthat is the going
You dont always need to use e-mail. Keep the art of letter writing alive too. Doing so will slow down your life and help you to enjoy it more fully! 6 Part 6 provides advice on how to form logical arguments and present persuasive evidence.
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back and forth can be draining, and I can lose focus. I also can get confused about which, if either, should be the more important job and which I should try to keep doing. Of course, some jobs are easy to accept and others are easy to reject, so its important to have some values or standards by which you choose what job to pick or to keep or to keep working on or focusing your energies on. Its also interesting, or important, to know which job is not only more important, but also which job is more interesting. That is, which job keeps my attention, which seems more fulfilling, which seems more rewarding, and which is the job that I would like to keep doing in the future. I mean, no one ever says on their deathbed, Gee, I wish Id spent more time at work. I mean, that just doesnt happen. Brainstorming - For about 5-10 minutes, make a list of topics, ideas, and/or questions about a specific topic. Do this alone or in a small group. While making the list, feel free to write down any idea that comes to mind, to repeat an idea, or to rephrase an idea. Unlike freewriting, feel free to stop, organize your thoughts, and then start recording ideas again. After writing down all ideas, go back and cross out any duplicate ideas or irrelevant ideas, and then group the remaining ideas by common threads of thinking. The purpose of brainstorming is to free the mind from preconceived categories, to generate as many ideas as reasonably possible, and to figure out the various ways in which ideas can express themselves. Heres a list of brainstorming ideas related to the topic of truth before crossing out duplicates or irrelevant ideas:
Justice Fairness in the courts Anything related to accuracy and facts Beauty Which values are most important Tests or standards of validity Scientific truth Religious truth Personal vs. abstract or general truth Preferring peace (quiet) over speaking the truth Preferring the truth over good relationships
Clustering - Write down a word or phrase, like love, in the middle of a sheet of paper. Think of a related idea, circle it, and then draw a line between the first and the second idea. Keep writing down and circling related ideas, and then draw lines between the newer ideas and the previous ideas they relate to. At the end of the process, you will have a field of circles or ovals and connecting lines. The purpose of clustering is to generate ideas, to suggest which ideas go with which other ones, and to discover how many different sub-categories of ideas you have.

Asking Reporters Questions Newspaper and magazine reporters are taught that, to cover a story thoroughly, they must ask who, what, when, where, why, and how, and only then are they to write the story. You can take the same approach when pre-writing an essay. For example, if you want to write about how the print media covered a presidential scandal, you would need to ask yourself the following: Who was the president involved in the scandal? Who were his friends, family, or political appointees involved as well? What started the scandal and how did the president respond to it? What did other people do? What did the newspapers do when they discovered the scandal? When did the scandal occur, and when did the newspapers learn about the key events? When did they reveal what they had learned? Where did the scandal take place, and where was the first newspaper, magazine, or Internet site that located the evidence? Where did the media get its evidence? Why did those involved in the scandal do what they did, and why did the media try to expose the event? How did people try to cover up the scandal, and how did the media discover the truth, if at all? Remember: Whether you freewrite, brainstorm, do clustering, or ask yourself reporters questions, your main goal in the pre-writing stage is to overcome writers blockthat is, to generate ideas in a non-threatening atmosphere that eliminates the dreaded blank page. In such open-ended situations, words or phrases that you write down early in the session may relate closely to the first recorded word. However, since our minds can wander very quickly from an original term, words that you write down last may relate only indirectly. For example, in the ballooning diagram above, love and peace may seem closely related as personal goals. However, terms such as League of Nations, NATO, NAFTA, war, etc., may relate to peace more closely as a political concept. In the pre-writing stage, feel free to accept such quick topical shifts. In the final draft of a paper, however, be sure that all sections of the paper stay on topic and relate back to your thesis. Understanding Writing as a Process Some writers think of writing as a one-step task. They think that the best way to write is to think and think and think about their topic and then write down everything they can remember. However, when they try this approach, they often find that they cannot record all of their thoughts quickly enough, even if they use a word processor. They also may try to write perfect drafts the first time around. When they dont do so, they may become frustrated, think that they can never become good writers, and give up. However, as the section on developing a thesis suggests, you will be more successful at writing if you think of writing as a processthat is, a series of interrelated steps that lead to a goal. If you take the process approach to writing, the following strategy often will lead to stronger essays: 1. Write down whatever you are thinking in the earliest stages of the project. 2. Review how your ideas look on paper. 3. Clarify confused statements. 4. Eliminate excess wording and phrasing. 5. Express underdeveloped ideas more fully. 6. Find more supporting evidence for your ideas. 7. Rewrite your introduction and conclusion until your essay opens and ends strongly. 8. Proofread and correct structural, grammatical, and punctuation errors.

The diagram on the next page suggests how to organize the writing process to achieve regular success with assignments. Since the diagram only suggests how to approach the process, you can vary it as time and other conditions dictate. For example, if you are exceptional at developing ideas in your head, you may be able to skip the activities in the prewriting stage and go directly to the second stage. On the other hand, if you are not a native speaker of English or have a learning disability like dyslexia, you may want to add the additional step of showing your work to someone else after the editing/proofreading stage and have that person thoroughly review your work before typing the final draft. START: Prewriting Think of ideas:
Generate ideas by brainstorming, clustering, asking reporters questions, freewriting. Gather information from reading, taking notes, interviews, etc. Consider your assignment, audience, purpose, and tone.
Drafting/Writing Put your ideas into writing:

Use ideas from prewriting. Write what comes to mind; dont worry about errors at this stage. Elaborate upon ideas; explain them more fully. Explore questions that you have raised in your own mind, or that others have raised after reading your rough draft. Put ideas into sentences and paragraphs.
Rewriting Stages Revising, Editing, and Proofreading

Revising Improve your rough draft:
Add, delete, rearrange, and/or combine words, sentences, paragraphs. Add supporting detail and examples. Arrange them in a pattern of development appropriate to your topic. Go back to your prewriting material for more ideas, if needed. Prepare an opening paragraph that announces your topic, states your thesis, and establishes the proper tone. Prepare a final paragraph that states the importance, significance, and/or benefit of what readers have learned.
Editing/Proofreading Reread and revise as needed:

Revise the style to fit the assignment, audience, and purpose more properly. Correct grammatical errors. Correct capitalization errors. Correct punctuation errors. Improve word choice and sentence variety.
END: Publishing - Prepare and type the final draft:

Add a title that covers the essay topic and attracts readers attention. Follow required format for first page, body pages, page numbering, andif neededWorks Cited page. Include parenthetical references (author and page), if needed. Provide 1.25-inch left and right margins and 1-inch top and bottom margins. Use 12-point, Times New Roman or Arial font. Double space all text, including the heading, title, paragraphs, short or long quotations, and works cited.
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Evaluating Your Essays before Submission Before submitting a finished essay, evaluate it against the following questions to ensure that you have done the best job possible: 1. Does the essay have a clear thesis? Does the writer stay focused on the thesis throughout the essay? 2. Does the essay have a purpose and tone that is appropriate for its topic and audience? 3. Does the essay use a middle level of diction, or is the vocabulary too slangy or formal for its topic, purpose, and audience? 4. Is each sentence immediately clear to the reader? 5. Does the essay contain focused and unified paragraphs? Is the essay well organized? That is, does the essay move from topic to topic, or does it repeat ideas unnecessarily? 6. Does the opening paragraph draw you into the essay in a focused and interesting way? Does the last paragraph just summarize what the author said earlier, or does it tie up the essay by giving the reader something to think about without starting on a new topic? 7. Does the essay have generally accepted grammar, punctuation, and spelling? 8. If the essay is a research paper, does it follow generally accepted academic standards for physical format, sentence citations, works cited, and avoiding plagiarism?
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Part 2 - Choosing Appropriate Words

Using a Dictionary When reading essays, poems, stories, or plays, you often will encounter words for which you do not know the meaning. Many times, you can determine the meaning of a difficult word from the context, or overall meaning, of a sentence. If you see the word enough times in different settings, you probably will be able to figure out the words meaning. The most enjoyable and profitable way to build your vocabulary is NOT by buying vocabulary books, study guides, or similar publications. Instead, follow this four-point plan: 1. Keep a section in your notebook where you list and define words for which you dont know the meanings. 2. Begin your section by listing words that people typically confusefor example, accept and except, as and like, continual and continuous, few and little, their, there, and theyre, and so on. 3. Add new words to your section as you read new textbooks and other material. 4. Review previously listed words each time you add new ones to see if you have truly learned those older ones. To understand really difficult words, you may need a dictionary. Successful students often have a college-level dictionary. These books are larger in size and contain about 150,000 words, about three times the smaller paperback dictionaries that contain only 50,000 words. A dictionary helps you know the correct spelling, typical pronunciation, and common definitions of words. A collegelevel dictionary also contains obsolete or archaic definitions of words and their etymology, or historical origin. You can buy a college-level dictionary like one of the following: Funk and Wagnalls Standard College Dictionary Websters New Collegiate Dictionary The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language You also can find dictionaries on the Internet at www.dictionary.com. This Web site also contains access to a thesaurus, help with grammar and usage, and dictionaries in non-English languages. A typical dictionary entry will look like the following, adapted from www.yourdictionary.com: party (pr t ) - n. pl. parties 1. a. A social gathering especially for pleasure or amusement: a cocktail party. b. A group of people who have gathered to participate in an activity. 2. a. An established political group organized to promote and support its principles and candidates for public office. b. A person or group involved in an enterprise; a participant or an accessory: I refuse to be a party to your silly scheme. 3. Law. A person or group involved in a legal proceeding as a litigant. 4. a. A subscriber to a telephone party line. b. A person using a telephone. 5. a. A person: And though Grainger was a spry old party, such steps couldn't be his (Anthony Hyde). a. A selected group of soldiers: a raiding party. 5. Slang. A. An act of sexual intercourse. b. An orgy. adj. 1. Of, relating to, or participating in an established political organization: party members; party politics. 2. Suitable for use at a social gathering: party dresses; a party hat. 3. Characteristic of a pleasurable social gathering: a party atmosphere. intr.v. partied, partying, parties - To celebrate or carouse at or as if at a party: That night we partied until dawn. [Middle English partie, part, side, group, from Old French, from feminine past participle of partir, to divide, from Latin part re, from pars, part-, part. See part.]
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The sample dictionary entry for party contains the following information: Spelling and word division Pronunciation Part of speech Inflections (word endings) Grammatical status Definitions Usage information Idioms Etymology (the historical development of a word) Understanding Levels of Diction Different writing situations require different levels of dictionthat is, different levels of word choice. When you write to a friend, especially in an e-mail, you probably would use very casual language. When preparing a legal document, you would more serious language. In college writing assignments, however, prefer middle diction over slang or formal diction. The table below gives examples of middle diction and the extremes to avoid. Slang (Avoid) Kids Rip off Prof commie Crib Middle Diction (Use) Children Steal Instructor/Professor Communist House Formal Diction (Avoid) Descendants Expropriate Professional educator Marxist-Leninist Single family dwelling unit
More and more, it seems, some people use abusive languagethat is, language that is profane, obscene, lewd, discriminatory, or offensive to a general audienceeven in public. While free speech is (or should be) a major value in colleges and universities, exercise common sense and respect for others when choosing your words. Do not use abusive language in your papers or in class, unless there is a very good reason to do sofor example, when discussing the history of words, speech styles, social or cultural violations, or similar subjects.7 When aiming for middle diction, use words in their traditionally accepted senses, and avoid fad words. Fad words arise when people take one part of speech and then turn it into another one, inventing an overly new use for it.
Avoid My sister wants to cocoon for the weekend, rather than come to our house. During his campaign for the presidency, the candidate talked a lot about growing the economy. Use My sister wants to stay in for the weekend, rather than come to our house. During his campaign for the presidency, the candidate talked a lot about strengthening the economy.
Barbara Lawrence has written an excellentand shortessay on why people should avoid profanity entitled Four-Letter Words Can Hurt You. You can find the essay at the following Web page: http://www.uwec.edu/asc/Competency%20Exam%20Workshops/sample_readings.htm.
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Latest Revision 04/25/06 Avoid My friend had a fun time when he visited the campus last week. Use My friend enjoyed himself when he visited campus last week.
Use terms that a general audience would understand, and avoid jargonlanguage that is used for specialized academic situations, specialized jobs, etc.
Jargon (Avoid) Andr was really paranoid about his bosss intentions for growing the company. I need to finalize my paper before class. Sylvie facilitates discussion between disparate populations. Going forward, we should optimize our strategies for maximizing student enrollment. Middle Diction (Use) Andr worried greatly about his supervisors plans about company growth. I need to finish my paper before class. Sylvie helps different groups of people talk to each other. We should plan carefully for how to increase student enrollment.
A clich (klee-SHAY) is a phrase that people use so frequently that it has lost its freshness as an image. For example, if you work very hard, you might say, I keep my nose to the grindstone. If you focus totally on school assignments, you might say, I keep my eye on the ball. If you pay close attention to what your business competitors do, you might say, I have my ear to the ground. The phrases in quotation marks are so common and overworked, that people no longer take them literally. Imagine if people DID have their nose on a grindstone, their eye sockets against a baseball, and their ears against the groundwhat an impossible physical position THAT would be! Another problem with clichs is that people use them so often in so many different ways, that the same clich might have differenteven contrastingmeanings in different contexts. The table below includes a list of common clichs, and some suggested phrases to use as substitutes.
Clich I work so hard that I feel as if Ive got my nose to the grindstone. Although we went to the movies together, Joanne and I are water under the bridge. After all is said and done, people should keep their ear to the ground concerning whos running for office. I was quiet as a mouse when I came home in the dead of the night. Fresh Language I work so hard that I feel as if I am wearing myself out. Although we went to the movies together, Joanne and I no longer date. People should play close attention to who runs for office. I was very quiet when I came home late.
Commonly Misused or Misspelled Words Addendum 1, just after the Exercise section of this book, contains a list of words that writers commonly confuse with each other, complete with correct definitions and sample sentences that clarify how to use those words. Addendum 2 contains a list of words that writers commonly misspell, complete with their correct spellings. Whenever you are in doubt as to how to use or spell a word, consult the two addendums or a college-level dictionary.
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Part 3 - Creating Clear Sentences

Introducing Clear Sentences Many English Composition teachers have a simple and easy way of identifying average student papers: if a student cannot write a clear sentence almost every time, then that student is a below average writer.8 Almost every college requires you to earn at least a C in English Composition in order to graduate. Also, employers want workers who can think clearly and communicate clearly in speech and writing. Therefore, you need to know how to create and control sentences so they communicate quickly and effectively to others. Understanding Key Grammatical Terms To know how to form grammatically strong sentences, you dont necessarily need to know the basics of grammar. For example, if you grew up in an environment where people read a lot (and, thus, you did too) and spoke in educated speech patterns (even if they had little formal education), then you probably know how to write grammatically acceptable sentences. However, to know how to repair grammatically weak sentences, you should learn the following key terms: Subject the topic of the sentence Predicate the statement made about the subject Phrase a group of related words, but lacking either a subject, predicate, or both Clause a group of related words that expresses a thought, either complete or incomplete Sentence a group of words with a grammatical subject, a predicate, and a complete thought Sentence fragment a group of words lacking a subject, predicate, or complete thought; fragments generally are just phrases or subordinate clauses Main (or independent) clause a group of words that expresses a complete or major thought; a main clause can stand by itself Subordinate (or dependent) clause a group of related words that expresses an incomplete or minor thought; a subordinate clause cannot stand by itself Verbal a verb used as another part of speech; the category of verbals is made up of gerunds, participles, and infinitives o Gerund a verb used as a noun; always ends in -ing o Participle a verb used as an adjective; ends in ing or the past participle form of the verb (whether regular (-d or ed) or irregular) o Infinitive a verb used as a noun, adjective, or adverb; always in the form of to + verbfor example, to run, to sing, to dance, to write, etc. Understanding Parts of Speech You also should understand the parts of speech. A part of speech identifies a word according to its grammatical function in a sentence. Parts of speech are the noun, pronoun, verb, adjective, adverb, preposition, conjunction, and interjection. Noun names of a person, place, or thing Pronoun takes the place of a noun Verb expresses action or a state of being Adjective modifies a noun or pronoun Adverb modifies a verb, adjective, or other adverb Preposition a connecting word that introduces a prepositional phrase
Thats not the same as being a below-average person. Many fine human beings have been poor writers. However, all other things being equal, its better to be a good writer than a poor one.
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Conjunction a connecting word that introduces a main clause or subordinate clause Interjection expresses emotion
As noted above, once you know the basic grammatical terms, you can begin to repair problem sentences. The following seven strategies will help you to do so: 1. Understanding Verb Tenses Verb tense is the form of the verb that indicates the time at which an event occurs, or the time at which a state of being exists. Tense also indicates whether an event has happened once or is ongoing. For example, the simple tenses of verbs indicate a one-time event, while the progressive tenses indicate an ongoing action or state of existence. The verb tense that indicates something existing or occurring right now is, of course, the present tense. The other five verb tenses relate to or build upon the present tensethat is, they indicate the existence or occurrence of something in relation to the present. The following table lists the six main verb tenses, explains how to use them properly in English sentences, and gives examples of each tense. Past Perfect Past Present Perfect Present - Future Perfect Future Verb Tense
Present
Use of Verb Tense and Examples

Indicates an action that takes place right now, or an action that happens regularly. I see what you mean. I understand what you are talking about. We study our notes before a test in order to do well. We wear wool fleece in the winter to stay warm. Indicates a completed action that already happened. John Glenn orbited the earth three times on February 20, 1962. I prepared this handout earlier today. Halleys Comet appeared in the year that Samuel Clemens was born and in the year that he died. Indicates an action that will take place later on, or is likely to happen. Halleys Comet will appear again around Earth in 2061. Fast population growth will continue to occur in Florida and Nevada. We will have a party at the end of the semester. Indicates an action that began in the past and is finished in the present, or an action that began in the past and extends into the present. Dr. Kim has finished studying the effects of her new drug on rats. My mother has invested her money wisely. We have studied this handout for several minutes. Some students have come to class from this town. Indicates an action that was happening before a certain time in the past. By 1946, engineers had built the first programmable, electronic, digital computer. Before computers used integrated circuits, they had used transistors. Before computers contained transistors, they had used vacuum tubes.
Past
Future
Present Perfect
Past Perfect
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Verb Tense
Future Perfect
Use of Verb Tense and Examples

Indicates an action that will be finished or completed by a certain time in the future. By next Tuesday, the subway system will have run out of money. By April 15, all of the snow will have melted. School will have ended before the summer will start. Indicate continuing or ongoing action in their respective tenses. Present progressive: The volcano is erupting, and the lava is flowing toward the town. Past progressive: The characters actions were becoming harder and harder to understand. Future progressive: The secretary will be typing the letters tomorrow. Present Perfect progressive: The road workers have been digging around the clock. Past Perfect progressive: Before President Kennedy was killed, he had been working on new civil rights laws. Future Perfect progressive: By 11 tomorrow morning, my cousin will have been driving to Florida for five hours.
Progressive Tenses
2. Distinguishing Between Sentences and Fragments Know the difference between groups of word that are just fragments and groups that constitute actual sentences. Remember that a fragment expresses an incomplete thought, but a sentence contains a subject, verb, and complete idea. Fragment After I left the house. When I went to lunch that day. Brushing my teeth in front of the mirror in the first-floor bathroom. Because I was tired and wanted to go to bed early. Complete Sentence I left the house after I had breakfast. When I went to lunch that day, I had pasta and sugar-free cola. I brushed my teeth in front of the mirror in the first-floor bathroom. I did not watch the news because I was tired and wanted to go to bed early.
Notice that fragments 1, 2, and 5 begin with the connecting words after, when, and because. These words are subordinating conjunctions. Subordinating conjunctions join a subordinate clause to a main clause. Fragments 3 and 4 begin with verbals known as participles. 3. Preferring Action Verbs The verb is the strongest part of speech in an English sentence, and English language sentences tend to express ideas more strongly than do sentences in many other languages. Therefore, you should prefer sentences with action verbs over those with just linking verbs. An action verb expresses action, while a linking verb simply expresses a state of being or existence. The following table demonstrates that converting linking verbs to action verbs tend to make for stronger, clearer sentences:
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Linking Verb Sentences Our boss was under the suspicion that we would not be able to finish the job on time. If I am able to arrive on time, then that would be to my advantage in making a good impression. While I seem to be good at writing sentences that are clear, I am often in the habit of using more words than are necessary. It is clear that my father was someone who loved me very much, but it was his habit not to show emotion.
Action Verb Sentences Our boss suspected that we would not finish the job on time. If I arrive on time, I will make a good impression. While I appear to write clear sentences, I often use more words than needed. My father clearly loved me very much, but he usually showed little emotion.
4. Preferring the Active Voice Prefer sentences with action verbs in the active voice over those in the passive voice. In an active voice sentence, the grammatical subject performs the action, and therefore is active. In a passive voice sentence, the subject is someone or something other than the performer and therefore is passive. The following table shows that sentences in the active voice tend to be shorter and clearer than those in the passive, and therefore more understandable: Passive Voice It is believed by many literary critics that Alice Walker is an excellent spokeswoman those who were formally silenced in society. The wallpaper was completely examined by Jane. The car was struck by a van which had its headlights broken. Our country will be considered economically stronger when more American cars are being purchased by our citizens and when high-tech jobs are not being outsourced to other countries by American businesses. Active Voice Many literary critics believe that Alice Walker speaks well on behalf of those that society used to silence. Jane examined the wallpaper thoroughly. A van with broken headlights struck the car. Americas economy will improve if our citizens buy more American-made cars and our companies keep high-technology jobs in the country.
5. Using Parallel Constructions A parallel sentence is one in which words or phrases of equal importance appear in the same type of grammatical structure. Using the same type of structure doesnt just indicate that the words or phrases are equal in value. Such a structure also save words and makes it easier for readers to follow your ideas. The table below gives examples of sentences that are not parallel and examples of how to correct them. Notice that each revised example has a series of elements that are roughly equal in length.
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Not Parallel
My mother taught me to be courteous to women and that I should be avoiding jokes at their expense or make an insult about their style of dress. The speaker bored the audience because he dragged on, he was using repetitive phrases in every paragraph, and it was his first time in front of a large audience. My younger brother likes softball and he likes to do computer work and he very often goes to church.
Parallel
My mother taught me to be courteous to women, avoid jokes at their expense, and respect their style of dress. The speaker bored the audience because he talked too long, repeated himself in every paragraph, and had no experience in front of large audiences. My younger brother likes to play softball, work at his computer, and go to church.
6. Being Concise Be concise by preferring fresh and original language. To avoid creating tired and dull sentences, eliminate wordy expressions, redundancies, circumlocutions, euphemisms, clichs, and mixed metaphors. A wordy expression - uses more words than necessary to communication your meaning. Wordiness tends to show up in early drafts of your writing. Therefore, if you habitually write only one or two drafts, your finished papers probably will have wordy expressions. As you revise your work, look for wordy constructions and cut them out of your work. The table below shows some typical wordy expressions and some suggested revisions. Wordy During the course of class, I asked a large quantity of questions. I have the exact same problem as my twin sister. In view of the fact that July is a hot and humid month, my personal preference is to go to the beach. Historians often give about four different reasons regarding why the Civil War occurred. Concise During class, I asked many questions. I have the same problem as my twin. Since July is hot and humid, I like to go to the beach then. Historians often give about four reasons about why the Civil War occurred.
A redundancy is a phrase containing two or more words with similar meanings when just one of those words will make your point. Writers often use redundancies because they dont realize that they are repeating themselves unnecessarily. Other times, they think that such phrases will make their meaning more emphatic. In fact, just the opposite is true: when you make the same point in fewer words, each word carries more power and, therefore, more emphasis. The following table gives examples of common redundancies and some suggested revised sentences that delete them. Redundancy If you stand too close to the edge of that steep precipice, you could fall off! Each individual player chose her own jersey number. Our house on Warren Avenue is singularly unique. More Concise Sentence If you stand at the edge of that precipice, you could fall off! Each player chose her own jersey number. Our house on Warren Avenue is unique.
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Redundancy The two film critics had polar opposite views about the new movie.
More Concise Sentence The two film critics had opposite views about the new movie.
Note: Do not confuse redundancies with effective repetition. Sometimes, repeating a word or phrase heightens the emotional effect of your presentation, especially if your repetition has a memorable rhythm. One writer and speaker who used repetition effectively was the civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. This last paragraph from his 1983 speech during the March on Washington illustrates effective repetition, not pointless redundancy: And when this happens, when we allow freedom ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of God's children, black men and white men, Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we are free at last! A circumlocution is a roundabout way of saying something. Talking around a subject creates a drag on ones writings, like walking through mud rather than on the sidewalk. Writers who overuse circumlocutions either dont realize what they are doing or are trying, often accidentally, to sound sophisticated. Its perfectly all right if such expressions appear in early essay drafts when you still are trying to find the words to say what you mean. However, before you hand in a paper, cut out all the dead wood you can. The following table lists common circumlocutions and then suggests revised, more concise sentences: Circumlocution The man at the airport was inebriated out of his mind, in a manner of speaking. We live in a single family dwelling unit on Warren Street. Due to the fact that the divine being established an intimate relationship between us, I will look upon you with unconditional positive regard. The administrative staff at the hospital center seemed to be of an overworked nature. Concise Sentence The man at the airport was very drunk. We live in a house on Warren Street. Because God made you mine, Ill cherish you.
The hospital administrators seemed overworked.
A euphemism is an overly nice word or phrase for stating something unpleasant. Euphemisms are wordy and often confuse readers. The most common euphemism probably is pass away instead of die. While you might want to use this euphemism at an actual funeral, you should not do so in an essay describingfor examplethe death of a literary character. Examples of other euphemisms appear in the table below:
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Euphemism Bathroom tissue Collateral damage Comfort station Law enforcement officer
Plain Expression Toilet paper Civilian deaths Bathroom Police officer
Disenfranchised populace Poor people A mixed metaphor is an implied comparison that shifts from one basis of comparison to another, unrelated one. For example, My dad flew off the handle at the traffic cop when he should have cooled his jets seems at first to be a consistent metaphor because flying and jets go together. But flying off the handle is not the same as flying a plane. A clearer sentence would be My father lost his temper at the police officer when he should have remained calm. The problem with mixed metaphors is that they often contain clichs and create such a jumbled image in a readers mind that they become meaningless. To maintain your readers interest by keeping your language fresh and original, build consistent metaphors like the ones in the second column of the following table: Mixed Metaphor While he was a lion at work, my roommate turned into a wet noodle when trying to spend quality time with his girlfriends parents. Our cleanup hitter folded quicker than a twodollar suitcase when the curve fluttered across the plate. Although our debating team is in the pits after our last whipping in the clutches of St. Marys College, our coach sees nothing but roses in our future. I tackled my term paper with boundless energy, but my so-called friend clouded my academic future with a rip-off that I never saw coming. Consistent Metaphor While he was a lion at work, my roommate turned into a nervous kitten when visiting his girlfriends parents. Our cleanup hitter was out of rhythm and missed the pitched when the curve ball jitterbugged across the plate. Although our debating team is depressed after losing badly to St. Marys College, our coach is high on our chances for success. I tackled my paper with great energy, but a former friend injured my chances for academic success by intercepting my paper and passing it off as his own.
7. Using Respectful Language All sorts of reasons exist for using respectful language. Some people justify this policy by saying that all people are made in Gods image and therefore deserve the same kind of respect that you might reserve for the Almighty. Others say that doing so shows that you are willing to abide by generally accepted ethical principles. Still others say that doing so recognizes the often overlooked historical forces of racism, gender discrimination, etc. If none of these arguments works for you, just remember that what goes around comes around. If you insult others in speech or writing, they will start insulting you. And you dont want to be insulted.9
For an interesting response to extreme measures to enforce even the appearance of bias, see Denis Duttons essay: http://denisdutton.com/what_are_editors_for.htm. See also the humorist P.J. ORourkes comments on the same book that Dutton comments upon: http://people.ku.edu/~dadams/review.htm.
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In general, you should identify people simply as persons, not by their demographic category. In the vast majority of general writing situations, a persons race, creed, color, etc. will be unimportant to your point. However, if you truly feel you must distinguish a person or group of persons by a demographic feature, exercise enlightened common sense. If you have trouble controlling your tongue, consult one of the following Web sites for advice on using respectful language: Type of Problem Avoiding General Cases of Sexism Avoiding Job-Related Sexism Respecting Groups of People (and Avoiding Sexism) Web Address http://www.ncte.org/about/over/positions/category/gram/107647.htm http://www.pnl.gov/ag/usage/bias.pdf http://cctc.commnet.edu/grammar/unbiased.htm
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Part 4 - Composing Effective Paragraphs

Defining Paragraphs and Paragraph Blocks A paragraph is a group of related sentences that discuss one topic. You should start a new paragraph whenever you change from one specific subject to another. You also should start a new paragraph whenever you start discussing a new time, place, or event, or when you make a major shift in developmental pattern or tone. Similarly, a paragraph block is a group of related paragraphs that discuss a larger topic. For example, the Loren Eiseley essay The Judgment of the Birds, discusses several different types of small creatures that helped him to learn important spiritual lessons. Eiseley first discusses pigeons roosting on a city hotel ledge, then a crow that he saw on a foggy day, then a flight of chemicals, then a group of sparrows, and finally a spider weaving a web on a lamppost. He makes his point about the first creature in one set of related paragraphs, then his point about the second one in another set of paragraphs, and so on. John McPhee uses the same organizational strategy in an essay about the problems that cargo ship crews encounter, called Pirates, Stowaways, Drugs The first few paragraphs of the essay discuss pirates, the next few discuss stowaways, and the final few discuss drugshence the title of the essay. This strict focus on one, then another, and then a third problem make clear to readers what he is talking about at each point in the essay while keeping the essay moving forward without unneeded repetition. Understanding the Thesis Sentence Writing is more of an art than a science, so there are no absolutes as to what makes a good paragraph good. However, effective paragraphs very often being with a thesis sentencethat is, the most general statement of the paragraph that is supported by all remaining sentences in that paragraph. Placing the thesis sentence at the beginning of the paragraph does three things at once. It announces the topic of the paragraph, expresses its main idea, and sets the tone for the rest of the paragraph. If you place your topic sentences at the start of paragraph after paragraph, your readers will pick up on that organization strategy and follow your essays more easily. The following paragraph opens an essay that argues that, because of the dominance of computers in business these days, future business leaders will not be people who can reason like computers but those who are gifted with artistry and empathy. The paragraph opens with a thesis sentence designed to get the audiences attention by appealing to them personally and then to guide them through the rest of the paragraph: When I was a kidgrowing up in a middle-class family, in the middle of America, in the middle of the 1970sparents dished out a familiar plate of advice to their children: Get good grades, go to college, and pursue a profession that offers a decent standard of living and perhaps a dollop of prestige. If you were good at math and science, become a doctor. If you were better at English and history, become a lawyer. If blood grossed you out and your verbal skills needed work, become an accountant. Later, as computers appeared on desktops and CEOs on magazine covers, the youngsters who were really good at math
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and science chose high tech, while others flocked to business school, thinking that success was spelled MBA.10 Sometimes, to provide variety and maintain interest, you may want to place your topic sentence in the middle of a paragraph. There is no crime in doing that as long as you have good reason to do so. For example, if you need to provide some context, present your main idea, and then support it, you can place the topic sentence in the middle of the paragraph between the background material and supporting material of the thesis. The following narrative paragraph provides some historical context to a persons life, introduces a shocking discovery she made, and then follows up with additional material. Notice that the thesis of the paragraph is italicized: My neighbor grew up in the frightening Cold War era, but attended a good elementary school and took advanced classes throughout high school. Her parents fought often but also loved her and helped pay her way through a leading university, where she studied hard. Given this mixed personal history, she grew up believing that the best way to survive as an adult is to become a sharp thinker. She wasnt going to let politicians or ordinary people ruin her life; she was going to be smarter than the next guy. However, one day, after only a few years of marriage, her husband left her. Despite knowing that he had had problems of his own, my neighbor also knew that she had been mean to him, which helped drive him away. One day, while sitting in a small apartment and brooding over how much she hated her ex and hated herself, my neighbor realized that the same idea kept bubbling up in her mind: Forgiveness is more powerful than judgment. Forgiveness is more powerful than judgment. Now, she lives a happy life with a new husband, has a good job, and takes each day as it comes. Now, instead of trying to be a sharp thinker, she tries to have a warm heart. You also can place a thesis sentence at the end of a paragraphfor example, when you want to make a series of specific observations that lead to a general conclusion. The following paragraph illustrates the strategy of moving from a series of general statements to a specific conclusion. In this paragraph, a writer draws a general conclusion from the specific features of business clothing that U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice wore on a diplomatic mission in early 2005: Rice challenges expectations and assumptions. There is undeniable authority in her long black jacket with its severe details and menacing silhouette. The darkness lends an air of mystery and foreboding. Black is the color of intellectualism, of abstinence, of penitence. If there is any symbolism to be gleaned from Rice's stark garments, it is that she is tough and focused enough for whatever task is at hand.11
Daniel H. Pink. Wired.com. February 2005. Volume 13, Issue 2. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/13.02/brain.html 11 Givhan, Robin. Condoleezza Rice's Commanding Clothes. Washington Post. February 25, 2005, page C01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A51640-2005Feb24?language=printer
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Introducing Paragraph Development Besides opening with a thesis sentence that you then support throughout the rest of the paragraph, most effective paragraphs share three more characteristics: they have thematic unity, structural coherence, and appropriate development. Unity A unified paragraph covers only one topicnot two, not three, not ten. It sticks to its intended subject and does not wander off of it. The following two paragraphs are almost the same. However, the first contains a sentence that does not really belong in the paragraph, while the second is truly unified by eliminating the unneeded sentence. The italicized sentence does refer to the Internet, but only briefly to compare it to the transcontinental telegraph, which is the real topic of the sentence. Without the italicized sentence, the original paragraph focuses more tightly on the purpose and use of the Internet. The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The first transcontinental telegraph line was like the Internet of the nineteenth century. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location. The Internet has revolutionized the computer and communications world like nothing before. The invention of the telegraph, telephone, radio, and computer set the stage for this unprecedented integration of capabilities. The Internet is at once a world-wide broadcasting capability, a mechanism for information dissemination, and a medium for collaboration and interaction between individuals and their computers without regard for geographic location.12 Coherence In a coherent paragraph, all of its sentences clearly relate to each other. No sentence wanders from the paragraphs topic. You can create a coherent paragraph by using the following strategies: Repeating the same word or phrase from sentence to sentence Using synonyms from sentence to sentence Using sentences that relate back to earlier ones and/or forward to later ones Using transitional words and/or phrases Repeating a Word The following paragraph uses the first strategy, repeating words or ideas from sentence to sentence. By repeating the word technology, the author ties one sentence to another and then to another:
Barry M. Leiner. A Brief History of the Internet. 11 Oct. 2004. The Internet Society. July 15, 2005. http://www.isoc.org/internet/history/brief.shtml#Introduction.
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Throughout history, people have used technology to change the world. Our technology has been of two kinds, green and gray. Green technology is seeds and plants, gardens and vineyards and orchards, domesticated horses and cows and pigs, milk and cheese, leather and wool. Gray technology is bronze and steel, spears and guns, coal and oil and electricity, automobiles and airplanes and rockets, telephones and computers. Civilization began with green technology, with agriculture and animal breeding, 10,000 years ago. Then, beginning about 3,000 years ago, gray technology became dominant, with mining and metallurgy and machinery. For the last 500 years, gray technology has been racing ahead and has given birth to the modern world of cities and factories and supermarkets.13 Using Synonyms Instead of repeating the same word from sentence to sentence to make a paragraph cohere, you can use synonyms. Synonyms are words that have similar meanings to those of other words. By using synonyms, you provide some verbal variety within the paragraph while maintaining the readers train of thought. The following paragraph illustrates the effective use of synonyms. About halfway through his speech at his second inauguration, President Bush uses synonyms for the word freedom to tie together his thoughtsfor example, liberty and independence. He also uses the phrase agent of his or her own destiny to suggest the idea of personal freedom and the words prosperous, just, and equal to suggest characteristics of free societies: In America's ideal of freedom, citizens find the dignity and security of economic independence, instead of laboring on the edge of subsistence. This is the broader definition of liberty that motivated the Homestead Act, the Social Security Act, and the G.I. Bill of Rights. And now we will extend this vision by reforming great institutions to serve the needs of our time. To give every American a stake in the promise and future of our country, we will bring the highest standards to our schools, and build an ownership society. We will widen the ownership of homes and businesses, retirement savings and health insurance preparing our people for the challenges of life in a free society. By making every citizen an agent of his or her own destiny, we will give our fellow Americans greater freedom from want and fear, and make our society more prosperous and just and equal.14 Using Sentences that Relate Back and Forward Besides using the same word or a synonym to unify a paragraph, you can use words or phrases within sentences so that they recall some idea in an earlier sentence and hint at an idea in a later one. Such a set of sentences is like a well-designed web or network, smoothly interlinking one sentence with another so that you move your discussion along without pounding your reader with
Freeman J. Dyson. Science, Guided by Ethics, Can Lift Up the Poor. The Norton Sample.: Short Essays for Composition. 6th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2003. Page 154. 14 George W. Bush. Second Inaugural Address. The White House. 12 July 2005. http://www.whitehouse.gov/inaugural/index.html.
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overly obvious signals as to sentence structure. The following paragraph illustrates the use of signal words and phrases (italicized for emphasis) that refer back and forth to unify the paragraph. The following paragraph by Theodore Roosevelt describes all the land north of the Black Hills and the Big Horn Mountains and between the Rockies and the Dakota wheat-fields. Notice that, throughout the paragraph, Roosevelt uses words that emphasize the dryness of the land that he visited: The country throughout this great Upper Missouri basin has a wonderful sameness of character; and the rest of the arid belt, lying to the southward, is closely akin to it in its main features. A traveler seeing it for the first time is especially struck by its look of parched, barren desolation; he can with difficulty believe that it will support cattle at all. It is a region of light rainfall; the grass is short and comparatively scanty; there is no timber except along the beds of the streams, and in many places there are alkali deserts where nothing grows but sage-brush and cactus. Now the land stretches out into level, seemingly endless plains or into rolling prairies; again it is broken by abrupt hills and deep, winding valleys; or else it is crossed by chains of buttes, usually bare, but often clad with a dense growth of dwarfed pines or gnarled, stunted cedars. The muddy rivers run in broad, shallow beds, which after heavy rainfalls are filled to the brim by the swollen torrents, while in droughts the larger streams dwindle into sluggish trickles of clearer water, and the smaller ones dry up entirely, save in occasional deep pools.15 Using Transitional Words and Phrases Students sometimes complain about having trouble making their essays flow. When they say this, they often mean that their writing sounds choppy or disjointed. One idea does not seem to connect with another. To make your essays flow, you can use transitional words and phrases between sentences. Similarly, make the overall essay clear by using transitional words and phrases between paragraphs. To understand the value of transitional words and phrases, look at the following two paragraphs. The first is an edited version of the second, from which I deleted the transitional elements. The second paragraph is from an essay that describes a man who was found living in a Florida swamp. Since the second one contains transitions, it flows more clearly than my edited version. Notice also that, quite often, you will need very few transitional elements within a paragraph to make it cohere: For eight months in 1975, residents on the edge of Green Swamp, Florida, had been reporting to the police that they had seen a Wild Man. They stepped toward him. He made strange noises in a foreign language. He ran back into the saw grass. Authorities said the Wild Man was a mass hallucination. Maneating animals lived in the swamp. A human being could hardly
Theodore Roosevelt. The Cattle Country of the Far West. Ranch Life and the Hunting-Trail. 1896. http://www.bartleby.com/54/1.html.
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find a place to rest without sinking. It was some kind of a bear the children had seen. For eight months in 1975, residents on the edge of Green Swamp, Florida, had been reporting to the police that they had seen a Wild Man. When they stepped toward him, he made strange noises as in a foreign language and ran back into the saw grass. At first, authorities said the Wild Man was a mass hallucination. Man-eating animals lived in the swamp, and a human being could hardly find a place to rest without sinking. Perhaps it was some kind of a bear the children had seen.16 The following table lists several categories of transitions that you may want to express in a paragraph with their corresponding transitional words and phrases: Used to Express Addition Similarity Contrast Concession Examples Emphasis Transitional Words/Phrases in addition, moreover, furthermore, another, as well as, and, also, besides, or, nor similarly, likewise, in the same way, but, yet, in contrast, still, surely, nevertheless, however, nonetheless, instead, rather than, unlike, whereas, even so, conversely although, though, granted, admittedly, obviously, to be sure, of course for example, for instance, in particular,, in general, whenever, frequently, usually, specifically indeed, in fact, certainly, clearly, of course, to be sure, naturally,, for that matter, more important, most important, frankly, oddly enough, as noted earlier, in any case, in other words thus, therefore, hence, then, consequently, because, due to, as a result, since, it follows , and so, accordingly if, whether first, second, third, next, then, after before, after, until, while, since, when, currently, next, meanwhile, thereafter, soon, earlier, later, immediately, by that time, shortly, at that moment so, in conclusion, finally, in sum, in short, to sum up, therefore, on the whole, in brief, all in all, in a word
Results Hypothesis Sequence Time Relationship Conclusions
Adequate Development Like the first two beds in the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, a paragraph can be too big or too small. However, a properly developed paragraph is just right. In other words, it discusses its topic until it has adequately covered that topic. Such a paragraph introduces its topic, discusses it fully, and then finishes off the discussion. It has a beginning, middle, and an end or at least it has the feeling of being complete. If you tend to underwrite your paragraphs, you may need to combine
Maxine Hong Kinston, The Wild Man of the Green Swamp. Modern American Prose. 3rd ed. J. Clifford and R. DiYanni, eds. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1993. 258.
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two or three of them to make a fully developed one. In contrast, if you find that you ramble on and on, you may need to break a huge paragraph into two or three smaller ones.17 The three writing samples below illustrate the need for proper paragraph length. The first sample shows two paragraphs that could be combined. The second is a paragraph of appropriate length. The third is a paragraph that you could break into two smaller paragraphs. Sample 1 Underdeveloped Paragraphs A home computer system generally contains a computer, complete with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Some people also have a scanner or other additional piece of equipment. In my mind, however, an essential piece of equipment is a printer. Thats because I often have to take work home and night and then bring printed materials into work the next morning. I also use the printer for personal interests such as charity work and printouts for my sons Little League team. Comment: At first, it may appear that two paragraphs are appropriate here. The first paragraph seems to discuss one topicnamely, what people generally have in a home computer. The second seems to discuss another topicpersonal reasons for owning a home printer. However, the two paragraphs really belong together because the first two sentences introduce information about what people generally own and the last two sentences narrow down that discussion to focus on what one person owns. Sample 2 Properly developed paragraph A home computer system generally contains a computer, complete with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Some people also have a scanner or other additional piece of equipment. In my mind, however, an essential piece of equipment is a printer. Thats because I often have to take work home and night and then bring printed materials into work the next morning. I also use the printer for personal interests such as charity work and printouts for my sons Little League team. Sample 3 Excessively long paragraph A home computer system generally contains a computer, complete with a keyboard, monitor, and mouse. Some people also have a scanner or other additional piece of equipment. In my mind, however, an essential piece of equipment is a printer. Thats because I often have to take work home and night and then bring printed materials into work the next morning. I also use the printer for personal interests such as charity work and
With the rise of radio and television in the 20th century and the widening use of cell phones and video games in the 21st century, readers have developed shorter and shorter attention spans. In the 19th century, for example, paragraphs commonly ran 20 to 40 sentences. Today, a proper paragraph length, especially in a college essay, probably is between three and ten sentences.
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printouts for my sons Little League team. If you must bring home work from the office, you also may need a printer, especially if you often have meetings as soon as you arrive at work in the morning. And if you have hobbies or other interests that call for printed materials, you have even more reason to buy one. A high-quality printerone that can stand up to the demands of business-related printingcan cost around $500. Such a machine will be able to print large quantities and almost certainly will do automatic duplex printing. That is, it will be able to print on both sides of the page without having to remove a one-sided printout and then flip it over and reprint. And with printer prices falling rapidly in the last few months, you may even be able to purchase a color-laser printer that can add extra impact to printed presentations. Comment: Here is a case where two paragraphs would be better than one. The sentence that begins If you must bring stops discussing the writers reasons for having a printer and starts to discuss both whether the reader should buy a printer and the possible cost and features of such a machine. Because of the shift in topic and in point of view from first person to second person, two paragraphs are called for. Introducing Patterns of Development Regarding paragraph development, you should do more than just cover your topic sufficiently. You also should have a clear overall structure that makes it easy for readers to follow your discussion of that topic. Well-developed paragraphs often have a distinct pattern of developmentthat is, the structure used to organize sentence after sentence in that paragraph. Do not choose any pattern just to have a pattern. Instead, choose the pattern that most closely matches the purpose of your discussion in each essay section. For example, in a biology paper about the cell division, you could open with a paragraph that defines the terms meiosis and mitosis. Then the next few paragraphs could compare the two processesthat is, show how they resemble each other. Your concluding paragraphs could contrast the two processesthat is, explain how the two processes differ. Identifying the Patterns of Development Writing teachers generally agree that there are about seven different patterns of development. This section defines those patterns, supplies a sample paragraph that illustrates each one, and then concludes with a table that summarizes them. Analogy compares an unfamiliar thing to a familiar thing in order to make the unfamiliar thing more familiar. (In other words, the author explains something that he or she knows about by comparing it to something that readers in general may know about.) The following paragraph compares the house of the authors grandmother to one of those large, compartmented, spiralshaped shells that people often find when walking along an ocean beach: My grandmothers house is like a chambered nautilus; it has many rooms, yet it is not a mansion. Its proportions are small and its design simple. It is a house that has grown organically, according the needs of its inhabitants. To all of us in the family it
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is known as la casa de Mama. It is the place or our origin; the stage for our memories and dreams of island life. Judith Ortiz Cofer, More Room Cause/Effect demonstrates how an earlier event (or set of events) brought about a later event (or set of events. You can use this pattern to write about personal or public events from the distant or recent past. The following paragraph argues that teachers sometimes kill a little childs interest in reading by forcing him or her to read aloud in class: From the very beginning of school, we make books and reading a constant source of possible failure and public humiliation. When children are little, we make them read aloud, before the teacher and other children, so that we can be sure they know all the words they are reading. This means that when they dont know a word, they are going to make a mistake, right in front of everyone. Instantly, they are made to realize that they have done something wrong. Perhaps some of the other children will begin to wave their hands and say Ooooh! O-o-o-oh! Perhaps they will just giggle, or nudge each other, or make a face. Perhaps the teacher will say, Are you sure? or ask someone else what he things. Or perhaps, if the teacher is kindly, she will just smile a sweet, sad smileoften one of the most painful punishments a child can suffer in school. In any case, the child who has made the mistake knows that he has made it, and feels foolish, stupid, and ashamed, just as any of us would in his shoes. John Holt, How Teachers Make Children Hate Reading Comparison/Contrast shows the similarities and differences of two somewhat related items. For example, you could in fact compare apples and oranges to create an essay that communicates fruitful information. But there probably would be little knowledge to be gained in comparing apples and donkeys. The following paragraph compares and contrasts the two most famous generals of the American Civil War in order to show how each of them symbolized the societies that they fought for: So Grant and Less were in complete contrast, representing two diametrically opposed elements in American life. Grant was the modern man emerging; beyond him, ready to come on the stage, was the great age of steel and machinery, of crowded cities and a restless burgeoning vitality. Lee might have ridden down from the old age of chivalry, lance in hand, silken banner fluttering over his head. Each man was the perfect champion of his cause, drawing both his strengths and weaknesses from the people he led. Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts Definition sets the boundaries or limits of an item. Just as a foul line sets a baseball field within a larger stadium and then separates it from the foul ball area, so also definition places an item within a large category and then distinguishes it from other items in that category. The following paragraph explains the meaning of the linguistic term doublespeak:
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Doublespeak is language that pretends to communicate but really doesnt. It is language that makes the bad seem good, the negative appear positive, the unpleasant appear attractive or at least tolerable. Doublespeak is language that avoids or shifts responsibility, language that is at variance with its real or purported meaning. It is language that conceals or prevents thought; rather than extending thought, doublespeak limits it. William Lutz, Doublespeak Division/Classification separates a group of items into related subgroups. By dividing or classifying, we make a large, even huge, area of knowledge more manageable by breaking it into smaller groups. The following paragraph breaks down the overall act of listening to classical music into three more specific types of listening: We all listen to music according to our capacities. But, for the sake of analysis, the whole listening process may become clearer if we break it into its component parts, so to speak. In a certain sense, we all listen to music on three separate planes. For the lack of a better terminology, one might name these: (1) the sensuous plane, (2) the expressive plane, (3) the sheerly musical plane. The only advantage to be gained from mechanically splitting up the listening process into these hypothetical planes is the clearer view to be had of the way in which we listen. Aaron Copland. How We Listen Example/Illustration supplies several instances or samples of an item in order to make that item more understandable. By supplying instances or samples of something, especially an abstraction, we give that thing flesh and bone so that people can see that thing more readily. The following paragraph supplies humorous examples of events in a womans life to illustrate her belief that she was a victim of entropyin other words, that her life was breaking down: It was about two months ago when I realized that entropy was getting the better of me. On the same day my car broke down (again), my refrigerator conked out, and I learned that I needed root canal work in my right rear tooth. The windows in the bedroom were still leaking every time it rained, and my sons baby sitter was still failing to show up every time I really needed her. My hair was turning gray and I needed glasses. My sons sneakers were developing holes and I was developing a deep sense of futility. K. C. Cole, The Arrow of Time Process breaks down a procedure into its individual steps or stages. This pattern of development helps differs from the cause/effect pattern because this pattern generally involves a repeatable series of activities. In contrast, the cause/effect pattern generally involves a series of events that happened once and for all. The following paragraph explains the steps involved in the scientific process photosynthesis:
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The initial process in photosynthesis is the decomposition of water into oxygen, which is released, and hydrogen. Direct light is required for this process. The hydrogen and the carbon and oxygen of carbon dioxide are then converted into a series of increasingly complex compounds that result finally in a stable organic compound, glucose, and water. This phase of photosynthesis utilizes stored energy and therefore can proceed in the dark. In general, the results of this process are the reverse of those in respiration, in which carbohydrates are oxidized to release energy, with the production of carbon dioxide and water.18 The table below lists each pattern, defines it, and then gives the titles of essays that commonly appear in college composition collections and that display that pattern: Pattern 1. Analogy Definition Comparing the unfamiliar to the familiar in order to make the unfamiliar more familiar Showing how an earlier event or set of events brought about a later event or set of event 3. Comparison/Contrast Showing the similarities and differences of two somewhat related items Setting the boundaries or limits of an item 6. Example/Illustration Supplying several instances or samples of an item 7. Process Breaking down a procedure into a sequence of steps Examples Annie Dillard, The Death of a Moth Barry Lopez, My Horse William Severini Kowinski, Kids in the Mall: Growing Up Controlled Maya Angelou, Why Blacks Are Returning to Their Southern Roots Bruce Catton, Grant and Lee: A Study in Contrasts Deborah, Gender in the Classroom Joan Didion, Self-Respect Francis Bacon, On Revenge Randy Shilts, Good AIDS, Bad AIDS Judith Viorst, What, Me? Showing Off? Thomas Jefferson, The Declaration of Independence Mary Karr, Dysfunctional Nation Alexander Petrunkevitch, The Spider and the Wasp Jessica Mitford, Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain
2. Cause/Effect
4. Definition
5. Division/Classification Separating a group of items into related subgroups
Adapted from Photosynthesis: The Photosynthetic Process at the following URL: http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/photosyn_ThePhotosyntheticProcess.asp.
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Opening and Closing Paragraphs Because of their positions in essays, opening and closing paragraphs have special functions that paragraphs in the body of the essay do not. For example, an essays opening paragraph functions much like a thesis sentence at the top of a paragraph does. That is, the opening paragraph introduces the essays topic, announces its thesis, and sets the tone of the essay. Conversely, a closing paragraph completes an essay by conveying the sense that the writer has properly covered his or her subject and has satisfied the main reasons for writing. Opening Paragraphs Some effective types of opening paragraphs are named below, with advice on how to use them. Direct Opening Open the first paragraph with the thesis of the entire essay. The following paragraph illustrates this style. Written in the early 1940s, the paragraph reflects both the more conservative spirit of that era and the careful and methodical nature of its subjectnamely, Wilbur and Orville Wright, inventors of the airplane: From earliest years both Wilbur and Orville Wright were motivated by what Thorstein Veblen called the instinct of workmanship. Their father, the Reverend Milton Wright, used to encourage them in this and never chided them for spending on their hobbies what little money they might have. But he did urge them to try to earn enough money to meet the costs of whatever projects they were carrying on. All the money anyone needs, he used to say, is just enough to prevent on from being a burden on others.19 Inverted Pyramid Start with a general statement, narrow to a more specific statement, and then end with the most specific statement as the thesis of your essay. In the broad, opening statement, the writer generally says something that readers already know and then moves toward an idea that readers dont know, but which the essay will discuss. This strategy creates a link between peoples current knowledge and new information that the essayist wants them to learn. By moving gradually from the known to the unknown, the inverted pyramid paragraph (also called a funnel paragraph) pulls you in and keeps your reading. The following paragraph begins with the simple fact that lots of people like camping vacations and then uses more and more narrow statements to arrive at a specific point about potential camping problems that people may not be aware of: Each year, thousands of people throughout the United States choose to spend their vacations camping in the great outdoors. Depending on an individual's sense of adventure, there are various types of camping to choose from, including log cabin camping, recreational vehicle camping, and tent camping. Of these, tent camping involves "roughing it" the most, and with proper planning the experience can be gratifying. Even with the best planning, however, tent camping can be an extremely
Fred C. Kelly. The Wright Brothers. New York: Harcourt, Brace and Company, 1943. Rpt. New York: Dover Publications, 1989. Page 5.
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frustrating experience due to uncontrolled factors such as bad weather, wildlife encounters, and equipment failures.20 Question Pose a question in the first sentence of the opening paragraph and then answer it by the last sentence of the opener. Make that last sentence the thesis of your essay. The thesis need not answer the question directly, but the thesis must follow logically from the series of intervening sentences in order to show readers the respect they expect and deserve. Writers who use the question/answer strategy believe that a starter question arouses a readers curiosity and keeps him or her reading in hopes that the writer will satisfy that feeling. The following paragraph introduces a Time magazine essay that discusses how raw contemporary wrestling shows on television have become over the last twenty years: What kind of programming do you identify with cable television? Probably shows like Larry King Live on CNN and Nick at Nites reruns of Bewitched, or Biography on A&E and maybe those documentaries about Adolf Hitler that the History Channel always seems to carry (this weeks is a classic: Hitler and the Occult). These offerings may seem emblematic of cable, but if you think they represent its most popular shows, you are very wrong. Cables TVs true signature is not a conversation between Larry King and Trent Lott; it is a Hell in a Cell bout between Stone Cold Steve Austin and his archrival Kane.21 Serious writers almost always write to solve a problem for themselves or to answer a question of their own, so you might think that this opening strategy is very common. In fact, it isnt. For example, Andy Rooney, the veteran CBS reporter, seems famous for beginning his commentaries at the end of the television show, 60 Minutes, with the nasaltoned remark, Have your ever? In research we did while preparing this book, however, we discovered that he almost never, if at all, begins his commentaries that way. And when we looked at hundreds of essays in composition anthologies, we also found that the question/answer opener is very rare. So feel free to make this strategy your own. Just dont overuse it in one class or in class after class with the same instructor! Anecdote or Description An anecdote is brief story about an event. The anecdote should not only introduce the essay but also illustrate the thesis to be supported in the rest the essay. In other words, dont begin with a story just to begin with one, hoping that it will grab readers for whatever comes next. As with an anecdote, you can begin with a brief, lively description that sets the scene for the rest of the essay. (Remember that description uses concrete words to create a picture in the readers mind.) The description need not name the thing being described. (In fact, sometimes a picture of some unnamed person, place, or thing can be very intriguing.) But the description itself must be clear, consistent, and precise. The paragraph below, by Gretel Erhlich, vividly describes something. At first, we are not sure what it is; however, as we read further, we realize that she is writing about her first semi-conscious moments after having been hit by lightning:
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Sample Five-Paragraph Essay. North Carolina Conference of English Instructors. August 5, 2005. http://www.nccei.org/essaybasics/5_paragraph_essay.html. 21 James Collins. Lords of the Ring. Time. June 29, 1998. Rpt. In Barbara Fine Clouse. Patterns for a Purpose: A Rhetorical Reader. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. Page 363.
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Deep in an ocean. I am suspended motionless. The water is gray. Thats all there is, and before that? My arms are held out straight, cruciate, my head and legs hang limp. Nothing moves. Brown kelp lies flat in mud and fish are buried in liquid clouds of dust. There are no shadows or sounds. Should there be? I dont know if I am alive, but if not, how do I know I am dead? My body is leaden, heavier than gravity. Gravity is done with me. No more sinking and rising or bobbing in currents. There is a terrible feeling of oppression with no oppressor. I try to lodge my mind against some boundary, some reference point, but the continent of the body dissolves.22 What to Avoid in an Opening Paragraph Beginning with dull or needless definition Opening with a dictionary definition, especially of a well-known term. o Example: The dictionary defines love as strong affection or deep regard for another person. Restating assignment Repeating for your instructors or reading audiences what they already know to be your topic. o Example: Its important that we respond to our instructors assignment regarding the cruelties of slavery that helped cause the Civil War and the great costs of intolerance against former slaves after the war. Stating something blatantly obvious Saying something so obvious or bland that you immediately kill your readers interest in your topic. o Example: In todays world in which we live, young people face many challenges. [Notice also the unnecessary repetition in the introductory clause.] Apologizing Claiming or pretending to be unqualified to handle the topic of the essay. o Example: Although the mapping of the human genome has received much publicity in the media, I am not sure that I can predict what the future holds for society in light of our new scientific knowledge. Being lazy or careless - Making a false statement or committing a major typographic error. o Example: What do historians find when they put their noses into the anals of history?23 Closing Paragraphs Summarize briefly Sum up the thesis of each paragraph block from the body of the essay, but do so only briefly. (In a short essayfewer than three pagesomit it.) By creating an essay in miniature, you help readers reabsorb the whole essay in just a few sentences and give them a sense of intellectual and stylistic wholeness. In an essay about the Civil War figure Joshua Chamberlain, Glenn LaFantasie uses the strategy of a summarizing final paragraph. The essay itself discusses Chamberlains commitment to chivalry and honor, his success at being praised as a hero, and his enthusiastic retelling of the 20th Maine
Gretel Ehrlich. Struck by Lightning. A Match to the Heart: One Womans Story of Being Struck by Lightning. New York: Pantheon Books, 1994. (Rpt. In Barbara Fine Clouse. Patterns for a Purpose: A Rhetorical Reader. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2003. 137.) 23 For this example of an unintended opening to a students final examination essay, I am indebted to Douglas Carlson, former teaching colleague at The Kings College in New York, who now teaches at Northwestern College in Iowa.
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Regiments exploits on the second day of the Battle of Gettysburg. LaFantasie organizes his final paragraph similarly and creates the sense of wholeness that many essayists (and readers) desire:
Like nothing else in his life, the charge at Gettysburg defined who Joshua Chamberlain was and who he would always be. But his greatest achievementgreater than any assault he led, any would he survived, any medal he earned, any obstacle he overcamewas how he had lived his dreams and made them come true. He wanted to be a chivalrous knight and an Old Testament warrior, and so in his own eyes and those of his contemporaries he became those things. The Civil War gave him the opportunity to turn his deepest aspirations into reality. But it is our need for heroes that has enabled Chamberlain to achieve the glory he longed for throughout the war and most of his life. All in all, he accomplished what few men, either in his own time or in our own, can ever honestly claim: he lived his dreams to the fullest.24
Look to the future Suggest to your readership the importance or benefit to them of what you have said in the essay. Whether you write to tell a story, describe a scene, provide information, or defend a viewpoint, you also must consider how readers might profit from what you have written. They are spending time reading your writing, after all, and they should derive some reward for their effort. In the following paragraph, Martin Luther King, Jr., concludes an essay-like letter that he wrote to some Birmingham, Alabama, clergymen who wanted him to go slow with early efforts at racial integration. After arguing many points raised by those who wrote to him, King concludes by discussing the benefits of more rapid progress toward racial equality in their city and the nation:
I hope this letter finds you strong in the faith. I also hope that circumstances will soon make it possible for me to meet each of your, not as an integrationist or a civil-rights leader but as a fellow clergyman and a Christian brother. Let us all hope that the dark clouds of racial prejudice will soon pass away and the deep fog of misunderstanding will be lifted from our fear-drenched communities, and in some not too distant tomorrow the radiant stars of love and brotherhood will shine over our great nation with all their scintillating beauty.25
End with a clinching statement The equivalent of beginning an essay directly is to end with a clinching statement. Such a statement seals or confirms what has gone before. It tries to capture in one concentrated phrase both the intellectual and emotional content of the essay. To execute this strategy, for example, some writers restate the thesis in the words of a famous quotation from the Bible, a historical figure, or other revered source. Other writers may quote the words of someone they interviewed when preparing the essay and who seems to encapsulate the authors own ideas. The following paragraph uses even another clinching strategy: the blunt remark that is both ironic and satiric. The irony and
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Glenn LaFantasie. Joshua Chamberlain and the American Dream. The Gettysburg Nobody Knows. Ed. Gabor S. Boritt. New York: Oxford UP, 1999. 55. 25 Martin Luther King, Jr. Letter from Birmingham Jail. The Norton Reader. 11th ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. 902.
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satire of this closing paragraph is especially strong because it comes after a twenty-sixparagraph-long description of how bodies might be prepared for viewing at a funeral home:
It is the function of directing the participants through this maze of gadgetry that the funeral director has assigned to himself the relatively new role of grief therapist. He has relieved the family of every detail, he has revamped the corpse to look like a living doll, he has arranged for it to nap for a few days in a slumber room, he has put on a well-oiled performance in which the concept of death has played no part whatsoeverunless it was inconsiderately mentioned by the clergyman who conducted the religious service. He has done everything in his power to make the funeral a real pleasure for everyone concerned. He and his team have given their all to score an upset victory over death.26
Recall the opening anecdote or description If you begin an essay with a brief anecdote/description, then often the most logical way to finish the essay is to round off the anecdote/description in the final paragraph. By completing the opening anecdote/description, the final paragraph satisfies readers curiosity as to why you opened as you did and gives a sense of stylistic completeness too. The following two paragraphs come from an essay about the dangers that could arise as more and more nations developing nuclear weapons. The first paragraph opens the essay and introduces a scene from 1945, right after the end of World War II. The second paragraph ends the essay by recalling the opening scene and by tying up the authors thesis about the need for effective diplomacy to stop nuclear proliferation:
Sixty years ago, on a stormy night in 1945, the charismatic American physicist Robert Oppenheimer mounted the stage of a movie theater in the secret city of Los Alamos, New Mexico. Lean and intense, he was there to address hundreds of scientiststhe men and women who built the first atomic bombs under his direction. Exploded over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on August 6 and 9, 1945, those bombs had just ended the most destructive war in human historyand changed the face of war forever. * * * * * Neils Bohr and Robert Oppenheimer would recognize our dilemma: What to do with the double-edged sword they handed us, forged from exotic metals by a nuclear reaction that science stumbled across one day in 1938 while going about its business of discovering how the world works. Their advice, I think, still holds: Only cooperation among nations can secure the deadly metals from which nuclear weapons are made. Only negotiated reductions in arsenals and limitations on weapons development can diminish the long-term risk to us all. Thats what Bohr and Oppenheimer fervently believed, and what Oppenheimer told the scientists of Los Alamos that rainy night 60 years ago.27
Mitford, Jessica. Behind the Formaldehyde Curtain. The American Way of Death. New York: Knopf, 1998. (Rpt. From Barbara Fine Clouse. Patterns for a Purpose: A Rhetorical Reader. 3rd ed. Boston: McGraw-Hill, 2003. 339). 27 Rhodes, Richard. Living with the Bomb. National Geographic. 208:2. August 2005. 100, 113.
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What to Avoid in a Closing Paragraph Repeating the thesis Dont just restate the thesis, especially in a short essay, as if you forgot to do so. Starting on new topic Dont wander onto a new topic unrelated to the topic of the essay. Pretending to prove more than you have Dont claim that your essay shows more than you have shown. If your discussion is incomplete or your argument is weak, complete the discussion or strengthen the argument. Unnecessarily bringing thesis into doubt Dont apologize for weaknesses in the essay or claim a false humility.
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Part 5 Using Logic and Evidence

Introduction The first rule of good writing is to tell the truth. No matter how clear, concise, and organized your writing might be, readers will reject your work if you dont understand your subject or try to deceive them. To be truthful, you also must be logical. That is, you must present reasonable arguments based on facts, evidence, and expert opinion. The second rule of good writing is to respect your audience. No matter how truthful your writing may be, readers also will reject your work if you attack them personally.28 Normally, we would discuss the first rule first and the second rule second. However, people generally can control their emotions when writing academic assignments more easily than reason logically, so we will tackle the second issuerespect for your audiencefirst. Respect your audience by maintaining a balanced tone. The tone of an essay is the mood or feeling that it conveys to its readers. This tone comes through in the authors word choice, sentence structure, paragraph structure, and punctuation. Articles in scientific magazines and journals, for example, usually try to strike a rational and serious tone of voice, reflecting the dominant attitude of scientists that they deal in matters of objective fact, verifiable by research and experimentation. For example, in their now-famous 1953 article announcing the revolutionary discovery of the proper structure of DNA, James Watson and Francis Crick struck a very restrained mood or feeling in their first two paragraphs. Words such as suggest, considerable, and unsatisfactory indicate a controlled tone. An irrational or superior tone might have involved the words insist upon, immense, and stupid. We wish to suggest a structure for the salt of deoxyribose nucleic acid (D.N.A.). This structure has novel features which are of considerable biological interest. A structure for nucleic acid has already been proposed by Pauling and Corey. They kindly made their manuscript available to us in advance of publication. Their model consists of three intertwined chains, with the phosphates near the fibre axis, and the bases on the outside. In our opinion, this structure is unsatisfactory for two reasons: We believe that the material which gives the X-ray diagrams is the salt, not the free acid. Without the acidic hydrogen atoms it is not clear what forces would hold the structure together, especially as the negatively charged phosphates near the axis will repel each other. Some of the van der Waals distances appear to be too small.29 In contrast, a letter the editor of a newspaper, especially on politics, may be passionate in its choice of language and punctuation. Unfortunately, letters to the editor often do little more than give those
Television commentator Christ Matthews once suggested that Americans despise politicians who insult them. This may explain why the 2000 presidential election was so close. Matthews says that, at one televised debate, the audience preferred the notion of having a guy in the White House who often spoke English as if it were his second language [George Bush] to one who spoke to us as if English were our second language [Al Gore]. http://www.chroniclesmagazine.org/Chronicles/June2002/0602Lott.html. 29 http://biocrs.biomed.brown.edu/Books/Chapters/Ch%208/DH-Paper.html
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who write in the opportunity to vent their emotions. For example, in the first paragraph of the following example, the letter criticizes the Federal Communications Commission for 2005 rulings against indecent broadcasting practices by using inflammatory words like burden ourselves, taken control, and indiscriminately, without offering any evidence that the offenses referred to have actually occurred. The second paragraph describes the writers fellow citizens as people who sit idly by like sheep and elected officials as a gang of crooks and liars. This paragraph also lacks any supporting evidence, helping to make the letter sound like a frustrated outburst rather than a reasoned attempt to persuade readers: Dear Editor: We should all feel a little lighter. No longer do we have to burden ourselves with deciding what to watch and listen to. Our government has taken control of the dials. The Federal Communications Commission can now indiscriminately levy huge fines against anyone it chooses, without precedent, guidelines or a day in court ["Crackdown on indecency," News, Feb. 17]. And we all sit idly by like sheep. The people we elected have failed us, and the only way to fight back is to make sure you don't vote for anyone, Republican or Democrat, currently in office. Kick them out and give the next gang of crooks and liars a chance to stand up for us and prove their worth.30 The following letter does a better job of telling the truth and respecting its audience. The two quoted wordsvoluntary and freeat first appear to be sarcastic or ironic quips, but they actually are quotations from the news story to which the letter responds. Similarly, this letter (written by a college student) offers evidence for its positions without losing control of its tone: Dear Editor: It is ironic that the Daily printed an editorial supporting free air time for candidates on the same day that they printed a special section on the First Amendment. The Federal Communication Commission's plan to encourage stations to give free air time to candidates is a violation of the free speech rights of the stations involved, and would not have the positive effects that the editorial suggests. Broadcasters should be allowed to own the airwaves they broadcast on just as newspapers are allowed to own the printing presses with which they print their papers. As long as the FCC is given the arbitrary authority to deny renewal of the licenses to any broadcaster who doesn't do what it wants, free speech in the broadcast industry is a farce. This case is one example of this problem. Regardless of what the FCC says, when they ask a station to carry free political ads, it is not "voluntary." Behind such a request is the thinly veiled threat that the FCC will force them to comply or revoke their licenses if they don't. The editorial writer is also unreasonably optimistic about the practical results of such a plan. Like all businesses, TV stations are there to make money, and they will put the "free" advertising in the lowest-priced slots in their lineups. This means that the ads will tend to run late at night and in the early morning when almost no one is watching. Furthermore, there is no reason to think that the broadcasters would give third-party candidates air time, since the FCC is run by people appointed by Republicans and Democrats. Rather than leveling the
February 21, 2005 letter to Newsday, the major newspaper on Long Island, NY, as printed at the following URL: http://www.newsday.com/news/opinion/letters/.
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playing field, this could further increase the advantage that major-party candidates have over their third-party opponents. The FCC was created to ensure that wireless communications and electrical devices do not interfere with each other, and that is all it should do. Political decisions regarding campaign financing and broadcasters' obligations should be dealt with by our elected officials, not bureaucrats who are not responsible to the American people.31 Tell the truth by understanding and using logic and evidence. To help you write more logically, you should learn a few basic terms of logic. Knowing these terms will help improve your chances of writing logically and avoid fooling yourself and others. More importantly, perhaps, learning these terms will help you reduce the odds that others will fool you with writing that appears sensible but is nothing more than fancy words and slick tactics. Understanding the Two Basic Types of Reasoning 1. Induction drawing a general conclusion from representative specific events or instances. a. Example: My roommate goes out for pizza three days a week. Therefore, my roommate probably loves pizza. b. Example: New York State has voted Democratic in the last five straight presidential elections. Therefore, New York has more Democrats than Republicans. 2. Deduction drawing a specific conclusion from more general principles. (Deduction often uses a syllogism, which is a three-part deduction based upon a major premise and a minor premise.) a. Example: All students in the RCC Honors program must have at least a 3.00 GPA. John Smith is in the RCC Honors program. Therefore, John Smith has at least a 3.00 G.P.A. b. Example: All men are mortal. Socrates is a man. Therefore, Socrates is mortal. Besides learning some basic terms of logic, also watch for common errors in reasoning that you could fall into unless you think through things carefully. Examples of Informal Fallacies (Fallacy a faulty form of reasoning; that is, reasoning illogically, whether from true or false premises, and whether arriving at a true or false conclusion.) 1. Faulty Generalization drawing a general conclusion from insufficient or unrepresentative specific evidence. a. Example: When faced with a major purchase, men are always more irrational than are women! b. Example: I dont understand how Bush could have won the election! I dont know anyone who voted for him! 2. Begging the Question (or circular reasoning) drawing a conclusion from a premise that states essentially the same idea as the conclusion itself. a. Example: Anyone who is old enough to fight for his country should have the vote because anyone over 18 should be allowed to vote.
Letter to the Editor of the Minnesota Daily, November 19, 1998. Available at the following URL: http://www.mndaily.com/daily/1998/11/19/editorial_opinions/l1119.lett/
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3.
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b. Example: Anyone who wins the popular vote should be president because the Electoral College should not dictate who is elected president. Post hoc reasoning concluding that a later event must result from an earlier one simply because that later event occurred after the first. a. Example: The city garbage men picked up the garbage today, and my garbage can lid is missing. Those bums must have stolen my lid. b. Example: The stock market went up after Clinton became president and went down after Bush became president. Obviously, Democrats are good for the economy and Republicans arent. Either-or reasoning Reasoning that only two arguments (or lines of reasoning) exist on an issue, and then drawing one of those two conclusions, usually after portraying the other one as absurd (i.e., illogical). a. Example: We must build more nuclear power plants immediately or we will depend too much on Middle East oil for the rest of our lives. b. Example: The government must eliminate nuclear power plants or we are going to wipe out our country with radioactive spills and similar forms of pollution. Ad hominem reasoning Attacking the people who advocate an argument rather than attacking the argument itself. a. Example: Greedy big business hates the common person, so we need a higher minimum wage to protect poor workers. b. Example: Anti-war groups are full of liars who hate America, so we can ignore anything they have to say about the Iraq war. Bandwagon appeal advocating a conclusion just because it is, or claims to be, popular. a. Example: Everyone knows that capital punishment is cruel and inhumane, so we ought to eliminate the death penalty. b. Example: Over 90 percent of Americans believe in God, so we ought to allow prayer in the schools.
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Part 6 Finding, Recording, and Using Sources in a Research Paper

Introducing the Research Paper A common assignment in college writing is the research paper. A research paper involves investigating one or more sources of knowledge, summarizing the key findings in that area, and then responding to those findings with personal analysis and/or interpretation. Colleges and universities usually charge their English Departments with training students in the art of writing research papers. Thus, a paper in an introductory English Composition course often involves reading essays, novels, poems, or dramas, and then writing an interpretative paper about those works, either with support from or in response to secondary sources from commentators and critics who also have interpreted the literary work. However, a research paper can have many other topics. For example: In a history class, you might read eyewitness accounts and other documents about a historical event and then write your own interpretive summary of that event. In a mathematics class, you might investigate the history of a key mathematical discovery and comment upon its significance for the world of mathematics in general. In a sociology class, you might prepare a written survey on a social problem, interview people about it, and then report those findings along with the findings of experts who have researched the same topic. In a physics class, you might research the history of a particular experiment, re-perform the experiment for yourself, and then write a report showing whether your results conform to those of the previous research. Whatever your topic might be, the reasons for writing a research paper usually come down to one or more of the following: To introduce you to facts and expert opinions about a topic. To familiarize you with a specific field so that you yourself begin to be an expert about it. To develop investigative and critical thinking skills that will serve you in later courses, your profession, and your personal life. To give you a sense of accomplishment at having learned something on your own. In short, professors assign papers so that you will learn about something, learn how to learn, and help you to mature as a person. For many students doing a research paper deeply annoys them. These students often just buy or copy a paper from someone else, hoping that their teacher wont catch them at plagiarism. At the other end of the spectrum, many students are terrified of doing a paper, but they do the same as the first group. A third group, however, understands the key to research paper success: Identify the topic to be investigated, develop a plan involving manageable steps, and execute the plan to a successful result. If you learn the information in this chapter, you can be one of those successful people. Describing the Research Paper A research paper closely resembles the standard essay that we already have discussed in earlier chapters. For example, the research paper usually begins with a thesis statement followed by a series of paragraphs that develop and illustrate the thesis. However, research papers generally also 1. Are longer, usually five to twenty typed pages. (A senior seminar paper, required for graduation from college, can run fifty pages.)
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2. Contain research from books and articles, interviews, surveys, clinical observations, and/or laboratory experiments. 3. Require that you follow a citation format for quotations, summaries, and paraphrases that is approved and published by an academic or professional society. 4. Require a Works Cited page, which lists just the sources used in the paper, or a Bibliography, which lists sources used in the paper and additional suggested readings on the topic of the paper. 5. Count for a significant or majority portion of the final grade. Introducing Library Research When setting business priorities, many business people do whats called a cost-benefit analysis. Simply put, a cost-benefit analysis involves determining how much it will cost a business in raw materials, services supplied by outside suppliers, employee hours, and similar expenses vs. the financial and related benefits that the company will receive from those expenses. When deciding to do assignments, you probably make a similar decision. However, for you, the analysis doesnt involve items such as raw materials, but the following: How much time you want to spend on the assignment (The cost) What kind of grade you want (Benefit 1) What you will learn from doing it (Benefit 2) Now that students have access to the Internet for doing college work preparation, they often give in to the temptation of cutting back on preparation and research time by using questionable Internet sources. You should resist this temptation by knowing the following: What departments and resources does your library offer? How do you find books and articles for a paper? How do you record information from books and articles that you may use in the paper? The following three sections offer guidance on these key questions. Knowing Library Departments and Resources Different schools have different departments and resources, but they all generally have an online catalog, a reserve section, a reference section, a periodicals department, open stacks, and multimedia. The Online Catalog Instead of the hundreds of wooden drawers that students used in the 1980s and earlier, today you can find lists of books and articles by searching a computer-based catalog. Before computerized catalogs, students could search for books only by subject area, book title, or book author. Now, you can search by not only the three previous features but also the following features: ISBN, or International Standard Book Number Library of Congress Subject Heading Publisher Document type Library of Congress call number Language in which the book is written The Reserve Section Instructors sometimes assign readings from personally owned materials or very new books or articles not readily available to other people. In these cases, instructors often have librarians hold books or journals in a dedicated section of the library (usually behind the checkout desk) and limit checkout times to one hour, two hours, overnight, or some other brief time
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limit. Putting difficult-to-obtain books in this dedicated area makes it easier for all students in the class to read the book without someone in the class hoarding the book, making it hard for others to read it. The Reference Section This department contains dictionaries, encyclopedias, journal indexes, anthologies, author or subject bibliographies, and similar materials that provide general information on all sorts of topics. Almost always, students may not remove reference books from the library because large reference books are expensive and they provide foundational background information to which all students need access. Quite often, reference books also contain bibliographies of more detailed readings to guide you toward further research materials. In the case of author or subject bibliographies, the whole book is just a list of other books, magazines, newspapers, academic journals, and similar materials. These bibliographies often have short, descriptive sentences or paragraphs, called annotations, that help you quickly determine whether the bibliography item relates to the specific topic that you want to write about. The following table lists major books in print for different academic fields that you usually will find in a reference section:32
Academic Area
Anthropology
Print Resources
Abstracts in Anthropology Annual Review of Anthropology Dictionary of Anthropology Encyclopedia of World Cultures Art Abstracts Art Index BHA: Bibliography of the History of Art Encyclopedia of World Art. McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Art Biological Abstracts Biological and Agricultural Index Encyclopedia of the Biological Sciences Hendersons Dictionary of Biological Terms Zoological Record Accounting and Tax Index Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management Encyclopedia of Business Information Sources ABI/Inform Chemical Abstracts (CASEARCH) Dictionary of Chemistry Van Nostrand Reinhold Encyclopedia of Chemistry
Art and Architecture
Biology
Business
Chemistry
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Part 8, Using the Internet to Do Academic Research, lists Web sites for finding academically respected sources of information. Some of those Web sites may require registration fees or access through a college library.
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Academic Area
Classics
Print Resources
Illustrated Encyclopedia of the Classical World Oxford Classical Dictionary Princeton Encyclopedia of Classical Sites Annotated Media Bibliography Communication Abstracts International Encyclopedia of Communications Journalism Abstracts
Communications and Journalism
Computer Science and Technology Computer Abstracts Dictionary of Computing Encyclopedia of Computer Science McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Science and Technology Cultural Studies, American and Ethnic Studies Encyclopedia of World Cultures Dictionary of American Negro Biography Gale Encyclopedia of Multicultural America Mexican American Biographies American Studies Web Economics Education EconLit PAIS: Public Affairs Information Service Dictionary of Education Education Index Encyclopedia of Educational Research International Encyclopedia of Education Resources in Education Applied Science and Technology Index Engineering Index McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Engineering Dictionary of the Environment Encyclopedia of Energy, Technology, and the Environment Encyclopedia of the Environment Environment Abstracts Environment Index Dictionary of Film Terms The Film Encyclopedia Film Literature Index Film Index International
Engineering
Environmental Sciences
Film
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Academic Area
Geography
Print Resources
Geographical Abstracts Longman Dictionary of Geography Modern Geography: An Encyclopedic Survey Bibliography and Index of Geology Challinors Dictionary of Geology The Encyclopedia of Field and General Geology American Geological Institute American Medical Association Encyclopedia of Medicine Cumulated Index Medicus Medical and Health Information Directory Nutrition Abstracts and Reviews Martindales Health Science Guide America: History and Life Dictionary of Historical Terms Encyclopedia of American History An Encyclopedia of World History Historical Abstracts Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Language and Languages International Encyclopedia of Linguistics LLBA: Linguistics and Language Behavior Abstracts MLA International Bibliography Concise Oxford Guide of Literary Terms Handbook to Literature MLA International Bibliography The New Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics American Statistics Index Dictionary of Mathematics International Dictionary of Applied Mathematics Mathematical Reviews (MathSciNet) Music Index New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians New Oxford Companion to Music RILM Abstracts of Musical Literature Dictionary of Philosophy Philosophers Index Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Geology
Health and Medicine
History
Languages and Linguistics
Literature
Mathematics
Music
Philosophy
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Academic Area
Physics
Print Resources
Dictionary of Physics McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of Physics Physics Abstracts Almanac of American Politics Congressional Quarterly Almanac Encyclopedia of Government and Politics International Political Science Abstracts Public Affairs Information Service (PAIS) International Dictionary of Psychology International Encyclopedia of Psychiatry, Psychology, Psychoanalysis, and Neurology Psychological Abstracts Dictionary of Bible and Religion Encyclopedia of Religion Religion Index Annual Review of Sociology Encyclopedia of Social Work Encyclopedia of Sociology Sociological Abstracts International Index to the Performing Arts International Encyclopedia of the Dance McGraw-Hill Encyclopedia of World Drama Womens Studies: A Guide to Information Sources Womens Studies Abstracts Womens Studies Encyclopedia
Political Science
Psychology
Religion
Sociology
Theater and Dance
Womens Studies
The Periodicals Department This department contains magazines, newspapers, academic journals, and other publications that appear daily, weekly, monthly, or at other regular intervals. These types of publications help when you are writing papers about the literary reputations of authors when they were alive, about first impressions of eyewitnesses to historical events, about current events, and so on. This department also contains printed periodical indexes that list articles by author, subject, and/or title so that you can find articles more readily. The Open Stacks These are the library shelves that contain books intended for general circulation. Elementary schools, high schools, and public libraries usually organize books by subjects numbered with the Dewey Decimal System, from 000 to 900or ten categoriesplus a fiction section. However, almost all colleges and universities use the Library of Congress Classification (LOCC) to number their books and journals. The LOCC has the advantage of dividing materials into more sections, since it divides books from A to Z. Do not assume that books on anthropology appear in the A section or that literature appears in the L section. The following table indicates which letters represent which general topics:
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Letter A B C D E F G H J K L
Subject General Works Philosophy, Psychology, Religion Auxiliary Sciences of History History (General) and History of Europe History: America History: America Geography, Anthropology, Recreation Social Sciences (Sociology, etc.) Political Science Law Education
Letter M N P Q R S T U V Z
Subject Music and Books on Music Fine Arts Language and Literature Science Medicine Agriculture Technology Military Science Naval Science Bibliography, Library Science, Information Resources (General)
Multimedia This is the newest section of college libraries, and contains items such as records, films, videotapes, CD-ROMs, DVDs, and similar materials that contain audio or audio-visual materials rather than text-based documents. Finding Books and Articles To find books and articles in the library, follow this general strategy. 1. Start by reviewing reference books to learn general background information about the topic you will write about. For example, depending on the class your are taking, you may want to look at a literary dictionary that contains brief biographies of literary authors, a science encyclopedia that explains the basics of the Big Bank theory, an encyclopedia of biomedical ethics that discusses the competing views on stem cell research, a historical encyclopedia that lists major battles of the American Civil War, etc. Feel free to call upon reference librarians to help you find general-level materials that will best inform you about your chosen topic. Even within a narrow area such as literature, you can find books devoted to languages, United States literature, British literature, other European literatures, South American literature, Asian literature, African literature, Canadian/Australian/New Zealander literature, poetic and other literary terms, and on and on and on. 2. Develop a list of books, articles, and other sources related to your author or specific topic and find them in the librarys online catalog. Look for the books in the open stacks, and check out the ones that seem most helpful to your paper. If you know that a book exists but cannot find it on the shelves, ask a librarian if it is in the reserve section or is checked out. Sometimes, you can put in a written request for a book or article and the library will notify the person who has it and request that he/she return it for your use, especially if that person has had the material for several weeks or longer. 3. Look for articles in the periodicals department. If needed, look at printed indexes as well as the online catalog for potential research sources, since some libraries may catalog periodicals in their computer databases only after they have finished with their books. 4. Finally, unless you are writing a paper on a piece of music or film, go to the multimedia department last. While you may be fascinated by videos and DVDs about authors,
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historical movements, scientific discoveries, etc., your instructors will look mostly for written sources on the Works Cited page of your research paper. Even the most serious of television productions can, in one hour, cover only the surface of serious topic. Recording Potentially Useful Information After checking out materials from the library, you must record information from those sources on pages or cards that you can use at all hours of the day or night. Keeping books and articles for several weeks or the whole semester may make life easier for you when writing a paper, but doing do shows great disrespect for your instructors, classmates, and other people whose academic life is just as important as yours. With easy access to photocopy machines, the Internet, word processors, and similar text-handling tools, you may be tempted just to make copies or printouts of the research materials and underline or highlight them as you read. If you have the money to generate such large amounts of paper, feel free to do so. However, by listing books and taking notes on note cards, you gain the advantage of truly absorbing and organizing the material you are reading and of identifying the most essential material you need for a paper. The following strategy for taking notes is a tried and true method, and will earn you the deep and undying love and admiration of your instructors. Bibliography Cards Record the bibliographic data of books and articles on 3 x 5 index cards. Be sure to include any and all information that you will need to place in a Works Cited page, and include a short summary of the source so that you have an overview of the source. In one of the upper corners of the card, identify the source by the last name of the author or by a letter of the alphabet. For each new source, record the last name or a new letter, the bibliographic information, and a summary. A sample bibliography card appears below: Buckley Buckley, James, Jr. Classic Ballparks. New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 2005. Summary - Excellent introduction to the Polo Grounds, Fenway Park, Tiger Stadium, Ebbets Field, Wrigley Field, and Yankee Stadium. Complete with many photographs and index.
Content Cards Record quotations or summaries from sources that already have bibliography cards. In an upper corner of the card, record the authors last name and/or letter that you placed on the corresponding bibliography card. A quotation is a direct, word-for-word reproduction of the words and sentences of the author. A summary is a brief retelling of the authors main points in your own words. When recording quotes and summaries, use some sort of mark(s) to distinguish clearly between the two. For example, make sure that quotations have obvious opening and closing quotation marks or some other indication as to exactly where the quote begins and ends. Make sure
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that you write Summary in front of summarized material or use some other obvious mark(s) to indicate that situation. If you leave material off of the beginning of a quotation, either introduce it with phrasing and punctuation that provides a grammatical bridge into the quotation, or add a capital letter in brackets to show that the opening word appears somewhere other than at the beginning of a sentence. If you leave material out of the middle of a passage, use an ellipsis, or three periods, where you have left out material. (Of course, leave out intermediate material only if the omission does not change the basic meaning of the source.) If you leave material off the end of a sentence, add an ellipsis for the omitted material and then a fourth period to indicate the end of the sentence. Using an Ellipsis for Omitted Material within a Sentence If you leave material out of the middle of a passage, use an ellipsis . . . where you have left out material. Using an Ellipsis for Omitted Material at the End of a Sentence If you leave material off the end of a sentence, add a fourth period to indicate the end of the sentence. The following is an example of a well-prepared Content Card (Notice that this is a direct quotation, as indicated by the word QUOTATION that appears before and after the quote. Notice also that QUOTATION is indented, indicating that this is the first sentence of a paragraph. Finally, notice that the last sentence uses the ellipsis plus a fourth period to indicate that text from the end of the original sentence is missing.): Buckley/113 QUOTATION The places where Major League Baseball was played, until 1923, were parks, or fields, or grounds. In 1923, a new colossus arose, and it was no mere ballyard, no mere meadow; it was a stadium, muscular, huge, dominant, the first in the games history to take that name. It was Yankee Stadium. QUOTATION
Understanding Paraphrase, Summary, and Direct Quotation When writing papers, students often ask when to use supporting paraphrases, summaries, or direct quotations. Before providing advice on such strategies, we should define our terms clearly so that you understand the differences among these types of information: A paraphrase involves restating a text or passage in your own words, in roughly the same number of words, to clarify the sources meaning for yourself. You often would use paraphrase to remember source information and to ensure that you understand it thoroughly.
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A summary also involves restating a text or passage in your own words, but in much fewer words. For example, you might summarize a book chapter in just a paragraph or a paragraph in just one sentence. Again, your goal in summarizing usually is to help you remember the source information and to ensure that you can express the material in terms that you understand. A direct quotation involves repeating the exact words of an original source. Quote a source whenever your readers would benefit from seeing the exact wording of a writer rather than just a summary. For example, o To express a thought in concise terms that might take you longer to summarize. o To display the style of a source that you intend to analyze. o To express the exact words of a source because those words are in dispute. o To restate or reinforce something you have said or will say in your own words.
When writing a paper that requires supporting material, generally use only summaries or direct quotations, not paraphrases. As noted above, a paraphrase is roughly the same length as the source it comes from and is in your own words. Thus, a paraphrase has two disadvantages: its phrasing is no more economical than that of its source, and it contains a less accurate rendition thereof. Also, you can confuse a long paraphrase with an actual quotation, accidentally incorporate it into your paper, and make the mistake of putting quotation marks around it. Much to their regret, a surprising number of professional writers have committed this error. You could too. Using a Paraphrase As stated above, use paraphrasing mainly as a learning tool. For example, imagine that you are reading the essay entitled The World's Oldest Virtue, by the etiquette expert Judith Martin (also known as Miss Manners).33 To paraphrase the opening two paragraphs of her essay, you might rewrite her phrasing as follows: Original Source Whenever there is a contest between etiquette and acknowledged virtues, etiquette loses. Hardly anyone would dispute the proposition that morals are more important than mere manners, and the assertion that etiquette can and should be jettisoned for a higher good is commonly made and accepted in everyday life. "I'm concerned about people's health," is a typical explanation offered by someone who admonishes others, sometimes even strangers in restaurants, that what they're eating is bad for them. The moral virtue of devotion to the well-being of others supposedly obliterates the rule of etiquette against minding other people's business. [97 words] Paraphrase of Source Whenever people struggle between following etiquette and what they view as moral, etiquette loses. Most people would argue that morals are more important than manners. They also would say that we should reject manners when a higher value is at stake.
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http://www.firstthings.com/ftissues/ft9305/articles/martin.html
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Im focused on peoples health, is what you might say, even to strangers in a restaurant, if you thought they were eating something unhealthy. If you feel you have the right to give advice to people about their health, you might ignore the etiquette of minding your own business. [90 words] Comment: The paraphrase uses some words of the original, but contains mainly your own words, uses common synonyms, and has a more casual tone of voice. (Most of us write more informally than does Judith Martin.) Also, the paraphrase is roughly the same number of words as the source. In short, the paraphrase puts the source into simpler terms readers easily can understand, helping them to assimilate the sources meaning. Using Summary When you summarize a source in a research paper, introduce that source with words of your own. This introduction, or frame, should provide a proper grammatical transition between your own words and those of the source and will advise readers that the upcoming words are someone elses. For example, imagine that you want summarize the first two paragraphs of Martins essay. Your summary might look something like this. According to one etiquette expert, most people say that their values are more important than manners. You might tell people, I want people to be healthy if you think they are eating something unhealthy or feel that giving advice about their health is more important than keeping quiet (Martin 22). Comment: In this case, you have omitted Martins details and focused on only her key points, so your rewrite runs to less than half the length of her original remarks. Your five-word frame makes your summary forty-eight words long. Since you have not mentioned Martins name in your frame, you must add her name, along with the sources page number, in your MLA parenthetic citation. Finally, for a short quotation or summary, place the period of your last sentence after the closing parenthesis. If you added Martins name to your frame, your summary would look like this: According to the etiquette expert Judith Martin, most people say that their values are more important than manners. You might tell people, I want people to be healthy if you think they are eating something bad for them or feel that giving advice about their health is more important than keeping quiet (22). Comment: Because you have placed Martins name in your introductory frame, you need not include it in your MLA parenthetic citation. Again, notice that the period goes after the closing parenthesis. Using Direct Quotation As you should with summaries, always introduce a quoted source. Again, this frame should provide a proper grammatical transition and advise readers that a source is coming. The following samples demonstrate various ways to introduce quoted material.
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Short Quotation with Authors Name in Frame Begin with an introductory frame that includes the authors name, use a commaif neededto introduce the quotation, open the quotation marks, reproduce the sources exact wording, close the quotation marks, give only the page number in the parenthetic citation, and then end with a period. (If the quoted source has a quotation inside of it, use single quotation marks for the interior quote.) The etiquette expert Judith Martin has written, Whenever there is a contest between etiquette and acknowledged virtues, etiquette loses (22). Short Quotation with Authors Name in Parenthetic Citation Begin with an introductory frame that omits the authors name, add a comma if needed, open the quotation marks, reproduce the sources exact wording, close the quotation marks, provide the parenthetic citation with the authors name and page number, and then add a period. (Again, if the quoted source has a quotation inside of it, use single quotation marks for the interior quote.) One etiquette expert has written that [w]henever there is a contest between etiquette and acknowledged virtues, etiquette loses (Martin 22). Long Quotation with Authors Name in Frame Begin with an introductory frame that mentions the authors name, add a comma if needed, indent the whole quotation ten spaces from only the left margin, add the period, and then add the parenthetic citation with only the page number. (Since your long quotation is indented on the left, do not use opening and closing quotation marks. If your quoted source contains a quotation, however, reproduce the quotation marks just as they appear in the source.) According to the etiquette expert Judith Martin, Whenever there is a contest between etiquette and acknowledged virtues, etiquette loses. Hardly anyone would dispute the proposition that morals are more important than mere manners, and the assertion that etiquette can and should be jettisoned for a higher good is commonly made and accepted in everyday life. (22) Long Quotation with Authors Name in Parenthetic Citation Begin with an introductory frame that omits the authors name, add a comma if needed, indent the whole quotation ten spaces from only the left margin, add the period, and then include a parenthetical citation with both the authors name and the page number. (Again, since your long quotation is indented on the left, do not use opening and closing quotation marks. Also, if your quoted source contains a quotation, reproduce the quotation marks just as they appear in the source.) According to one etiquette expert, Whenever there is a contest between etiquette and acknowledged virtues, etiquette loses. Hardly anyone would dispute the proposition that morals are more important than mere manners, and the assertion that etiquette can and should be jettisoned for a higher good
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is commonly made and accepted in everyday life. (Martin 22) Note Well: In all of the sample citations, we have single-spaced the text to save space. However, in a research paper all of itthe MLA heading on the top of page 1, the essay title, your analysis, short quotations, long quotations, and the Works Cited pagemust be double-spaced.
A Checklist for Writing Superior Papers

Prepare for the Paper ___ 1. Choose a topic ___ 2. Begin preliminary reading ___ 3. Restrict the subject ___ 4. Write a tentative thesis Gather Information ___ 1. Assemble a working bibliography ___ 2. Prepare the bibliography on 3 x 5 cards ___ 3. Start your research your librarys reference room. Look at the following references: ___ a. general bibliographies ___ b. trade bibliographies ___ c. indexes (books and collections, literature in periodicals, newspaper indexes, pamphlet indexes) ___ d. library electronic catalogue Take Notes ___ 1. Read about and understand the nature of plagiarism ___ 2. Develop a preliminary outline ___ 3. Evaluate your primary sources and secondary sources. ___ 4. Record summaries and quotations on 4 x 6 cards. Write the Paper ___ 1. Develop the final outline. ___ 2. Put your note cards in the order that your outline is in. ___ 3. Consider your reading audience and the proper tone and style for the paper. ___ 4. Write the rough draft. ___ 5. Check your documentation carefully. ___ 6. Revise and rewrite. ___ 7. Check the format of the text, citations, notes, and bibliography (most instructors recommend MLA or APA format). ___ 8. Proofread and correct your paper.
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Part 7 - Writing the Literary Research Paper and Avoiding Plagiarism

Introduction Writing a documented essay, research paper, or class thesiswhatever your teacher calls itcan be the most challenging task in all of your classes. Some writers never complete this type of project. Other writers complete the project, butfor any number of reasonsdo a poor job or accidentally commit plagiarism. A third group doesnt care about the project at all, so they deliberately commit plagiarism and hope that their instructors will never check their work. Too often, they are right about their instructors. Other times, they are wrong, and they pay a serious academic penalty. However, a fourth group of students always succeeds at the project. Why? Because they understand that route to success is through following that age-old advice: Plan your work, and then work your plan. In that spirit, the following advice will help you succeed at the research paper. Know the assignment, and pick a subject related to it. Nothing is more frustrating or embarrassing than to write a fine research paper, but then receive a poor grade because you did the wrong assignment or only something indirectly related to it. Some instructors will make adjustments for such a mistake, especially if you are in an introductory course and/or their guidance was a bit weak. However, other instructors will hold you responsible for a flawed project, often because they believe thatby the time you arrive at collegeyou are an adult and must be held accountable for your actions. Some faculty will give you a specific topic to write about, others will give you a list to choose from, but others will simply give you a broad subject area in which to work. Make sure that you know how limited your assignment is. To ensure that you are doing the right assignment, listen carefully when the assignment is first given, read all paperwork handed out about the project, and ask questions when you do not understand the project or some element of it. Limit your subject to a topic. If this advice sounds the same as for writing a regular essay, it is. However, with a research paper, there are a few common ways to limit the subject that do not come into play when you write a regular essay from scratch. The following are some typical ways to limit your paper: Read your primary source. A primary source is the nearest or most direct source of information about your topic. For example, if you were to write about George Orwells political philosophy, your primary sources would be the books and articles that he wrote about politics. If your subject were Harriet Jacobs slave narrative, Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, then your primary source would the narrative itself. If your subject were the last flight of the shuttle Columbia, your primary source would be the official accident report of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. While reading your primary source, record comments or questions in response to your reading. In the past, before computers became widespread, students were encouraged to use 3 x 5 index cards as bibliography cards to record each book, article, or other primary source. Students were then encouraged to use another set of index cards as content cards to write down direct quotations or summaries of their reading. Using index cards is still an excellent way to record your research. o For the bibliography cards, you would write down the author, title, city, publisher, and copyright date, and ascribe a different letter of the alphabet to each book. o For the content cards, you would record the letter of the book and the page number(s) from which the quotation or summary appeared.
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Since the advent of computers, you can simply print out and highlight the key points that you want to quote from or summarize in the body of your paper. If you make printouts instead of 3 x 5 index cards, make sure that each different printout has the full bibliographic information needed to identify the source.
Limit your topic to a thesis. For this stage, you can follow the same advice that appears in Part 2 of this text: narrow the topic by brainstorming, clustering, freewriting, asking reporters questions, etc. Narrow the topic to a thesis by asking questions about your topic and then using your knowledge gained from your general education, your life experience, and your primary reading to come up with answers. Choose the best and most interesting answer and use it as the foundation for a rough draft. Write a rough draft of the paper, without using secondary sources. Having read your primary source(s) and taken notes, and having worked from a subject to a topic to a thesis, you can write a rough draft of your paper. You can organize such a paper in several different ways, but one traditional way of doing so is as follows: 1. Depending on the length of your poem, story, or drama, write a one- or two-paragraph summary of the literary work. Refer to events in the work in the present tense, as if the work comes alive as you retell it. If you refer to historical events about the literary work, such as when the author was born or when he or she published the work, provide that information in the past tense, because those are completed events in the past. 2. Focus on one aspect of the literary work for discussion, either plot, character, setting, or form. Describe that one aspect, being sure to use evidence from the work to support your interpretation. a. If you discuss the plot of a narrative or dramatic poem, a novel or short story, or a drama, then move through your analysis from earlier events to later events, even if the author tells of the events out of their normal chronological order. b. If you discuss a character, its a safe strategy to focus on three basic aspects of characterization: what the character says, what the character does, and what other say about the character. Otherwise, you can analyze the character scene by scene, but moving in chronological order even if the author tells about the characters actions in a jumbled chronology. c. If you discuss setting, focus on both time and place. When and why do events occur when they do? How does the historical period of the literary work limit or expand the characters or situation? Where does the literary work occur? Could the events of the story take place anywhere, or is there some special significance to the physical locale? d. If you discuss form, then what are the key elements of form that help us understand the literary work? For example, is there lots of imagery in the poem or is it fairly abstract. Does the presence or lack of imagery add to or detract from the poem? If so, how and why? In a drama, is there lots of foreshadowing of later events in the plot? If so, what tone or mood does that foreshadowing create? Does the foreshadowing exist to burden the tone or lighten the tone of the drama? 3. Conclude your discussion by discussing the significance or importance of the literary work. What, if anything, does the author want to show or teach us? How does the work reflect the time and place in which it was written, and what does that information tell us about the culture that the literary work grew out of? How does the literary work advance our understanding of ourselves or our culture?
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Read secondary sources about the literary work. After writing a rough draft, you then have a basic understanding of what you have read and have a context in which to read secondary sources. Secondary sources are the commentaries, analyses, or critiques about the primary source. These sources generally come in several different forms: Remarks or reviews written at the time that the literary work was published. The remarks can include diary entries by the author or his/her acquaintances, letters to and from the author, etc. Reviews would appear in magazines, journals, newspapers, and similar publications. Critical biographies and literary analyses by academic authors. One common obligation of college professors is that they must research and write about their field. English teachers, language professors, and the like write books and articles about literary works and publish them with accepted publishers or academic journals. Newspaper articles or reviews. Even long after a work is written, if it has enough respect in the literary world, journalists may write about it in later years. Major newspapers like the London Times, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and so on have book review sections that cover these works. Anthologies and casebooks - Professors and other scholars sometimes publish books containing a collection of book chapters, articles, and other similar studies that comment upon the primary source. An anthology is a collection of literary pieces such as poems, short stories, or playsall of which relate to a common work or topic. The editors of anthologies often provide an introduction to orient you to the rest of the book. A book that collects both the original work and secondary sources that comment upon that work is called a casebook. Reference works - These sources include dictionaries, glossaries, encyclopedias, indexes, bibliographies, or related works. o Dictionaries, handbooks, and glossaries define the terms that people use in a particular academic field, like business, literature, science, and so on. o Encyclopedias provide brief overviews of authors, literary movements, literary terms, and so on. o Indexes provide a master list of articles that appear in specialized magazines, journals, and newspapers. o Bibliographies provide a master list of books and articles on a topic. Quite often, bibliographies have annotationsthat is, a sentence or paragraph that describes the nature and/or key points of each book or article listed in the bibliography. A list of helpful reference works for literature appears below: Dictionaries, Handbooks, and Encyclopedias Benet's Reader's Encyclopedia of American Literature - covers American literature from the era of European exploration to the early 1990s; contains entries on authors, titles, characters, literary genres, periodicals, movements, etc. Twentieth-Century Literary Movements Dictionary - defines literary terms and movements and authors associated with them. Common Knowledge: A Reader's Guide to Literary Allusions a dictionary that contains over four thousand literary allusions, or references, their sources, and brief explanations. A Handbook to Literature - defines major literary terms; also lists winners of literary prizes.
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Merriam-Webster's Encyclopedia of Literature identifies authors and works; literary landmarks and terms; characters from myth, folklore, and literature; literary movements; and awards and prizes. Includes pronunciation guides. The Oxford Companion to English Literature - includes author biographies, summaries of major works, and descriptions of literary societies, magazines, and prizes. The Oxford Companion to American Literature - includes author biographies, plot summaries of major works, and descriptions of literary societies, magazines, and prizes.
Bibliographies and Research Guides The Year's Work in English Studies - emphasizes English literature and covers other literature in English; organized by critic, author, and subject. Literary Research Guide key research sources in American and English literature; describes key bibliographies, indexes, databases, dictionaries, etc. American Literary Scholarship: An Annual - essays review the previous year's published research in American literature; organized by author and subject. Bibliographical Guide to the Study of the Literature of the U.S.A. - lists books and articles on American literature and literary research. The New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature - covers authors in English from the Old English period to 1950; volumes 1-4 have a chronological, sub-divided organization by type of literature; volume 5 is an index. Biographies, Criticism, and History Contemporary Literary Criticism - provides biographical sketches, brief overviews, and excerpts from previously published criticism; each volume has a title index to the volume and a cumulative author index to this and other Gale Research anthologies series. Poetry Criticism contains biographical sketches, brief overviews, and excerpts from previously published criticism on poets; each volume has cumulative indexes by author and nationality. Short Story Criticism contains biographical sketches, brief overviews, and excerpts from previously published criticism on short fiction writers; each volume has cumulative indexes by author, topic, and nationality. A Literary History of England contains entries on major writers, literary movements, and types of literature. Indexes are by author and title. Columbia Literary History of the United States covers early Native American cave painting to the 1980s; long chapters cover major writers, literary movements, and types of literature. Indexes are by author and subject. Dictionary of Literary Biography contains many volumes on English and American writers; gives lists of works, biographical data, criticism, bibliographies, and illustrations; each volume includes a cumulative index to the entire series. Contemporary Authors - covers current authors in various fields and nationalities; entries include biographical and critical data, lists of works, and bibliographies. Parallel series exist for other genres and are entitled Contemporary Poets, Contemporary Dramatists, and Contemporary Novelists. Book Reviews and Articles Book Review Digest lists book reviews published in select American and English periodicals and includes abstracts and review excerpts; arranged alphabetically by book author; indexes by subject and title.
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Book Review Index lists more reviews than does Book Review Digest, but includes no abstracts or review excerpts. Arranged alphabetically by author. Indexed by book title. Essay and General Literature Index lists essays and articles in over six hundred books per year; contains biographical, critical, and bibliographical material. MLA Bibliography contains exhaustive lists of periodicals, books, and dissertations in modern languages and literatures; hardcopy is arranged chronologically within subdivisions by nationality; includes subject index; is available through libraries on the Internet.
As you read the secondary sources, you again should create bibliography cards and content cards. Remember: The bibliography cards should be coded by letter and contain all required bibliographic information. The content cards should have the book/article letter and the page number from which the quotation or summary originated. Write a second draft of the research paper. The second draft may differ only a little from the first draft. In such a case, you can expand your first draft by including relevant remarks from your secondary sources to further illustrate or support your first conclusions. If your secondary source reading has steered you towards a greatly revised thesis, then your second draft should reflect that information. Perhaps you missed some essential events or ideas in the literary work and your secondary reading has pointed you towards those things. Or you understood what happened in the literary work but missed important images or symbols that add greatly to the meaning of the work. Your secondary sources may have called those images or symbols to your attention. Whatever the case may be, make sure that any quotations or summaries of secondary sources appear along with MLA-style sentence citations of the author and page number right after your enter the quote or summary. Write successive drafts improving on the clarity, organization, and evidence in the paper. As you work toward the final draft, revise your word choice, rewrite your sentences, and reorganize your paragraphs so they are clear and concise. Be sure that your discussion keeps moving forward towards the last paragraph, but also includes sufficient evidence to make your interpretations and conclusions believable. Also make sure that sentence citations appear for every single quotation or summary that comes from a secondary source. Whether you accidentally or purposely leave out references to borrowed material, you have still committed plagiarism and can earn an F on the paper. Type a final draft and include a Works Cited page. Use the following checklist to verify that you have the correct format for an MLA-style paper on a literary work: Your last name and page number appear in the top right corner of each page, one-half inch from the top edge of the paper, in 10-point font. The rest of the paper is typed in 12-point font, with a one-inch top and bottom margin and a 1.25-inch left and right margin. On page 1, your name, the professors name, the course name and number, and the papers due date appear in the upper-left corner. The title of your paper is centered below the MLA heading but above the first paragraph. This title is in caps and lower case, not all caps, not bolded, etc. The first and succeeding paragraphs of your paper are indented one tab stop from the left, left aligned only.
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Short quotations (fewer than five lines) are introduced and ended with quotation marks, then follows the open parenthesis, then the authors last name, a space, the page number, the closing parenthesis, and then the period. Long quotations (five or more full lines) are NOT opened and closed with quotation marks. Instead, you indent one additional inch on the left and right. The parenthesis, authors name, page number, and close parenthesis appear AFTER the last period of the quotation. The Works Cited page appears at the end of the paper. You center the title, Works Cited. (but with no quotation marks) at the top of the page. Your book and articles entries are alphabetized by authors last name and typed with a hanging indent. That means that, in contrast to a paragraph, the first line of the bibliography entry is aligned left, but any following lines are indented one tab stop. All sections of the paper are double spaced. The heading is double spaced, the body of the paper is double-spaced, all quotations or summaries are double-spaced, and the cited works are double-spaced both within and between each entry.
Defining Plagiarism In general terms, plagiarism is the use of the words and/or distinctive ideas of someone else, but passing them off as your own. It does not matter whether you plagiarize accidentally or purposely. The only thing that does matter is if your presentation fails to indicate that that the source is someone other than you. You might be able to say that, ethically or morally, accidental plagiarism is not as serious as purposeful plagiarism. However, readersand gradershave no way of determining whether or not you intended to plagiarize. They can only determine whether you have given clear and proper credit for sources. Plagiarism can occur because you were lazy or dishonest and you didnt care whether you used someone elses material. It also can occur because you neglected to cite your sources or took sloppy notes and missed sources that need citing. Or it can occur because you had a personal emergency to attend to but still wanted to submit something to your instructor. Understanding the Penalties for Plagiarism Some teachers are lenient about plagiarism and will let you redo a paper. Others, especially those who give clear and repeated instructions, may discipline you in your first case. Colleges and universities often have the following policy about plagiarism: First offense an F on the assignment Second offense an F for the course Third offense expulsion from school All of this talk of penalties may suggest that the only reason to avoid plagiarism is to avoid a failing grade. But if that were the case, the quickest and easiest way to solve this problem would be to eliminate failing grades! Therefore, avoiding punishment may be your motivation not to plagiarize, but that cannot be your reason to avoid it. Instead, cite your sources properly for the following reasons: 1. To receive credit for looking at the work of other people 2. To acknowledge your debt to other people for the work they have done before you 3. To show that your ideas have the support of facts and/or well-reasoned opinion 4. To show who your opponents are in an argument if you want to argue partially or completely against what they have said 5. To let your fellow learners know where they can find more information on your topic
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Whatever your schools policy is, the best way to avoid plagiarism is to take careful notes on outside sources and properly acknowledge them in your papers. Examples of Plagiarized Passages and Solutions to Them Original Source 1 Throughout most of recorded history, theologians and philosophers have extolled propriety and correct social behavior as virtues akin to morality. It is chiefly in this century that they have come to regard etiquette as a dispensable frill, at best; at worse, they have denounced it as a sin. Hypocrisy is the damning label now attached to any polite inhibition that disguises a sincerely held opinion or restrains a righteous impulse for action. (Judith Martin, The Worlds Oldest Virtue. First Things 33 (May 1993): 22-25.) Plagiarized In most of recorded history, theologians and philosophers have claimed that proper etiquette and social behavior are virtues resembling morality. In the 20th century, these people have come to view etiquette as a dispensable frill or even a sin. They now use the word hypocrisy to describe any polite inhibition that disguises sincerely held opinions or restrains righteous impulses for action. Not Plagiarized Judith Martin notes that, before the 20th century, theologians and philosophers encouraged people to display proper social behavior. Only now do these thinkers regard such behavior as a dispensable frill or even a sin (23). Comment: The plagiarized version uses wording that is extremely close to the original and fails to cite the author and page number of the source. However, the non-plagiarized version provides a proper summary in your own words, supplies the authors name in the introductory frame, and includes the page number in the parenthetic citation. Original Source 2 Sometime around 130 B.C. Greek mathematician Hipparchus broke with the oral traditions of poetry and mythology, set pen to parchment, and compiled the first written catalog of the stars. His singular document contained about 850 entries, loosely organized by constellations and coordinates. It was a modest start for a distinctly immodest projecttaking stock of the entire universe and trying to figure out what, exactly, is out there. (Corey S. Powell, Field Guide to the Entire Universe. Discover 26:12 (December 2005) <http://www.discover.com/issues/ dec-05/cover>.) Plagiarized Around 130 B.C. Hipparchus broke with oral tradition, set pen to parchment, and assembled the first written star catalog. His distinctive document has over 800 entries arranged by constellations and coordinates. He made a modest start for a bold project, taking stock of the whole universe and trying to figure out what exactly is out there (Powell). Not Plagiarized One historian of astronomy has noted that, around 130 B.C., the Greek mathematician Hipparchus broke with the oral traditions of poetry and mythology, set pen to parchment,
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and compiled the first written catalog of the stars. His singular document contained about 850 entries, loosely organized by constellations and coordinates (Powell). Comment: Again, the plagiarized passage uses wording that is too close to that of the original source, even though the passage adds the name of the sources author in parentheses. However, the non-plagiarized version uses the original phrasing, provides quotation marks exactly where needed to mark the section of the source being quoted, and provides the source authors name. Since the source is an online Web page in HTML format, you need not provide page numbers because such numbers would vary according to the size of the font on your computer screen. Understanding the 2009 MLA Format for Bibliography Entries The following section contains names of actual authors, titles, publishers, etc. for books, articles, online sources, and so on. What is important is to learn the elements and order in which information appears. Notice that the format for Works Cited is to left align the first line of the entry and then indent the second and other following lines one tab space from the left. Note Well: We have saved space in this guide by single-spacing all sample entries. However, in an actual paper, you must double-space within and between all entries.
Books
Generic Form - Books Author(s). Title of Book. Additional Publishing Information [if needed]. Place of Publication: Publisher, Year of Publication. Publication Medium. Book with One Author Tan, Amy. Saving Fish from Drowning. New York: Putnam, 2005. Print. Two Books by the Same Author McPhee, John. The Founding Fish. New York: Farrar, 2006. Print. ---. Uncommon Carriers. New York: Farrar, 2002. Print. (After the first appearance of an author's name, use three hyphens and a period for the author's name for additional books. List books alphabetically by the authors last name and then by the first main word of the title.) Book with Two or Three Authors Clarke, Harold, Allan Kornberg, and Thomas Scotto. Making Political Choices: Canada and the United States. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2009. Print. (If there are more than three authors, list only the first author followed by the Latin phrase et al. in place of the other names.) Book with a Corporate Author World Health Organization. The World Health Report 2008: Primary Health Care, Now More Than Ever. Geneva: World Health Organization, 2008. Print. Book with an Anonymous Author The Dorling Kindersley World Reference Atlas. London: Dorling, 2007. Print.
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Book with an Editor Plath, Sylvia. The Unabridged Journals of Sylvia Plath. Ed. Karen Kukil. New York: Anchor, 2000. Print. Book with a Translator Alighieri, Dante. The Inferno. Ed. Allen Mandelbaum. New York: Bantam, 1982. Print. A Government Publication Stiller, Ann. Historic Preservation and Tax Incentives. US Dept. of Interior. Washington: GPO, 2003. Print. A Sacred Text The Holy Bible. Thomas Scofield, NIV. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1983. Print. The Quran: Translation. Trans. Abdullah Usuf Ali. Elmhurst: Tahrike, 2000. Print.
Section of a Book
Generic Form - Book Section (E.g., Chapter or Essay) Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Collection. Ed. Editor's Name(s). Place of Publication: Publisher, Year. Pages. Publication Medium. Article in an Anthology Manning, Brad. Arm Wrestling with My Father. The Brief Bedford Reader. 10th ed. Eds. X. J. Kennedy et al. Boston: Bedford, 2009. 126-130. Print. Two or More Items in a Collection Chopin, Kate. The Storm. Kennedy and Gioia 115-18. Kennedy, X. J. and Dana Gioia, eds. Literature: An Introduction to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. 10th ed. New York: Longman, 2007. Print. OConnor, Flannery. Revelation. Kennedy and Gioia 368-81. (Supply the full bibliographic data for the anthology, but supply only the author(s), title, editor(s), and page number for the specific items. Alphabetize by the general editors and specific authors last names, even if the entry for the anthology appears after one of the specific titles.) Article from a Reference Book Sonata. The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language. 4th ed. 2000. Print. Wenner, Manfred W. Arabia. The New Encyclopaedia Britannica: Macropaedia. 15h ed. 2007. Print.
Articles in Journals, Magazines, Newspapers, etc.

Generic Form - Periodical Article (E.g., Newspaper or magazine) Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Source Day Month Year: Pages. Publication Medium. (For the date, list the day, a three-letter abbreviation of the month [except for May, June, and July], and a four-digit year. If the periodical comes out in more than one edition in a day, week, or month, then indicate the relevant edition.)
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Article in a Magazine or Newspaper Lord, Lewis. Theres Something about Mary Todd. US News and World Report 19 Feb. 2001: 53. Print. Stout, David. Blind Win Court Ruling on US Currency. New York Times 21 May 2008, natl. ed.: A23. Print. Generic Form - Article in Academic Journal Author(s). "Title of Article." Title of Journal Volume:Issue (Year of Publication): Pages. Publication Medium. Article in an Academic Journal Ryan, Katy. Revolutionary Suicide in Toni Morrisons Fiction. African-American Review 34.3 (2000): 389-412. Print.
Electronic Sources
Note Well: In listing electronic sources, be sure to list not only the publication date but also the access date because Web pages often change. At a later date, the desired source may be moved to a different Web address or be deleted. Generic Entry Entire Web Site Title of Web Site. Publisher or Sponsor, publication date. Electronic Medium. Access Date. Entire Web Site The Recovered Memory Project. Taubman Center for Public & American Institutes. Brown U, 2005. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. Generic Entry Page on a Web Site Author. Title of Work. Title of Web Site. Publisher or Sponsor, publication date. Electronic Medium. Access Date. Page on a Web Site Merriman, C.D. James M. Barrie. The Literature Network. Jalic, 2006. Web. 20 November 2009. Generic Form - Article in an Online Journal Author(s). "Title of Article." Periodical Title Volume.Issue (Year): Pages/Paragraphs. Electronic Medium. Date of Access. (Some journals and magazines provide paragraph or page numbers. Include them if they appear on a Web page.) Article in an Online Journal Nealon, Jeffrey T. The Swerve Around P: Literary Theory after Interpretation. Postmodern Culture 17.3 (2007): n. pag. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. Generic Entry - Article in an Online Newspaper or Magazine Author. Article Title. Newspaper or Magazine Title Day Month Year. Electronic Medium. Access Date.
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Article in an Online Newspaper or Magazine Dina, Stephen. Immigration Bill Is Promoted for 2010. The Washington Times. 14 Nov.
2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009.

Steyn, Mark. Tragedy or Scandal? National Review. 14 Nov. 2009. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. E-mail to Student Tanaka, Allen. "Writing Rough Drafts. Message to the author. 22 Apr. 2009. E-mail. Generic Form Entry in a Weblog (Blog) Author. Name of Weblog. Publication Source. Date. Electronic Medium. Access Date. Entry in a Weblog (Blog) Shin, Annys. Some Surprising Findings About Identity Theft. Washington Post, 28 Feb. 2006. Web. 20 Nov. 2009. Generic Entry - Article or Publication from Electronic Database Author. Article Title. Publication Name. Volume.Issue (Publication Date): page(s). Name of Database. Electronic Medium. Access Date. Article/Publication from Electronic Database Cox, James M. "Mark Twain and the South." The Southern Literary Journal. 8.1 (1975): 144+. Literature Resource Center. Web. 20 Nov. 2009.
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Part 8 - Using the Internet to Do Academic Research

Introduction This is the only place in this book that uses all capital letters when giving advice. THE INTERNET DOES NOT YET OFFER A COMPLETE SUPPLY OF ACADEMICALLY RELIABLE SOURCES ORGANIZED IN EASILY ACCESSIBLE WAYS. THEREFORE, AVOID OVERUSING IT FOR RESEARCH PAPERS. INSTEAD, CONTINUE TO LEARN ABOUT AND RELY UPON COLLEGE AND UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES FOR ACADEMIC MATERIALS. Despite this warning, many students will use the Internet most of the time for research. Therefore, its important that you have advice on this subject so that the items you do find will be as reliable and relevant to your work as possible. Understanding the Internet The Internet is the huge, international computer network that links thousands of small networks and millions of computers via the TCP/IP protocol. A computer network is a set of two or more computers that connect to each other to route, manage, store, and/or share information. In computing, a protocol is the generally agreed upon set of rules that computers use to interface with each other. The networks and computers on the Internet are located at government departments and military agencies, educational institutions, nonprofit organizations, corporations and small business, and even individual computers belong to a private person. The most popular feature of the Internet is electronic mail, or e-mail. E-mail involves the electronic transfer of messages, documents, graphics, and other electronic files via the Internet or an internal network known as an intranet. Other popular forms of communication involve discussion groups, also called newsgroups or bulletin boards. Once you join such groups, you can post messages and look for responses from other people to those messages, engage in real-time conversations via chat rooms (as if you were on the telephone), play electronic games, and perform similar activities online. Since the Internet is a huge network of small networks and single computers, you can use it to access a huge amount of data. However, the monstrous size of the Internet also leads to what was suggested at the beginning of this section of the textbooka great deal of confusion and disorganization. Therefore, many Internet sites do not contain information in and of themselves, but simply provide the means to search for and find text, graphics, audio files, video files, and other forms of data. The Internet grew out of a series of increasingly complex computer networks that began in 1969 as the ARPAnet, which was a project of the Advanced Research Projects Agency, or ARPA, a division of the United States government. The ARPAnet began with just four nodes, three in California and one in Utah, but gradually added more nodes as other universities became interested in the network. In 1972, e-mail was added to the Internet, and in 1973 the TCP/IP protocol became the standard for communication among computers on the network. One of the TCP/IP protocols, the FTP protocol, enables users to log on to a remote computer, see a list of folders and files on that computer, and then upload files to the computer or download files from it. The network grew and grew, and in 1982 the word Internet was first used to describe the network. The larger and larger network made it harder and harder for people to remember how to contact others, so in 1984, the Domain Name System, or DNS, was established. A domain name is the
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text-based address on the Internet that correlates to the numeric address of a computer on the Internet. Each domain name must be unique so that, when you try to connect to that address, you reach only that address and none other. Also in the 1980s, the federal governments National Science Foundation (NSF) created the NSFnet to link five supercomputer centers. Soon, this network replaced the ARPAnet as the central element of the Internet. In 1995, however, the NSF decommissioned the NSFnet, and the private sector took over responsibility for the Internet. By the 1990s, the World Wide Web was booming because more and more people had personal computers and commercial enterprises were now allowed onto the Internet. By 2000, the number of U.S. adults using the Internet may have surpassed 100 million. In the last few years, the Internet has exploded with new types of Web sites and Web files. For example, in 2001 the open-source Wikipedia website (www.wikipedia.org) started. As an opensource site, it solicited encyclopedia entries from anyone and everyone, hoping that thousands of Internet users would create a free but reliable reference source. Unfortunately, the dream of free and reliable data has been problematic. Legal troubles in recent years have forced the site to impose stricter editorial controls over who can work with entries. The site still has too much unreliable or plagiarized data on it to be usable as an academically respected site, but it does have some beneficial features, such as interesting images as well as hyperlinks to many reliable data sources. In 2005, the YouTube website (www.youtube.com) came on line, where people post short videos that either they have created or culled from other websites that post videos. Personal networking sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and MySpace (www.myspace.com) also have come on line, making it easy for people to reach out to others with their personal data and stories. In the huge and chaotic world of the Internet, these sites have both positive and negative aspects. On one hand, site members can easily contact both old friends and new acquaintances without large expenditures of time and money. On the other hand, because such sites interconnect people with millions and millions of Internet users, some site members have suffered cyber-abuse from unethical and/or criminal elements. Internet crime in other areas also has occurred. The online site for the Information Please Almanac (www.infoplease.com) estimates that by 2003, Internet users had downloaded illegally more than 2.6 billion music files per month. Infoplease also says that in 2004, an Internet virus of the worm variety, called MyDoom or Novarg, spread through Internet servers, causing roughly one in twelve e-mail messages to be infected.34 On a more serious note, many government websites in democratic countries have suffered cyber-attacks from less scrupulous nations. On the positive side, however, the Internet makes it increasing possible for users of all ages to learn more about other people and cultures, do online research thought of as unthinkable just a few years ago, contact and/or interview famous people and experts without undue intrusions, and improve their purchasing power as the Internet has increased price competition for both goods and services. The following two tables offers some interesting statistics on Internet usage in the fifteen countries that use the Internet and some data on the purposes of Internet use in the United States, which hasby farthe most computers with Internet service.
34
http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0193167.html
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Top 15 Countries in Internet Usage, 2008 (Source: www.infoplease.com)

Nation 1. European Union 2. U.S. 3. China 4. Japan 5. India 6. Brazil 7. Germany 8. South Korea 9. UK 10. France 11. Italy 12. Russia 13. Canada Mexico 15. Spain Top 15 Total Worldwide Total Internet users (thousands) 247,000 208,000 162,000 87,540 60,000 42,600 38,600 34,120 33,534 31,295 28,855 25,689 22,000 22,000 18,578 1,061,811 1,018,057
Daily Internet Activities (Source: www.infoplease.com)

Activity 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. Use the Internet Send or read email Use a search engine to find information Get news Look for info on a hobby or interest Surf the Web for fun Do any type of research for your job Check the weather Research a product or service before buying Look online for news or information about politics or the upcoming campaigns Percent of Those with Internet Access 70% 60 49 39 29 28 23 30 20 23 Most Recent Survey Date May 2008 Dec. 2007 May 2008 May 2008 Feb.March 2007 Feb.April 2006 Feb.March 2007 May 2008 Sept. 2007 May 2008
Understanding the World Wide Web The World Wide Web is a global collection of Web sites containing text and multimedia documents that constitute a huge library you can access via hyperlinks. A Web site is a page or set of related pages dealing with one subject or topic. The main page of a Web site is the home page, which should orient you to the Web site by indicating its main topic and organization.
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Web sites are written in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is a coding language that enables you to establish the format of text and graphics, add hyperlinks to a page, create lists and tables, divide the page into subsections, insert and format graphics, etc. The advantage of HTML is that it works on different brands of computers and in different Web browsers. These days, Web page builders also use additional programming languages known as XML, JavaScript, and Flash. A Web browser is a software program that enables you to search for and find Web sites, that organizes sites on your computer screen, and enables you to navigate, or move among, Web sites. The two most common Web browsers are Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator, commonly called just Netscape. When the World Wide Web first became popular, Netscape was the most common Web browser; however, about 90% of Web users now use Internet Explorer to navigate the Web. A hyperlink is a word, phrase, graphic, or other specific location on a Web page thatwhen clickedtakes you to another area of the same document, a different document in the same Web site, or a different site. Hyperlinks enable you to move quickly within a document, within pages of a Web site, or from site to site. Ideally, the hyperlinks in one site will take you to other information that directly relates to the information you have sought on the first site. However, some sites may contain hyperlinks to other sites that have little, if anything, to do with the site you just left. Finally, remember that the World Wide Web is just one part of the Internet, but because of its ease of use, has taken over the vast majority of the Internet. In fact, the World Wide Web is so popular that many people use the term Web interchangeably for Internet. Major Types of Web Sites Commercial sites contain product information, service information, advertising, answers to frequently asked questions, customer service pages, and other data that people commonly want and need from a company. Commercial sites may tell you about the following: Major international corporations like General Motors (www.gm.com) or Microsoft (www.microsoft.com). Small business like car repair shop (www.nowestautobody.com/) or a local florist (www.heavenearthfloral.com). Because it is easy to order products on the Web and have them delivered to you, many companies have no retail stores at all and do only electronic commerce, or e-commerce. E-commerce refers to the buying and selling of goods and services and/or the distributing and receiving of information on the Internet, especially the World Wide Web. Business people often use this term and a newer term, e-business, interchangeably. An example of a company that closed all of its brick-andmortar stores to go exclusively online is Egghead Software (www.egghead.com). Government sites contain information about official political regions and organizations. Sites for democracies generally have many separate web sites, usually for the executive, legislative, legal, and other branches of government. Restrictive countries tend to have very few Web sites and/or pages. Naturally, non-English speaking countries will display their official Web sites in their native language. However, some countries also have English-language pages containing much of the information contained in the non-English pages. Some sample governmental sites are the following:
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A nation like Iraq - http://www.iraqigovernment.org/ A political arm of the government like the United States Senate www.senate.gov A local ruling body such as the City Council of Auckland, New Zealand http://www.govt.nz/record?tid=2&recordid=210.
Educational sites contain information about elementary schools, high schools, colleges, universities, and related organizations. These sites often contain information about a schools location; its educational program and supporting organizations such as the PTA; its teachers, administrators, and support staff; and its student clubs and activities. Many school sites have a subsection where teachers can post classroom information and students can post homework or related material. Some schools even have a Web site section where students can create personal pages as long as those pages conform to the schools posting regulations. Different types of educational organizations will have different endings to their Web addresses. For example, only colleges and universities tend to use the .edu ending. The following table lists examples of education Web sites:
Name of Organization The Cittone Institute Levittown Public Schools Abbey Lane School Suffern High School Boston Latin School Rockland Community College University of California, Berkeley Type of Organization Private business school chain Public school district Public elementary school Public high school Private high school Public two-year school Public university Web Address www.cittone.com www.levittownschools.com www.levittownschools.com/abbeylane shs.ramapocentral.org www.bls.org www.sunyrockland.edu www.berkeley.edu
Organization sites contain information about non-profit organizations such museums, professional organizations, charities, public broadcasting stations, and the like. These sites generally display the work of qualified experts in the field covered by the site, so you usually can use their official materials in academic work. However, be careful to distinguish between those parts of the site that contain articles and other expert-generated materials and those parts that contain just raw data used in support of sitefor example, personal diaries or journals quoted in the official articles. The following table lists some examples of organizational sites:
Type of Organization Non-profit Professional Charities Public radio network Organization Name The Metropolitan Museum of Art The Modern Language Association The American Red Cross National Public Radio Web Address www.metmuseum.org www.mla.org www.redcross.org www.npr.org
Personal sites contain information about individual people. Computer programs like Microsofts FrontPage and Macromedias Dreamweaver have sprouted up that make it easy to create Web sites, so these types of sites have become exceedingly popular over the last few years. People may post personal information about themselves in resumes, information about pets and hobbies they have, photographs of friends and neighbors, genealogical information about their families, or similar data. Be cautious about surfing such sites because some of them can be somewhat gross or, at the worst, just plain obscene.
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Searching the World Wide Web Entering URLs The most direct and fastest way to find information on the Web is to enter the Web address, or URL, of the Web site in which you are interested into the address bar of the Web browser. The acronym URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator, which is a verbal equivalent of a numerical code used by all sites on the Internet. Using Search Engines A second way to find information is to use a search engine, which is a software program that enables you to enter search terms called keywords to find listings of Internet sites that might relate to the kind of information you seek. Major search engines are Google, Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, All the Web, AOL Search, and Teoma. Using Directories A third way to find information is to use a search directory, which contains very broad categories like art, business and finance, computing, education, religion, and so on. You pick one of the largest categories in the directory and then work through more and more narrow categories until you find specific sites related to your search. For example, if you start by searching in Art, you may be able to narrow your search to Literature, then American Literature, then Horror Fiction, and then Stephen King. Using Metasearch Engines Even another way to find information is to use a larger search engine that gathers information from several search engines and lists the search results either in one master list or by each search engine. Use this type of search engine when you find that using only one search tool produces disappointingly few results. You also may want to use such a tool when trying to compare and contrast how individual search engines find and sort the same Web sites using the same keyword(s). Evaluating Web Sites Since the Internet is a massive collection of files from anyone and everyone, be skeptical about the truthfulness of what you find there. Certainly, many Web sites are sponsored by major publishers, educational institutions, reliable non-profit groups, and the like. However, many otherseven those with attractive text and quality graphicsare nothing more than one persons unfettered image of reality. Therefore, double-check the content of a Web site that you want to use for academic work against the following basic guidelines: Accuracy Does the site contain correct or truthful information, or does it just promote the gut-level opinions of its owner or webmaster? Reliability Does the site contain information that comes from trained, educated, and/or experienced persons in the field(s) discussed on the site, or is it just the work of someone with few or no qualifications to speak on the issues? Neutrality Does the site have an independent position and role regarding controversial subjects that it discusses, or does it just promote the ideas of a particular interest group like a political party, special-interest group, and so on? Comprehensiveness Does the site contain exhaustive information on a topic, or does it pick and choose its material to promote a slanted agenda? Currency Does the site contain up-to-date information, or does it contain outdated information that does not account for recent research and discoveries related to its main topic? Using Search Engines and Web Sites Many search engines will provide feedback from virtually any type of site that contains the same keyword(s) that you entered for a search. Others will search only a limited range of predetermined sites in order to increase your chances of finding sites that directly relate to the topic on which you are performing a search. Similarly, many Web sites, such as news sites like MSNBC, will cover a wide range of topicseverything from art to entertainment to health to politics to sports. Others, such as the United States National Parks Service Web site, will focus on specific topicsin this
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case, the system of federally owned parks in the United States, what they contain, how to visit them, and similar topics of interest to vacationers and other visitors. The following table lists a few search engines and Web sites that are appropriate for general searching and/or information: General Topics
Search Engines (by Popularity) Google www.google.com Yahoo - www.yahoo.com Ask Jeeves - www.ask.com All the Web - www.alltheweb.com Hotbot - www.hotbot.com Teoma - www.teoma.com Web Sites (Alphabetical) Arts and Letters Daily - www.aldaily.com Dictionary.com www.dictionary.com Information Please Almanac - www.infoplease.com Encyclopedia.com - www.encyclopedia.com Internet Public Library - www.ipl.org Refdesk.com - www.refdesk.com
The table starting on the next page lists search engines and/or specific websites appropriate for searching and/or information in specific academic areas. For sites that have both lowercase and uppercase characters, be sure to use the exact font indicated in the Web address.
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Academic Area Anthropology
Web Resources & Addresses American Anthropology Association http://www.aaanet.org WWW Virtual Library: Anthropology http://vlib.anthrotech.com/ Academic Info: Art & Art History http://www.academicinfo.net/art.html Art History: Resources for the Study of Art History http://Witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks.html Voice of the Shuttle Art History and Architecture http://vos.ucsb.edu/index.asp The Louvre http://www.louvre.fr/anglais/title.htm The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York http://www.metmuseum.org/home.asp The National Gallery http://www.nga.gov/ BioLinks http://www.bioview.com National Science Foundation: Biology http://www.nsf.gov/home/bio/ WWW Virtual Library: Biosciences http://mcb.harvard.edu/BioLinks.html The Scout Report for Business and Economics Archives http://scout.wisc.edu/Reports/BusEcon/archive/ Bigcharts http://www.bigcharts.com Business Week Magazine http://www.businessweek.com/ CBS MarketWatch http://marketwatch.com Forbes Magazine http://www.forbes.com Fortune Magazine http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/ Internet Public Library Business & Economics Section http://www.ipl.org/div/subject/browse/bus00.00.00/
Art and Architecture
Biology
Business
Chemistry
American Chemical Society http://www.acs.org/portal/chemistry> Sheffield ChemDex http://www.chemdex.org WWW Virtual Library: Chemistry http://www.chem.ucla.edu/chempointers.html
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Latest Revision 04/25/06 Academic Area Classics Web Resources & Addresses Ancient World Web http://www.julen.net/ancient/ Internet Classics Archive http://classics.mit.edu Perseus Project http://www.perseus.tufts.edu The American Communication Association http://www.americancomm.org Communication Institute for Online Scholarship http://www.cios.org/ FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting http://www.fair.org Journalism Resources on the World Wide Web http://library.austincc.edu/research/w3/Humanities/jrn/jrn.htm FOLDOC (Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing) http://wombat.doc.ic.ac.uk/foldoc/index.html MIT Laboratory for Computer Science http://www.lcs.mit.edu Information Technology Resource Central http://www.utexas.edu/computer New American Studies Web http://crossroads.georgetown.edu/asw/ Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage http://www.si.edu/folklife/ Ethnic and Cultural Studies Resources http://www.educationindex.com/culture/ National Museum of the American Indian http://www.nmai.si.edu American Economic Association http://www.aeaweb.org/ Securities and Exchange Commission http://www.sec.gov Resources for Economists on the Internet http://rfe.wustl.edu/ Ask ERIC http://ericir.sunsite.syr.edu/ EdWeb http://www.edwebproject.org/ Education World www.education-world.com U.S. Department of Education http://www.ed.gov IEEE Spectrum http://www.spectrum.ieee.org WWW Virtual Library: Engineering http://www.eevl.ac.uk/wwwvl.html
Communications & Journalism
Computer Science & Technology
Cultural Studies, American and Ethnic Studies
Economics
Education
Engineering
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Latest Revision 04/25/06 Academic Area Environmental Sciences Web Resources & Addresses Envirolink http://envirolink.org Environmental Protection Agency http://www.epa.gov WWW Virtual Library: Earth Science http://www.vlib.org/EarthScience.html Cinema Sites http://www.cinema-sites.com/ Internet Movie Database http://us.imdb.com Movie Web http://www.movieweb.com Atlapedia Online http://www.atlapedia.com/index.html Internet Resources for Geographers http://www.Colorado.EDU/geography/virtdept/resources/contents.htm The WWW Virtual Library: Geography http://www.icomos.org/WWW_VL_Geography.html American Geological Institute http://www.agiweb.org U.S. Geological Survey http://www.usgs.gov Martindales Health Science Guide http://www-sci.lib.uci.edu/~martindale/HSGuide.html PubMed http://www.nlm.nih.gov World Health Organization http://www.who.ch Yale Medical Library http://www.med.yale.edu/library/ Electronic Documents in History http://www.tntech.edu/www/acad/hist/edocs.html History Net http://www.thehistorynet.com/ HyperHistory Online www.hyperhistory.com/online_n2/History_n2/a.html WWW Virtual Library: History http://www.ukans.edu/history/VL/ Center for Applied Linguistics http://www.cal.org Linguistics Resources on the Web http://www.sil.org/linguistics/ Literary Resources on the Net http://andromeda.rutgers.edu/~jlynch/Lit/ Online Books Page, University of Pennsylvania http://digital.library.upenn.edu/books
Film
Geography
Geology
Health and Medicine
History
Languages and Linguistics
Literature
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Latest Revision 04/25/06 Academic Area Web Resources & Addresses Project Gutenberg http://promo.net/pg Voice of the Shuttle http://vos.ucsb.edu/index.asp Mathematics American Mathematical Society http://www.ams.org Math Forum http://mathforum.com/ MathWorld http://mathworld.wolfram.com WWW Virtual Library: Mathematics http://web.math.fsu.edu/Science/math.html Classical Music on the Web http://classicalusa.com/ MusicLink http://www.lib.utk.edu:90/~music/songwizard/musicbrief.html Worldwide Internet Music Sources http://www.music.indiana.edu/music_resources American Philosophical Association http://www.udel.edu/apa Guide to Philosophy on the Internet http://www.earlham.edu/~peters/philinks.htm Philosophy in Cyberspace http://www-personal.monash.edu.au/~dey/phil/ Stanford University Encyclopedia of Philosophy http://plato.stanford.edu Physics American Institute of Physics http://www.aip.org American Physical Society http://www.aps.org Physics: An Annotated List of Key Resources on the Internet http://www.ala.org/acrl/resmar00.html PhysicsWeb http://physicsweb.org National Political Index http://www.politicalindex.com Political Resources on the Net www.politicalresources.net Thomas: Legislative Information on the Internet http://thomas.loc.gov United Nations http://www.un.org
Music
Philosophy
Political Science
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Latest Revision 04/25/06 Academic Area Psychology Web Resources & Addresses American Psychological Association http://www.apa.org American Psychological Society http://www.psychologicalscience.org PsycCrawler Indexing the Web for the Best in Psychology www.psychcrawler.com PsychWeb http://www.psywww.com Comparative Religion http://www.academicinfo.net/religindex.html Religions and Scriptures http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/rel/ Sacred and Religious Texts http://davidwiley.com/religion.html Academic Info Sociology: Databases and Centers http://www.academicinfo.net/socdata.html American Sociological Association http://asanet.org Social Work and Social Services Web Sites, Washington University in St. Louis http://gwbweb.wustl.edu/websites.html SocioWeb http://www.socioweb.com/~markbl/socioweb/indexes/ Brief Guide to Internet Resources in Theatre and Performance Studies http://www.stetson.edu/departments/csata/thr_guid.html Dancin on the Web http://www.artswire.org/Artswire/www/dance/browse.html The Theater Links Page http://www.theatre-link.com/ National Womens History Project http://www.nwhp.org Womens Resource Project http://sunsite.unc.edu/cheryb/women Womens Studies Resources http://www.mith2.umd.edu/WomensStudies/
Religion
Sociology
Theater and Dance
Womens Studies
Using a Library Web Site Part 8 contains several warnings about the reliability of information on the Internet. However, if you use a library site to access information, you usually can rest assured that the research materials found there have academic value. You can do so because, as part of their online services, libraries tend to link to Internet sources already screened for scholarly reliability. Also, libraries often have access to databases that contain materials from only academically respected books, magazines, newspapers, journals, and so on. The following six tutorials, complete with screenshots, use a local college library to show you how to access and search reliable academic databases. Many colleges and universities enable you to
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access such databases directly from their on-campus computers. If you access the databases from off-campus computers, you almost always need a user ID and password to access information.35
Finding Books and Articles in a College Library Catalog Finding Academic Information in the EBSCO Host Database Finding Academic Information in the MLA Bibliography Finding Academic Information in the Gale Research Database Finding Academic Information in the H.H. Wilson Database
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Libraries make this data available to only faculty, staff, and properly enrolled students because the libraries must pay large fees to access such databases.
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Part 9 Basics of Grammar [unfinished]

This section will describe the most common writing errors that appear in college papers. Until this section is complete, please consult the following Web pages:
The Bedford, St. Martins Web Site Oregon State University Writing Guide Dartmouth University http://bcs.bedfordstmartins.com/easywriter3e/20errors/ http://wic.oregonstate.edu/wic_grammar_error_sheets.html http://www.dartmouth.edu/~writing/materials/student/ac_paper/grammar.shtml
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Part 10 - Basics of Punctuation and Mechanics

I was born in New Jersey but raised in New York, so I can make the following statements with impunity: People from New York like to complain about driving in New Jersey. (Of course, people from New Jersey like to complain about driving in New York!) The New Yorkers usual complaint is that Jersey roads are laid out badly and that road signs are badly placed or too vague. But there is something worse than having to drive through New Jersey, and that is having to read a badly punctuated sentence. You see, punctuation marks are like road signs on the road to meaning. So poor punctuation forces people to work too hard to determine your meaning. And if you have written a serious piece on a difficult topic, then poor punctuation makes your work even more difficult to understand. Be kind to your readerslearn to punctuate using generally accepted rules. Dont force people to drive through New Jersey. The first set of rules covers the main problems you will encounter when trying to punctuate correctly categorized by types of sentence structure. The second set provides more detailed rules categorized by type of punctuation mark.
MAJOR PUNCTUATION RULES

a) Start a sentence with a capital letter, and end it with a period. I went to the store to buy groceries. The author says that life can be confusing. When I study carefully, I do better in school. b) Use a semi-colon between two independent clauses that have no conjunction. I like to watch horror movies; they scare me immensely. I love to watch situation comedies on television; I laugh at all of the jokes. I read five essays by Joan Didion; she is fond of using anecdotes in her writing. c) Use a comma between two independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction, placing the comma before the conjunction that introduces the second clause. I like to watch horror movies, but they scare me immensely. I love to watch situation comedies, and I laugh at all of the jokes. I read five essays by Joan Didion, for she is fond of using personal anecdotes in her writing. d) Use a semi-colon and a comma between two independent clauses joined by an adverbial conjunction, placing the semi-colon before the conjunction and the comma after it. I like to watch horror movies; however, they scare me immensely. I love to watch situation comedies; furthermore, I laugh at all of the jokes. I read all five assigned essays by Joan Didion; nevertheless, I still did not understand her.
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e) Use a comma between a [a] long introductory prepositional phrase, [b] subordinate clause, or [c] modifying verbal phrase and the independent clause that follows. Long prepositional phrase: In the movie theater down the road, I watch all sorts of movies. At the delicatessen on the corner, I have long conversations with the owner at closing time. Subordinate clause: When I am sick or exhausted, I love to watch situation comedies to cheer me. Even if I studied hard before an examination, I sometimes dont do very well on the test. Verbal phrase: To be or not to be, that is the question. Reading as fast as I could, I finished all of Joan Didions essays assigned for class. f) Use NO comma between an independent clause and a following dependent clause if the dependent clause restricts the meaning of the independent clause; DO use a comma between an independent clause and a following dependent clause if the dependent clause does NOT restrict the meaning of the independent clause. Dependent clause is restrictive: I watch horror movies only when I can go with my friends. I read all of Joan Didions essays that were assigned for class. I love to watch television shows that were first produced during the 1950s. Dependent clause is NON-restrictive: I watch horror movies regularly, which is why I often have nightmares. I read all of Joan Didions essays, even the ones that are in the back of the book. I watch situation comedies, although I dont like the ones with profanity. g) Use a set of commas, parentheses, or dashes at both ends of a sentence element that interrupts the flow of major sentence elements like the subject and predicate, predicate and direct object, etc. I watch horror movies, the only type of movie that I like, at my local theater. Joan Didions husband (who also was a writer) died about two years ago. The Boston Red Soxcan you believe it?!won the World Series in 2004!
Capitalization - Capitalize the following:

Proper nouns and adjectives derived from proper nouns: Washington, Washingtonian Buddha, Buddhist China, Chinese (Generally, do not capitalize vocabulary words derived from proper nouns:) china plates french fries the gospel of success
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The names of geographic divisions, regions, localities, and topographical features such as rivers, lakes, and mountains: South America The Middle East the Atlantic Ocean Lake Mead Long Island the Ozark Mountains (Do not capitalize compass directions:) I live fifty miles south of Chicago. He lives three miles west of the main intersection of town. I like to go south in the winter. The names of major nationalities, ethnic groups, tribes, and languages, even when used as modifiers: Spanish, the Spanish language The Bantu tribe Asian-American heritage Titles that come before a name: President George W. Bush Aunt Juanita Doctor Samuel Johnson Professor Hammersmith Queen Victoria (Do not capitalize such terms elsewhere:) a biography of the queen the congresswomans speech my aunt, Juanita Jones the president's fundraising efforts the residence of the vice-president Epithets (i.e. labels or titles applied to person, especially famous ones): Ivan the Terrible was one of the czars of Russia. Abraham Lincoln is known as the Great Emancipator. New Orleans is sometimes called The Big Easy for its relaxed atmosphere. The names of specific political and judicial bodies, social organizations, councils, and departments: The United States Congress The Socialist Workers Party The Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce The American Red Cross
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The names of specific historical periods, events, and documents: The Early Middle Ages The Ancient World The Battle of Gettysburg The Declaration of Independence The names for streets, buildings, and monuments: Broadway The San Francisco Opera House Camden Yards The Statue of Liberty The names for the supreme deity and major religious books: God The Lord Almighty Allah The Talmud The Analects of Confucius The names for major religious faiths, groups, denominations, and their members: Catholicism, Catholics Hinduism, Hindus Islam, Muslims Judaism, Jews Protestants, Protestantism The days of the week, months of the year, holidays, and holy days: Monday, Tuesday, etc. January, February, etc. Yom Kippur Presidents Day Christmas Kwanzaa The pronoun I: I told her that I wanted to turn left, not right. When do you think I should take the swimming course? At what time should I arrive? The first word in the salutation and complimentary close of a letter: My dearest Carole, To Whom It May Concern: Sincerely yours, Very truly yours,
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The first word of a sentence, including questions and exclamations: We are going to a flea market this weekend. Were you on time to work today? Dinner is served! The first word of a direct quotation, except when the quotation is split: He asked me, Do you really like squirrels? Yes, said my friend, Bob, they're so cute. It was Patrick Henry who said, Give me liberty or give me death. The first word and all the key words in the title of a literary or other artistic work: A Streetcar Named Desire (play) Starry Night (painting) Light in August (novel) The White Album (record/CD) The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (drama) The Song of Roland (epic poem) Everyday Use (short story) The Colonel (short poem) The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (tale) The main words in names of ships, aircraft, and space vehicles: USS Ronald Reagan (ship) The Spirit of St. Louis (airplane) The space shuttle Atlantis The names of galaxies, constellations, planets, stars, and other astronomical bodies: The Milky Way (galaxy) Neptune (planet) The Big Dipper (constellation) Alpha Centauri (star) The names of geologic eras, periods, epochs, and names of prehistoric divisions: The Paleozoic Era The Cambrian Period The Bronze Age The genus (but not the species or subspecies) when using scientific binomial nomenclature. Quercus alba (white oak) Haliaeetus leucocephalus leucocephalus (southern bald eagle) Homo sapiens (humanity literally, wise man)
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Italicization - Italicize the following (or underline if writing by hand):

The titles of books, plays, book-length poems, whole magazines or newspapers, and other long, written works: War and Peace (novel) The Iliad (epic poem) National Geographic (magazine) The International Herald Tribune (newspaper) The titles of entire movies, radio programs, or television shows: How Stella Got Her Groove Back (movie) Law and Order (television show) CSI Miami (television show) Car Talk (radio program) The titles of works of art, including paintings, sculptures, and major musical compositions: Starry, Starry Night (painting) The Thinker (sculpture) The Nutcracker Suite (ballet) Porgy and Bess (opera) (Do not italicize musical compositions named by number and/or key signature:) Quartet in E minor Symphony No. 9 in D major Piano Concerto No. 1 in B-flat minor Words, letters, and numbers used as themselves: How do you spell bubble? Does your first name begin with a c or a k? The 3 looked like an 8. Foreign words and phrases not yet absorbed into the English language: Geralds Schadenfreude did not amuse us. Pommes frites is the French term for french fries. Some critics accused the politician of offering a quid pro quo to his opponent. Words and phrases that need emphasis: Manhattan was the place to be in the 1990s. Did you say you were tired after ten hours of sleep? I did not tell him that I had lice; I said Id had rice! The names of the plaintiff and defendant in legal citations (but not the letter v in between the parties names): Johnson v. Smith. Rove v. Wade Brown v. The Topeka Board of Education
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The names of ships, aircraft, and space vehicles: USS Maine The Spirit of St. Louis The space shuttle Challenger
PUNCTUATION Periods, Question Marks, and Exclamation Points

Use a period after a declarative or mild imperative statement: I went to the library. Sign your name here. I am reading about generally accepted punctuation. Use a question mark after a direct question or to indicate uncertainty: Where did you park the automobile? Did you read that new biography of Hillary Clinton? The birth and death dates of Geoffrey Chaucer's are 1340?1400. The American Civil War began on April 15 (?) of 1861. (Do not use a question mark after an indirect question.) I asked them what time they were leaving. He asked to see the contents of my locker. She requested that we have new photographs taken. Use an exclamation point after an emphatic sentence or interjection: Hey! Dont do that! Youll give me a heart attack! Ouch!
Comma - Use a comma

To separate words in a list or series (including just before the last and joining the elements of the series): The baby likes bananas, peaches, and watermelon. I am taking courses in computing, biology, English, and mathematics. My favorite old-time comedic groups are Laurel and Hardy, Abbot and Costello, and Burns and Allen. To separate two or more adjectives before a noun when you can substitute the word and without changing the meaning: She had a kind, generous disposition. Did you have a nightmare again about the long, dark tunnel? The doctor wore a clean, white smock during my examination.
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(Do not use the comma if the adjectives together express a single idea or the noun is a compound made up of an adjective and a noun: ) The kitchen had bright green curtains. Four bald eagles passed overhead when we went birding. I had a peanut butter sandwich for lunch. To set off words, phrases, or clauses in apposition to a noun: George Eliot, the great nineteenth-century novelist, was born in 1819. George Eliot, whose actual name was Mary Ann Evans, wrote several major novels. Eliots husband, a disciple of modern philosophy, died before she did. (Do not use commas when the appositive word or phrase is essential to the meaning of the sentence.) The novelist George Eliot was born in 1819. The president William Jackson was installed by the chamber of commerce. My friend Bobbie Jellico was in the Olympics. To set off nonessential phrases and clauses: My English instructor, who has a good sense of humor, often starts class by telling a joke. The Apollo 11 space mission, the first to land someone on the moon, occurred in 1969. Apollo 11, the movie starting Tom Hanks, premiered in 1996. Do not use commas when the phrase or clause is essential to the meaning of the sentence: The professor who teaches my evening class has no sense of humor. The man who ran the red light is parked over there. The levee that broke in New Orleans let in millions of gallons of water. To separate the independent clauses joined by a coordinating conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, so, yet) in a compound sentence: He lives in New Jersey, but she lives in California. Some people like baseball, yet others like softball. He was born in Tucson, and she was born there too. To set off interrupters such as of course, however, I think, and by the way from the rest of the sentence: She knew, of course, that he was telling the truth. Oh, by the way, I'll be away next week. Our parents, in contrast, will be here all summer. To set off an introductory word, phrase, or clause at the beginning of a sentence: No, I would rather go alone to the library. After three years of hunting him down, I finally found my long-lost dog. Being tall, he often has thought about playing football. To set off a word in direct address: Thanks, folks, for all your help while I was in jail. How was your vacation, Ray? Madam, would you please lower that shotgun?
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To set off tag questions: Please wash the dishes, would you? Bring that computer over here, okay? You will work the night shift, right? To introduce a short quotation: Marie Antoinette supposedly said, Let them eat cake! I asked him, Want to go swimming? She asked me, Where did you get that milk? To close the salutation in a personal letter and the complimentary close in a business or personal letter: Dear Mary, Dearest Dad, Sincerely, Fred Very truly yours, Juliette DuBois To set off titles and degrees: Sarah Little, Ph.D. Alfred Johnson, Jr. (but not Alfred Johnson III) Jerrold Ford, M.D. To separate sentence elements that might be read incorrectly without the comma: At the fun house, in the mirror they could see distorted images of themselves. As an American, pie is one of my favorite kinds of dessert. For most, reading the novel Lonesome Dove would be a challenging three-day assignment. To set off the month and day from the year in full dates: The seminar will take place on September 6, 2006. I was born on March 11, 1965. Did you say that you were married on April 22, 1980? (Do not use a comma when only the month and year appear:) The seminar will take place in September 2006. The American Civil War began in April 1861. The American essayist Calvin Trillin was born in December 1935. To set off the city and state in an address: Godfrey Arthur 1450 Banning Street Boston, MA 02345 Wilma Randolph 428 Elm Street Dallas, TX 75005 Charles Rodriguez 14565 Bakersfield Boulevard Fresno, CA 91500
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If the address is inserted into text, add a second comma after the state: Shaker Heights, Ohio, is their home town. My sister was born in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1945. Did you say that your school in Brockton, ME, was closed in 1990?
Colon - Use a colon:

To introduce a list or words, phrases, and clauses that explain, enlarge upon, or summarize what has gone before: Please provide the following data: your first name, your last name, and your birth date. I was completely shocked by my surprise birthday party: I am a very trusting person. Kindness, generosity, tenderness, mercy, compassion: these traits are hard to come by. To introduce a long quotation: According to James Boswell, Samuel Johnson once said: "Knowledge is of two kinds. We know a subject ourselves, or we know where we can find information upon it." On June 14, 1960, John F. Kennedy said: We must formulate, with both imagination and restraint, a new approach to the Middle Eastnot pressing our case so hard that the Arabs feel their neutrality and nationalism are threatened, but accepting those forces, and seeking to help channel them along constructive lines, while at the same time trying to hasten the inevitable Arab acceptance of the permanence of Israel. One of Jane Austens witty remarks goes as follows: Human nature is so well disposed towards those who are in interesting situations, that a young person, who either marries or dies, is sure to be kindly spoken of. To separate hour, minutes, and seconds in standard time notation: The express train will arrive at 10:42 a.m. The shuttle was launched at precisely 12:12:12 a.m. Its 8:30 a.m., David, time to get up! To close the salutation in a business letter: Dear Sir or Madam: To Whom It May Concern: Dear Ladies and Gentlemen:
Semicolon - Use a semicolon:

To separate the independent clauses in a compound sentence not joined by a conjunction: Only three tables were left; we needed four. I root for the Yankees; my sister roots for the Red Sox. ZIP codes have five digits; area codes have only three.
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To separate two independent clauses, the second of which begins with an adverbial conjunction such as however, consequently, moreover, or therefore: We waited an hour; however, we couldn't stay any longer. I went to college in Illinois; nevertheless, I then moved back to Idaho after graduation. We want to visit Los Angeles; furthermore, we want to see the redwood forests near San Francisco. To separate elements in a series that already contains commas: I sent messages to the professors, associate professors, and assistant professors; the secretary of the department; and some retired faculty members. I have lived in Bakersfield, CA; Chicago, IL; and Miami, FL. He attended Harvey Mudd College, in Claremont, California; UCLA, which is in Los Angeles; and then the University of Illinois, Urbana.
Dashes & Hyphens

Use a dash to indicate a sudden break in continuity or to set off an explanatory, defining, or emphatic phrase: It looks like rainwhere are our children? Nuclear warwho could joke about such a topic?could still occur in our lifetime. I amI cant find my shirt!late for work. Use a hyphen to join the elements of a compound word or to join the elements of a compound modifier before a noun: I work with college-aged people all day long. I used to have a one-of-a-kind job. A ready-to-wear suit makes good business travel clothing. Use a hyphen to divide a word at the end of a line: General Erwin Rommel is one of history's most enigmatic and intriguing figures. Jane Austens writings often focus on male-female relationships of the late 1700s. Corazon Aquino of the Philippines was a strong advocate of freedom of the press,
Brackets & Parentheses

Use brackets to set off words or phrases that you have added to the phrasing of another writer: She [Denise Levertov] is certainly one of the great poets of the twentieth century. The term ad hominem [meaning toward the man] refers to a personal attack directed at people rather than at their arguments. Mark Twain [i.e., Samuel Clemens] was the greatest of American humorists. Use parentheses to set off nonessential information: We spent a week (more or less) vacationing in Virginia. Turn left (not right) at the third light after you cross Baltimore Road.
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The commander of the outnumbered American revolutionaries (George Washington, of course) had to know when to fight and when to run.
Apostrophe - Use an apostrophe to indicate:

The possessive case of singular and plural nouns, indefinite pronouns, and proper nouns: My mothers brother (regular singular possessive) Someones abandoned briefcase caused great concern at the airport. (indefinite pronoun, singular possessive) My parents retirement village (regular plural possessive) The childrens toys (irregular plural possessive) Charles Darwins most famous book is entitled The Origin of Species. (possessive after regular proper noun) Xerxes rise to the throne came just after the death of his father. (possessive after a proper noun with multiple s sounds) The plural of letters, numbers, symbols, and words used as themselves: I gave the delicatessen clerk five 10s The word eerie is spelled with three es. Delete the extra ands in your sentence. Missing letters in contractions and missing numbers in dates: The song asks, Whats the matter with kids today? (What is) Im going to walk to the other side of town. (I am) Whos going to go with me to the store? (Do not confuse the contraction for who is with whose, as in Whose bicycle did you borrow today?)
Quotation Marks - Use quotation marks:

To set off direct quotations: Let's go to the museum, she suggested. A stitch in time saves nine, son was one of my late fathers favorite bits of advice. One old army proverb says, If it moves salute it. If it doesnt move, pick it up. If you cant pick it up, paint it. To set off titles of short artistic works such as tales, articles, chapters, essays, songs, poems, and individual radio and television programs. O. Henry wrote The Gift of the Magi. (short story) I have read Chapter 9, entitled A Vanished Empire. We sang the Star-Spangled Banner just before the soccer game. (song) T. S. Eliot wrote Tradition and the Individual Talent. (essay) To set off words and phrases used in an unusual way or that might use the phrase so-called: My friends punishment for spraying graffiti was to teach children how to improve their penmanship. The science article says that bees appear to remember physical landmarks. I love broccoli, brussel sprouts, and cauliflowerdont you?
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Part 11 Exercises
Using the Dictionary Use each of the following words in a sentence that provides enough context to indicate that you know the meaning of the word. Poor example: Mitosis is a new word that I just learned. Good Example: Mitosis is a cell division process involving four stages. Word 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Abrogate Bowdlerize Enervate Facetious Feckless Gerrymander Hubris Infrastructure Loquacious Sentence that Provides Context
10. Nanotechnology 11. Oligarchy 12. Oxidize 13. Paradigm 14. Plagiarize 15. Quasar 16. Reparation 17. Soliloquy 18. Suffragist 19. Taxonomy 20. Tempestuous 21. Unctuous 22. Vehement 23. Vortex 24. Xenophobe 25. Yeoman
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Choosing Appropriate Words

Rewrite the following sentences to convert slang to a middle level of diction. 1. We took the kids to Mickey Ds so they could scarf down some fast food. 2. If we dont hit the books for the final exam, our whole semester is going to go down the tubes. 3. Visiting the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC really flipped my switch because I really groove on planes and stuff. 4. The Yankees tanked in the playoffs last year, which really ticked me off. 5. When James Baldwin needed to get a point across or out of his mind, he would write. 6. The way that Alice Walkers father and brothers treated women was a put down of the opposite sex. Rewrite the following sentences to lower the elevated diction to a middle level. 1. For years the indigenous body politic of South Africa attempted to negotiate legal enfranchisement, but without result. 2. When our progenitors reach advanced chronological status, we frequently put them in senior citizen housing units where they can gradually decline until mortality sets in. 3. Economically deprived people are often the first individuals of the population to be downsized during a downturn in the general economic cycle of our nation. 4. My parents single family dwelling unit appreciated markedly in value because of the strong economic conditions over the past twelve fiscal quarters. 5. The legal counselor wrote his court-intended documents with an excess of vocabulary derived from Latinate etymology. 6. At the commencement of the American republic, a tantalizing means of indulging a youthful desire for escape and recreation was a lengthy sojourn in the capital of the French Republic. Rewrite the following sentences, replacing the clichs with more original phrasing. 1. I really keep my nose to the grindstone, so to speak, when I am in summer school because I dont want my education to hit the skids. 2. Even though my car skidded out of control, I was cool as a cucumber and recovered in time to avoid hitting a brick wall like a ton of bricks. 3. When writing essays for English Composition, you should avoid clichs like the plague. Otherwise, Mr. Smith might punch out your headlights gradewise. 4. If you stop acting like a stuck pig, maybe your girlfriend wont tell you that your relationship is water under the bridge. 5. When my friend wanted to add insult to injury, he would say something that made me feel as flat as a pancake. 6. Contrary to gender stereotypes, my father was as gentle as a lamb and my mother was as hard as a rock when they disciplined us during our childhoods.
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Identifying Paragraphs
Read each paragraph below, and then decide which pattern of development it usesfor example, analogy, definition, process, etc. Be prepared to explain why you chose the pattern that you did. The idea of democracy originated, of course, in ancient Greece, more than two millennia ago. Piecemeal efforts at democratization were attempted elsewhere as well, including in India. But it is really in ancient Greece that the idea of democracy took shape and was seriously put into practice (albeit on a limited scale), before it collapsed and was replaced by more authoritarian and asymmetric forms of government. There were no other kinds anywhere else. Amartya Sen, Democracy as a Universal Value Farb was the worst insult in the hardcore vocabulary. It refers to [Civil War] reenactors who approached the past with a lack of verisimilitude. The words etymology was obscure; Young guessed that farb was short for far-be-it-from-authentic, or possible a respelling of barf. Violations serious enough to earn the slur included wearing a wristwatch, smoking cigarettes, smearing oneself with sunblock or insect repellentor, worst of all, fake blood. Farb was also a fungible word; it could become an adjective (farby), a verb (as in, dont farb out on me (an adverb (farbily) and a heretical school of thought (Farbism or Farbiness). Tony Horwitz, Confederates in the Attic Immediately after the meetings at Valladolid, the potential co-leaders of the [Magellan] expedition presented a list of demands to the crown; they were couched in respectful language, but they were demands nonetheless. They included an exclusive franchise on the Spice Islands for a full ten years, 5 percent of the rent and proceeds of all such lands that we would discover, and the privilege of trading for their own accounts, so long as they paid taxes to the king. They asked to keep any islands they discovered for themselves, if they discovered more than six, as well as permission to pass the newly discovered lands on to our heirs and successors. Laurence Bergreen, Over the Edge of the World I see four kinds of pressure working on college students today: economic pressure, parental pressure, peer pressure, and self-induced pressure. It is easy to look around for villainsto blame the colleges for charging too much money, the professors for assigning too much work, the parents for pushing their children too far, the students for driving themselves too hard. But there are no villains; only victims. William Zinsser, College Pressures Our daughter, Jill, has two grandmothers who are as different as chalk and cheese. One grandmother taught her to count cards and make her face as blank as a huge, white Kleenex when she bluffed at blackjack. They practiced in the bathroom mirror. The other grandmother taught her where to place the salad forks. When Jill was three, this grandmother taught her not to touch anything until invited to do so. The other grandmother taught her to slide down four carpeted stairs on a cookie sheet. Deborah Dalfonso, Grammy Rewards My mother talks about back home as a safe place, a silk cocoon frozen in time where we are sheltered by family and friends. Back home, my sister and I do not argue about food with my parents. Home is where they know all the rules. We trust them to guide us safely through the maze of city streets for which they have no map, and we trust them to feed and take care of us, the way parents should. Geeta Kothari, If You Are What You Eat, Then What Am I?
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Contrary to the biological theories of war, it is not easy to get men to fight. In recent centuries, men have often gone to great lengths to avoid warfleeing their homelands, shooting off their index fingers, feigning insanity. So unreliable was the rank and file of the famed eighteenth-century Prussian army that military rules forbade camping near wooded areas: The troops would simply melt away into the trees. Even when men are duly assembled for battle, killing is not something that seems to come naturally to them. As Lieutenant Colonel Dave Grossman argued in his book On Killing: The Psychological Cost of Learning to Kill in War and Society, one of the great challenges of military training is to get soldiers to shoot directly at individual enemies. Barbara Ehrenreich, The Roots of War Newspaper financial sections carry almost daily pronouncements from the computer industry and other businesses about their high-tech hopes for America's schoolchildren. Many of these are joined to philanthropic commitments to helping schools make curriculum changes. This sometimes gets businesspeople involved in schools, where they've begun to understand and work with the many daunting problems that are unrelated to technology. But if business gains too much influence over the curriculum, the schools can become a kind of corporate training centerlargely at taxpayer expense. Todd Oppenheimer, The Computer Delusion To paint double-hung windows, first remove them from their frames. Drill holes and insert two nails into the legs of a wooden stepladder. Then mount the window easel style for easy painting. Otherwise, lay the window flat on a bench or sawhorses. Then, using a tapered sash brush, start painting the wood next to the glass. Use the narrow edge of brush and overlap paint onto the glass to create a weathertight seal. Next, clean any excess paint off the glass with a putty knife wrapped in a clean cloth. (Rewrap the knife often so that you always wipe with a clean piece of fabric.) Overlap the paint onto the glass about 1/16 of an inch to create a good seal. Finally, paint the flat portions of the sashes, then the case moldings, the sill, and the apron. Adapted from www.homedepot.com Cricket is an outdoor game played with bats, a ball, and two wickets by two teams of eleven players each. Baseball also is played outdoors, but generally in a stadium rather than a large field, as cricket tends to be. Like cricket players, baseball players also use a bat and ball. However, a baseball bat is round rather than flat, and baseball players bat at home plate instead of in front of a wicket. Finally, baseball teams have nine players each instead of eleven. D. Langley
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Distinguishing Phrases, Clauses, and Sentences

Read the text in the second column and determine if it is a phrase, a clause or a sentence. In the third column, write the letter P if the text is a phrase, the letter C if the text is a clause, or the letter S if the text is a sentence. [Do not let the period at the end of each bit of text fool you.]
Text 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. Wandering around the beautiful town of Suffern, New York. I went to see the doctor yesterday to learn the results of my physical. In the basement near the washer and dryer. Under the stairs between the living room and the bedroom. My favorite meal is a house salad, penne ala vodka, and chocolate mousse. Over the river and through the woods to grandmothers house. To play baseball in the spring and then throughout the summer. In the middle of the night, I heard raccoons going after the food our garbage cans. I heard raccoons going after the food in our garbage cans. Which is why I put straps on all of our cans. Where in the world is your little brother, Michael? Have you ever seen a dream walking? Dive, dive, dive! If you ask that question one more time. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. After he wrote Moby Dick and several other major novels. Although she never graduated from college. My aunt Gertrude was a successful doctor in San Francisco in the 1950s. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. Beneath the pile of books on my computer desk. Inside the storage room at the back of the building where I work. To fly into space on the space shuttle Atlantis. At the curb where I usually park my automobile. Downtown is where I like to go to eat fancy meals. As a freshman I failed swimming because I could not swim the length of the pool. Phrase, Clause, or Sentence?
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Distinguishing Subordinate and Main Clauses

Read the text in the second column and determine if it is a subordinate clause or a main clause. In the third column, write the letter S if the text is a subordinate clause. Write the letter M if the text is a main clause. [Do not let the period at the end of each bit of text fool you.]
Text 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. When I went away to my favorite summer camp. I like to swim in my uncles lake. Even if he is not taking his medicine. Can you tell me what time it is? When I pulled the paper out of the printer. After I ran for student body president during my junior year in high school. Are we there yet? Run for your life! He went into the deans office to demand his tuition back. After he obtained his degree in philosophy from an East Coast university. The president scored over 1200 on his SATs when he was in high school. I almost scored that amount on my own tests. Even though he graduated near the top of his class in law school. When I saw the spectacular grandeur of the western part of our country. Because he was born in the country of Japan. A friend of mine knows several Asian languages. While he served in the military during the second Gulf War. The most interesting thing about the book is that the most intriguing characters are not human. While she was writing her latest poems late at night. Is it just me, or is it really hot in here? No man is an island, entire unto himself. When I am old, I shall wear purple. Until he stopped trying to breathe under water whenever he made a turn in the pool. This is the last question in this exercisecan you believe it?! Jump! Subordinate or Main Clause?
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Distinguishing Verbal Phrases and Prepositional Phrases

Identify whether the bolded element in each sentence is a gerund phrase, participial phrase, infinitive phrase, or prepositional phrase. If the element is an infinitive phrase, indicate in the last column if it functions as a noun, adjective, or adverb. If the element is a prepositional phrase, indicate in the last column if it functions as an adjective or adverb. Sentence 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Thinking about my teaching duties, I made up this exercise. Grading papers consumes the most time of any English teachers work week. He wrote his first essay in the library basement. Looking at his final grades was very exciting to him. She felt happy about her work, especially after she finished it. My main goal in class is to teach students how to write more effectively. Writing papers that are clear, concise, organized, and thoughtful is our main goal in class. Writing papers that are clear and organized is our main goal in class. I have never taught a class that favored going to the library on a daily basis. Type of Phrase Noun, adjective, or adverb?
10. I have taught classes that avoided going to the library at all. 11. Winning the best job at work is Jeremys main goal in her current career. 12. Winning the best job at work, Jeremy then decided to apply to graduate school for her MBA. 13. I liked finishing my essays, but I didnt like starting them. 14. I liked starting my papers, but I didnt like finishing them. 15. Proofreading an essay is as important as writing it. 16. Effective writing involves the act of rewriting, which suggests that writing is a process and not a one-step activity. 17. Writing this exercise took about twenty minutes to complete. 18. It took twenty minutes to complete the writing of this exercise. 19. To run around in the rain is sure way to catch a cold. 20. To catch a cold, just run around in a cold rain for several minutes.
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Punctuating Sentences
Use the major punctuation rules in Part 10 of this textbook, and punctuate the sentences appearing in the second column. In the third column, record the rule number that you followed. If the sentence has correct punctuation, just write the letter C.
Sentence
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. Reading and writing stimulate and reinforce each other so we assign many readings along with your writing assignments. In the essay entitled Autobiographical Notes James Baldwin talks about his family life. In his essays James Baldwin talks about several major issuesfor example, family, racism, and American culture. By helping injured companions porpoises have shown a strong sense of community. There is no sound outside and the street below is still dark. Notes of a Native Son is one of James Baldwins great essays I read it often. Annie Dillard is one of my favorite authors but I did not assign her this semester. The author says that if we kept our brains but had a dolphins body we would have to give up the idea of trying to mold the world to our liking. Joan Didion is a social critic who writes about everything from self-respect to Americas influence in the world. John McPhee who is an old man now is one of Americas great essayists of the 20th century. McPhee still writes for The New Yorker magazine which is published almost every week. Barbara Tuchman now deceased wrote many books aimed at popular readers. Tuchmans essay entitled The Black Death discusses the bubonic plague of the 14th century. If you are interested the anarchist movement of the early 1900s read Tuchmans essay entitled The Idea and the Deed Its almost as if you are there with him. You may not feel as if you are making a difference but you are helping to improve someones life. By concentrating on only fifteen writers the authors of our anthology have been able to include four essays for each writer. In the essay The Long Loneliness Loren Eiseley writes about dolphins. For example someone who wants to have great wisdom must go into a wilderness and be alone for a while. Eiseley is constantly reminded about the topic of time and its passing.
Rule Number
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Punctuating Correctly
In the second column, correctly punctuate the following sentences. In the third column, record the number of the punctuation rule that you followed from Part 10 of the textbook. If the sentence is correctly punctuated, write the letter C in the last column. Sentence 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. I love to watch videos on the weekend my wife loves to go bike riding instead. If I have to tell you again to stop you wont get ice cream for dessert! The challenger ran a great campaign, but the incumbent won both the popular and the electoral votes. Hamlet the prince of Denmark kills the kings foolish advisor. I read the essays by Tom Wolfe but I did not enjoy his writing style. Even though my wife recently had surgery we still plan to take dance lessons. I love to watch old movies on late-night television. Although I went to a small, private college I received a great education. Did you wash your hands? Did you take the dog for a walk? Did you lose your sister again? Rule No.
10. I consulted my handout on punctuation rules and then I punctuated all of the sentences correctly! 11. Do you think that Prof Smith will give everyone As on the final exam? 12. Syracuse which is in upstate New York is one of the cloudiest cities in the United States. 13. I like Dreyers chocolate ice cream but I like Klugen-Hass vanilla ice cream even more. 14. If you want to be a good writer you really must read a lot too. 15. Alice Walker one of Americas famous novelists also writes essays. 16. My printer broke down so I will have to hand in my paper late. 17. I dont care if Prof Smith thinks you are intelligent its dumb to put the dog in the microwave after giving it a bath! 18. I like to watch The West Wing which is on television on Wednesday nights. 19. I went to the information booth that stands at the corner of Woodlawn and Fifth Street. 20. Hamilton Community College located in Woodlawn is one of our leading community colleges.
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Appendix 1 Dictionary of Commonly Confused Words

Affect/effect Affect is a verb that means to cause something to change. Effect is a noun meaning a result brought about by a cause. The young boy affected the outcome of the ballgame by preventing the outfielder from catching the baseball. The boys actions had an effect upon the outcome of the ballgame. Aggravate/irritate Aggravate means to worsen. Irritate means to annoy or cause minor pain. The loud music next door aggravated my sisters already painful headache. My sister became irritated when the loud music started again next door. All ready/already All ready means prepared, fitted, or arranged. Already means by this time or so soon. We were all ready for the concert at 8:30 p.m. The concert already had begun at 8:00 p.m., so we were late. Allusion/illusion An allusion is a reference to something outside of the text or speech that includes the reference. An illusion is an incorrect perception or incorrect concept or belief. Shakespeares dramas often contain allusions to the Bible. Hamlet wonders if the ghost of his father is just an illusion or an actual spirit. Aural/oral Aural means relating to an aura or relating to or perceived by the ear. Oral means spoken rather than written or relating to the mouth. My aural perception has suffered as I have grown older. I had oral surgery last month to remove a wisdom tooth. Awhile/ a while Awhile is an adverb (used to modify verbs) and means briefly or for a short time. A while is the indefinite article plus a noun (used the direct object of a sentence) and means a period of time, generally short. Come in and rest awhile so I can make some tea. My friend stayed for a while so I could make him some tea. Backward/backwards Backward means shy and retiring, directed or facing back or toward the rear, or behind in progress or development. Backwards has similar meanings, but you should use it only as an adverb, never as an adjective. I noticed his backward look when the herd of horses started gaining on us. Look backwards, friend, if the horses start gaining on us and let me know how fast they are approaching. Bad/badly Bad is an adjective, meaning inferior, immoral, rotted, or in poor health. Badly is an adverb, meaning in a poor manner or to a worse degree. I could tell he was a bad man when he struck his sister on the cheek. The man behaved badly toward his sister.
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Bazaar/bizarre Bazaar means a market, shop, fair, or similar sale. Bizarre means odd, peculiar, or unconventional. The bazaar raised over $25,000 for the hurricane victims. The hurricane acted in a bizarre manner and caught the city emergency crews off guard. Beside/besides Beside means next to. Besides means in addition to. The actor pretended to weep beside the bed of the actress who portrayed the dying mother. Besides watching As the World Burns, I also watched Guiding Nightlight. Between/among Between is used when something is shared by only two people or things. Among is used for three or more persons or things. I stood between the bride and the groom in one of the wedding photographs. I stood among the five people who participated in the wedding ceremony. Breath/breathe Breath is a noun that means respiration, vitality, inhaled and exhaled air, etc. Breathe is a verb that means to inhale and exhale, to be alive, to express an idea or feeling, etc. I took a quick breath after receiving the slight shock from the lamp. I breathed a sigh of relief when I realized that the shock came from just static electricity. Capital/capitol Capital means a political center, money invested in a company, etc. Capitol means the building where a legislature meets. Little Rock is the capital of Arkansas. The state capitol in Little Rock resembles the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. Child/kid Child is middle diction. Kid is a young goat or slang for child. Prefer child and children over kid and kids. Preferred: The political candidate made his announcement with his children standing behind him. Not preferred: The candidate made his announcement with his kids standing behind him. Council/counsel Council means a group of legislators, clergy, or similar body. Counsel is a noun that means advice or guidance or a verb that means to give advice or guidance. The council met in the capitol to discuss how to finance the recent crisis. The instructor counseled the student to hand in his remaining papers on time. Compare to/compare with Use compare to when indicating similarity between things compared. Use compare with to indicate difference. The novelist compared her main character to a wounded animal. The novelist compared her sympathetic characters with her unsympathetic ones. Complement/complement Complement means something that completes. Compliment means a flattering praising statement. Bread and butter complement each other nicely, even at a backyard barbeque. The cook at the barbeque received our compliments with humility. Continual/continuous Continual means something that recurs, but can stop. Continuous means something that never stops. Astronomers continually study the heavens for signs of runaway asteroids. The moon rotates continuously around the earth.
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Criterion/criteria Criterion means a standard or principle. Criteria is the plural of criterion. My criterion for sports teams is simple: are they in first place at the end of the season? The criteria for a great ballplayer is that he must hit, hit with power, run, field, and throw. Different than/different from Use different than when using a complete clause to contrast two items. Use different from to indicate that you are comparing two persons or things. My book is a newer edition, so it is different from yours. Since the new computer building has gone up, our campus looks different than it did last year. Discreet/discrete Discreet means prudent, tactful, cautious, etc. Discrete means separate, distinct, detached, etc. I gave a discreet nod to the actor so he would know it was time to go on stage. Henry IV, Part 1 and Henry IV, Part II are two discrete plays by Shakespeare. Etc./e.g./i.e. Etc. is short for et cetera and means and so forth or so on. E.g. is short for exempli gratia and means for example. I.e. is short for id est and means that is. My sister likes chicken, fish, vegetables, etc. My sister eats meals that do not include red meate.g., chicken, fish, vegetables, etc. My sister does not eat veal, beef, or bisoni.e., no red meat. Forward/forwards Prefer forward over forwards. Preferred: We went forward with our plans to build the new computer center. Not preferred. We went forwards with plans to build the new computer center. Get Get is slang and can have an almost endless number of meanings. Avoid using the word by preferring a middle level of diction. Preferred: Do not obtain your wedding license just minutes before you are to marry! Not Preferred: Dont get your wedding license just minutes before you are to marry! Good/well Good is an adjective that means moral, proper, fine, superior, etc. Well is an adverb that means healthy, fit, sound, etc. I knew that my father was a good person because of his forgiving spirit. My father was not well in his last few weeks of life. Hanged/hung Hanged refers to people and means executed by hanging. Hung refers to objects and means suspended, draped, etc. John Wilkes Booth co-conspirators were hanged after being convicted in the assassination of President Lincoln. Pictures of the late president were hung in parlor windows for many weeks after his death. If/whether If is a subordinating conjunction used to set up a condition or to indicate general speculation. Use the word whether when presenting two alternatives. Condition: If it is cold on Saturday, then I wont go to the outdoor concert. General speculation: I wonder if it will be very cold on Saturday. Two Alternatives: I am not sure whether I will go to the game on Saturday. (Note: do not add the phrase or not after the word whether; that phrase is unnecessary.)
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Its/its Its is the third person possessive pronoun for it. Its is the contract for it is. The dog had the bone in its mouth for nearly half an hour. Its a funny sight to see a dog hold on to a bone for nearly half an hour. Lay/lie Lay is the transitive verb (taking an object) that means to place or position on a surface. Lie is the intransitive verb (taking no object) that means to recline or rest. Lay the book on my desk before leaving class, please. The books will lie there until someone picks them up. Caution: Lay also can function as the past tense of to lie. Example: The books lay there yesterday, but no one picked them up. Less/fewer Use less to indicate items that cannot be counted. Use fewer to indicate items that you can count. The glass has less water in it today than it did yesterday. There are fewer glasses on the table today than yesterday. Lightening/lightning Lightening means becoming less cumbersome or less dark. Lightning means a powerful electric strike in the atmosphere. The robbers were lightening their load as they rushed from the bank in the lightening morning. Lightning struck the robbers van as they headed out of town during the freak storm at daybreak. Like/as Like is a preposition that means similar to. As is a subordinate conjunction used in subordinate clauses involving comparison. The Pennsylvania Monument at Gettysburg is like no other on the battlefield. The Confederates yelled as they made their charge across the open field. Little/few Use little to refer to quantities that you cannot count. Use few to refer to quantities that you can count. There was little time at the end of class to introduce a new topic. Only a few minutes remained in class when the teacher introduced a new subject. Medium/media As a noun, medium means an intervening substance, agency, news outlet, etc. Media is the plural of medium. The preferred medium for transmitting electricity in houses is copper wiring. The news media criticized the administration for its recent handling of the storm. Much/many Much generally refers to quantities that you cannot count. Many refers to quantities that you can count. It did not take much to see that the football player was near the end of his career. The football player had so many catches in one day that I could not count them all! Percent/percentage Percent means per hundred. Percentage is the noun form of percent and means parts expressed in hundredths. You can represent the decimal amount of 0.10 as ten percent. What percentage of the time do you spend working out mathematics problems?
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Predominant/predominate Predominant is an adjective that means most common or prevalent. Predominate is the verb form that means to be most common or prevalent. The predominant ethnic group in our town is Italian-Americans. Italian-Americans predominate the ethnic groups in our town. Principle/principal Principle is a noun that means standard, attitude, belief, etc. Principal is the noun for the senior member of a school or is an adjective that means chief, primary, key, etc. I try to follow the principle that one should treat others as one wants to be treated. Being more than fair to others is the principal value by which my friend tries to live. Prior/previous/before Prior and previous mean the same thing and are interchangeable: preceding in time or order; former or earlier. Before is an adverb that means earlier in time or a preposition that means in front or ahead. Just prior to his hanging, Nathan Hale reportedly said, I only regret that I have but one life to lose for my country. The Battle of Hastings (1066) occurred previous to the signing of the Magna Carta (1215). The Battle of Hastings occurred before the signing of the Magna Carta. Prophecy/prophesy Prophecy is a noun that means a prediction of future events or a similar inspired message. Prophesy is a verb that means to predict future events or similar inspired messages. The sports columnist made the prophecy that the pitching staff would fail his favorite team. The columnist prophesied that the pitchers would fail his favorite team. Quote/quotation Quote is a verb that means to repeat the exact words of another person. Quotation is a noun that means an exact reproduction of another persons words. The student wanted to quote Willa Cather in his paper. The quotation goes as follows: The dead might as well try to speak to the living as the old to the young. Real/really Real is an adjective meaning actual, true, etc. Really is an adverb that means, truly, actually, or indeed. I bought real milk for the new-born kitten. The new kitten was really youngonly four days old! So The word so can be an adverb, adjective, conjunction, pronoun, or interjection. Adverb: It was so hot today that I wore a tank top when I mowed the lawn. Adjective: Everything on my sisters desk must be exactly so. Conjunction: It quickly grew cold over night, so I closed the bedroom window. Pronoun: He started as a good friend and remained so. Interjection: So! You did decide to come to my surprise birthday party. Stationary/stationery Stationary means still, inactive, fixed, etc. Stationery means writing paper, envelopes, etc. The monument is now stationary, even though the heavy rains tried to wash it away. I used fine stationery to write a brief history of the monument that almost washed away.
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Than/then Use than to compare one thing with another. Use then to indicate a time sequence. It was later than I thought it was, so I rose quickly, washed, and dressed. I then went drove to work, but please dont ask how fast I was going! Their/there/theyre Their is the possessive form of they. There indicates not here. Theyre is the contraction for They are. Do NOT confuse these three words with each other. They built the house over there, near the college. Their house is made of brick. Theyre expecting to live in that house for less than a decade. Toward/towards Toward is middle diction. Towards is slang. Preferred: I hit the softball toward left field. Not Preferred: I hit the baseball towards the outfield. Try to/Try and Try to means to attempt to, taste, sample, etc. Do NOT use try and as a substitute for try to. Use try and only if you follow it with an unrelated action. I try to shop every third day, but sometimes I cannot. It is better to try and then fail than not to try at all. Use to/used to Use to is the incorrect form of used to. Preferred: I used to go to therapy, but then I found out that my therapist was insane! Not Preferred: I use to go to therapy. Which/that Use which when adding non-restrictive, additional information. Use that to indicate restrictive or essential information. I often rent a car for long trips, which is easier than buying a second car. I often go on trips that require overnight stops. Who/whom Who is the nominative form of the pronoun; use it as the subject or predicate nominative of a sentence. Whom is the objective form; use it as the direct object, indirect object, or object of a preposition. Who is going to go to the library with me to study? You went to the library with whom? Whos/whose Whos is the contraction of who is. Whose is the possessive form of who. Whos going to go to the library tonight? Whose books are those in the library?
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Appendix 2 Commonly Misspelled Words

absence accidentally accomplish achievement address alleged appearance athletics balloon bargain beginning bouillon Buddha camouflage cemetery characteristic cigarette colonel coming comparative concede condescend consistent coolly correlate courteous deceive dependent desirable develop dilemma disappoint disease dominant ecstasy either enemy equivalent exceed exhaust experience extremely fallacy feasible financially foreign foresee abundance acclaim accordion acquaintance advertisement annual argument attendance barbecue basically believe boundary business cantaloupe chagrined changing climbed colossal committee competent conceive conscientious continuous corollary correspondence courtesy defendant descend despair development dining disastrous dispensable drunkenness efficiency eligible entirely especially excellence existence experiment exuberance familiar fictitious fluorescent forfeit forty accessible accommodate accumulate across aggravate apparent atheist auxiliary barbiturate beggar biscuit Britain calendar category challenge chief collectible column commitment completely condemn consciousness controlled convenient counselor criticize deferred description desperate difference disappearance discipline dissatisfied easily eighth emperor equipped exaggerate excellent expense explanation fallacious fascinate finally forcibly formerly fourth
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fulfill generally governor guerrilla happily heinous hesitancy hoping hypocrite ignorance implement independence indispensable information intelligence interrupt irresistible judicial legitimate lenient lieutenant likely losing magazine manageable mathematics millionaire minutes misspelled mosquitoes mysterious necessary neutron noticeable obedience occasionally official omitted opportunity ordinarily overrun parliament peaceable perceive permissible persistence picnicking pitiful portray potato
fundamentally genius grievous guidance harass hemorrhage hindrance humorous ideally imaginary incidentally independent inevitable inoculate intercede introduce island knowledge leisure liaison lightning longitude lovely maintain maneuver medicine miniature mischievous mortgage murmur narrative necessity ninety nowadays obstacle occurred omission opinion oppression origin panicky particularly peculiar performance permitted physical piece planning possess potatoes
gauge government guarantee handkerchief height heroes hoarse hypocrisy idiosyncrasy immediately incredible indicted influential insurance interference irrelevant jealousy laboratory length license likelihood loneliness luxury maintenance marriage millennium minuscule missile mosquito muscle naturally neighbor ninth nuisance occasion occurrence omit opponent optimism outrageous parallel pavilion penetrate permanent perseverance physician pilgrimage pleasant possessive practically
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prairie prejudice prevalent probably professor pronunciation publicly quarantine realistically recede recognize referred religious repetition reservoir rheumatism roommate safety scary secede sentence several similar sincerely sophomore specimen statistics strength subordinate success supersede surround syllable tangible temperature theories though tomorrow transferred tyranny unnecessary usually vengeance villain warrant wherever yield
preference preparation primitive procedure prominent propaganda pursue questionnaire realize receipt recommend relevant remembrance representative resistance rhythm sacrilegious salary scenery secretary separate shepherd simile skiing souvenir sponsor stopped strenuous subtle succession suppress susceptible symmetrical technical tendency therefore through tournament truly unanimous until vacuum vigilant violence Wednesday wholly zoology
preferred prescription privilege proceed pronounce psychology quandary quizzes really receive reference relieving reminiscence resemblance restaurant rhythmical sacrifice satellite schedule seize sergeant shining simply soliloquy specifically spontaneous strategy stubbornness succeed sufficient surprise suspicious synonymous technique themselves thorough till tourniquet twelfth undoubtedly usage valuable village visible weird yacht
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Student Suggestions Page

List the Part number and page number of this booklet where you see a problem with either the instructional material or the format. Briefly describe the problem. Briefly describe a solution to that problem. Feel free to provide a suggested sentence or two to revise the weakness in the text. _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________
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Langley The Basics On Good Writing

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The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 1 - Introducing the Essay

Note that the plural of thesis is theses, not thesises.

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Drafting/Writing Put your ideas into writing:

Rewriting Stages Revising, Editing, and Proofreading

Editing/Proofreading Reread and revise as needed:

END: Publishing - Prepare and type the final draft:

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 2 - Choosing Appropriate Words

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 3 - Creating Clear Sentences

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Use of Verb Tense and Examples

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Use of Verb Tense and Examples

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

The hospital administrators seemed overworked.

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Plain Expression Toilet paper Civilian deaths Bathroom Police officer

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 4 - Composing Effective Paragraphs

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Results Hypothesis Sequence Time Relationship Conclusions

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

5. Division/Classification Separating a group of items into related subgroups

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 5 Using Logic and Evidence

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing

Part 6 Finding, Recording, and Using Sources in a Research Paper

D. Langley The Basics of Good Writing