Week 10.
Reading
As I have been reading through your papers, there are a few common issues that need to be addressed. Please read through the following Writing Tips, and be careful not to repeat these common mistakes as you construct your First Draft for Project 2 this week.
- Writing Tip #1 Point of View Switch
- Writing Tip #2 Logical Absolutes
Formal Writing
Draft 1
Do not think of your First Draft as a Rough Draft. Think of your First Draft as something you’d be comfortable turning in to me for a grade. Submit your First Draft here no later than Sunday night.
Note: Be sure that you submit a link that is viewable publicly. You can test out how your link will function (when a classmate is trying to access it) by signing out of your USF email and then opening it in your browser. If your draft loads up when you are not signed in to your USF email, you’re in good shape. If it does not, you may have to adjust the access settings by clicking the “Share” tab in Google Docs and editing “See who has access…”
Peer Review
Peer Review will be due Tuesday, Nov. 3. I will assign students to peer reviewers based on the drafts that are submitted Friday, and further instructions will be included in next week’s announcement.
Informal Writing
”Uncle Bobby’s Wedding” by Jamie Larue (Due Wednesday)
Read through this librarian’s blog post, and using the Highlight feature in the Diigo Toolbar (tutorial on setting that up here…), identify the different elements of argument and persuasion he uses in making his case. Also, point out any particular pieces of commentary you find especially effective (or ineffective) and elaborate on your findings. (Add a few sticky notes of your own, or consider responding directly to some the notes posted by your classmates. These should be short responses.)
Notes
I read through the abstracts and research plans, and I cannot wait to read these papers. There is one issue, though, that must be addressed. About half the students in the class cited “indisputably academic” sources in their research plans, while the other half cites sources that aren’t academic, like popular web sites, newspapers and magazines. Please keep in mind that students who do not follow the research guidelines for this project will lose points on their final papers. Please review how to tell if a source is academic here.
Generally speaking, sources from mainstream media (like newspapers, magazines or news-television shows) are not considered academic. You can still use them as reference points for discussion in your paper, but you shouldn’t lean too heavily on them. Traditional academic sources are authored by professors, researchers or scientists and are published in academic journals or presented at academic conferences.
