Tomorrow, at the beginning of class, I will collect your worksheets for the second Check, Please! lesson. If you were absent on the day that I distributed copies of the worksheet or you have misplaced your copy, download the file from Blackboard and print it.
In preparation for submitting your assignment, review the notes below.
- A summary is a third-person objective synopsis. In the first paragraph of your assignment, your summary, you should not use first- or second-person pronouns, singular or plural. In other words, “I,” “me,” “we,” “us,” and “you” should not appear in your summary. Your summary should also be free of commentary. If you use such words as “effective,” “useful,” and “instructive,” you have shifted from summary to commentary. Turn to commentary in your second paragraph.
- Check, Please! is a nonprint source, which means that you do not include parenthetical citations with page or paragraph numbers (because, after all, there are no paragraphs or page numbers). Think of citing a website such as Check, Please! the way you would cite a film. Any lines that you include verbatim are enclosed in quotation marks, and the reader knows from the context that the lines are spoken in the film. The works cited entry at the bottom of the text provides the reader with the necessary source details.
- Not all lists require a colon. Use one only if the clause (a group of words containing a verb) that precedes the colon makes sense on its own.
Consider the difference between these two sentences with lists:
- In lesson two, Mike Caulfield continues his instruction in the four-step approach to determining the reliability of a source, which he terms SIFT: (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”
- The steps of SIFT include (1) “Stop,” (2) “Investigate,” (3) “Find better coverage,” and (4) “Trace claims, quotes, and media to the original context.”
The second example above does not include a colon because the clause before the list does not make sense on its own.
- A work cited entry has a hanging indent, which means its appearance is the opposite of a paragraph’s. The first line of a paragraph is indented five spaces or one-half inch, and the remaining lines of the paragraph are flush left. In a works cited entry, the first line is flush left, and the remaining lines are indented.
- Include concrete details. Specificity not only enables the reader to see your subject, it also demonstrates to the reader that you have examined your subject carefully.
Consider the difference between the two passages below.
- Lesson two includes two websites that show how similar two can be even though one is propaganda.
- Perhaps the most memorable portion of lesson two is the side-by-side comparison of the websites for the American Academy of Pediatrics and the American College of Pediatricians. Though at first glance the two appear comparable, using the Wikipedia strategy reveals their profound differences. While AAP is the premiere authority on children’s health and well-being, ACP was founded to protest the adoption of children by single-sex couples and is widely viewed as a single-issue hate organization.
The two passages above address the same websites featured in lesson two, but the first example provides the reader with no specifics.
Next Up
At the beginning of class on Wednesday, I will collect your worksheets for the second Check, Please! lesson and return the drafts of your literacy narratives. You will have the class period to begin revising on your laptops, and you will have an additional week to continue your revisions. The due date for posting your revision to Blackboard and to your WordPress blog is Wednesday, February 7 (before class); the hard deadline is Friday, February 9 (before class).
Jane Lucas 