Tomorrow, time permitting, after you complete your reflective essay on your Check, Please! group presentation, you will read “The Case for Writing Longhand” by Sarah Bahr, which I will distribute copies of in class. After you read Bahr’s article, you will write a one-paragraph summary, followed by a paragraph of commentary. Next, as an exercise in integrating indirect quotations into your writing, you will compose a sentence that introduces an indirect quotation with a signal phrase and follows it with a parenthetical citation.
Examples
- One staff writer for The New Times observes that “[t]he quality of thinking and writing feels higher to me when revising by hand” (Anderson qtd. in Bahr, par. 13).
- Sam Anderson, a staff writer for The New Times, observes that “[t]he quality of thinking and writing feels higher to me when revising by hand” (qtd. in Bahr, par. 13).
The parenthetical citation in the first example includes Sam Anderson’s last name because he is not named in the sentence. The parenthetical citation in the second example does not include his last name because he is mentioned by name in the sentence.
If you decide to devote your final essay and annotated bibliography to the subject of writing longhand, the summary and commentary you compose for this journal exercise can serve as a draft for the annotation that you will include in your bibliography. The revised version would add a couple of features: a note about the article’s usefulness as a source, and a third paragraph including the author’s credentials.
If you do not have time to complete this journal exercise in class tomorrow, finish it on your own.
Next Up
In class on Friday, you will deliver your Check, Please! group presentation and compose a short reflective essay on the processes of planning, rehearsing, presenting it. Afterward, time permitting, you will complete the journal exercise outlined above.
Jane Lucas 