Today in class you will use the HPU Libraries website and Google Scholar to locate, read, and annotate aditional sources for your final essay and annotated bibliography. The work that you submit at the end of class today should include at least one MLA-style annotated bibliographic entry. The sample entry that I composed as a model for you appears below.

Cardell, Kylie, and Victoria Kuttainen. “The Ethics of Laughter: David Sedaris and Humour Memoir.” Mosaic: An Interdisciplinary Critical Journal, vol. 45, no. 3, 2012, pp. 99-114. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/44030697.

“The Ethics of Laughter: David Sedaris and Humour Memoir” explores the implications of the blending of truth and artifice in David Sedaris’s writing. In the words of the authors, Sedaris’s “memoirs have attracted controversy for their blurring (or, as we argue, contesting) of boundaries between fiction and non-fiction” (Cardell and Kuttainen 100). While some critics, such as journalist Alex Heard, believe that “Sedaris exaggerates too much for a writer using the non-fiction label” (qtd. in Cardell and Kuttainen 103); Cardell and Kuttainen assert that Sedaris’s use of hyperbole, a staple of his prose style, is ethical in the context of the humor memoir.

Kylie Cardell, Ph.D., author of Dear World: Contemporary Uses of Autobiography, is Associate Professor of Humanities at Flinders University. Her co-author, Victoria Kuttainen, Ph.D., author of Unsettling Stories and The Transported Imagination, is Associate Professor of Art and Creative Media at James Cook University. Cardell’s and Kuttainen’s essay would serve as a useful source for a study of Sedaris’s mingling of the real and what he refers to as the “realish” in his writing (qtd. in Cardell and Kuttainen 99). It could also play a significant role as a source for a comparative study of the writing of Sedaris and other memoirists who blur the line between fiction and nonfiction.

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Note that the blog format of the annotated bibliographic entry above is different from MLA format, which features paragraph indentations and double spacing.

The bibliographic entry above and the two paragraphs that follow total 241 words. The minimum word count for the entire assignment (essay and bibliography together) is 1,800 words.

If you compose four annotations of the length of the one above, your bibliography and the essay that introduces may be roughly the same length. If you annotate five or more sources, your bibliography may be longer than your essay.

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Next Up

Wordplay Day! To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as my blog posts devoted to the game.

This morning in class you began research for your final essay and annotated bibliography, which will focus on one of the authors we have studied or one of the elements of the course, including (1) blogging in the classroom, (2) limiting screen time, and (3) writing longhand.

The starting point for your assignment was composing a bibliographic entry and annotation for reading that focuses on your subject, which includes the following texts:

Bahr, Sarah. “The Case for Writing Longhand.” New York Times, Jan 21, 2022. ProQuest, https://libproxy.highpoint.edu/login?url=https://www.proquest.com/newspapers/case-writing-longhand/docview/2621453011/se-2. 

Junod, Tom. “The Falling Man.” Esquire, vol. 140, no. 3, Sept. 2003, pp. 176+. Gale Academic OneFile Select, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A106423422/EAIM?u=hpu_main&sid=bookmark-EAIM&xid=ce48797f.

Keller, Helen. “The Day Language Came into My Life.” Chapter Four. The Story of My Life. https://digital.library.upenn.edu/women/keller/life/life.html.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. “Letter from Birmingham Jail.” The Martin Luther King, Jr. Research and Education Institute, Stanford University, https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/sites/mlk/files/letterfrombirmingham_wwcw_0.pdf.

Lewis, Michael. Chapter One: “Back Story.” The Blind Side. 2006. Norton, 2009. pp.15-16.

Richtel, Matt. “Blogs vs. Term Papers,” The New York Times, 20 Jan. 2012,  https://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/22/education/edlife/muscling-in-on-the-term-paper-tradition.html.

Rosenwasser, David and Jill Stephen. “Writing on Computers vs. Writing on Paper.” Writing Analytically, 8th edition. Wadsworth/Cengage, 2019. pp. 124-25.

Sedaris, David. “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Me Talk Pretty One Day. Little, Brown, 2000. 166-73.

Wolf, Maryanne. “Skim Reading is the New Normal. The Effect on Society is Profound.” The Guardian, 25 Aug. 2018, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/25/skim-reading-new-normal-maryanne-wolf.

If you were absent today or misplaced your assignment handout, you can download a copy from Blackboard.

Next Up

In class on Wednesday you will use the HPU Libraries website and Google Scholar to locate, read, and annotate aditional sources for your final essay and annotated bibliography. Also, remember that although Wikipedia is a tertiary source that is not appropriate to cite in academic research, the footnotes at the bottom of Wikpedia pages often include useful primary and secondary sources.

The group assignment on introducing and explaining quotations that you completed last week demonstrated that you have a number of questions about the stylistic conventions of presenting quotations in academic writing. This blog post addresses several of those questions.

Does a Comma Follow the Signal Phrase?

Usually a comma follows the signal phrase. For example:

• According to author Jonathan Kay, “Scrabble treats language the way computers do—as arbitrarily ordered codes stored in a memory chip.”

However, a comma does not follow the signal phrase if the quotation is an extension of that phrase. For example:

• Author Jonathan Kay observes that “Scrabble treats language the way computers do—as arbitrarily ordered codes stored in a memory chip.”

Is the First Word of the Quotation Capitalized?

If the quotation is a complete sentence, the first word is capitalized. For example:

• Maryanne Wolf states, “The possibility that critical analysis, empathy and other deep reading processes could become the unintended ‘collateral damage’ of our digital culture is not a simple binary issue about print vs. digital reading.”

If the quotation is not a complete sentence, the first word is not capitalized. For example:

• Maryanne Wolf claims “that critical analysis, empathy and other deep reading processes could become the unintended ‘collateral damage’ of our digital culture,” and that risk “is not a simple binary issue about print vs. digital reading.”

What if I Need to Change the Case of a Letter?

If you need to change the case of a letter to comply with style rules, bracket the letter to denote the change. For example:

• Jonathan Kay recalls, “[A]n insider once told me an unsettling story of a contestant who tried to score an illegal word by taking advantage of his disabled opponent’s difficulty in accessing the computer used to determine which words are admissible.”

How Do I Cite Someone Whose Words are Quoted or Paraphrased in a Source?

The abbreviations qtd. (for quoted) and ctd. (for paraphrased) are used to indicate that the words are not the words of the author of the source but rather the words of someone he/she quotes or paraphrases. For example:

• As the scholar Tami Katzir observes, “[T]he negative effects of screen reading can appear as early as fourth and fifth grade–with implications not only for comprehension, but also on the growth of empathy” (ctd. in Wolf).

Do I Need to Include an Ellipsis if I omit the Beginning or the End of a Quotation?

Because it’s understood that the words you are quoting are usually preceded and followed by other words, an ellipsis does not appear before or after a quotation. An ellipsis is only necessary if you omit a word or words within the passage you are quoting.

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Next Up

Wordplay Day! To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as my blog posts devoted to the game.

Today in class, after you deliver your group presentations, we will examine The New York Times‘ article “The Case for Writing Longhand,” which may serve as a starting point for your final essay and annotated bibliography. (Other subjects for that assignment include limiting screen time, blogging in the classroom, and the authors whose writing we’ve studied.) Whatever subjects you choose, I ask that you continue to reflect on the the habits you have cultivated this semester, including drafting longhand and limiting your screen time. This blog post addresses the reasons that I’ve asked you to engage in those practices.

Writing Longhand

One practical reason for writing longhand: What we mark through remains on the page. Sometimes what we cross out can be useful later on, elsewhere in our writing. More importantly, research in cognitive neuroscience indicates that writing longhand has these benefits:

• We remember more when we write notes by hand.
• Writing cursive activates areas of the brain that remain dormant when we type.

Simply put, writing longhand sharpens our minds in ways that typing doesn’t.

Limiting Screen Time

When we use our phones and laptops, it’s difficult for us to give our undivided attention to one endeavor, but often that singular focus is critical.

When we type on our phones, we often aim to convey as much as we can with as few characters as possible. Texting and emailing–both of which now feature predictive text–do not foster the vital skills of developing our writing and producing original thought.

Limiting our screen time not only helps us improve our writing skills, it can also benefit our overall well-being.

• The blue light of screens disrupts our circadian rhythms more than other light does, making it harder for us to sleep.
• Studies in cognitive psychology demonstrate a correlation between screen time and both anxiety and depression.

The research cited in the links that I’ve included isn’t definitive, but it makes a strong case for the value of limiting our screen time and putting pen to paper. I encourage you to continue these practices after the semester ends.

Today in class you will collaborate on an exercise that offers practice in presenting quotations in a way that makes their relevance clear to the reader, first by introducing them with signal phrases and second by following them with an explanation.

As you begin work on your final essay and annotated bibliography next week, continue to look to these templates as models for introducing and explaining quotations from your sources.

Templates for Introducing Quotations

• X states, “____________________________.”
• As the scholar X puts it “____________________________.”
• According to X, “____________________________.”
• X himself writes, “____________________________.”
• In her book, X maintains that “____________________________.”
• Writing in The Wall Street Journal, X complains that “____________________________.”
• In X’s view, “____________________________.”
• X agrees when she writes, “____________________________.”
• X disagrees when he writes, “____________________________.”
• X complicates matters further when she writes, “____________________________.”

Templates for Explaining Quotations

• Basically, X is warning that “____________________________.”
• In other words, X believes “____________________________.”
• In making this comment, X urges us to “____________________________.”
• X himself writes, “____________________________.”
• X’s point is that “____________________________.”
• The essence of X’s argument is that “____________________________.”

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Presenting Direct and Indirect Quotations

When you quote a source, look carefully at the text to determine whether the words are the writer’s or those of someone else whom the writer is quoting. The latter is an example of an indirect quotation.

Direct Quotation

According to author Jonathan Kay, “Scrabble treats language the way computers do—as arbitrarily ordered codes stored in a memory chip.”

Direct Quotation Followed by an Indirect Quotation

Educator Maryanne Wolf notes that “the sense of touch in print reading adds an important redundancy to information,” what another researcher has referred to as the “technology of recurrence” (Piper qtd. in Wolf).

In the example above, Piper qtd. in Wolf appears in parentheses to indicate that the words of the second quotation are Piper’s—not Wolf’s own words but rather ones that she quotes in “Skim Reading is the New Normal.”

For more examples of integrating sources into your writing, see Writing Analytically (219-29), the sample MLA-style research paper on OWL, Purdue’s Online Writing Lab, and the sample MLA-Style research papers at the MLA Style Center.

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Next Up

Wordplay Day! To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as my blog posts devoted to the game.

Today as you write your midterm reflection, think about the eight habits of mind of successful college students. Has your work in the course helped you develop any of those habits? If so, which particular assignments or aspects of the course have contributed to which of the eight habits?

The habits themselves are abstract, but the practices that develop them are concrete. In your reflection–and in all of your other writing–aim to offer concrete details to support your claims.

In 2011, the Council of Writing Program Administrators (CWPA), the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), and the National Writing Project (NWP) identified the eight habits of mind that successful college students adopt.

The paragraphs that follow include the descriptions of those habits that we examined earlier in the semester, along with the questions about those habits that you answered in writing.

Curiosity

Are you the kind of person who always wants to know more? This habit of mind will serve you well in courses in which your curiosity about issues, problems, people, or policies can form the backbone of a writing project.

WRITING ACTIVITY: What are you most curious to learn about? What experiences have you had in which your curiosity has led you to an interesting discovery or to more questions?

Openness

Some people are more open than others to new ideas and experiences and new ways of thinking about the world. Being open to other perspectives and positions can help you to frame sound arguments and counterarguments and solve other college writing challenges in thoughtful ways.

WRITING ACTIVITY: In the family or the part of the world in which you grew up, did people tend to be very open, not open at all, or somewhere in the middle? Thinking about your own level of open-mindedness, reflect on how much or how little your own attitude toward a quality like openness is the result of the attitudes of the people around you.

Engagement

Successful college writers are involved in their own learning process. Students who are engaged put effort into their classes, knowing that they’ll get something out of their classes—something other than a grade. They participate in their own learning by planning, seeking feedback when they need to, and communicating with peers and professors to create their own success. Write about a few of the ways you try (or plan to try) to be involved in your own learning. What does engagement look like to you?

WRITING ACTIVITY: Write about a few of the ways you try (or plan to try) to be involved in your own learning. What does engagement look like to you?

Creativity

You may be thinking that you have to be an artist, poet, or musician to display creativity. Not so. Scientists use creativity every day in coming up with ways to investigate questions in their field. Engineers and technicians approach problem solving in creative ways. Retail managers use creativity in displaying merchandise and motivating their employees.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Think about the field you plan to enter. What forms might creativity take in that field?

Persistence

You are probably used to juggling long-term and short-term commitments—both in school and in your everyday life. Paying attention to your commitments and being persistent enough to see them through, even when the commitments are challenging, are good indicators that you will be successful in college.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Describe a time when you faced and overcame an obstacle in an academic setting. What did you learn from that experience?

Responsibility

College will require you to be responsible in way you may not have had to be before. Two responsibilities you will face as an academic writer are to represent the ideas of others fairly and to give credit to writers whose ideas and language you borrow for your own purposes.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Why do you think academic responsibility is important? What kind of experience have you already had with this kind of responsibility?

Flexibility

Would your friends say you are the kind of person who can just “go with the flow”? Do you adapt easily to changing situations? If so, you will find college easier, especially college writing. When you find, for example, that you’ve written a draft that doesn’t address the right audience or that your peer review group doesn’t understand at all, you will be able to adapt. Being flexible enough to adapt to the demands of different writing projects is an important habit of mind.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Describe a situation in which you’ve had to make changes based on a situation you couldn’t control. Did you do so easily or with difficulty?

Metacognition (Reflection)

As a learner, you have probably been asked to think back on a learning experience and comment on what went well or not well, what you learned or what you wished you had learned, or what decisions you made or didn’t make. Writers who reflect on their own processes and decisions are better able to transfer writing skills to future assignments.

WRITING ACTIVITY: Reflect on your many experiences as a writer. What was your most satisfying experience as a writer?  What made it so?

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Next Up

Friday marks your eighth Wordplay Day of the semester. To up your game and increase your word power, review the tips and tools on the Scrabble website as well as this blog post and my other posts devoted to the game.