2022-11
Follow along at:
| are | are not |
|---|---|
| reflection of performance | reflection of intelligence |
| related to effort | assessed on effort |
| roughly accurate over time | perfectly objective |
| chance to turn disappointment into learning |
Writing assignments are opportunities to show your:
Exercise the material so as to show your knowledge and skills.
Engagement of assignment, sources, and concepts might be:
| grade | meaning |
|---|---|
| A | impressive |
| B | appropriate |
| C | lacking |
| D | inappropriate |
| F | nonexistent |
Understanding of class sources and concepts might be:
| grade | meaning |
|---|---|
| A | impressive |
| B | appropriate |
| C | lacking |
| D | inappropriate |
| F | nonexistent |
Writing might be
| grade | meaning |
|---|---|
| A | polished |
| B | clear and competent |
| C | choppy and difficult to follow |
| D | fractured and unclear |
| F | unacceptable |
In APA, use signal phrases and the author, not the article title, as your subject.
According to Jones (1998), “Silky terriers are soft” (p. 19).
Jones (1998) found “silky terriers are soft” (p. 19).
She stated, “Silky terriers are soft” (Jones, 1998, p. 19), but didn’t explain why.
Wikipedia should not be cited as an authoritative source for a claim unless appearing in the syllabus.
Lotteries are offered by many state governments so that services can be funded.
Use subjects to name characters; use verbs to name important actions.
Many state governments offer lotteries to fund their services.
—See Explorations of Style Clear subjects and strong verbs
—See OWL on structure
A good thesis does NOT “describe,” “consider,” “explore,” or “discuss.”
A good thesis:
“According to the 2008 US Census, Massachusetts had a total of 141,843 business organizations…. I argue that although small businesses are often overlooked, they do still exhibit important facets of organizational culture. I will focus on the application of The Zen of Groups, Geert Hofstede’s power distance, and theories of organizational behavior to my experiences in these settings. Providing concrete instances of these theories will offer a solid understanding of the ever changing and complex environments of contemporary business organizations.”
snappy start… thesis…frame.
In the first few introductory paragraphs, be wary of using special terms that need explanation.
For instance, instead of using intrinsic and extrinsic in the first paragraph, speak of motivation more generally (or give the quickest of parenthetical explanations).
Don’t imply your analytic concepts have agency.
The phenomenal theory would look at …
Theories don’t look at anything.
The creators of these ads use the theory of ideology …
The creators haven’t given any thought to the theory.
“The difference between the right word and the nearly right word is the same as the difference between lightning and
the lightning bug.” —Mark Twain
“There is no great writing, only great rewriting.”—Justice Louis Brandeis
A woman, without her man, is nothing.
A woman: without her, man is nothing.
—Sources: Hacker’s (2010, 5th) A Pocket Style Manual and Purdue’s
Online Writing Lab.
Strive for clarity in underlying thought and its expression.
Getting feedback from others helps.
—See OWL:Clarity
Remove (a) redundancies, (b) empty or inflated phrases, and (c) needlessly complex structures.
—See OWL:Eliminating Words, Williams’ concision, and Tony1’s exercises
Fiat, an Italian car manufacturer, came out with a commercial that launched a new
commercial this year during the 2012 Super Bowl.
superfluous: “came out” and “launched”; “this year” and “2003”
Complete five of Tony1’s exercises (of varied difficulty).
Which ones did you have difficulty with?
Did you get an “aha” moment from any?
— See SFU: Better Sentences
Each paragraph should be a discrete & coherent thought—even if, occasionally, it’s only a sentence or two.
If your draft is disorganized, create a reverse outline of your paragraphs and think about how to reorganize. Use the outline to then improve your thesis, framing, and conclusion.
—See Explorations of Style on paragraphs and reverse outline
Use organic and motivating transition phrases between your paragraphs, rather than abrupt shift or enumerating a recipe/list.
Avoid this:
¶ The next paper I looked at was Smith et al. (2013) ….
for this:
¶ Despite this census data, Smith et al. (2013) claim…
Balance items in the series by using them in parallel grammatical form.
Running, swimming, and lifting weights are all examples of cross-training workouts.
Don’t confuse the reader by beginning in one tense and shifting into another.
I couldn’t fight the current and make it. As I was losing hope, a woman sees saw me and
threw me a flotation ring.
Almost, even, only, nearly, and just should appear in front of the words they modify.
Phasers
onlydestroy only the aliens, leaving the nearby humans safe.
On the walls
thereare pictures of singers who have performed at Tony’son the walls.
The singer weren’t performing on the walls; the pictures were on the walls.
Use pronouns with care—especially “it” at the start of sentences.
Take the radio out of the car. It’ll sell then.
Sell the old car after removing the new radio.
Subordinate clauses looks like a sentence, with a subject & verb, but indicates it can’t stand alone via: after, although, because, before, if, so that, that, though, unless, until, when, where, who, or which.
They can be pulled into a sentence nearby.
Patricia arrived on the island of Malta
. Wherewhere she was to spend the summer restoring frescoes.
Fragments lack a subject, a verb, or both. They can often be attached to a nearby sentence.
The anthropologists work slowly
. Examiningexamining and labeling hundreds of bone fragments.
The word group beginning with Examining is a verbal phrase, not a sentence.
Use comma when independent (i.e., distinct subjects).
Nearly everyone has heard of love at first sight, but I fell in love from a distance.
Do not use when the clauses are dependent.
Ada Lovelace wrote the first computer program and envisioned a future beyond simple calculation.
You can use a comma between coordinate adjectives (which modify nouns separately & can be replaced with an ‘and’.)
Patients with severe, irrecoverable brain damage should not be put on life support.
Patients with severe and irrecoverable brain damage should not be put on life support.
Do not use commas between cumulative adjectives.
He bought a bright red car.
It was not dark red but bright red.
A nonrestrictive phrase is not essential and needs commas.
The shark, with its jaws full of teeth, circled below.
A restrictive phrase is essential and is without commas.
One corner of the basement was filled with magazines from the 1970s.
An appositive is a (pro)noun that renames a nearby noun.
Nonrestrictive with commas:
Darwin’s book, The Descent of Man , was controversial.
Restrictive without commas:
The song “Vertigo” was blasted out of speakers ten feet tall.
The colon follows an independent clause to highlight the words that follow (e.g., a list, an appositive, or a quotation).
In American English, periods/commas go inside quotation marks; colons/semicolons outside; question/exclamation marks go inside unless they apply to the sentence as a whole.
He said, “I won’t go.”
In APA, a period follows the citation.
… the ‘end’ of a quote” (p. 53).
The hyphen (-), dash (–), and em-dash (—) are distinct things.
—See WW Norton’s Glossary of Usage
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