Gun Violence in Schools Essay
Your annotated bibliography will be due Thurs. 5/2. It should include 6 sources for your essay 3 Creative Research Paper, with the paragraph description/evaluation of credibility. You don’t need to use these particular sources or all of these sources when you write essay 3: in fact, you only need 4 sources (3 from the library) and 3 pieces of field work (original interview by you, observation, or participatory experience) for the essay. The annotated bibliography is a research exercise to find a range of sources so that you can choose the most appropriate ones for your essay.
Write a working title for your essay 3 at the top and list your critical question. The annotated bibliography is a requirement for your essay #3. Essay #3 will not be accepted without it. Please write your paragraph summaries of the sources in your own words; otherwise, copying summaries is also considered plagiarism. This assignment will go through the plagiarism checker. The paragraph should summarize main points of the source and also do two of the following:
- evaluates the authority of the author
- reflects on the intended audience
- compares or contrasts this work with another you are using
- or explains how this work can help you in writing on your topic.
________________________________________________________________________
Sample:
Negotiating Gender Roles: Annotated Bibliography
Critical question: How have social conditions for American men and women changed in the past few decades, and what challenges do men and women face with roles that have changed in some ways, while remaining the same in others?
Graslie, Serri. “The Modern American Man, Charted.” National Public Radio. 17 July 2014, http://www.npr.org/2014/07/17/326175817/the-modern-american- man- charted. Accessed 30 October 2014.
Serri Graslie is a producer for NPR.org and their afternoon news program, All Things Considered. This article/radio story was part of a series this summer on men in America. Graslie looks not just at men, but at how the differences between men and women have changed over the decades: girls have a higher GPA than boys on average and attend college in higher percentages, but still get paid less. The work of parenting is more evenly divided than before, and the gap in life expectancy has been getting smaller. Graslie draws from a variety of credible sources for the charts she provides. The audience for National Public Radio tends to be educated and liberal.
Kay, Katty and Claire Shipman. “The Confidence Gap.” The Atlantic May 2014: 56-66.
Katty Kay, anchor for BBC World News America, and Claire Shipman, reporter for ABC News, have collaborated on a book The Confidence Code. This article gives their argument that while women and men have similar abilities, women tend to underestimate themselves, while men tend to overestimate themselves, and there are effects of women’s lower confidence in how they are recognized at work and their effectiveness in persuading others. The Atlantic is a well-established magazine with an educated audience.
Four more sources with paragraph summaries/evaluation. (You should have a total of 6 sources for your annotated bibliography. These don’t have to be the exact sources you use in your essay #3.)
Please begin work on your essay #3 draft, so that you at least have a few pages to work with. This can be just half as long as a full draft (3 pages).
ENGL 126: Writing Workshop for Essay #3 Research Paper
For this week’s workshop, fill out this sheet and submit it. Use these guidelines in composing your half draft. Due Thurs. 5/2.
- For essay 3, the creative research paper, you can try to move beyond the typical academic paper structure, with introduction, body paragraphs, and conclusion, to try to present in a more engaging way, as in Atlantic Magazine’s “The Overprotected Kid.” Take a few minutes to read through this article (at least section 1), and below, write about the characteristics of this type of writing and how it might differ from the essays you’ve done so far for this class:
- Source review: Consider sources for your draft of essay #3 (will need 3 library sources, 1 other written source, and 3 pieces of field work from 2 of the following categories: interview, observation, and participation). Below, list sources or possible sources with your commentary. How do you feel about your sources? Do they provide the kinds of information you are looking for, and are they credible sources? Comment below:
If you need to find additional sources, use the library.dvc.edu page to look up more sources.
- Field Work: To conduct an interview, you must find subjects, do preliminary homework, prepare thoroughly, conduct the interview, and write up the interview. Keep in mind that your field work must include an observation or participation. An observation could be a public location, office environment, etc. Participation means doing something yourself. In a case, like euthanasia, where it is difficult to do an observation or participation, you could do research and write a story to try to imagine being in a circumstance. The observation, participation, or story must be planned with the same care and thoroughness as an interview.
Professor Fischer was kind enough to share selections from some of his student papers. Read through the sample papers and write here about what these samples have in common and how they differ. What are diverse ways students have incorporated their interviews and other field work into their essays? What ideas does this give you about how you will write your paper? Comment below:
- Thesis: In the article, “The Overprotected Kid,” what would you say is the thesis statement? How about the topic sentences? Are these implied? Write about this below. Identify your thesis statement for essay 3, which will be stated or implied. Your thesis statement will be a work in progress which I would expect to be revised as you work out your ideas. It should be a statement of opinion that answers the “so what?” question about your paper, and which makes a specific and somewhat surprising (not extremely obvious) assertion. It’s helpful to have a good thesis statement to direct your focus as you develop your paper. The thesis should be substantive. Rather than saying, “it is important to know the history of x topic to better understand the issue” or “this paper will show the history of x and analyze the issue y,” begin to actually show us that history and your understanding of the issue. The introduction is already part of your paper and should begin the work of setting forth your argument. Comment below on the thesis statement and topic sentences in “The Overprotected Kid” and in your essay #3 draft:
- Organizing the material: Below, compose a provisional outline as you plan out your draft. Think about how you want to organize your argument, including defending your main idea, possibly refuting an opposing view, and perhaps presenting a middle ground between views. If you favor one side of an issue, you can still acknowledge that opposing views should be considered and may have some validity. Think strategically about how you will order your materials for emphasis, such as putting your strongest points last. You will also want to limit the scope of your material so that you can treat it in sufficient detail in 6-8 pages. Rather than just covering the extensive material that you find, you need to select and explain it in a way that will make sense and be persuasive to your reader. Write your outline below:
- Incorporating sources: Students often have trouble incorporating sources as evidence into their essays. First, you need to make sure that you understand what the source is saying accurately so that you are using the evidence appropriately. Second, you need to consider how you are making use of this evidence. Is it backing up your point? Are you building upon what the author said by agreeing with it, or are you disagreeing with the author’s opinion in order to strengthen your own? As with any aspect of writing, you should incorporate sources only when it makes sense to do so (the author is saying something that will help you make your argument), not just to fill a requirement.
As stated in the textbook From Critical Thinking to Argument,
one leads into a quotation by giving
- [optionally] the name of the author and (no less important)
- clues signaling the content of the quotation and the purpose it serves in the present essay. (4th ed. 244)
Avoid “orphan quotations” which are inserted into the paper on their own and without being attached to your sentence. Also follow up the quotation and end a paragraph in your own words. In other words, your quote sandwich should have a quote in the middle, and your own words as bread on either side. Work on fixing the quotes in your draft and ask me if you’re not sure.
- Come up to office hours if you would like to discuss your draft. Please submit this completed workshop form.
- Please make use of the tutoring at the Writing Lab (LC 105) for further individualized assistance from trained tutors. As always, no plagiarism please.
