The Norton Field Guide to Wriiting with Readings 6th Edition [6 ed.] 9780393543766, 9780393883855 - EBIN.PUB (2024)

A Brief Guide to Themes in the Readings ADVERTISING AND MEDIA BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS

CLASS AND INEQUALITY CRIME AND JUSTICE DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA

ENTERTAINMENT AND THE ARTS ETHICS ETHNICITY AND RACE GENDER GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS HEALTH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY HISTORY HOME AND FAMILY IDENTITY IMMIGRATION LANGUAGE AND LITERACY For a complete list of readings by theme, turn to the Thematic Guide to the Readings in the front of the book.

Visit digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r to access additional resources for your writing course and for all the writing you do in college and beyond. When you use a Norton ebook, you can read your assignments from any computer or mobile device, anytime, anywhere, even offline. Highlight, annotate, or even listen to the text. A collection of videos helps you visualize key concepts, get started drafting, or revise what you write. InQuizitive for Writers will help you polish your writing, editing, and researching skills. It’s adaptive, so you get more help where you most need it, with feedback on all of your answers and links to useful sections of the Little Seagull Handbook ebook. “InQuizitive was SUPER fun! I truly enjoyed it, and it was something I looked forward to doing. It didn’t feel like classwork. It felt like a game that stimulated you to think.” —Student, California State University, East Bay Find it all at digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r

Cover design: Pete Garceau Cover seagull illustrations: Bullet_Chained/iStock/Getty Images Plus

with readings

EDUCATION

The Norton Field Guide to Writing is more than just the book you hold in your hands!

Bullock Bertsch Goggin

The Norton Field Guide to Writing

CHILDHOOD MEMORIES

... ... ... .

... ... ...

6.5625 × 8.25 SPINE: 1.5313

6E

FLAPS: 3.5

Academic Literacies writing in academic contexts, reading in academic contexts, summarizing and responding, collaborating, academic habits of mind

Rhetorical Situations purpose, audience, stance, genre, media / design

Genres

The Norton Field Guide to Writing with readings 6E Richard Bullock • Deborah Bertsch Maureen Daly Goggin

literacy narratives, textual analyses, reports, arguments, abstracts, annotated bibliographies, reviews of scholarly literature, evaluations, literary analyses, memoirs, profiles, proposals, explorations, remixes

Fields fields of study, reading across fields, writing across fields

Processes inquiring, generating ideas, beginning and ending, organizing your writing, drafting, assessing writing, getting response and revising, editing and proofreading, compiling a portfolio, reflecting

Strategies analyzing causes, arguing, classifying, comparing, defining, describing, using dialogue, explaining processes, narrating, taking essay exams

Research/Documentation planning, finding sources, evaluating sources, synthesizing ideas, quoting, paraphrasing, summarizing, acknowledging sources, avoiding plagiarism, MLA, APA

Media/Design choosing media, designing text, using visuals, incorporating sound, writing and learning online, giving presentations

Readings literacy narratives, textual analyses, reports, arguments, evaluations, literary analyses, memoirs, profiles, proposals, explorations, remixes

SIXTH EDITION

The Norton

Field Guide to Writing with Readings

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SIXTH EDITION

The Norton

Field Guide to Writing with Readings

Richard Bullock WRIGHT STATE UNIVERSITY

Deborah Bertsch COLUMBUS STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE

Maureen Daly Goggin ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY

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W. W. NORTON & COMPANY has been independent since its founding in 1923, when William Warder Norton and Mary D. Herter Norton first published lectures delivered at the People’s Institute, the adult education division of New York City’s Cooper Union. The firm soon expanded its program beyond the Institute, publishing books by celebrated academics from America and abroad. By mid-century, the two major pillars of Norton’s publishing program — trade books and college texts — were firmly established. In the 1950s, the Norton family transferred control of the company to its employees, and today — with a staff of four hundred and a comparable number of trade, college, and professional titles published each year — W. W. Norton & Company stands as the largest and oldest publishing house owned wholly by its employees.

Copyright © 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2016, 2013, 2010, 2009, 2007, 2006 by W. W. Norton & Company, Inc. All rights reserved Printed in Canada Editor: Sarah Touborg Project Editor: Christine D’Antonio Senior Associate Editor: Claire Wallace Assistant Editor: Emma Peters Manuscript Editor: Alice Vigliani Managing Editor, College: Marian Johnson Managing Editor, College Digital Media: Kim Yi Production Managers: Liz Marotta, Stephen Sajdak Media Editor: Joy Cranshaw Media Project Editor:Cooper Wilhelm Media Editorial Assistants: Katie Bolger, Maria Qureshi

Ebook Production Manager: Sophia Purut Marketing Manager, Composition: Michele Dobbins Design Director: Rubina Yeh Book Designers: Anna Palchik, Jen Montgomery Photo Editor: Ted Szczepanski Photo Research: Dena Digilio Betz Director of College Permissions: Megan Schindel College Permissions Manager: Bethany Salminen Permissions Clearing: Josh Garvin Composition: Graphic World Manufacturing: Transcontinental—Beauceville

Permission to use copyrighted material is included in the Credits section of this book, which begins on page C-1. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Names: Bullock, Richard H. (Richard Harvey), author. | Bertsch, Deborah, author. | Goggin, Maureen Daly, author. Title: The Norton field guide to writing : with readings / Richard Bullock, Wright State University ; Deborah Bertsch ; Maureen Daly Goggin, Arizona State University. Description: Sixth edition. | New York : W. W. Norton & Company, [2022] | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2021033659 | ISBN 9780393543766 (paperback) | ISBN 9780393883855 (epub) Subjects: LCSH: English language--Rhetoric--Handbooks, manuals, etc. | English language--Grammar--Handbooks, manuals, etc. | Report writing--Handbooks, manuals, etc. | College readers. Classification: LCC PE1408 .B8838245 2022 | DDC 808/.042--dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2021033659 W. W. Norton & Company, Inc., 500 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10110 wwnorton.com W. W. Norton & Company Ltd., 15 Carlisle St., London W1D 3BS 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0

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Preface The Norton Field Guide to Writing began as an attempt to offer the kind of writing guides found in the best rhetorics in a format as user-friendly as the best handbooks, and on top of that, to be as flexible as possible. We wanted to create a handy guide to help college students with all their written work. Just as there are field guides for bird watchers, for gardeners, and for accountants, this would be one for writers. In its first five editions the Field Guide has obviously touched a chord with many writing instructors, and it remains the best-selling college ­rhetoric — a success that leaves us humbled and grateful, but also determined to improve the book with each new edition. To that end, we’ve added new chapters on writing explorations, creating remixes, organizing your writing and guiding your readers, and reflecting on your writing; new student examples throughout; improved advice on evaluating sources; and (we hope) improved writing in every chapter. New and expanded resources, envisioned and cowritten by Deborah Bertsch, provide practical and inspiring support for instructors and students. But it’s not just us: this new edition has also been shaped by our community of adopters and their students. Through formal and informal reviews, emails and letters, and conversations with teachers and students using the Field Guide, we’ve learned from you what you need to teach effectively and what your students need to learn. The Norton Field Guide still aims to offer both the guidance new teachers and first-year writers need and the flexibility many experienced teachers want. In our own teaching we’ve seen how well explicit guides to writing work for students and novice teachers. But too often, writing textbooks provide far more information than students need or instructors can assign and as a result are bigger and more expensive than they should be. So we’ve tried to provide enough structure without too much detail — to give the information college writers need to know while resisting the temptation to tell them everything there is to know.

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Most of all, we’ve tried to make the book easy to use, with menus, directories, a glossary / index, and color-coded links to help students find what they’re looking for. The links are also the way we keep the book brief: chapters are short, but the links send students to pages elsewhere in the book if they need more detail. This new edition also marks an important change in the Field Guide’s authorship — we want to welcome Deborah Bertsch as a coauthor. Deb, who teaches at Columbus State Community College, has a background rich in excellent teaching, has directed Columbus State’s writing center, and has been an important innovator in dual-credit course design and delivery and in various technologies of teaching writing, including instructional video and online instruction. Deb has contributed new chapters, Remixes (Chapter 22) and Reflecting on Your Writing (Chapter 35), substantially revised the Taking Stock of Your Work questions throughout the book, and led the creation of new videos and interactive activities in InQuizitive for Writers that offer multiple ways for students to understand and apply the book’s advice. Along with making numerous other improvements throughout the book and its resources, Deb also re-envisioned the instructor’s guide to respond to today’s teaching challenges. Thank you, Deb. It’s good to have you on the team.

WHAT’S NEW IN THE SIXTH EDITION Two new Genres chapters help first-year writers adapt to new rhetorical situations: • A new chapter on Explorations offers advice on using writing to explore approaches to problems (Chapter 21). • A new chapter on Remixes provides guidance on how to transform writing in one genre to another medium or for another audience (Chapter 22).

New and revised Taking Stock of Your Work questions appear in each genre chapter: • Every Taking Stock question now connects back to key rhetorical concepts, explicitly encouraging students to reflect on their writing

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knowledge and experience so that they can draw on these concepts for future composing tasks.

Three new Processes chapters guide students in using writing as a tool for thinking: • Writing as a Process offers a succinct and reassuring overview of the different ways writers approach composing tasks (Chapter 26). • Organizing Your Writing, Guiding Your Readers offers practical advice on creating effective paragraphs, thesis statements, and topic sentences; crafting beginnings and titles and appropriate endings; and tying ideas together with transitions (Chapter 29). • Reflecting on Your Writing shows students how to reflect on their writing in drafting, in peer review, and in editing what they write; it then walks students through how to write formal reflections (Chapter 35).

New readings throughout.   As in previous editions, the Field Guide features authentic student writing from a range of two-year and four-year schools across the country, along with high-interest professional writing that demonstrates how the genres and processes learned in first-year writing transfer outside the classroom. These readings reflect the kinds of writing most commonly assigned in first-year composition, and all student writing is documented in the latest MLA or APA style. There are thirty new readings in total, over half written by students. Highlights include: • Eleven new readings in the rhetoric, including seven by students: new essays in nearly every genre, including two new literacy narratives, a visual-text analysis of how inequality is conveyed through the architecture in the movie Parasite, a report on sleep deprivation in college students, an argument advocating for actors with disabilities, and many more (see asterisked readings in the table of contents). • Nineteen new readings in the anthology, including ten by students: new essays include a textual analysis of women and American war

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posters, a report on the persuasion tactics of the internet, an exploration of the death penalty written by an incarcerated college student, a selection from Ibram X. Kendi’s book Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America alongside its remix version for young adults, and many more (see asterisked readings in the table of contents).

Updated coverage of digital tools • The Processes chapters have been updated with information on digital tools that support writers’ processes, like web-based concept mapping tools that help students generate ideas and text, as well as voicerecording tools, notes apps, and transcription apps for capturing ideas generated on the fly. (See Chapters 26–35.) • The Processes chapters also include information about ways to use storyboards and mockups as generative tools for multimedia and other types of writing. (See Chapter 28.) • The Doing Research part now includes more information about online tools for collecting, analyzing, and organizing source material. • The Media / Design part offers an expanded and thoroughly updated chapter, Writing and Learning Online, with advice on participating in synchronous and asynchronous classes, tips on productivity, and more.

Norton Field Guide ebook.   All new print copies of The Norton Field Guide now include access to the interactive ebook, with embedded videos from the new collection (see below). Standalone ebook access is available at digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r or can be offered through Inclusive Access programs on many campuses.

A collection of new videos.   The Sixth Edition offers a new collection of videos on key concepts — from thesis statements to the rhetorical ­situation — that help students visualize and apply the book’s advice. Each video is two to three minutes long, making them ideal for streaming in class or for independent viewing as a quick refresher. Videos are also

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embedded directly in the ebook, and many are assignable through InQuizitive for Writers activities.

New InQuizitive activities.  New activities on Thesis Statements, Elements of Argument, Rhetorical Situations, Paragraph Development, and Critical Reading Strategies complement the widely used activities on working with sources and editing sentences. Many of the new questions feature embedded videos from the new collection, and direct links to relevant pages in the Little Seagull Handbook ebook provide additional support. Access to InQuizitive for Writers and the Little Seagull Handbook ebook is now included with all new copies of The Norton Field Guide to Writing, and both can be integrated directly into most campus learning management systems.

Norton Teaching Tools.   All of the popular resources from A Guide to Teaching The Norton Field Guides to Writing can now be downloaded from the searchable and sortable Norton Teaching Tools site in formats that are editable and easier than ever to use. The site also provides guidance for effective use of the new video collection, InQuizitive for Writers assignments, and the Little Seagull Handbook ebook, whether in person or online. Highlights include: • A new collection of common writing assignments comes with transparent prompts that highlight purpose, task, and criteria; templates for peer review; sample rubrics; and sample student responses to assignments. • New PowerPoint slides incorporate suggested class activities; chapter teaching tips have been fully updated as well as reformatted for easier application and assignability, and they now include guidance for dualenrollment courses. • New chapters in Norton Teaching Tools and the printed Guide support instructors interested in culturally responsive teaching, antiracist pedagogy, transparent assignment design, trauma-informed teaching, and more. Chapters on teaching writing online and contract (laborbased) grading have been extensively updated.

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WAYS OF TEACHING WITH THE NORTON FIELD GUIDE TO WRITING The Norton Field Guide is designed to give you both support and flexibility. It has clear assignment sequences if you want them, or you can create your own. If, for example, you assign a position paper, there’s a full ­chapter. If you want students to use sources, you can add the appropriate research chapters. If you want them to submit a topic proposal, you can add that chapter.

If you’re a new teacher, the Genres chapters offer explicit assignment sequences — and the color-coded links will remind you of detail you may want to bring in. The Norton Teaching Tools site offers advice on creating a syllabus, responding to writing, and more. If you focus on genres, there are complete chapters on all the genres ­ ollege students are often assigned. Color-coded links will help you bring c in details about research or other writing strategies as you wish.

If you teach a corequisite, IRW, or stretch course, the Academic Literacies chapters offer explicit guidelines to help students write and read in academic contexts, summarize and respond to what they read, and develop academic habits of mind that will help them succeed in college.

If you teach a dual-credit course, the Norton Teaching Tools site offers advice on supporting students in various dual-enrollment contexts, including online, in high schools, and on college campuses. If you organize your course thematically, a Thematic Guide will lead you to readings on 18 themes. Chapter 28 on generating ideas and text can help get students thinking about a theme. You can also assign them to do research on the theme, starting with Chapter 47 on finding sources, or perhaps with Chapter 27 on writing as inquiry. If they then write in a particular genre, there will be a chapter to guide them.

If you want students to do research, there are nine chapters on the research process, including guidelines and sample papers for MLA and APA styles.

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If you teach for transfer, three chapters about fields of study help students connect what they’re reading, writing, and learning in your class to other college courses. The Considering the Rhetorical Situation questions that appear throughout the book prompt students to reflect on the key concepts of audience, purpose, genre, stance, and media / design, thus helping students develop a framework for analyzing future writing tasks.

If you teach writing about writing, you might use the chapter on literacy narratives as an introduction to your course — and use the Fields section to help students research and analyze the key features of writing in particular disciplines or careers. If you focus on modes, you’ll find chapters on using narration, description, and so on as strategies for many writing purposes, and links that lead students through the process of writing an essay organized around a particular mode.

WHAT’S IN THE BOOK The Norton Field Guide covers twelve genres often assigned in college. Much of the book is in the form of guidelines, designed to help students consider the choices they have as writers. The book is organized into ten parts:

 academic literacies . Chapters 1–4 focus on writing and reading in academic contexts, summarizing and responding, and developing academic habits of mind.

 rhetorical situations . Chapters 5–9 focus on purpose, audience, genre, stance, and media and design. In addition, almost every chapter includes tips to help students focus on their rhetorical situations.

 genres . Chapters 10–21 cover twelve genres, four of them — literacy narrative, textual analysis, report, and argument — treated in greater detail.   fields . Chapters 23–25 cover the key features of major fields of study and give guidance on reading and writing in each of those fields.

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 processes . Chapters 26–35 offer advice for generating ideas and text, drafting, revising and rewriting, editing, proofreading, reflecting, compiling a portfolio, collaborating with others, and writing as inquiry.

  strategies . Chapters 36–45 cover ways of developing and organizing text — comparing, describing, taking essay exams, and so on.

 research  / documentation . Chapters 46–54 offer advice on how to do academic research; work with sources; quote, paraphrase, and summarize source materials; and document sources using MLA and APA styles. Chapter 53 presents the “official MLA style” introduced in 2021.

 media  / design . Chapters 55–59 give guidance on choosing the appropriate print, digital, or spoken medium; designing text; using images and sound; giving spoken presentations; and writing online.   readings  . Chapters 60–70 provide readings in ten genres, plus one chapter of readings that mix genres. Discussion questions are colorcoded to refer students to relevant details elsewhere in the book.

HIGHLIGHTS It’s easy to use.  Menus, directories, and a glossary / index make it easy for students to find what they’re looking for. Color-coded templates and documentation maps even make MLA and APA documentation easy.

It has just enough detail, with short chapters that include color-coded links sending students to more detail if they need more.

It’s uniquely flexible for teachers. Short chapters can be assigned in any order — and color-coded links help draw from other chapters as need be.

RESOURCES Like the book itself, the resources that accompany The Norton Field Guide to Writing are designed to provide flexibility, with a wealth of options for student learning and for new and experienced instructors alike.

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Ebooks.  Included with all new Sixth Edition copies of the print book, Norton Field Guide ebook access can also be purchased standalone from the Norton website and can be offered through Inclusive Access programs on many campuses. The ebook’s built-in highlighting and note-taking capabilities help students engage with and respond to what they read, and instructors can share notes, videos, or external links with students using the instructor annotation tool. Norton ebooks can be viewed on — and synced among — all computers and mobile devices, and they can be made available for offline reading.

Videos.   New to the Sixth Edition, short videos are now available in the ebook and for streaming online. Informed by feedback from hundreds of composition instructors, topics include the writing process, rhetorical situations, specific kinds of writing, critical reading strategies, and more. Videos are easily assigned from InQuizitive activities or short multiple-choice quizzes — available in Norton Testmaker and for import into an LMS. InQuizitive for Writers.   Included with all new copies of the Field Guide, InQuizitive gives students practice with writing, editing, and research in a low-stakes, feedback-driven environment. The activities are adaptive: students receive additional practice and feedback in the areas where they need more help, with links to relevant pages in the Little Seagull Handbook ebook. After practicing with InQuizitive, students will be better prepared to start drafting, find and evaluate sources, and edit their own writing. InQuizitive for the Sixth Edition includes new activities on Rhetorical Situations, Elements of Argument, Thesis Statements, Paragraph Development, Critical Reading Strategies, and Fact-Checking Sources.

Norton Teaching Tools.   Available for the first time with the Sixth Edition, the Norton Teaching Tools site for The Norton Field Guide is your first stop when looking for creative, engaging resources to refresh your syllabus or design a new one. All of the revised contents from the popular A Guide to Teaching with The Norton Field Guides to Writing can now be found here, including the comprehensive guide to teaching first-year writing, advice for teaching every chapter and reading in the text, and new multimedia like videos and PowerPoint slides. Norton Teaching Tools are searchable

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and canbe filtered by chapter or by resource type, making it easy to find exactly what you need, download and customize it, and import it into your LMS course. Contents for the Sixth Edition include: • A comprehensive guide to teaching first-year writing, with chapters on developing a syllabus, responding to student writing, and more. • Significantly revised chapters on teaching writing online, contract (labor-based) grading, and more. • New chapters that address culturally responsive teaching, antiracist pedagogy, trauma-informed teaching, and more. • An expanded collection of sample writing assignments with new peerreview templates, rubrics, and sample student essays. • Thoroughly revised tips for teaching every chapter and reading in the book, with new suggestions for teaching dual-enrollment courses. • PowerPoint slides for each chapter with classroom and online activities, as well as genre flowcharts and documentation maps from the book. • A new collection of videos on topics including thesis statements, rhetorical situations, critical reading strategies, and commonly assigned genres. • Expanded support for assigning InQuizitive for Writers. • A collection of sample student essays organized by genre, rhetorical mode, and field, including some that are documented and annotated. • Worksheets and templates in Word and PDF formats with guidance on editing paragraphs, responding to a draft, and more.

A Guide to Teaching with The Norton Field Guides.  Written by Richard Bullock, Deborah Bertsch, Maureen Daly Goggin, and numerous other teachers and scholars, this is a comprehensive guide to teaching first-year writing, from developing a syllabus to facilitating group work, teaching multimodal writing to assessing student writing. It also includes teaching tips for every chapter and reading in the book. The Guide is available in

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both print and PDF formats; the contents are also available in downloadable, editable form on the Norton Teaching Tools site.

Quizzes.  Over 150 quizzes on sentences, language, punctuation/­ mechanics, paragraph editing, plagiarism, and MLA and APA documentation, including several pre- and post-diagnostics, can be easily imported into your LMS. Additional quizzes for each chapter and reading in the Field Guide are also available.

Plagiarism Tutorial.   Now available for integration directly into most campus learning management systems, the Plagiarism Tutorial guides students through why plagiarism matters, what counts as plagiarism, and how to avoid plagiarizing, with activities and short quizzes to assess what they’ve learned. Students earn 90 percent for completing the tutorial and an additional 10 percent based on their quiz performance. You can see your students’ scores, how much time they spent working, and when they finished in your Class Activity Report.

Resources for Your LMS.   Easily add high-quality Norton digital resources to your online, hybrid, or lecture courses. Get started building your course with our easy-to-use integrated resources. All activities can be accessed right within your existing learning management system. Graded activities can be configured to report to the LMS course gradebook. Integration links are available for the Norton Field Guide ebook, InQuizitive for Writers, the Little Seagull Handbook ebook, the Plagiarism Tutorial, and all videos. Instructors can also add customizable quizzes to their LMS or upload additional resources from the Norton Teaching Tools site, including PowerPoint slides, worksheets, sample writing assignments and rubrics, peer-review templates, and model student essays. All resources can be found at digital .wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS As we’ve traveled around the country and met many of the students, teachers, and WPAs who are using The Norton Field Guide, we’ve been gratified to hear that so many find it helpful, to the point that some students tell us that

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they aren’t going to sell it back to the bookstore when the term ends — the highest form of praise. As much as we like the positive response, though, we are especially grateful when we receive suggestions for ways the book might be improved. In this sixth edition, as we did in the fifth edition, we have tried to respond to the many good suggestions we’ve gotten from students, colleagues, reviewers, and editors. Thank you all, both for your kind words and for your good suggestions. Some people need to be singled out for thanks, especially Marilyn Moller, the guiding editorial spirit of the Field Guide through all six editions. When we presented Marilyn with the idea for this book, she encouraged us and helped us conceptualize it — and then taught us how to write a textbook. The quality of the Field Guide is due in large part to her knowledge of the field of composition, her formidable editing and writing skills, her sometimes uncanny ability to see the future of the teaching of writing —  and her equally formidable, if not uncanny, stamina. Editor Sarah Touborg guided us through this new edition with good humor and better advice. Just as developmental editor John Elliott did with the third and fourth editions, Sarah shepherded the fifth, and now sixth, editions through revisions and additions with a careful hand and a clear eye for appropriate content and language. Her painstaking editing shows throughout this book, and we’re grateful for her ability to make us appear to be better writers than we are. Many others have contributed, too. Thanks to project editor Christine D’Antonio for her energy, patience, and great skill in guiding the book from manuscript to final pages. Claire Wallace brought her astute eye and keen judgment to all of the readings, while Emma Peters managed the extensive reviewing process and took great care of the manuscript at every stage. The Norton Field Guide is more than just a print book, and we thank Joy ­Cranshaw, Katie Bolger, Maria Qureshi, Sophia Purut, Kim Yi, and ­ Cooper Wilhelm for creating and producing the superb ebook and instructors’ site. Anna Palchik designed the award-winning, userfriendly, and attractive interior, Pete Garceau created the beautiful new cover design, and Debra Morton Hoyt and Rubina Yeh further enhanced the design for accessibility in print and online. Liz Marotta and Stephen Sajdak transformed a scribbled-over manuscript into a finished prod-

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uct with extraordinary speed and precision, while Alice Vigliani copyedited. Megan Schindel and Josh Garvin cleared text permissions, coping efficiently with ongoing changes, and Ted Szczepanski cleared permission for the images found by Dena Digilio Betz. Michele ­ Dobbins, Lib Triplett, Elizabeth Pieslor, Annie Stewart, Erin Brown, Kim ­ Bowers, and Emily Rowin helped us all keep our eyes on the market. Thanks to all, and to Mike Wright, Ann Shin, and Julia Reidhead for supporting this project in the first place. Last but not least, our profound gratitude goes to the tireless Norton travelers, led so energetically by Erik Fahlgren. Rich has many, many people at Wright State University to thank for their support and assistance. Jane Blakelock taught Rich most of what he knows about electronic text and writing on and for the web and assembled an impressive list of useful links for the book’s website. Adrienne Cassel (now at Sinclair Community College) and Catherine Crowley read and commented on many drafts. Peggy Lindsey shared her students’ work and the idea of using charts to show how various genres might be organized. Brady Allen, Deborah Bertsch (now at Columbus State Community College), Vicki Burke, Melissa ­Carrion, Jimmy Chesire, Carol Cornett, Mary Doyle, Byron Crews, D ­ eborah Crusan, Sally DeThomas, Stephanie Dickey, Scott Geisel, Karen Hayes, Chuck Holmes, Beth Klaisner (now at Colorado State University), Nancy Mack, Marty Maner, Cynthia M ­ arshall, Sarah McGinley, Kristie ­ McKiernan, Michelle Metzner, Kristie Rowe, Bobby Rubin, Cathy Sayer, David Seitz, Caroline Simmons, Tracy Smith, Rick Strader, Mary Van Loveren, and A. J. Williams responded to drafts, submitted good models of student writing, contributed to the instructor’s manual, tested the Field Guide in their classes, provided support, and shared with Rich some of their best teaching ideas. Henry Limouze and then Carol Loranger, chairs of the English Department, gave him room to work on this project with patience and good humor. Sandy Trimboli, Becky Traxler, and Lynn Morgan, the secretaries to the writing programs, kept him anchored. And he thanks especially the more than 300 graduate teaching assistants and 10,000 first-year students who class-tested various editions of the Field Guide and whose experiences helped — and continue to help — to shape it. Deb is grateful to Columbus State’s dean of Arts and Sciences, ­Allysen Todd, and to current and former English Department chairs Amanda

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Gradisek and Robyn Lyons-Robinson, who encouraged and supported her work on the Field Guide; to her fellow faculty members in the English Department, who show her every day what it means to be a good teacher, writer, collaborator, and colleague; to her high school teaching partners, who help her navigate the world of dual credit, enriching her own teaching in the process; and to her students, whose wit, work ethic, and writing regularly dazzle her. Deb is also incredibly grateful to Rich Bullock, Joy Cranshaw, Michele Dobbins, Maureen Daly Goggin, Emma Peters, Sarah Touborg, and Lib Triplett for welcoming her to the Field Guide team and for teaching her — with patience and kindness — how to do the work. At Arizona State, Maureen wants to acknowledge the unwavering support of Neal A. Lester, director of Project Humanities and former chair of the English Department, and the assistance of Jason Diller, her former graduate research assistant, and Judy Holiday, her former graduate mentee, for their reading suggestions. She thanks her colleagues, all exemplary teachers and mentors, for creating a supportive intellectual environment, especially Patricia Boyd, Peter Goggin, Jake Greene, Mark Hannah, Kathleen Lamp, Elenore Long, Paul Matsuda, Keith Miller, Ersula Ore, Krista Ratcliffe, Shirley Rose, and Doris Warriner. Thanks also go to ASU instructors and first-year students who have used the Field Guide and have offered good suggestions. Finally, Maureen wants to pay tribute to her students, who are themselves among her best teachers. The Norton Field Guide has also benefited from the good advice and conversations we’ve had with writing teachers across the country, including (among many others) Anne Champion, Sarah Fish, and Diana Gingo at Collin College; Polina Chemishanova, Cyndi Miecznikowski, and Melissa Schaub at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke; Maureen Mathison, Susan Miller, Tom Huckin, Gae Lyn Henderson, and Sundy Watanabe at the University of Utah; Christa Albrecht-Crane, Doug Downs, and Brian Whaley at Utah Valley State College; Anne Dvorak and Anya Morrissey at Longview Community University; Jeff Andelora at Mesa Community College; Robin Calitri at Merced College; Lori Gallinger, Rose Hawkins, Jennifer Nelson, Georgia Standish, and John Ziebell at the Community College of Southern Nevada; Stuart Blythe at Indiana University–Purdue University Fort Wayne; Janice Kelly at Arizona State University; Jeanne McDonald

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at Waubonsee Community College; Web Newbold, Mary Clark-Upchurch, Megan Auffart, Matt Balk, Edward James Chambers, Sarah Chavez, Desiree Dighton, Ashley Ellison, Theresa Evans, Keith Heller, Ellie Isenhart, Angela Jackson-Brown, Naoko Kato, Yuanyuan Liao, Claire Lutkewitte, Yeno Matuki, Casey M ­ cArdle, Tibor Munkacsi, Dani Nier-Weber, Karen Neubauer, Craig O’Hara, Martha Payne, Sarah Sandman, and Kellie Weiss at Ball State University; Patrick Tompkins at Tyler Community College; George Kanieski and Pamela H ­ ardman at Cuyahoga Community College; Daniela Regusa, Jeff Partridge, and Lydia Vine at Capital Community College; Elizabeth ­Woodworth, Auburn University–Montgomery; Stephanie Eason at Enterprise Community College; Kate Geiselman at Sinclair Community College; Ronda Leathers Dively at Southern Illinois University; Debra Knutson at Shawnee State University; Guy Shebat and Amy Flick at Youngstown State University; Martha Tolleson, Toni McMillen, and Patricia Gerecci at Collin College; Sylva Miller at Pikes Peak Community College; Dharma ­Hernandez at Los Angeles Unified School District; Ann Spurlock at Mississippi State University; Luke Niiler at the University of Alabama; and Jeff Tix at ­Wharton County Junior College.

REVIEWERS The authors and editors at W. W. Norton are grateful to the many instructors across the country whose astute feedback helped shape this new edition of the Field Guide and its digital resources: Carmela Abbruzzese, Regis College; Susan Achziger, Community College of Aurora; Liz Aguilar, Alamo Community College; Shazia Ali, Eastfield College; Kelly Allen, Northampton Community College; Emily Anderson, Columbus State Community College; Susan Austin, Johnston Community College; Stuart Barbier, Delta College; Elizabeth Barnes, Johnston Community College; William Beckham, Horry-Georgetown Technical College; Alyse Bensel, Brevard College; Betty Bettacchi, Collin College; Deb Bloom, Kirkwood Community College; Dean Blumberg, Horry-Georgetown Technical College; Brett Bodily, Dallas College North Lake Campus; Ethel Bowden, Central Maine Community College; Rachel Bragg, West Virginia University

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Preface

Institute of Technology; Laura Brandenburg, Wayland Baptist University; April Brannon, California State University, Fullerton; Crystal Brantley, Louisburg College; Jane Brockman, Rogue Community College; Mark Brumley, Randolph Community College; Keely Byars-Nichols, University of Mount Olive; Robert Canipe, Catawba Valley Community College; Anna Matsen Cantrell, Pellissippi State Community College; Neeta Chandra, Cuyahoga Community College; Catherine Childress, Lees-McRae College; Minda Chuska, Horry-Georgetown Technical College; Heather Clark, Ivy Tech Community College; Billy Clem, Waubonsee Community College; Alison Cope, Lone Star College; Virginia Crisco, California State University, Fresno; Amy Cruickshank, Cuyahoga Community College; Sarah Crump, Southern State Community College; John Daniel, Henry Ford College; Shemika Davis, Johnston Community College; LeeAnn Derdeyn, Dallas College Cedar Valley Campus; Heather Detzner, Spartanburg Community College; Amber Dinquel, Rappahannock Community College; Ivan Dole, Dallas College North Lake Campus; Katie Doughty, Mississippi State University; Holly Dykstra, Laredo College; Sara Edgell, Tarrant County College–Southeast Campus; Ashley Edlin, Wayland Baptist University; Kayleigh Few, Mississippi State University; Maureen Fitzpatrick, Johnson County Community College; Sue Fox, Central New Mexico Community College; Katie Franklin, University of New Orleans; Janet FryeBurleigh, San Jacinto College–Generation Park; Jo Gibson, Cuyahoga Community College–Western Campus; Brian Gogan, Western Michigan University; Anival Gonzalez, Northwest Vista College; Marti Grahl, Hagerstown Community College; Barbara Griest-Devora, Northwest Vista College; Kaleena Gross, Columbus State Community College; John Guthrie, Southeastern Community College; Bernabe Gutierrez, Laredo ­ College; Stephanie Hamilton, University of Idaho; Amara Hand, Norfolk State University; Michael Hedges, Horry-Georgetown Technical College; Chelsea Hicken, Dixie State University; Ean High, University of Tennessee at Martin; Lee Ann Hodges, Tri-County Community College; Elizabeth Hogan, University of New Orleans; Monica Hogan, Johnson County Community College; Rachael Holloway, Johnston Community College; Michael Horton, Marshall High School; Deana Hueners, Dakota State University; Kenneth Huffer, Tarrant County College District; Paige Huskey, Clark

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State College; Patricia Ireland, Pellissippi State Community College; Neshon Jackson, Houston Community College; Kim Jacobs-Beck, University of Cincinnati Clermont; Jo Johnson, Ivy Tech Community College; Lori Johnson, Rappahannock Community College; Margaret Johnson, Langston University; Christine Junker, Wright State University–Lake Campus; Katie Kalisz, Grand Rapids Community College; William Keeth, Mansfield University of Pennsylvania; Jessica Kidd, University of Alabama; Danielle Klafter, Southeast Community College; Stacey Koller, Dixie State University; Christine Kozikowski, Central New Mexico Community College; Jennifer Kraemer, Collin College–Frisco Preston Ridge Campus; Julie Kratt, Cowley College; Alexander Kurian, Dallas College North Lake Campus; Katherine Kysar, University of Alaska Fairbanks; Nina Lambert, Dallas College Eastfield Campus; Kayla Landers, Lehigh University; Linda Lawson, Concord High School; Lindsey Light, University of Dayton; Bronwen Llewellyn, Daytona State College; Kelly Lovelace, Isothermal Community College; Juliette Ludeker, Howard Community College; Crystal Manboard, Northwest Vista College; Terri Mann, El Paso Community College; Diane Marcincin, Northampton Community College; Kelly Ann Martin, Collin College–Plano Campus; Adrienne McClain, Dallas College; Laura McClister, Volunteer State Community College; Jeanne McDonald, Waubonsee Community College; Kerry McGinnis, Columbus State Community College; Megan McIntyre, Sonoma State University; Gena McKinley, Rappahannock Community College; James McWard, Johnson County Community College; Eileen Medeiros, Johnson & Wales University; Lora Meredith, Colorado Mountain College; Ashley Merrill, Wayne Community College; Dalia El Metwally, Wharton County Junior College; Harriet Millan, Drexel University; Kellie Miller, Santa Fe College; Rosemary Mink, Mohawk Valley Community College; Millie Moncada, Los Angeles Valley College; Michael Morris, Dallas College Eastfield Campus; Rhonda Morris, Santa Fe College; Damon Murrah, Pellissippi State Community College; Mary Newbegin, Lehigh University; Luke Niiler, ­ University of Alabama; Annette Nusbaum, Aiken Technical College; ­Fabiana Oliveira, Normandale Community College; Tamra Painter, Kanab High School / CE Dixie State University; Diana Paquette, Waukesha County Technical College; Catherine Parisian, University of North

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Preface

Carolina at Pembroke; Teresa Paul, North Arkansas College; Andrea Peck, Cuyahoga Community College; Laurie Phillips, Dallas College El Centro Campus; Dan Portincaso, Waubonsee Community College; Britt Posey, Northwest Vista College; Chris Prentice, Central New Mexico Community College; Sharon Prince, Wharton County Junior College; Jessica Rabin, Anne Arundel Community College; Erin Radcliffe, Central New Mexico Community College; Yasmin Ramirez, El Paso Community College; Kassandra Ramirez-Buck, Eastfield College; Brian Reeves, Lone Star ­ College–­ University Park; Eric Reyes, Wharton County Junior College; ­Cynthia Cox Richardson, Central State University; Jim Richey, Tyler Junior College; Jared Riddle, Ivy Tech Community College; Jennifer Riske, Northeast Lakeview College; Kelly Rivers, Pellissippi State Community College; Danielle Roach, Clark State College; Andrew Roback, Illinois Institute of Technology; Michelle Roberti, Rappahannock Community College; ­Natasha Robinson, Collin College; Brian Roffino, Eastfield College; Andrea Rogers, University of Arkansas; Mark Rooze, Florence-­Darlington Technical College; Kathie Russell, Santa Fe College; Mary Rutledge-Davis, Dallas College North Lake Campus; Kelly Savage, Dallas College Eastfield Campus; Molly Scanlon, Nova Southeastern University; Matthew Schmeer, Johnson County Community College; Jessica Schreyer, University of Dubuque; Marcea Seible, Hawkeye Community College; Marilyn Senter, Johnson County Community College; Margaret Shaw, Johnson & Wales University; Chase Sisk, Pellissippi State Community College; Zahir Small, Santa Fe College; Tiffany Smith, Arkansas State University Beebe; Jason Snart, College of DuPage; Jessi Snider, Wharton County Junior College; Cynthia Soueidan, Gloucester High School / Rappahannock Community College; Pam Stone, North Arkansas College; James (Ty) Stumpf, Central Carolina Community College; Allison Suber, Spartanburg Community College; Eric Sullivan, Metropolitan Community College; Karen Summey, Catawba Valley Community College; Ashley Supinski, Northampton Community College; Gerard Teichman, Bunker Hill Community College; Harun Karim Thomas, Daytona State College; Jessica Thompson, Mississippi State University; Tara Thompson, Johnston Community College; Jeff Tix, Wharton County Junior College; Susan Todd, Jefferson College; Andrew Tolle, Dallas College Eastfield Campus; Tyler Trimm, Mississippi

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State University; Jennifer Turner, Patrick County High School; Michael Walker, Santa Fe College; Mary Wallen, Big Sandy Community & Technical College; Maureen Walters, Vance-Granville Community College; Angie Weaver, South Beloit High School; Sharon West, Spartanburg Community College; S ­ tephen Whitley, Collin College; Sabine Winter, Dallas College Eastfield Campus; Paul Wise, University of Toledo; Karen Wright, Pellissippi State Community College; Sue Yamin, Pellissippi State Community College; Jason Ziebart, Central Carolina Community College. We owe a special thanks to the instructors and their students who reviewed this edition of the Field Guide, some of whom class-tested it: Jenna Bazzell, Monroe County Community College; Mary Anne Bernal, San Antonio College; Carrie Buttler, Del Mar College; Susan Muaddi D ­ arraj, Harford Community College; Janice Filer, Shelton State Community College; Andrea Green, Motlow State Community College; Yolanda Gonzalez, McLennan Community College; Peaches Henry, McLennan Community College; L ­ ennie Irvin, San Antonio College; Kent Lenz, Del Mar College; Carrie NartkerKantz, Monroe Community College; Jim Richey, Tyler Junior College; Ryan Shepherd, Ohio University; Wes Spratlin, Motlow State Community College. It’s customary to conclude by expressing gratitude to one’s spouse and family, and for good reason. Writing and revising The Norton Field Guide over the past several years, we have enjoyed the loving and unconditional support of our spouses, Barb, Peter, and Todd, who provide the foundation for all we do. Thank you. We couldn’t have done it without you.

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How to Use This Book There’s no one way to do anything, and writing is no exception. Some people need to do a lot of planning on paper; others write entire drafts in their heads. Some writers compose quickly and loosely, going back later to revise; others work on one sentence until they’re satisfied with it, then move on to the next. And writers’ needs vary from task to task, too: sometimes you know what you’re going to write about and why, but need to figure out how to do it; other times your first job is to come up with a topic. The Norton Field Guide is designed to allow you to chart your own course as a writer, offering guidelines that suit your writing needs. It is organized in ten parts: 1.   academic literacies  : The chapters in this part will help you know what’s expected in the reading and writing you do for academic purposes, and in summarizing and responding to what you read. One chapter even provides tips for developing habits of mind that will help you succeed in college, whatever your goals. 2.   rhetorical situations  : No matter what you’re writing, it will always have some purpose, audience, genre, stance, and medium and design. This part will help you consider each of these elements, as well as the particular kinds of rhetorical situations created by academic assignments. 3.   genres  : Use these chapters for help with specific kinds of writing, from abstracts to explorations to evaluations and more. You’ll find more detailed guidance for four especially common assignments: literacy narratives, textual analyses, reports, and arguments. 4.  fields : The chapters in this part will help you apply what you’re learning in this book to your other general education courses or courses in your major. 5.  processes : These chapters offer general advice for all writing situations — from generating ideas and text to drafting, organizing, revising and rewriting, compiling a portfolio — and more.

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6.  strategies : Use the advice in this part to develop and organize your writing — to use comparison, description, dialogue, and other strategies as appropriate. 7.   research  / documentation : Use this section for advice on how to do research, work with sources, and compose and document researchbased texts using MLA and APA styles. 8.  media / design : This section offers guidance in designing your work and using visuals and sound, and in deciding whether and how to deliver what you write on paper, on screen, or in person. 9.   readings  : This section includes readings in ten genres and one chapter of remixes — forty-two readings in all that provide good examples of the kinds of writing you yourself may be assigned to do.

WAYS INTO THE BOOK The Norton Field Guide gives you the writing advice you need, along with the flexibility to write in the way that works best for you. Here are some of the ways you can find what you need in the book.

Brief menus.   Inside the front cover you’ll find a list of all the chapters; start here if you are looking for a chapter on a certain kind of writing or a general writing issue. Inside the back cover is a menu of all the  readings . Complete contents.   Pages xxix–xlix contain a detailed table of contents. Look here if you need to find a reading or a specific section in a chapter. Guides to writing.   If you know the kind of writing you need to do, you’ll find guides to writing twelve common genres in Part 3. These guides are designed to help you through all the decisions you have to make —  from coming up with a topic to editing and proofreading your final draft.

Color-coding.  The parts of this book are color-coded for easy reference: light blue for  academic literacies , orange for  rhetorical situations , green for  genres , gray for  fields , lavender for  processes , red for

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 strategies , blue for  research / documentation , pink for  media / design , and apple green for the  readings . You’ll find a key to the colors on the front cover flap and also on each left-hand page. When you see a word highlighted in a color, that tells you where you can find additional detail on the topic. Glossary / index.  At the back of the book is a combined glossary and index, where you’ll find full definitions of key terms and topics, along with a list of the pages where everything is covered in detail. Directories to MLA and APA documentation.   A brief directory inside the back cover will lead you to guidelines on citing sources and composing a list of references or works cited. The documentation models are colorcoded so you can easily see the key details.

WAYS OF GETTING STARTED If you know your genre, simply turn to the appropriate genre chapter. There you’ll find model readings, a description of the genre’s Key Features, and a Guide to Writing that will help you come up with a topic, generate text, organize and write a draft, get response, revise, edit, and proofread. The genre chapters also point out places where you might need to do research, use certain writing strategies, design your text a certain way — and direct you to the exact pages in the book where you can find help doing so.

If you know your topic, you might start with some of the activities in Chapter 28, Generating Ideas and Text. From there, you might turn to Chapter 47, for help finding sources on the topic. When it comes time to narrow your topic and come up with a thesis statement, Chapter 29 can help. If you get stuck at any point, you might turn to Chapter 27, Writing as Inquiry; it provides tips that can get you beyond what you already know about your topic. If your assignment or your thesis defines your genre, turn to that chapter; if not, consult Chapter 27 for help determining the appropriate genre, and then turn to that genre chapter.

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Contents Preface  v How to Use This Book   xxv Thematic Guide to the Readings   li

Part 1  Academic Literacies 

1

1 Writing in Academic Contexts   3 What’s expected of academic writing   3 What’s expected of college writers: The WPA outcomes   8

2 Reading in Academic Contexts   11 Taking stock of your reading   11 Reading strategically   12 Thinking about what you want to learn   12 Previewing the text   13 Adjusting your reading speed to different texts   13 Looking for organizational cues   14 Thinking about your initial response   14 Dealing with difficult texts   15 Annotating  16 Coding  17 Summarizing  20 Reading critically   20 Believing and doubting   20 Thinking about how the text works: what it says, what it does   21 Identifying patterns   23 Reading rhetorically   25 Considering the rhetorical situation   25

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Analyzing the argument   26 Considering the larger context   27 Reading visual texts   28 Reading onscreen   31

3 Summarizing and Responding: Where Reading Meets Writing   33 Summarizing  33 Responding  36 Deciding how to respond   36 Writing a summary and response essay   40 JACOB MACLEOD, Guns and Cars Are Different   40 KEY FEATURES   42 clearly identified author and title / A concise summary of the text / A An explicit response / Support for your response

Ways of organizing a summary and response essay   44

4 Developing Academic Habits of Mind   46 Engage  46 Be curious   48 Be open to new ideas   48 Be flexible   49 Be creative   50 Persist  51 Reflect  52 *Collaborate  52 Take responsibility   55

Part 2   Rhetorical Situations 

57

5 Purpose  59 Identifying your purpose   60 Thinking about purpose   60

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6 Audience  61 Identifying your audience   62 Thinking about audience   63

7 Genre  65 Choosing the appropriate genre   66 Dealing with ambiguous assignments   68 *Combining genres   69 Thinking about genre   70

8 Stance  72 Identifying your stance   73 Thinking about stance   74

9 Media / Design   75 Identifying your media and design needs   76 Thinking about media   76 Thinking about design   77

Part 3  Genres 

79

10 Writing a Literacy Narrative   81 *REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 *KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ,

Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY, Automotive Literacy  91

KEY FEATURES   93 A well-told story / Vivid detail / Some indication of the narrative’s ­significance

A GUIDE TO WRITING   94 Choosing a topic   94 Considering the rhetorical situation   95

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Generating ideas and text   96 Ways of organizing a literacy narrative   98 Writing out a draft   99 Considering matters of design   100 Getting response and revising   100 Editing and proofreading   101 Taking stock of your work   102

11 Analyzing Texts  104 *PAT FINN, The Architecture of Inequality:

On Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite  105 DANIELLE ALLEN, Our Declaration   111 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical

Analysis of Obama’s Speech on Race   116 KEY FEATURES   123 A summary or description of the text / Attention to the context / A clear interpretation or judgment / Reasonable support for your conclusions

A GUIDE TO WRITING   124 Choosing a text to analyze   124 Considering the rhetorical situation   124 Generating ideas and text   124 Coming up with a thesis   134 Ways of organizing a textual analysis   134 Writing out a draft   136 Considering matters of design   137 Getting response and revising   138 Editing and proofreading   138 Taking stock of your work   139

12 Reporting Information  140 *RENAE TINGLING, Sleepless Nights of a University Student   140 FRANKIE SCHEMBRI, Edible Magic   146 JON MARCUS, The Reason College Costs More Than You Think  149

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KEY FEATURES   152 A tightly focused topic / Well-researched information / Synthesis of ideas / Various writing strategies / Clear definitions / Appropriate design

A GUIDE TO WRITING   154 Choosing a topic   154 Considering the rhetorical situation   155 Generating ideas and text   156 Ways of organizing a report   157 Writing out a draft   158 Considering matters of design   160 Getting response and revising   160 Editing and proofreading   161 Taking stock of your work   162

13 Arguing a Position   164 *KELLY CORYELL, All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind

“All Lives Matter”   164 *BRIANNA SCHUNK, Come Look at the Freaks: Examining

and Advocating for Disability Theatre   171 NICHOLAS KRISTOF, Our Blind Spot about Guns   177

KEY FEATURE   180 A clear and arguable position / Background information / Good reasons / Convincing evidence / Appeals to readers / A trustworthy tone / Consideration of other positions

A GUIDE TO WRITING   182 Choosing a topic   182 Considering the rhetorical situation   184 Generating ideas and text   185 Ways of organizing an argument   189 Writing out a draft   190 Considering matters of design   192 Getting response and revising   193

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Editing and proofreading   194 Taking stock of your work   194

14 Abstracts  196 INFORMATIVE ABSTRACTS   196 PROPOSAL ABSTRACTS   197 KEY FEATURES / ABSTRACTS   198 A summary of basic information / Objective description / Brevity

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING ABSTRACTS   198 Considering the rhetorical situation   198 Generating ideas and text   199 Ways of organizing an abstract   199 Taking stock of your work   200

15 Annotated Bibliographies and Reviews of Scholarly Literature   201 ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES   201 MICHAEL BENTON, MARK DOLAN, AND REBECCA ZISCH, Teen Film$  202 KELLY GREEN, Researching Hunger and Poverty   203

KEY FEATURES OF ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES   204 A clear scope / Complete bibliographic information / A concise description of the work / Relevant commentary / Consistent presentation

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES   205 Considering the rhetorical situation   205 Generating ideas and text   206 Ways of organizing an annotated bibliography   208 Taking stock of your work   209 REVIEWS OF SCHOLARLY LITERATURE   209 CAMERON CARROLL, Zombie Film Scholarship:

A Review of the ­Literature   210

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KEY FEATURES OF REVIEWS OF SCHOLARLY LITERATURE   212 Thorough research / Objective summaries of the literature / Critical evaluation / Synthesis / A clear focus

Taking stock of your work   213

16 Evaluations  214 *OLIVIA MAZZUCATO, Difficult-to-Follow Narrative Redeemed

by Well-Executed Comedy in The Lovebirds  215 KEY FEATURES   217 A concise description of the subject / Clearly defined criteria / A knowledgeable discussion of the subject / A balanced and fair assessment / Well-supported reasons

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   219 Choosing something to evaluate   219 Considering the rhetorical situation   219 Generating ideas and text   219 Ways of organizing an evaluation   221 Taking stock of your work   222

17 Literary Analyses  223 ROBERT FROST, The Road Not Taken   223 MATTHEW MILLER, Frost’s Broken Roads   224

KEY FEATURES   228 An arguable thesis / Careful attention to the language of the text / Attention to patterns or themes / A clear interpretation / MLA style

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   229 Considering the rhetorical situation   229 Generating ideas and text   229 Organizing a literary analysis   234 Taking stock of your work   234

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Contents

18 Memoirs  236 RICK BRAGG, All Over but the Shoutin’   236

KEY FEATURES   240 A good story / Vivid details / Clear significance

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   241 Choosing an event to write about   241 Considering the rhetorical situation   241 Generating ideas and text   242 Ways of organizing memoirs   243 Taking stock of your work   243

19 Profiles  245 *RYAN JONES, A Fighter’s Chance   245

KEY FEATURES   252 An interesting subject / Any necessary background / An interesting angle / A firsthand account / Engaging details

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   253 Choosing a suitable subject   253 Considering the rhetorical situation   254 Generating ideas and text   254 Ways of organizing a profile   256 Taking stock of your work   257

20 Proposals  258 *CHRISTIAN B. MILLER, Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?   258

KEY FEATURES   262 A well-defined problem / A recommended solution / A convincing argument for your solution / Possible questions / A call to action / An appropriate tone

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   263 Deciding on a topic   263 Considering the rhetorical situation   263

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Generating ideas and text   264 Ways of organizing a proposal   264 Taking stock of your work   265 TOPIC PROPOSALS   266 CATHERINE THOMS, Social Media and Data Privacy   266

KEY FEATURES   267 A concise discussion of the subject / A statement of your intended focus / A rationale for choosing the topic / Mention of resources

*21 Explorations  269 *BRIAN DIEHL, Talking with Granddad   269

KEY FEATURES   274 A topic that intrigues you / Some kind of structure / Specific details / A questioning, speculative tone

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   276 Deciding on a topic   276 Considering the rhetorical situation   276 Generating ideas and text    277 Ways of organizing an exploratory essay   278 Taking stock of your work   279

*22. Remixes   280 *Original text: A print profile   280 *TODD JONES, Rare Earth   281

*Remix 1: A Video Profile   285 *Remix 2: An Explainer Video   286 KEY FEATURES   287 A connection to the original subject / A modification of the earlier work / Attention to genre and media / design expectations

SOME TYPICAL WAYS OF REMIXING   287 A BRIEF GUIDE TO CREATING REMIXES   289

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Contents

Determining what will change in your remix   289 Considering the rhetorical situation   289 Generating ideas and text   290 Ways of organizing a remix   291 Taking stock of your work   292

Part 4  Fields 

293

23 Fields of Study   295 Academic fields and general education   295 Studying, reading, and writing in academic fields   296 Thinking about reading and writing in the fields   297

24 Reading across Fields of Study    298 Considering the rhetorical situation   298 Advice for reading across fields of study   299 Tips for reading in various fields of study   304 The humanities / The social sciences / The sciences / A note on career-focused fields

25 Writing in Academic Fields of Study   309 Considering the rhetorical situation   309 Writing in academic fields of study   311 Arts and humanities / Science and mathematics / Social sciences / Business / Education / Engineering and technology / Health sciences and nursing

Part 5  Processes 

325

*26. Processes of Writing   327 27 Writing as Inquiry   329 Starting with questions   329 Keeping a journal   332 Keeping a blog   332

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28 Generating Ideas and Text   333 Freewriting  333 Looping  334 Listing  334 Clustering or mapping ideas   335 *Talking  336 Cubing  336 Questioning  337 *Using visuals   337 Using genre features   340 Outlining  340 Letter writing   342 Keeping a journal   343 Discovery drafting   344

*29. Organizing Your Writing, Guiding Your Readers   345 Outlining  345 Beginning  346 Thesis statements   347 More ways of beginning   350 Ending  354 Ways of ending   355 Paragraphs  358 Topic sentences   358 Paragraph length and number   360 Transitions  361 Titles 363

30 Drafting  364 Establishing a schedule with deadlines   364 Getting comfortable   364 Starting to write   365 Dealing with writer’s block   366

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31 Assessing Your Own Writing  367 Considering the rhetorical situation   367 Examining the text itself   368 For focus / Argument / Organization / Clarity Assessing a body of your work   371

32 Getting Response and Revising   372 Giving and getting peer response   372 Getting effective response   373 Revising  375 Rewriting  378

33 Editing and Proofreading   380 Editing  380 Proofreading  383

34 Compiling a Portfolio   385 Considering the rhetorical situation   385 A WRITING PORTFOLIO   386 What to include in a writing portfolio   386 Organizing  387 Paper portfolios / Electronic portfolios Assessing your writing portfolio   388 A LITERACY PORTFOLIO   389 What to include in a literacy portfolio   389 Organizing  390 Reflecting on your literacy portfolio   390

*35. Reflecting on Your Writing   391 Reflecting while writing   391 Reflecting after writing   392 Considering the rhetorical situation   393 Generating insights for your reflection   394 Providing support for your reflection   396 Ways of organizing a reflection   398

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Part 6  Strategies 

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403

36 Analyzing Causes and Effects   405 Determining plausible causes and effects   405 Arguing for causes or effects   406 Ways of organizing an analysis of causes and effects   407 Considering the rhetorical situation   408

37 Arguing  410 Reasons for arguing   410 Arguing logically   411 Claims / Reasons / Evidence Arguing with a hostile audience   422 Convincing readers you’re trustworthy   423 Appealing to readers’ emotions   426 Checking for fallacies   427 Considering the rhetorical situation   429

38 Classifying and Dividing   431 Classifying  431 Dividing  432 Creating clear and distinct categories   433 Considering the rhetorical situation   435

39 Comparing and Contrasting   437 Two ways of comparing and contrasting   438 The block method / The point-by-point method Using graphs and images   440 Using figurative language   441 Considering the rhetorical situation   443

40 Defining  445 Formal definitions   445 Extended definitions   447

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Stipulative definitions   453 Considering the rhetorical situation   454

41 Describing  456 Detail  456 Objectivity and subjectivity   459 Vantage point   460 Dominant impression   461 Organizing descriptions   462 Considering the rhetorical situation   463

42 Using Dialogue  464 Why add dialogue?   464 Integrating dialogue into your writing   465 Interviews  466 Considering the rhetorical situation   468

43 Explaining Processes  469 Explaining clearly   469 Explaining how something is done   469 Explaining how to do something   470 Explaining visually   471 Considering the rhetorical situation   473

44 Narrating  474 Sequencing  474 Including pertinent detail   478 Opening and closing with narratives   480 Considering the rhetorical situation   482

45 Taking Essay Exams   483 Considering the rhetorical situation   483 Analyzing essay questions   484 Some guidelines for taking essay exams   486

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Part 7   Doing Research 

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489

46 Getting a Start on Research   491 Establishing a schedule and getting started   491 Considering the rhetorical situation   492 Coming up with a topic   493 Consulting with librarians and doing preliminary research   494 Coming up with a research question   495 Drafting a tentative thesis   496 Creating a rough outline   497 Keeping a working bibliography   497 Keeping track of your sources   499

47 Finding Sources  501 Kinds of sources   501 Searching effectively using keywords   506 *Searching using popular sites and search engines   509 *Searching in academic libraries  511 Reference works   512 Books / searching the library catalog   514 Ebooks / finding books online   515 Periodicals / searching indexes and databases   516 Images, sound, and more   518 Doing field research   518 Interviews / Observation / Questionnaires and surveys

48 Evaluating Sources  524 Considering whether a source might be useful   524 *Fact-checking popular sources online   526 Reading sources with a critical eye   532 Comparing sources   533

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49 Synthesizing Ideas  535 Reading for patterns and connections   535 Synthesizing ideas using notes   539 Synthesizing information to support your own ideas   541 Entering the conversation   541

50 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing   542 Taking notes   542 Deciding whether to quote, paraphrase, or summarize   544 Quoting  544 Paraphrasing  547 Summarizing  550 Introducing source materials using signal phrases   551

51 Acknowledging Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism   555 Acknowledging sources   555 Avoiding plagiarism   558

52 Documentation  560 Understanding documentation styles   560 MLA style   562 APA style   562

53 MLA Style  564 A DIRECTORY TO MLA STYLE   564 MLA in-text documentation   567 Notes  574 MLA list of works cited   574 Documentation Maps Article in a print journal   583 / Article in an online magazine   584 / Article accessed through a database   587 / Print book   591 / Work on a website  596 Formatting a research paper   605 Sample research paper, MLA style   607

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54 APA Style  615 A DIRECTORY TO APA STYLE   615 APA in-text documentation   618 Notes  622 APA reference list   623 Documentation Maps Article in a journal with DOI   631 / Webpage   633 / Book   635 Formatting a paper   645 Sample research paper, APA style   647

Part 8   Media / Design 

657

55 Choosing Media  659 Print  660 Digital  660 Spoken  660 Multimedia  661 Considering the rhetorical situation   662

56 Designing Text  664 Considering the rhetorical situation   664 Some basic principles of design   665 Consistency / Simplicity / Balance / Color and contrast / Templates Some elements of design   668 Fonts / Layout / Headings / White space Evaluating a design   672

57 Using Visuals, Incorporating Sound   673 Considering the rhetorical situation   674 Using visuals   674 Incorporating sound   680 Adding links   681 Editing carefully — and ethically   682

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58 Writing and Learning Online   684 Writing Online   684 Email and texts   685 Social media   685 Websites  685 Blogs  687 Learning online   688 Keeping track of files   688 Finding basic course information   689 Using learning management systems   689 *Managing challenges of online learning   691 *Using web conferencing tools   693

59 Giving Presentations  694 ABRAHAM LINCOLN, Gettysburg Address  694 JUDY DAVIS, Ours Was a Dad . . .   695

KEY FEATURES   676 A clear structure / Signpost language / A tone to suit the occasion / Repetition and parallel structure / Slides and other media

Considering the rhetorical situation   698 A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING   699 Delivering a presentation   704

Part 9  Readings 

707

60 Literacy Narratives  709 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing

­Stories  710 TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 NICOLE MILES, Formation of a Caribbean Illustrator   726

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61 Textual Analyses  736 LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH, Well-Behaved Women

Seldom Make History   737 DIANA GEORGE, Changing the Face of Poverty   748 ISABELLE GILL, Representation of Disney Princesses in the Media   759 *REYNA M. CORONADO, Women and American War Posters   774

62 Reports  785 JASON HASLER, An Ancient Remedy Reexamined   786 ELEANOR J. BADER, Homeless on Campus   792 *SIDNEY FUSSELL, The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the

Internet  798 *ROCIO CELESTE MEJIA AVILA, Cyberloafing: Distraction or

Motivation?  803

63 Arguments  808 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809 *SHAYNA COOK, Poor Shaming — But This Time in the School

Cafeteria  803 *JADA JONES, Black Mamas’ Lives Matter: The Severe Racial Disparity in

Maternal Mortality Rates   818 SARAH DZUBAY, An Outbreak of the Irrational   825

64 Evaluations  832 DANAH BOYD, Wikipedia as a Site of Knowledge Production   833 ADRIENNE GREEN, The Boldness of Roxane Gay’s Hunger  840 *ANTONIO DE LOERA-BRUST, Netflix’s Gentefied Is the Best American

TV Show about Gentrification   845 ASHLEY FOSTER, Polyvore.com: An Evaluation of How Fashion Is

Consumed Online  849

65 Literary Analyses  854 *KRITHIKA SHRINIVAS, Blanco and Hughes: Rivers and Identity   855 LIZ MOORE, Abuse of an Unnamed Wife: Is She Familiar?   860

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AN ALBUM OF LITERATURE *RICHARD BLANCO, Complaint of El Río Grande   865 *LANGSTON HUGHES, The Negro Speaks of Rivers   867 LANGSTON HUGHES, Theme for English B   868 RITA DOVE, The First Book   870 CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper   871 EMILY DICKINSON, A word is dead   888

66 Memoirs  889 DAVID SEDARIS, Us and Them   890 *KENDELL HARDISON, The Show Must Go On   897 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913

67 Profiles  921 JAMES HAMBLIN, Living Simply in a Dumpster   922 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 *CHALIN XIONG, Heaven Is a Place on Earth   935 TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG, At This Academy, the Curriculum Is Garbage   940

68 Proposals  946 MICHAEL CHABON, Kids’ Stuff   947 DENNIS BARON, Don’t Make English Official — Ban It Instead   956 JOHNNA S. KELLER, The Politics of Stairs   960 ANDREAS GHABRIAL, ALANA HARDY, AND OGDEN PLAYGROUND COMMITTEE,

­Proposal for Ogden Playground Project   966

*69. Explorations   976 *RUSSELL MOBLEY, Justice or Murder?   977 *JAMI ATTENBERG, Is Resilience Overrated?   981 EDAN LEPUCKI, Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them   986 *JUDE ROMINES, A Patchwork Transition   990

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*70. Remixes   997 *IBRAM X. KENDI, Selection from Stamped from the Beginning:

The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America   998 *JASON REYNOLDS AND IBRAM X. KENDI, Selection from Stamped:

Racism, Antiracism, and You   1003 *KATELYN ROOT, A Path to a Clearer Complexion   1007 *KATELYN ROOT, The Ultimate Guide to Improving Your Complexion from

the Inside Out   1012 *KATELYN ROOT, Creating an Effective Infographic   1014

Credits  C-1 Glossary / Index   G /I-1 The Norton Writer’s Prize Directory to MLA Style   Directory to APA Style   Menu of Readings

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Thematic Guide to the Readings ADVERTISING AND MEDIA REYNA M. CORONADO, Women and American War Posters   774 ASHLEY FOSTER, Polyvore.com: An Evaluation of How Fashion

Is Consumed Online   849 SIDNEY FUSSELL, The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet   798 ISABELLE GILL, Representation of Disney Princesses in the Media   759 ROCIO CELESTE MEJIA AVILA, Cyberloafing: Distraction or Motivation?   803

BUSINESS AND ECONOMICS ELEANOR J. BADER, Homeless on Campus   792 MICHAEL CHABON, Kids’ Stuff   947 PAT FINN, The Architecture of Inequality: On Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite  105 ASHLEY FOSTER, Polyvore.com: An Evaluation of How Fashion

Is Consumed Online   849 DIANA GEORGE, Changing the Face of Poverty 748 JAMES HAMBLIN, Living Simply in a Dumpster   922 TODD JONES, Rare Earth   281 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG, At This Academy, the Curriculum Is Garbage   940

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CHILDHOOD MEMORIES TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 RICK BRAGG, All Over but the Shoutin’   236 KENDELL HARDISON, The Show Must Go On   897 KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ, Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY, Automotive Literacy  91 EDAN LEPUCKI, Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them   986 NICOLE MILES, Formation of a Caribbean Illustrator   726 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 DAVID SEDARIS, Us and Them   890 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 CHALIN XIONG, Heaven Is a Place on Earth   935 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907

CLASS AND INEQUALITY JAMI ATTENBERG, Is Resilience Overrated?   981 ELEANOR J. BADER, Homeless on Campus   792 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s

Speech on Race   116 SHAYNA COOK, Poor Shaming — But This Time in the School Cafeteria   813 PAT FINN, The Architecture of Inequality: On Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite  105 DIANA GEORGE, Changing the Face of Poverty   748 KELLY GREEN, Researching Hunger and Poverty   203 ANALISA JOHNSON, The Benefits of Prison Nursery Programs   648 RYAN JONES, A Fighter’s Chance   245 IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist

Ideas in America  998 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 JASON REYNOLDS AND IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism,

and You  1003

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CRIME AND JUSTICE KELLY CORYELL, All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind

“All Lives Matter”   164 ANALISA JOHNSON, The Benefits of Prison Nursery Programs   648 NICHOLAS KRISTOF, Our Blind Spot about Guns   177 RUSSELL MOBLEY, Justice or Murder?   977 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809

DIGITAL AND SOCIAL MEDIA DANAH BOYD, Wikipedia as a Site of Knowledge Production   833 ASHLEY FOSTER, Polyvore.com: An Evaluation of How Fashion

Is Consumed Online   849 SIDNEY FUSSELL, The Endless, Invisible Persuasion Tactics of the Internet   798 ROCIO CELESTE MEJIA AVILA, Cyberloafing: Distraction or Motivation?   803 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809

EDUCATION DANAH BOYD, Wikipedia as a Site of Knowledge Production   833 SHAYNA COOK, Poor Shaming — But This Time in the School Cafeteria   813 RITA DOVE, The First Book   870 ANDREAS GHABRIAL, ALANA HARDY, AND OGDEN PLAYGROUND COMMITTEE,

Proposal for Ogden Playground Project   966 KENDELL HARDISON, The Show Must Go On   897 KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ, Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 LANGSTON HUGHES, Theme for English B   868 RYAN JONES, A Fighter’s Chance   245 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 CHRISTIAN B. MILLER, Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?   258 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG, At This Academy, the Curriculum Is Garbage   940 RENAE TINGLING, Sleepless Nights of a University Student   140

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Thematic Guide to the Readings

ENTERTAINMENT AND THE ARTS MICHAEL BENTON, MARK DOLAN, AND REBECCA ZISCH, Teen Film$  202 CAMERON CARROLL, Zombie Film Scholarship: A Review of Literature   210 MICHAEL CHABON, Kids’ Stuff   947 RITA DOVE, The First Book   870 ISABELLE GILL, Representation of Disney Princesses in the Media   759 KENDELL HARDISON, The Show Must Go On   897 ANTONIO DE LOERA-BRUST, Netflix’s Gentefied Is the Best American TV Show

about Gentrification  845 OLIVIA MAZZUCATO, Difficult-to-Follow Narrative Redeemed by Well-Executed

Comedy in The Lovebirds  215 MATTHEW MILLER, Frost’s Broken Roads   224 LIZ MOORE, Abuse of an Unnamed Wife: Is She Familiar?   860 BRIANNA SCHUNK, Come Look at the Freaks: Examining and Advocating for

Disability Theatre  171 KRITHIKA SHRINIVAS, Blanco and Hughes: Rivers and Identity   855 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809

ETHICS SARAH DZUBAY, An Outbreak of the Irrational   825 DIANA GEORGE, Changing the Face of Poverty   748 JAMES HAMBLIN, Living Simply in a Dumpster   922 JADA JONES, Black Mamas’ Lives Matter: The Severe Racial Disparity in

Maternal Mortality Rates   818 JOHNNA S. KELLER, The Politics of Stairs   960 NICHOLAS KRISTOF, Our Blind Spot about Guns   177 CHRISTIAN B. MILLER, Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?   258 RUSSELL MOBLEY, Justice or Murder?   977 LIZ MOORE, Abuse of an Unnamed Wife: Is She Familiar?   860   JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 BRIANNA SCHUNK, Come Look at the Freaks: Examining and Advocating for

Disability Theatre  171 DAVID SEDARIS, Us and Them   890 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809

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ETHNICITY AND RACE TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 RICHARD BLANCO, Complaint of El Río Grande   865 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s

Speech on Race   116 KELLY CORYELL, All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind

“All Lives Matter”   164 LANGSTON HUGHES, The Negro Speaks of Rivers   867 JADA JONES, Black Mamas’ Lives Matter: The Severe Racial Disparity in

Maternal Mortality Rates   818 IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist

Ideas in America  998 NICOLE MILES, Formation of a Caribbean Illustrator   726 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 JASON REYNOLDS AND IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism,

and You  1003 KRITHIKA SHRINIVAS, Blanco and Hughes: Rivers and Identity   855 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907

GENDER REYNA M. CORONADO, Women and American War Posters   774 ISABELLE GILL, Representation of Disney Princesses in the Media   759 CHARLOTTE PERKINS GILMAN, The Yellow Wallpaper   871   JADA JONES, Black Mamas’ Lives Matter: The Severe Racial Disparity in

Maternal Mortality Rates   818 EDAN LEPUCKI, Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them   986 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 JUDE ROMINES, A Patchwork Transition   990 LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History   737 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907

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GOVERNMENT AND POLITICS DANIELLE ALLEN, Our Declaration   111 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s

Speech on Race   116 SARAH DZUBAY, An Outbreak of the Irrational   825 ANDREAS GHABRIAL, ALANA HARDY, AND OGDEN PLAYGROUND COMMITTEE,

Proposal for Ogden Playground Project   966 TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG, At This Academy, the Curriculum Is Garbage   940

HEALTH, SCIENCE, AND TECHNOLOGY JAMI ATTENBERG, Is Resilience Overrated?   981 BRIAN DIEHL, Talking with Granddad   269 SARAH DZUBAY, An Outbreak of the Irrational   825 JASON HASLER, An Ancient Remedy Reexamined   786 TODD JONES, Rare Earth   281 JOHNNA S. KELLER, The Politics of Stairs   960 JUDE ROMINES, A Patchwork Transition   990 KATELYN ROOT, A Path to a Clearer Complexion   1007 RENAE TINGLING, Sleepless Nights of a University Student   140 ALEX WEISS, Should Gamers Be Prosecuted for Virtual Stealing?   809

HISTORY DANIELLE ALLEN, Our Declaration   111 MICHAEL CHABON, Kids’ Stuff   947 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s Speech on

Race  116 REYNA M. CORONADO, Women and American War Posters   774 IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist

Ideas in America  998 JASON REYNOLDS AND IBRAM X. KENDI, Stamped: Racism, Anti-Racism,

and You  1003 LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History   737

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HOME AND FAMILY TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 RICK BRAGG, All Over but the Shoutin’   236 BRIAN DIEHL, Talking with Granddad   269 JAMES HAMBLIN, Living Simply in a Dumpster   922 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY, Automotive Literacy  91 EDAN LEPUCKI, Our Mothers as We Never Saw Them   986 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 DAVID SEDARIS, Us and Them   890 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 CHALIN XIONG, Heaven Is a Place on Earth   935 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907

IDENTITY TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 SHAYNA COOK, Poor Shaming — But This Time in the School Cafeteria   813 KELLY CORYELL, All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind

“All Lives Matter”   164 KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ, Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY, Automotive Literacy  91 NICOLE MILES, Formation of a Caribbean Illustrator   726 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   913 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 JUDE ROMINES, A Patchwork Transition   990 TATIANA SCHLOSSBERG, At This Academy, the Curriculum Is Garbage   940 KRITHIKA SHRINIVAS, Blanco and Hughes: Rivers and Identity   855 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 LAUREL THATCHER ULRICH, Well-Behaved Women Seldom Make History   737 MALALA YOUSAFZAI, Who Is Malala?   907

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IMMIGRATION TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ, Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 ANTONIO DE LOERA-BRUST, Netflix’s Gentefied Is the Best American TV Show

about Gentrification  845 JUDITH ORTIZ COFER, The Myth of the Latin Woman   903 ANA PACHECO, Street Vendors: Harvest of Dreams   930 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719 CHALIN XIONG, Heaven Is a Place on Earth   935

LANGUAGE AND LITERACY DENNIS BARON, Don’t Make English Official — Ban It Instead   956 TANYA MARIA BARRIENTOS, Se Habla Español   715 RICK BRAGG, All Over but the Shoutin’   236 ROY PETER CLARK, Why It Worked: A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s

Speech on Race   116 KELLY CORYELL, All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind

“All Lives Matter”   164 RITA DOVE, The First Book   870 KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ, Reading, Writing, and Riding   85 LANGSTON HUGHES, Theme for English B   868 REA KARIM, Becoming an American Girl   81 ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY, Automotive Literacy  91 JOHNNA S. KELLER, The Politics of Stairs   960 NICOLE MILES, Formation of a Caribbean Illustrator   726 MATT DE LA PEÑA, Sometimes the “Tough Teen” Is Quietly Writing Stories   710 AMY TAN, Mother Tongue  719

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SIXTH EDITION

The Norton

Field Guide to Writing with Readings

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Part 1

Academic Literacies Whenever we enter a new community — start a new job, move to a new town, join a new club — there are certain things we need to learn. The same is true upon entering the academic world. We need to be able to read and write in certain ways. We’re routinely called on to summarize something we’ve heard or read and to respond in some way. And to succeed, we need to develop certain habits of mind  — everyday things such as asking questions and being

persistent. The following chapters provide guidelines to help you develop these fundamental academic literacies — and know what’s expected of you in academic communities.

1

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Academic Literacies 1 Writing in Academic Contexts   3 2 Reading in Academic Contexts   11 3 Summarizing and Responding   33 4 Developing Academic Habits of Mind   46

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1W riting in Academic Contexts

Write an essay arguing whether genes or environment do more to determine people’s intelligence. Research and write a report on the environmental effects of electricity-generating windmills. Work with a team to write a proposal and create a multimedia presentation for a sales campaign. Whatever you’re studying, you’re surely going to be doing a lot of writing, in classes from various disciplines — the above assignments, for example, are from psychology, environmental science, and marketing. Academic writing can serve a number of different purposes — to  argue  for what you think about a topic and why, to  report  on what’s known about an issue, to  propose a solution  for some problem, and so on. Whatever your topics or purposes, all academic writing follows certain conventions, ones you’ll need to master in order to join the conversations going on across campus. This chapter describes what’s expected of academic writing — and of academic writers.

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What’s Expected of Academic Writing Evidence that you’ve considered the subject thoughtfully.  Whether you’re composing a report, an argument, or some other kind of writing, you need to demonstrate that you’ve thought seriously about the topic and done any necessary research. You can use various ways to show that you’ve considered the subject carefully, from citing authoritative sources to incorporating information you learned in class to pointing out connections among ideas.

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An indication of why your topic matters.  You need to help your readers understand why your topic is worth exploring and why your writing is worth reading. Even if you are writing in response to an assigned topic, you can better make your point and achieve your purpose by showing your readers why your topic is important and why they should care about it. For example, in the prologue to Our Declaration, political philosopher Danielle Allen explains why her topic, the Declaration of Independence, is worth writing about: The Declaration of Independence matters because it helps us see that we cannot have freedom without equality. It is out of an egalitarian commitment that a people grows — a people that is capable of protecting us all collectively, and each of us individually, from domination. If the Declaration can stake a claim to freedom, it is only because it is so c­lear-eyed about the fact that the people’s strength resides in its equality. The Declaration also conveys another lesson of paramount importance. It is this: language is one of the most potent resources each of us has for achieving our own political empowerment. The men who wrote the Declaration of Independence grasped the power of words. This reveals itself in the laborious processes by which they brought the Declaration, and their revolution, into being. It shows itself forcefully, of course, in the text’s own eloquence.

By explaining that the topic matters because freedom and equality ­matter —  and language gives us the means for empowering ourselves — Allen gives ­readers reason to read her careful analysis.

A response to what others have said.   Whatever your topic, it’s unlikely that you’ll be the first one to write about it. And if, as this chapter assumes, all academic writing is part of a larger conversation, you are in a way adding your own voice to that conversation. One good way of doing that is to present your ideas as a response to what others have said about your topic — to begin by quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing what others have said and then to agree, disagree, or both.

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1 Writing in Academic Contexts

For example, in an essay arguing that the phrase “all lives matter” is manipulative, Diablo Valley College student Kelly Coryell says, “It should be acknowledged that some of those who used the phrase did so naively attempting to unify people in a time of division.” But then she responds — and disagrees, arguing that “The phrase ‘all lives matter’ belies the current racial inequality in America by implying that all lives are at equal risk.”

A clear, appropriately qualified thesis.   When you write in an academic context, you’re expected to state your main point explicitly, often in a  thesis statement . Kelly Coryell states her thesis clearly in her essay “All Words Matter: The Manipulation behind ‘All Lives Matter’”: “Saying ‘all lives matter’ as a response to “Black lives matter” is, in reality, sending a dangerous message: it steals attention from the systematic oppression of Black Americans and actively distorts the message behind the BLM movement, manipulating the American people into maintaining the oppressive status quo.” Often you’ll need to  qualify  your thesis statement to acknowledge that the subject is complicated and there may be more than one way of seeing it or exceptions to the generalization you’re making about it. Here, for example, is a qualified thesis, from an essay evaluating the movie The Lovebirds by Olivia Mazzucato, a student at UCLA: “Though the film’s story gets convoluted, Rae and Nanjiani are able to salvage the muddy plot with their razor-sharp comedic wit and hilarious chemistry.” Mazzucato makes a claim that The Lovebirds achieves success, while acknowledging at the beginning of the sentence that the film’s plot is flawed.

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Good reasons supported by evidence.   You need to provide good reasons for your thesis and evidence to support those reasons. For example, Kelly Coryell offers several reasons why saying “all lives matter” as a response to “Black lives matter” sends a dangerous message: systemic racism disproportionately affects the Black community and “Black lives matter” does not mean “only” Black lives matter, but that Black lives need to matter as much as White lives. Evidence to support your reasons sometimes comes

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from your own experience but more often from published research and scholarship, research you do yourself, or firsthand accounts by others. Compared with other kinds of writing, academic writing is generally expected to be more objective and less emotional. You may find Romeo and Juliet deeply moving or cry when you watch A Dog’s Journey — but when you write about the play or the film for a class, you must do so using evidence from the text to support your thesis. You may find someone’s ideas deeply offensive, but you should respond to them with reason rather than with emotional appeals or personal attacks.

Acknowledgment of multiple perspectives.  Debates and arguments in popular media are often framed in “pro/con” terms, as if there were only two sides to any given issue. Once you begin seriously studying a topic, though, you’re likely to find that there are several sides and that each of them deserves serious consideration. In your academic writing, you need to represent fairly the range of perspectives on your topic — to explore three, four, or more positions on it as you research and write. For example, in her report, “Sleepless Nights of a University Student,” Drexel University student Renae Tingling examines sleep deprivation in several ways: through academic research, a survey of students, and a personal sleep-deprivation experiment. A confident, authoritative stance.   If one goal of academic writing is to contribute to a larger conversation, your tone should convey confidence and establish your authority to write about your subject. Ways to achieve such a tone include using active verbs (“X claims” rather than “it seems”), avoiding such phrases as “in my opinion” and “I think,” and writing in a straightforward, direct style. Your writing should send the message that you’ve done the research, analysis, and thinking and know what you’re talking about. For example, here is the first paragraph of Wilkes University student Brianna Schunk’s essay advocating for the casting of actors with disabilities in the roles of characters with disabilities:

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When I first saw Gaten Matarazzo in the TV show Stranger Things and some of the first words out of his toothless little mouth were, “I have cleidocranial dysplasia,” I actually cried with joy. Until then, I had never seen another human not related to my family who had cleidocranial dysplasia on television in a popular TV show. I was so shocked, I made my friend rewind the episode so I could hear him say it again. Having cleidocranial dysplasia myself, it is so much easier to be able to compare myself to Matarazzo when explaining my condition to other people, and I only wish he could have come into my life earlier. Representation  —  how we portray ourselves and are portrayed by others — is incredibly important to all groups of people, but especially to people with disabilities.

Schunk’s use of vivid language (“toothless little mouth,” “I was so shocked”) and her strong final sentence (“Representation . . . is incredibly important to all groups of people, but especially to people with disabilities”) lend her writing a confident tone. Her stance sends the message that she knows what she’s talking about.

Carefully documented sources.   Clearly acknowledging sources and documenting them carefully and correctly is a basic requirement of academic writing. When you use the words or ideas of others — including visuals, video, or audio — those sources must be documented in the text and in a works-cited or references list at the end. (If you’re writing something that will appear online, you may also refer readers to your sources by using hyperlinks in the text; ask your instructor if you need to include a list of references or works cited as well.) Careful attention to correctness.   Whether you’re writing something formal or informal, in an essay or an email, you should always write in complete sentences, use appropriate capitalization and punctuation, and check that your spelling is correct. In general, academic writing is no place for colloquial language, slang, or texting abbreviations. If you’re quoting someone,

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you can reproduce that person’s writing or speech exactly, but in your own writing you try hard to be correct — and always proofread carefully.

What’s Expected of College Writers: The WPA Outcomes Writing is not a multiple-choice test; it doesn’t have right and wrong answers that are easily graded. Instead, your readers, whether they’re teachers or anyone else, are likely to read your writing with various questions in mind: does it make sense, does it meet the demands of the assignment, is the grammar correct, to name just a few of the things readers may look for. Different readers may notice different things, so sometimes it may seem to you that their response — and your grade — is unpredictable. It should be good to know, then, that writing teachers across the nation have come to some agreement on certain “outcomes,” what college students should know and be able to do by the time they finish a first-year writing course. These outcomes have been defined by the National Council of Writing Program Administrators (WPA). Here’s a brief summary of these outcomes and how The Norton Field Guide can help you meet them:

Knowledge of Rhetoric • Understand the rhetorical situation of texts that you read and write. See Chapters 5–9 and the many prompts for Considering the Rhetorical Situation throughout the book. • Read and write texts in a number of different genres, and understand how your purpose may influence your writing. See Chapters 10–22 for guidelines on writing in twelve genres and remixing what you write in one genre to another. • Adjust your voice, tone, level of formality, design, and medium as is necessary and appropriate. See Chapter 8 on stance and tone and Chapter 9 for help thinking about medium and design. • Choose the media that will best suit your audience, purpose, and the rest of your rhetorical situation. See Chapters 9 and 55.

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Critical Thinking, Reading, and Composing • R ead and write to inquire, learn, think critically, and communicate. See Chapters 1 and 2 on academic writing and reading, and Chapter 27 on writing as inquiry. Chapters 10–22 provide genre-specific prompts to help you think critically about a draft. • R ead for content, argumentative strategies, and rhetorical effectiveness. Chapter 2 provides guidance on reading texts with a critical eye, Chapter 11 teaches how to analyze a text, and Chapter 48 shows how to evaluate sources. • F ind and evaluate popular and scholarly sources. Chapter 47 teaches how to use databases and other methods to find sources, and Chapter 48 shows how to evaluate the sources you find. • Use sources in various ways to support your ideas. Chapter 37 suggests strategies for supporting your ideas, and Chapter 50 shows how to incorporate ideas from sources into your writing to support your ideas.

Processes • U se writing processes to compose texts and explore ideas in various media. Part 5 covers all stages of the processes writers use, from generating ideas and text to drafting, getting response and revising, and editing and proofreading. Each of the thirteen genre chapters (10–22) in Part 3 includes a guide that leads you through the process of writing in that genre or remixing your writing into another genre. • Collaborate with others on your own writing and on group tasks. Chapter 4 offers guidelines for working with others, Chapter 32 provides general prompts for getting and giving response , and Chapters 10–22 provide genre-specific prompts for reading a draft with a critical eye. • Reflect on your own writing processes. Chapters 10–22 provide genrespecific questions to help you take stock of your work, and Chapter 31 offers guidance in thinking about your own writing process. Chapter 34 provides prompts to help you reflect on a writing portfolio.

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Knowledge of Conventions • U se correct grammar, punctuation, and spelling. Chapter 33 provides tips to help you edit and proofread your writing. Chapters 10–22 offer genre-specific advice for editing and proofreading. • U nderstand and use genre conventions and formats in your writing. Chapter 7 provides an overview of genres and how to think about them. Part 3 covers twelve genres, describing the key features and conventions of each one, and includes one chapter on remixes. • U nderstand intellectual property and document sources appropriately. Chapter 51 offers guidance on the ethical use of sources, Chapter 52 provides an overview of documentation styles, and Chapters 53 and 54 provide templates for documenting in MLA and APA styles.

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2R eading in Academic Contexts

We read news sites to know about the events of the day. We read textbooks to learn about history, chemistry, and other academic topics — and other academic sources to do research and develop arguments. We read tweets and blogs to follow (and participate in) conversations about issues that interest us. And as writers, we read our own writing to make sure it says what we mean it to say and proofread our final drafts to make sure they say it the way we intended. In other words, we read many kinds of texts for many different purposes. This chapter offers a number of strategies for various kinds of reading you do in academic contexts.

TAKING STOCK OF YOUR READING One way to become a better reader is to understand your reading process; if you know what you do when you read, you’re in a position to decide what you need to change or improve. Consider the answers to the following questions: • What do you read for pleasure? for work? for school? Consider all the sorts of reading you do: books, magazines, and newspapers, websites, Facebook, texts, blogs, product instructions. • When you’re facing a reading assignment, what do you do? Do you do certain things to get comfortable? Do you play music or seek quiet? Do you plan your reading time or set reading goals for yourself? Do you flip through or skim the text before settling down to read it, or do you start at the beginning and work through it? • When you begin to read something for an assignment, do you make sure you understand the purpose of the assignment — why you must

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read this text? Do you ever ask your instructor (or whoever else assigned the reading) what its purpose is? • How do you motivate yourself to read material you don’t have any interest in? How do you deal with boredom while reading? • Does your mind wander? If you realize that you haven’t been paying attention and don’t know what you just read, what do you do? • Do you ever highlight, underline, or annotate text as you read? Do you take notes? If so, what do you mark or write down? Why? • When you read text you don’t understand, what do you do? • As you anticipate and read an assigned text, what attitudes or feelings do you typically have? If they differ from reading to reading, why do they? • What do you do when you’ve finished reading an assigned text? Write out notes? Think about what you’ve just read? Move on to the next task? Something else? • How well do your reading processes work for you, both in school and otherwise? What would you like to change? What can you do to change? The rest of this chapter offers advice and strategies that you may find helpful as you work to improve your reading skills.

READING STRATEGICALLY Academic reading is challenging because it makes several demands on you at once. Textbooks present new vocabulary and new concepts, and picking out the main ideas can be difficult. Scholarly articles present content and arguments you need to understand, but they often assume that readers already know key concepts and vocabulary and so don’t generally provide background information. As you read more texts in an academic field and begin to participate in its conversations, the reading will become easier, but in the meantime you can develop strategies that will help you read effectively.

Thinking about What You Want to Learn To learn anything, we need to place new information into the context of what we already know. For example, to understand photosynthesis, we

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need to already know something about plants, energy, and oxygen, among other things. To learn a new language, we draw on similarities and differences between it and any other languages we know. A method of bringing to conscious attention our current knowledge on a topic and of helping us articulate our purposes for reading is a list-making process called KWL+. To use it, create a table with three columns: K: What I Know

W: What I Want to Know

L: What I Learned

Before you begin reading a text, list in the “K” column what you already know about the topic. Brainstorm ideas, and list terms or phrases that come to mind. Then group them into categories. Also before reading, or after reading the first few paragraphs, list in the “W” column questions you have that you expect, want, or hope to be answered as you read. Number or reorder the questions by their importance to you. Then, as you read the text or afterward, list in the “L” column what you learned from the text. Compare your “L” list with your “W” list to see what you still want or need to know (the “+”) — and what you learned that you didn’t expect.

Previewing the Text It’s usually a good idea to start by skimming a text — read the title and subtitle, any headings, the first and last paragraphs, the first sentences of all the other paragraphs. Study any illustrations and other visuals. Your goal is to get a sense of where the text is heading. At this point, don’t stop to look up unfamiliar words; just mark them in some way to look up later.

Adjusting Your Reading Speed to Different Texts Different texts require different kinds of effort. Some that are simple and straightforward can be skimmed fairly quickly. With academic texts, though, you usually need to read more slowly and carefully, matching the pace of your reading to the difficulty of the text. You’ll likely need to skim the text for an overview of the basic ideas and then go back to read

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it closely. And then you may need to read it yet again. (But do try always to read quickly enough to focus on the meanings of sentences and paragraphs, not just individual words.) With visual texts, too, you’ll often need to look at them several times, moving from gaining an overall impression to closely examining the structure, layout, and other visual features — and exploring how those features relate to any accompanying verbal text.

Looking for Organizational Cues As you read, look for cues that signal the way the text’s ideas are organized and how each part relates to the ones around it.

The introductory paragraph and thesis  often offer a preview of the topics to be discussed and the order in which they will be addressed. Here, for example, is a typical thesis statement for a report: Types of prisons in the United States include minimum and medium security, close security, maximum security, and supermax. The report that follows should explain each type of prison in the order stated in the thesis. 361-62

Transitions help  guide readers  in following the direction of the writer’s thinking from idea to idea. For example, “however” indicates an idea that contradicts or limits what has just been said, while “furthermore” indicates one that adds to or supports it. Headings  identify a text’s major and minor sections, by means of both the headings’ content and their design.

Thinking about Your Initial Response Some readers find it helps to make brief notes about their first response to a text, noting their reaction and thinking a little about why they reacted as they did.

What are your initial reactions?   Describe both your intellectual reaction and any emotional reaction, and identify places in the text that caused you to react as you did. An intellectual reaction might consist of an evaluation (“I disagree with this position because . . .”), a connection (“This idea

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reminds me of . . .”), or an elaboration (“Another example of this point is . . .”). An emotional reaction could include approval or disapproval (“YES! This is exactly right!” “NO! This is so wrong!”), an expression of feeling (“This passage makes me so sad”), or one of appreciation (“This is said so beautifully”). If you had no particular reaction, note that, too.

What accounts for your reactions?  Are they rooted in personal experiences? aspects of your personality? positions you hold on an issue? As much as possible, you want to keep your opinions from interfering with your understanding of what you’re reading, so it’s important to try to identify those opinions up front.

Dealing with Difficult Texts Let’s face it: some texts are difficult. You may have no interest in the subject matter, or lack background knowledge or vocabulary necessary for understanding the text, or simply not have a clear sense of why you have to read the text at all. Whatever the reason, reading such texts can be a challenge. Here are some tips for dealing with them:

Look for something familiar.  Texts often seem difficult or boring because we don’t know enough about the topic or about the larger conversation surrounding it to read them effectively. By skimming the headings, the abstract or introduction, and the conclusion, you may find something that relates to something you already know or are at least interested in — and being aware of that prior knowledge can help you see how this new material relates to it.

Look for “landmarks.”   Reading a challenging academic text the first time through can be like driving to an unfamiliar destination on roads you’ve never traveled: you don’t know where you’re headed, you don’t recognize anything along the way, and you’re not sure how long getting there will take. As you drive the route again, though, you see landmarks along the way that help you know where you’re going. The same goes for reading a difficult text: sometimes you need to get through it once just to get some idea of what it’s about. On the second reading, now that you have “driven

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the route,” look for the ways that the parts of the text relate to one another, to other texts or course information, or to other knowledge you have.

Monitor your understanding.   You may have had the experience of reading a text and suddenly realizing that you have no idea what you just read. Being able to monitor your reading — to sense when you aren’t understanding the text and need to reread, focus your attention, look up unfamiliar terms, take some notes, or take a break — can make you a more efficient and better reader. Keep these questions in mind as you read: What is my purpose for reading this text? Am I understanding it? Does it make sense? Should I slow down, reread, annotate? skim ahead and then come back? pause to reflect? Be persistent.  Research shows that many students respond to difficult texts by assuming they’re “too dumb to get it” — and quitting reading. Successful students, on the other hand, report that if they keep at a text, they will come to understand it. Some of them even see difficult texts as challenges: “I’m going to keep working on this until I make sense of it.” Remember that reading is an active process, and the more you work at it the more successful you will be.

Annotating Many readers find it helps to annotate as they read: highlighting keywords, phrases, sentences; connecting ideas with lines or symbols; writing comments or questions in the margin or on sticky notes; circling new words so you can look up the definitions later; noting anything that seems noteworthy or questionable. Annotating forces you to read for more than just the surface meaning. Especially when you are going to be writing about or responding to a text, annotating creates a record of things you may want to refer to. Annotate as if you’re having a conversation with the author, someone you take seriously but whose words you do not accept without question. Put your part of the conversation in the margin, asking questions, talking back: “What’s this mean?” “So what?” “Says who?” “Where’s evior or texting shorthand like LOL or dence?” “Yes!” “Whoa!” or even INTRSTN. If you’re reading a text online, you can use a digital annotation

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tool like Hypothes.is or Diigo to highlight portions of the text and make notes ­electronically — and even share your annotations with others. What you annotate depends on your  purpose  , or what you’re most interested in. If you’re analyzing a text that makes an explicit argument, you would probably underline the  thesis statement   and then the  reasons  and  evidence  that support that statement. It might help to restate those ideas in your own words in the margins — in order to understand them, you need to put them in your own words! If you’re trying to  identify patterns  , you might highlight each pattern in a different color or mark it with a sticky note and write any questions or notes about it in that color. You might annotate a visual text by circling and identifying important parts of the image. There are some texts that you cannot annotate, like library books. Then you will need to use sticky notes or make notes elsewhere, and you might find it useful to keep a reading log for this purpose.

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Coding You may also find it useful to record your thoughts as you read by using a coding system — for example, using “X” to indicate passages that contradict your assumptions, or “?” for ones that puzzle you. You can make up your own coding system, of course, but you could start with this one*: ✔ Confirms what you thought   X Contradicts what you thought   ? Puzzles you ?? Confuses you   !

Surprises you

✩ Strikes you as important ➔ Is new or interesting to you

You might also circle new words that you’ll want to look up later and highlight or underline key phrases. *Adapted from Harvey Daniels and Steven Zemelman, Subjects Matter: Every Teacher’s Guide to Content-Area Reading (Heinemann, 2004).

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A Sample Annotated Text   Here is an excerpt from Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?, a book by Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel, annotated by a writer who was doing research for a report on the awarding of military medals: What Wounds Deserve the Purple Heart?

✔

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PTSD increasingly common among veterans.

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Argument: Vets with PTSD should be eligible for PH because psych. injuries are as serious as physical.

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No PH for PTSD vets? Seems unfair!

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Argument: PTSD is like punctured eardrums, which do get the PH.

•

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On some issues, questions of virtue and honor are too obvious to deny. Consider the recent debate over who should qualify for the Purple Heart. Since 1932, the U.S. military has awarded the medal to soldiers wounded or killed in battle by enemy action. In addition to the honor, the medal entitles recipients to special privileges in veterans’ hospitals. Since the beginning of the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, growing numbers of veterans have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder and treated for the condition. Symptoms include recurring nightmares, severe depression, and suicide. At least three hundred thousand veterans reportedly suffer from traumatic stress or major depression. Advocates for these veterans have proposed that they, too, should qualify for the Purple Heart. Since psychological injuries can be at least as debilitating as physical ones, they argue, soldiers who suffer these wounds should receive the medal. After a Pentagon advisory group studied the question, the Pentagon announced, in 2009, that the Purple Heart would be reserved for soldiers with physical injuries. Veterans suffering from mental disorders and psychological trauma would not be eligible, even though they qualify for government-supported medical treatment and disability payments. The Pentagon offered two reasons for its decision: traumatic stress disorders are not intentionally caused by enemy action, and they are difficult to diagnose objectively. Did the Pentagon make the right decision? Taken by themselves, its reasons are unconvincing. In the Iraq War, one of the most common injuries recognized with the Purple Heart has been a punctured eardrum, caused by explosions at close range. But unlike bullets and bombs, such explosions are not a deliberate enemy tactic intended to injure or kill; they are (like traumatic stress) a damaging side effect of

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battlefield action. And while traumatic disorders may be more difficult to diagnose than a broken limb, the injury they inflict can be more severe and long-lasting. As the wider debate about the Purple Heart revealed, the realissue is about the meaning of the medal and the virtues it honors. What, then, are the relevant virtues? Unlike other military medals, the Purple Heart honors sacrifice, not bravery. It requires no heroic act, only an injury inflicted by the enemy. The question is what kind of injury should count. A veteran’s group called the Military Order of the Purple Heart opposed awarding the medal for psychological injuries, claiming that doing so would “debase” the honor. A spokesman for the group stated that “shedding blood” should be an essential qualification. He didn’t explain why bloodless injuries shouldn’t count. But Tyler E. Boudreau, a former Marine captain who favors including psychological injuries, offers a compelling analysis of the dispute. He attributes the opposition to a deep-seated attitude in the military that views post-traumatic stress as a kind of weakness. “The same culture that demands toughmindedness also encourages skepticism toward the suggestion that the violence of war can hurt the healthiest of minds. . . . Sadly, as long as our military culture bears at least a quiet contempt for the psychological wounds of war, it is unlikely those veterans will ever see a Purple Heart.” So the debate overthe Purple Heart is more than a medical or clinical dispute about how to determine the veracity of injury. At the heart of the disagreement are rival conceptions of moral character and military valor. Those who insist that only bleeding wounds should count believe that post-traumatic stress reflects a weakness of character unworthy of honor. Those who believe that psychological wounds should qualify argue that veterans suffering long-term trauma and severe depression have sacrificed for their country as surely, and as honorably, as those who’ve lost a limb. The dispute over the Purple Heart illustrates the moral logic of Aristotle’s theory of justice. We can’t determine who deserves a military medal without asking what virtues the medal properly honors. And to answer that question, we have to assess competing conceptions of character and sacrifice.

•

PH “honors sacrifice, not bravery.” Injury enough. So what kind of injury?

•

Wow: one vet’s group insists that for PH, soldier must bleed!

•

•

✩

Argument based on different ideas about what counts as a military virtue.

 — Michael J. Sandel, Justice: What’s the Right Thing to Do?

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Summarizing Writing a summary, boiling down a text to its main ideas, can help you understand it. To do so, you need to identify which ideas in the text are crucial to its meaning. Then you put those crucial ideas into your own words, creating a brief version that accurately sums up the text. Here, for example, is a summary of Sandel’s analysis of the Purple Heart debate: In “What Wounds Deserve the Purple Heart?,” Harvard professor Michael J. Sandel explores the debate over eligibility for the Purple Heart, the medal given to soldiers who die or are wounded in battle. Some argue that soldiers suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder should qualify for the medal because psychological injuries are as serious as physical ones. However, the military disagrees, since PTSD injuries are not “intentionally caused by enemy action” and are hard to diagnose. Sandel observes that the dispute centers on how “character” and “sacrifice” are defined. Those who insist that soldiers must have had physical wounds to be eligible for the Purple Heart see psychological wounds as reflecting “weakness of character,” while others argue that veterans with PTSD and other psychological traumas have sacrificed honorably for their country.

READING CRITICALLY When we read critically, we apply our analytical skills in order to engage with a text to determine not only what a text says but also what it means and how it works. The following strategies can help you read texts critically.

Believing and Doubting 334–35 333–34

One way to develop a response to a text is to play the believing and doubting game, sometimes called reading with and against the grain. Your goal is to  list  or  freewrite  notes as you read, writing out as many reasons as you can think of for believing what the writer says (reading with the grain) and then as many as you can for doubting it (reading against the grain). First, try to look at the world through the writer’s perspective. Try to understand their reasons for arguing as they do, even if you strongly disagree. Then reread the text, trying to doubt everything in it: try to find every flaw in the argument, every possible way it can be refuted — even if you

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totally agree with it. Developed by writing theorist Peter Elbow, the believing and doubting game helps you consider new ideas and question ideas you already have — and at the same time see where you stand in relation to the ideas in the text you’re reading.

Thinking about How the Text Works: What It Says, What It Does Sometimes you’ll need to think about how a text works, how its parts fit together. You may be assigned to analyze a text, or you may just need to make sense of a difficult text, to think about how the ideas all relate to one another. Whatever your purpose, a good way to think about a text structure is by  outlining  it, paragraph by paragraph. If you’re interested in analyzing its ideas, look at what each paragraph says; if, however, you’re concerned with how the ideas are presented, pay attention to what each paragraph does.

340–42

What it says.   Write a sentence that identifies what each paragraph says. Once you’ve done that for the whole text, look for patterns in the topics the writer addresses. Pay attention to the order in which the topics are presented. Also look for gaps — ideas the writer has left unsaid. Such paragraph-by-paragraph outlining of the content can help you see how the writer has arranged ideas and how that arrangement builds an argument or develops a topic. Here, for example, is an outline of Christian B. Miller’s proposal, “Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?” (see p. 258). The numbers in the left column refer to the essay’s paragraphs. 1

To give exams in online classes is to invite cheating.

2

Papers are good ways to assess learning in philosophy courses but not in the sciences and other fields, so what can be done to deter cheating on exams in online courses?

3

Remote proctoring using tools that monitor the students and their web browsing is one solution, but it assumes that students are dishonest, may infringe on students’ privacy, and may be racially biased.

4

A better solution is to extend to online learning honor pledges, which reduce cheating and promote honesty by allowing students to choose not to cheat.

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5

Honor pledges and codes can have problems: they may only be instituted for public relations reasons, they may be imposed on faculty and students by administrators, or they may be given lip service but mostly ignored.

6

However, empirical research studies show that cheating is much less common at schools at all levels that take honor codes seriously.

7

Two researchers found that cheating of various types, including plagiarism, crib notes, help with test answers, and other forms of unauthorized help, were all done much less at schools with honor codes than at schools without them.

8

The researchers emphasized that students must be seriously committed to the honor code for it to work.

9

A few schools hold a ceremony at which the students pledge to uphold the code and may also require that the code be affirmed on every assignment.

10

Research as well as our experience in life shows that most people will cheat if they think it will go undetected; but at the same time most people consider themselves honest and know that it’s wrong to cheat, even if they sometimes are tempted to do so. A way to create a moral reminder of those basic values is to ask students to sign an honor code.

11

Another research study paid students taking a difficult test money for each correct answer. One group was graded by the researchers, a second group graded themselves, and a third group also graded themselves — but signed an honor pledge before taking the test. Some in the second group cheated by inflating their scores, but no one in the third group did.

12

The research done in face-to-face class environments shows that honor codes work, but their results should be extended to online instruction as well.

13

Honor codes are not a perfect solution, as some “deeply dishonest” students will cheat no matter what; but research and teachers’ experience agree that most students, with moral reminders through honor pledges, will behave with honesty.

What it does.  Identify the function of each paragraph. Starting with the first paragraph, ask, What does this paragraph do? Does it introduce

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a topic? provide background for a topic to come? describe something? define something? entice me to read further? something else? What does the second paragraph do? the third? As you go through the text, you may identify groups of paragraphs that have a single purpose. Here is a functional outline of Miller’s essay (again, the numbers on the left refer to the paragraphs): 1

Introduces the topic by defining a problem; author establishes credibility

2

Describes a flawed solution

3

Describes a second flawed solution

4

States the thesis; introduces a recommended solution

5

Describes potential problems with this solution

6

Offers a reason for adopting the solution

7

Presents evidence: describes a research study’s results

8

Outlines what the proposed solution requires to be successful

9

Describes how the proposed solution is implemented

10

Offers another reason: summarizes how the proposed solution achieves its purpose

11

Presents evidence: describes a research study that shows the solution’s effectiveness

12

Concludes with a call to action

13

Acknowledges and refutes a counterargument to the proposal

Identifying Patterns Look for notable patterns in the text — recurring words and their synonyms, as well as repeated phrases, metaphors and other images, and types of sentences. Some readers find it helps to highlight patterns in various colors. Does the author repeatedly rely on any particular writing strategies:  narration ?  comparison ? Something else? Another kind of pattern that might be important to consider is the kind of evidence the text provides. Is it more opinion than facts? nothing but statistics? If many sources are cited, is the information presented in

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474–82 437–44

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542–54

any patterns — as  quotations ?  paraphrases ?  summaries ? Are there repeated references to certain experts or sources? In visual texts, look for patterns of color, shape, and line. What’s in the foreground, and what’s in the background? What’s completely visible, partly visible, or hidden? In both verbal and visual texts, look for omissions and anomalies: What isn’t there that you would expect to find? Is there anything that doesn’t really fit in? If you discover patterns, then you need to consider what, if anything, they mean in terms of what the writer is saying. What do they reveal about the writer’s underlying premises and beliefs? What do they tell you about the writer’s strategies for persuading readers to accept the truth of what they are saying? See how color-coding an essay by New York Times columnist William Safire on the meaning of the Gettysburg Address reveals several patterns in the language Safire uses. In this excerpt from the essay, which was published just before the first anniversary of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Safire develops his analysis through several patterns. Religious references are colored yellow ; references to a “national spirit,” green ; references to life, death, and rebirth, blue ; and places where Safire directly addresses the reader, gray . But the selection of this poetic political sermon as the oratorical centerpiece of our observance need not be only an exercise. . . . Now, as then, a national spirit rose from the ashes of destruction. Here is how to listen to Lincoln’s all-too-familiar speech with new ears. In those 266 words, you will hear the word dedicate five times. . . . Those five pillars of dedication rested on a fundament of religious metaphor. From a president not known for his piety — indeed, often criticized for his supposed lack of faith — came a speech rooted in the theme of national resurrection . The speech is grounded in conception , birth, death, and rebirth . Consider the barrage of images of birth in the opening sentence. . . . Finally, the nation’s spirit rises from this scene of death : “that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom.” Conception , birth, death, rebirth . The nation, purified in this fiery trial of war, is resurrected . Through the sacrifice of its sons, the sundered nation would be reborn as one. . . .

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Do not listen on Sept. 11 only to Lincoln’s famous words and comforting cadences. Think about how Lincoln’s message encompasses but goes beyond paying “fitting and proper” respect to the dead and the bereaved . His sermon at Gettysburg reminds “us the living” of our “unfinished work” and “the great task remaining before us” — to resolve that this generation’s response to the deaths of thousands of our people leads to “a new birth of freedom.”

The color coding helps us to see patterns in Safire’s language, just as Safire reveals patterns in Lincoln’s words. He offers an interpretation of Lincoln’s address as a “poetic political sermon,” and the words he uses throughout support that interpretation. At the end, he repeats the assertion that Lincoln’s address is a sermon, inviting us to consider it differently. Safire’s repeated commands (“Consider,” “Do not listen,” “Think about”) offer additional insight into how he wishes to position himself in relation to his readers.

READING RHETORICALLY To read academic texts effectively, you need to look beyond the words on the page or screen to the  rhetorical context  of the text and the argument it makes. Academic texts — both the ones you read and the ones you write — are parts of ongoing scholarly conversations, in which writers respond to the ideas and assertions of others in order to advance knowledge. To enter those conversations, you must first read carefully and critically to understand the rhetorical situation, the larger context within which a writer wrote, and the argument the text makes.

125–26

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a reader, you need to think about the message that the writer wants to articulate, including the intended audience and the writer’s attitude toward that audience and the topic, as well as about the genre, medium, and design of the text.

purpose

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hat is the writer’s purpose? To entertain? inform? perW suade readers to think something or take some action? What is your purpose for reading this text?

59–60

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61–64

audience

ho is the intended audience? Are you a member of that W group? If not, should you expect that you’ll need to look up unfamiliar terms or concepts or that you’ll run into assumptions you don’t necessarily share? How is the writer addressing the audience — as an expert addressing those less knowledgeable? as an outsider addressing insiders?

65–71

genre

hat is the genre? Is it a report? an argument? an analyW sis? something else? Knowing the genre can help you to anticipate certain key features.

72–74

stance

ho is the writer, and what is their stance? Critical? W Curious? Opinionated? Objective? Passionate? Indifferent? Something else? Knowing the stance affects the way you understand a text, whether you’re inclined to agree or disagree with it, to take it seriously, and so on.

75–77

media  / design What is the medium, and how does it affect the way you read? If it’s a print text, what do you know about the publisher? If it’s on the web, who sponsors the site, and when was it last updated? Are there any headings, summaries, or other elements that highlight key parts of the text?

Analyzing the Argument All texts make some kind of argument, claiming something and then offering reasons and evidence as support for any claim. As a critical reader, you need to look closely at the argument a text makes — to recognize all the claims it makes, consider the support it offers for those claims, and decide how you want to respond. What do you think, and why? Here are some questions to consider when analyzing an argument:

347–49 5 413–14 414–22

• What claim is the text making? What is the writer’s main point? Is it stated as a  thesis  or only implied? Is it limited or  qualified  somehow? If not, should it have been? • How is the claim supported? What  reasons  does the writer provide for the claim, and what  evidence  is given for the reasons? What kind of

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evidence is it? Facts? Statistics? Examples? Expert opinions? Images? How convincing do you find the reasons and evidence? Is there enough evidence? • W hat appeals besides logical ones are used? Does the writer appeal to readers’  emotions ? try to establish  common ground ? demonstrate their  credibility  as trustworthy and knowledgeable? How successful are these appeals?

426–27

• Are any  counterarguments  acknowledged? If so, are they presented accurately and respectfully? Does the writer concede any value to them or try to refute them? How successfully does the writer deal with them?

424–25

424 423–26

• What outside sources of information does the writer cite? What kinds of sources are they, and how credible do they seem? Are they current and authoritative? How well do they support the argument? • Do you detect any  fallacies ? Fallacies are arguments that involve faulty reasoning. Because they often seem plausible, they can be persuasive. It is important, therefore, that you question the legitimacy of such reasoning when you run across it.

427–29

Considering the Larger Context All texts are part of ongoing conversations with other texts that have dealt with the same topic. An essay arguing for an assault-weapons ban is part of an ongoing conversation on gun legislation, which is itself part of a conversation on individual rights and responsibilities. Academic texts document their sources in part to show their relationship to the ongoing scholarly conversation on a particular topic. In fact, anytime you’re reading to learn, you’re probably reading for some larger context. Whatever your reading goals, being aware of that larger context can help you better understand what you’re reading. Here are some specific aspects of the text to pay attention to:

Who else cares about this topic?   Especially when you’re reading in order to learn about a topic, the texts you read will often reveal which people or groups are part of the conversation — and might be sources of further reading. For example, an essay describing the formation of Mammoth Cave in Kentucky could be of interest to geologists, cave explorers, travel writers, or tourists. If you’re reading such an essay while doing research on the cave, you

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should consider how the audience to whom the writer is writing determines the nature of the information provided — and its suitability as a source for your research.

What conversations is this text part of?   Does the text refer to any concepts or ideas that give you some sense that it’s part of a larger conversation? An argument on airport security measures, for example, is part of larger conversations about government response to terrorism, the limits of freedom in a democracy, and the possibilities of using technology to detect weapons and explosives, among others.

What terms does the writer use?   Do any terms or specialized language reflect the writer’s allegiance to a particular group or academic discipline? If you run across words like false consciousness, ideology, and hegemony, for example, you might guess that the text was written by a Marxist scholar. What other writers or sources does the writer cite?   Do the other writers have a particular academic specialty, belong to an identifiable intellectual school, share similar political leanings? If an article on politics cites Paul Krugman and Gail Collins in support of its argument, you might assume that the writer holds liberal opinions; if it cites Ross Douthat and Jennifer Rubin, the writer is likely a conservative.

READING VISUAL TEXTS Photos, drawings, graphs, diagrams, and charts are frequently used to help convey important information and often make powerful arguments themselves. So learning to read and interpret visual texts is just as necessary as it is for written texts.

Taking visuals seriously.  Remember that visuals are texts themselves, not just decoration. When they appear as part of a written text, they may introduce information not discussed elsewhere in the text. Or they might illustrate concepts hard to grasp from words alone. In either case, it’s important to pay close attention to any visuals in a written text.

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29

Looking at any title, caption, or other written text that’s part of a visual will help you understand its main idea. It might also help to think about its purpose: Why did the writer include it? What information does it add or emphasize? What argument is it making? See, for example, how a psychology textbook uses visuals to help explain two ways that information can be represented: Analogical and Symbolic Representations When we think about information, we use two basic types of internal representations: analogical and symbolic. Analogical representations usually correspond to images. They have some characteristics of actual objects. Therefore, they are analogous to actual objects. For example, maps correspond to geographical layouts. Family trees depict branching relationships between relatives. A clock corresponds directly to the passage of time. Figure 2.1a is a drawing of a violin from a particular perspective. This drawing is an analogical representation. Figure 2.1 Analogical versus Symbolic Representations

(a)

(b)

Violin (a) Analogical representations, such as this picture of a violin, have some characteristics of the objects they represent. (b) Symbolic representations, such as the word “violin,” are abstract and do not have relationships to the physical qualities of objects.

By contrast, symbolic representations are abstract. These representations usually consist of words or ideas. They do not have relationships to physical qualities of objects in the world. The word “hamburger” is a symbolic representation that usually represents a cooked patty of beef served on a bun. The word “violin” stands for a musical instrument (Figure 2.1b). — Sarah Grison, Todd Heatherton, and Michael Gazzaniga, Psychology in Your Life

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The headings tell you the topic: analogical and symbolic representations. The paragraphs define the two types of representation, and the illustrations present a visual example of each type. The visuals make the information in the written text easier to understand by illustrating the differences between the two.

Reading charts and graphs.   To read the information in charts and graphs, you need to look for different things depending on what type of chart or graph you’re considering. A line graph, for example, usually contains certain elements: title, legend or clearly labeled parts, x axis (horizontal), y axis (vertical), and source information. Figure 2.2 shows one such graph taken from a sociology textbook.

Title: Indicates the topic.

•

Figure 2.2  Mean Household Income by Income Group, 1967–2018 $450,000 Top 5% $400,000

MEAN HOUSEHOLD INCOME (IN 2016 DOLLARS)

Legend or Labels: Explains the symbols used. Here, colors show the different categories, which are each clearly labeled.

$350,000

$300,000

$250,000

Top 20%

$200,000

$150,000 Second-highest 20%

$100,000

Middle 20%

$50,000

•

$0 1967 1970

Source: The origin of the data.

•

Second-lowest 20% Bottom 20% 1975

1980

1985

1990

1995

2005

2010

• 2015 2018

Note: The top 5% is also included within the top 20%.

SOURCE  US Census Bureau, 2019.

y axis: Defines the independent variable (something that doesn’t change depending on other factors).

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2000

x axis: Defines the dependent variable (something that changes, depending on other factors).

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Figure 2.3  Women’s Participation in the Labor Force in the United States 70 Women’s labor force* participation rate

60

PERCENTAGE

50 40 30

Women as a percentage of the total labor force†

20 10 0

1948 1952 1956 1960 1964 1968 1972 1976 1980 1984 1988 1992 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016

*Women in the labor force as a percentage of all civilian women age 16 and over. †Women in the labor force as a percentage of the total workforce (both men and women) age 16 and over.

SOURCE  US Bureau of Labor Statistics, 2018.

Other types of charts and graphs include some of these same elements. But the specific elements vary according to the different kinds of information being presented, and some charts and graphs can be challenging to read. For example, the chart in Figure 2.3, from the same textbook, includes elements of both bar and line graphs to depict two trends at once: the red line shows the percentage of women in the United States who were in the labor force over a sixty-eight-year period, and the blue bars show the percentage of US workers who were women during that same period. Both trends are shown in two-year increments. To make sense of this chart, you need to read the title, the y-axis legend, and the labels and their definitions carefully.

Reading Onscreen Research shows that we tend to read differently onscreen than we do when we read print texts: we skim and sample, often reading a sentence or two and then jumping to another site, another text. If we need to scroll the page

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to continue, we often don’t bother. In general, we don’t read as carefully as we do when reading print texts, and we’re less likely to reread or take other steps if we find that we don’t understand something. Following are some strategies that might help you read effectively onscreen.

Adjust your reading speed and effort to your purpose.  Many students use the web to get an overview of a topic and find potential sources. In that case, skimming and browsing are sensible and appropriate tactics. If you’re reading to evaluate a source or find specific information on a topic, though, you probably need to read more slowly and carefully.

Keep your purpose in mind as you read.  Clicking on hyperlinks and jumping from site to site can be tempting. Resist the temptation! Making a list of specific questions you’re seeking to answer can help you stay focused and on task.

Print out longer texts.  Some people find reading online to be harder on their eyes than reading pages of print, and many find that they comprehend and remember information in longer texts better if they read them in print. Reading a long text is similar to walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood: we form a mental map of the text as we read and then associate the information with its location in the text, making remembering easier. Since forming such a map is more difficult when reading an electronic text, printing out texts you need to read carefully may be a good strategy.

If you need more help 524–34 333–44 367–71 372–79 380–84

See Chapter 48,  EVALUATING SOURCES , for questions to help you analyze a text’s rhetorical situation. See also Chapter 28 on  GENERATING IDEAS AND TEXT ; you can adapt those methods as ways of looking at texts, especially clustering and cubing. And see also Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING  if you need advice for reading your own writing.

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3S ummarizing and Responding Where Reading Meets Writing

Summarizing a text helps us to see and understand its main points and to think about what it says. Responding to that text then prompts us to think about — and say — what we think. Together, summarizing and responding to texts is one way that we engage with the ideas of others. In a history course, you might summarize and respond to an essay arguing that Civil War photographers did not accurately capture the realities of the battlefield. In a philosophy course, you might summarize Plato’s “Allegory of the Cave” and respond to its portrayal of knowledge as shadows on a wall. And in much of the writing that you do, you’ll need to cite the ideas of others, both as context for your own thinking and as evidence to support your arguments. In fact, there’s probably no topic you’ll write about that someone else hasn’t already written about — and one way of introducing what you have to say is as a response to something others have said about your topic. A good way of doing that is by summarizing what they’ve said, using the summary as a launching pad for what you say. This chapter offers advice for summarizing and responding, writing tasks you’ll have occasion to do in many of your college classes — and provides a short guide to writing a summary and response essay, a common assignment in composition classes.

SUMMARIZING In many of your college courses, you’ll likely be asked to summarize what someone else has said. Boiling down a text to its basic ideas helps you focus on the text, figure out what the writer has said, and

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understand (and remember) what you’re reading. In fact, summarizing is an essential academic skill, a way to incorporate the ideas of others into your own writing. Following are some guidelines for summarizing effectively:

13

16–17 347–49

Read the text carefully.  To write a good summary, you need to read the original text carefully to capture the writer’s intended meaning as clearly and evenhandedly as you can. Start by  skimming  the text to get a general sense of what it’s saying. If some parts don’t make sense, don’t worry; at this point, you’re reading just to get the gist. Then reread the text more slowly,  annotating  it paragraph by paragraph. If there’s an explicit  thesis  stating the main point, highlight it in some way. Then try to capture the main idea of each paragraph in a single sentence. State the main points concisely and accurately.  Summaries of a complete text are generally between 100 and 250 words in length, so you need to choose your words carefully and to focus only on the text’s main ideas. Leave out supporting evidence, anecdotes, and counterarguments unless they’re crucial to understanding the text. For instance, in summarizing “A Fighter’s Chance” (see p. 245), Ryan Jones’s profile of Rebecca Maine, a student, runner, and boxer, you would omit the lengthy description of her tattoo and her mother’s description of her personality.

Describe the text accurately and fairly — and using neutral language.   Present the author’s ideas evenhandedly and fairly; a summary isn’t the place to share your opinion of what the text says. Use neutral verbs such as “states,” “asserts,” or “concludes,” not verbs that imply praise or criticism like “proves” or “complains.” 551–54

Use  signal phrases  to distinguish what the author says from what you say.   Introducing a statement with phrases such as “He says” or “The essay concludes” indicates explicitly that you’re summarizing what the author said. When first introducing an author, you may need to say something about their credentials. For example:

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3 Summarizing and Responding

In “Our Declaration,” political philosopher Danielle Allen analyzes the language of the Declaration of Independence. Jason Stanley, a Rutgers University philosophy professor, explains the many ways language can be used as a tool for suppression in his New York Times opinion piece, “The Ways of Silencing.”

Later in the text, you may need to refer to the author again as you summarize specific parts of the text. These signal phrases are typically briefer: “In Stanley’s view . . . ,” “Allen then argues . . .”

Use quotations sparingly,  if at all. You may need to  quote  keywords or memorable phrases, but most or all of a summary should be written in your own words, using your own sentence structures.  document  any text you summarize in a works-cited or references list. A summary of a lengthy work should include  in-text documentation   noting the pages summarized; they aren’t needed with a brief text like the one summarized below (see p. 149).

544–47

560–63 mla

567–74

apa

618–22

An Example Summary In “The Reason College Costs More Than You Think,” Jon Marcus, a higher-education editor at the Hechinger Report, reports that a major reason why college educations are so expensive is the amount of time students stay in college. Although almost all first-year students and their families assume that earning a bachelor’s degree will take four years, the reality is that more than half of all students take longer, with many taking six years or more. This delay happens for many reasons, including students changing majors, having to take developmental courses, taking fewer courses per term than they could have, and being unable to register for required courses. As a result, their expenses are much greater — financial aid seldom covers a fifth or sixth year, so students must borrow money to finish — and the additional time they spend in college is time they aren’t working, leading to significant losses in wages.

This summary begins with a signal phrase stating the author’s name and credentials and the title of the text being summarized. The summary includes only the main ideas, in the summary writer’s own words.

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RESPONDING

164–95 104–39 391–401

When you summarize a text, you show that you understand its main ideas; responding to a text pushes you to engage with those ideas — and gives you the opportunity to contribute your own ideas to a larger conversation. You can respond in various ways, for instance, by taking a  position  on the text’s argument, by  analyzing the text  in some way, or by  reflecting  on what it says.

Deciding How to Respond You may be assigned to write a specific kind of response — an argument or analysis, for instance — but more often than not, the nature of your response is left largely up to you. If so, you’ll need to read closely and critically to understand what the text says, to get a sense of how — and how well — it does so, and to think about your own reaction to it. Only then can you decide how to respond. You can respond to what the text says (its ideas), to how it says it (the way it’s written), or to where it leads your own thinking (your own personal reaction). Or you might write a response that mixes those ways of responding. You might, for example, combine a personal reaction with an examination of how the writing caused that reaction.

If you’re responding to what a text says, you might agree or disagree with the author’s argument, supporting your position with good reasons and evidence for your response. You might agree with parts of the argument and disagree with others. You might find that the author has ignored or downplayed some important aspect of the topic that needs to be discussed or at least acknowledged. Here are some questions to consider that can help you think about what a text says: • What does the writer claim? 413–14 414–22

• What  reasons  and  evidence  does the writer provide to support that claim? • What parts of the text do you agree with? Is there anything you disagree with — and if so, why?

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• Does the writer represent any views other than their own? If not, what other perspectives should be considered? • Are there any aspects of the topic that the writer overlooks or ignores? • If you’re responding to a visual text, how do the design and any images contribute to your understanding of what the text “says”? Here is a brief response to Jon Marcus’s “The Reason College Costs More Than You Think,” one that responds to his argument: It’s true that one reason college costs so much more is that students take longer than four years to finish their degrees, but Jon Marcus’s argument in “The Reason College Costs More Than You Think” is flawed in several ways. He ignores the fact that over the past years state governments have reduced their subsidies to state-supported colleges and universities, forcing higher tuition, and that federal scholarship aid has declined as well, forcing students to pay a greater share of the costs. He doesn’t mention the increased number of administrators or the costs of fancy athletic facilities and dormitories. Ultimately, his argument places most of the blame for higher college costs on students, who, he asserts, make poor choices by changing majors and “taking fewer courses per term than they could.” College is supposed to present opportunities to explore many possible career paths, so changing majors should be considered a form of growth and education. Furthermore, many of us are working full-time to pay the high costs of college, leaving us with little extra time to study for four or five courses at once and sometimes forcing us to take fewer classes per term because that’s all we can afford. Marcus is partly right — but he gets much of the problem wrong.

If you’re focusing on the way a text is written, you’ll consider what elements the writer uses to convey their message — facts, stories, images, and so on. You’ll likely pay attention to the writer’s word choices and look for any patterns that lead you to understand the text in a particular way. To think about the way a text is written, you might find some of these questions helpful: • What is the writer’s message? Is there an explicit statement of that message?

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• How well has the writer communicated the message? • How does the writer support what they say: by citing facts or statistics? by quoting experts? by noting personal experiences? Are you persuaded? • Are there any words, phrases, or sentences that you find notable and that contribute to the text’s overall effect? 128–34

• How does the text’s design affect your response to it? If it’s a   visual   text  — a photo or ad, for example — how do the various parts of the text contribute to its message? Here is a brief response to Marcus’s essay that analyzes the various ways it makes its argument: In “The Reason College Costs More Than You Think,” Time magazine writer Jon Marcus argues that although several factors contribute to high college costs, the main one is how long it takes students to graduate. Marcus introduces this topic by briefly profiling a student who is in his fifth year of school and has run out of financial aid because he “changed majors and took courses he ended up not needing.” This profile gives a human face to the topic, which Marcus then develops with statistics about college costs and the numbers of students who take more than four years to finish. Marcus’s purpose is twofold: to inform readers that the assumption that most students finish college in four years is wrong and to persuade them that poor choices like those this student made are the primary reason college takes so long and costs so much. He acknowledges that the extra costs are “hidden” and “not entirely the student’s fault” and suggests that poor high school preparation and unavailable required courses play a role, as do limits on financial aid. However, his final paragraph quotes the student as saying of the extra years, “That’s time you’re wasting that you could be out making money.” As the essay’s final statement, this assertion that spending more time in school is time wasted and that the implicit goal of college is career preparation reinforces Marcus’s argument that college should take only four years and that students who take longer are financially irresponsible.

If you’re reflecting on your own reaction to a text,  you might focus on how your personal experiences or beliefs influenced the way you

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understood the text or on how it reinforced or prompted you to reassess some of those beliefs. You could also focus on how it led you to see the topic in new ways — or note questions that it’s led you to wonder about. Some questions that may help you reflect on your own reaction to a text include: • How did the text affect you personally? • Is there anything in the text that really got your attention? If so, what? • Do any parts of the text provoke an emotional reaction — make you laugh or cry, make you uneasy? What prompted that response? • Does the text bring to mind any memories or past experiences? Can you see anything related to yourself and your life in the text? • Does the text remind you of any other texts? • Does the text support (or challenge) any of your beliefs? How? • Has reading this text given you any new ideas or insight? Here is a brief response to Jon Marcus’s essay that reflects on an important personal issue: Jon Marcus’s “Why College Costs More Than You Think” made me think hard about my own educational plans. Because I’m working to pay for as much of my education as I can, I’m taking a full load of courses so I can graduate in four years, but truth be told I’m starting to question the major I’ve chosen. That’s one aspect of going to college that Marcus fails to discuss: how your major affects your future career choices and earnings — and whether or not some majors that don’t lead immediately to a career are another way of “wasting” your time. After taking several courses in English and philosophy, I find myself fascinated by the study of literature and ideas. If I decide to major in one or both of those subjects, am I being impractical? Or am I “following my heart,” as Steve Jobs said in his Stanford commencement speech? Jobs did as he told those graduates to do, and it worked out well for him, so maybe majoring in something “practical” is less practical than it seems. If I graduate in four years and am “out making money” but doing something I don’t enjoy, I might be worse off than if I take longer in college but find a path that is satisfying and enriching.

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WRITING A SUMMARY AND RESPONSE ESSAY You may be assigned to write a full essay that summarizes and responds to something you’ve read. Following is one such essay. It was written by Jacob MacLeod, a student at Wright State University, and responds to a New York Times column by Nicholas Kristof, “Our Blind Spot about Guns” (see p. 177).

JACOB MacLEOD

Guns and Cars Are Different In “Our Blind Spot about Guns,” The New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof compares guns to cars in order to argue for sensible gun regulation. Kristof suggests that gun regulations would dramatically decrease the number of deaths caused by gun use. To demonstrate this point, he shows that the regulations governments have instituted for cars have greatly decreased the number of deaths per million miles driven. Kristof then argues that guns should be regulated in the same way that cars are, that car regulation provides a model for gun regulation. I agree with Kristof that there should be more sensible gun regulation, but I have difficulty accepting that all of the regulations imposed on cars have made them safer, and I also believe that not all of the safety regulations he proposes for guns would necessarily have positive effects. Kristof is right that background checks for those who want to buy guns should be expanded. According to Daniel Webster, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, state laws prohibiting firearm ownership by members of high-risk groups, such as perpetrators of domestic violence and the mentally ill, have been shown to reduce violence. Therefore, Webster argues, universal background checks would significantly reduce the availability of guns to high-risk groups, as well as reducing the number of guns diverted to the illegal market by making it easier to prosecute gun traffickers. Kristof also argues that lowering the speed limit made cars safer. However, in 1987, forty states raised their top speed limit from 55 to

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65 miles per hour. An analysis of this change by the University of California Transportation Center shows that after the increase, traffic fatality rates on interstate highways in those forty states decreased between 3.4 percent and 5.1 percent. After the higher limits went into effect, the study suggested, some drivers may have switched to safer interstates from other, more dangerous roads, and highway patrols may have focused less on enforcing interstate speed limits and more on activities yielding greater benefits in terms of safety (Lave and Elias 58–61). Although common sense might suggest that lowered speed limits would mean safer driving, research showed otherwise, and the same may be true for gun regulation. Gun control advocates argue that more guns mean more deaths. However, an article by gun rights advocates Don Kates and Gary Mauser argues that murder rates in many developed nations have no relation to the rate of gun ownership (6). The authors cite data on firearms ownership in the United States and England that suggest that crime rates are lowest where the density of gun ownership is highest and highest where gun density is lowest (8) and that increased gun ownership has often coincided with significant reductions in violence. For example, in the United States in the 1990s, criminal violence decreased, even though gun ownership increased (11–12). However, the authors acknowledge that “the notion that more guns reduce crime is highly controversial” (12). In fact, a RAND Corporation study of recent research on the relationship between the number of guns and violent crime in the United States concluded that while “most of the new studies provide evidence consistent with the hypothesis that gun prevalence increases violent crime,” the difficulty of measuring gun prevalence and other problems with the studies make showing a relationship difficult (Karimov). All in all, then, Kristof is correct to suggest that sensible gun regulation is a good idea in general, but the available data suggest that some of the particular measures he proposes should not be instituted. I agree that expanding background checks would be a good way to regulate guns and that failure to require them would lead to more guns in the hands of criminals. While background checks are a good form of regulation, however, lower speed limits and trigger locks are not. The problem with this solution is that although it is based on commonsense thinking, the empirical data show that it may not work.

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Works Cited Karimov, Rouslan I. “The Relationship between Firearm Prevalence and Violent Crime.” RAND Corporation: Gun Policy in America, 2 Mar. 2018, www.rand.org/research/gun-policy/analysis/essays /firearm-prevalence-violent-crime.html. Kates, Don B., and Gary Mauser. “Would Banning Firearms Reduce Murder and Suicide? A Review of International Evidence.” bepress Legal Repository, 2006, law.bepress.com/expresso /eps/1564. PDF download, working paper. Kristof, Nicholas. “Our Blind Spot about Guns.” The New York Times, 31 July 2014, www.nytimes.com/2014/07/31/opinion/nicholas -kristof-our-blind-spot-about-guns.html. Lave, Charles, and Patrick Elias. “Did the 65 mph Speed Limit Save Lives?” Accident Analysis and Prevention, vol. 26, no. 1, Feb. 1994, pp. 49–62, www.sciencedirect.com/science/article /pii/000145759490068X. Webster, Daniel. “Why Expanding Background Checks Would, in Fact, Reduce Gun Crime.” Interview by Greg Sargent. The Washington Post, 3 Apr. 2013, www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ plum-line/wp/2013/04/03/why-expanding-background-checks -would-in-fact-reduce-gun-crime.

In his response, MacLeod both agrees and disagrees with Kristof’s argument, using several sources to support his argument that some of Kristof’s proposals may not work. MacLeod states his thesis at the end of the first paragraph, after his summary, and ends with a balanced assessment of Kristof’s proposals. He cites several sources, both in the text with signal phrases and in-text documentation and at the end in a works-cited section.

Key Features of Summary and Response Essays A clearly identified author and title.   Usually the author and title of the text being summarized are identified in a signal phrase in the first sentence. The author (or sometimes the title) may then be referred to in an abbreviated form if necessary in the rest of the essay: for example, “Kristof argues . . .” or “According to ‘Our Blind Spot about Guns’ . . .”

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A concise summary of the text.  The summary presents the main and supporting ideas in the text, usually in the order in which they appear. MacLeod, for example, reduces Kristof’s argument to four sentences that capture Kristof’s main points while leaving out his many examples. An explicit response.  Your essay should usually provide a concise statement (one sentence if possible) of your overall response to the text. • If you’re responding to the argument, you’ll likely agree or disagree (or both), and so your response itself will constitute an argument, with an explicit thesis statement. For example, MacLeod first agrees with Kristof that “there should be more sensible gun regulation,” but then introduces a two-part thesis: that not all automobile regulations have made cars safer and that not all gun regulations would make guns safer. • If you’re analyzing the text, you’ll likely need to explain what you think the author is saying and how the text goes about conveying that message. An analysis of Kristof’s text, for example, might focus on his comparison of automobile regulations with gun regulations. • If you’re responding with a reflection, you might explore the ideas, emotions, or memories that the text evokes, the effects of its ideas on your own beliefs, or how your own personal experiences support or contradict the author’s position. One response to Kristof’s essay might begin by expressing surprise at the comparison of guns to cars and then explore the reasons you find that comparison surprising, leading to a new understanding of the ways regulations can work to save lives.

Support for your response.  Whatever your response, you need to offer reasons and evidence to support what you say. • If you’re responding to what the text says, you may offer facts, statistics, anecdotal evidence, and textual evidence, as MacLeod does. You’ll also need to consider — and acknowledge — any possible counterarguments, positions other than yours.

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• If you’re responding to the way the text is written, you may identify certain patterns in the text that you think mean something, and you’ll need to cite evidence from the text itself. For example, Kristof twice invokes a popular slogan among gun rights advocates, “Guns don’t kill people. People kill people,” changing “guns” to “cars” to advance his argument that regulating guns may make them safer, just as has happened with cars. • If you’re reflecting on your own reaction to the text, you may connect its ideas with your own experiences or beliefs or explore how the text reinforced, challenged, or altered your beliefs. A staunch gunrights advocate, for example, might find in Kristof’s essay a reasonable middle ground too often lacking in polarized debates like the one on gun control.

Ways of Organizing a Summary and Response Essay 347–49

You can organize a summary and response essay in various ways. You may want to use a simple, straightforward structure that starts out by summarizing the text and then gives the  thesis  of your response followed by details that develop the thesis.

[Summary, followed by response] Introduce the text and summarize it, usually in one paragraph.

State your thesis.

Respond to the text: •  what it says •  how it’s written •  how you react.

Conclude by summing up your response and its implications.

Or you may want to start out with the thesis and then, depending on whether your response focuses on the text’s argument or its rhetorical choices, provide a paired summary of each main point or each aspect of the writing and a response to it.

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[Introduction and thesis, followed by point-by-point summary and response] Introduce the text and state your thesis.

Summarize the first point in the text or one of its rhetorical features and respond to it.

Summarize the next point or another feature and respond to it.

Continue as needed.

Conclude by summing up your response and its implications.

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING  and Chapter 29 for help writing a thesis and coming up with a title. See Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 51 on  ACKNOWLEDGING SOURCES, AVOIDING PLAGIARISM .

364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84 555–59

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4D eveloping Academic Habits of Mind

A little advice from Serena Williams: “Stick to it and work hard.” She wasn’t just talking about tennis, and her words resonate for all of us, for everything we set out to do. And here’s Michael Jordan, who tells us “Never quit!” and then goes on to issue a warning: “If you quit once, it becomes a habit.” Serena Williams and Michael Jordan may be two of the greatest athletes ever, but neither of them was born a champion. They became great by working hard, hanging in there, never giving up. They succeeded, in other words, by developing certain habits of mind that can serve us all well — and that are especially valuable when it comes to succeeding in school. This chapter is about developing academic habits of mind. Just as Serena Williams wasn’t born with her powerful serve, none of us was born knowing how to write academic papers or ace exams. But we, too, can learn and can develop the habits we need to succeed. This chapter offers advice for developing habits of mind that writing teachers nationwide have identified as essential for college success.

Engage We all know people who see school as a series of hoops to jump through, who seem uninvolved — and even bored. We also know people who are passionate about something — a video game, a hobby, a profession — and who invest themselves, their time, and their emotions wholeheartedly in those activities. Successful students make that investment in school. In other words, they engage with what they’re studying, what they’re doing, and what they’re learning.

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Think about your purpose for being in college.   What are your goals? To get a degree? To qualify for a particular job or profession? To find intellectual stimulation? To explore life? Try to define why you are in school, both in larger terms (“to get a degree in accounting”) and in terms of the specific courses you’re taking (“Learning to write better will help me be a better student in general and communicate effectively at work”).

Fight off boredom.   Every job, including the job of being a student, involves some tasks that are dull but need to be done. When you encounter such a task, ask yourself how it helps you reach a larger goal. Shooting a hundred free throws for practice may not seem interesting, but it can help you win games. When you’re listening to a lecture or reading a textbook, take notes, highlight, and annotate; doing that forces you to pay attention and increases what you remember and learn. Trying to identify the main ideas as you listen to a lecture will help you stay focused. When you’re studying, try alternating between different tasks: reading, writing, doing problem sets, drawing, and so on.

If you get distracted, figure out ways to deal with it.   It’s hard to engage with what you’re reading or studying when you’re thinking about something else — paying a tuition bill, the last episode of The Walking Dead, whatever. Try taking a few moments to write out what’s on your mind, in a journal or somewhere else. Sometimes that simple act frees your mind to think about your work, even if it doesn’t solve anything.

Raise your hand.  When you think you know the answer to a teacher’s question (or when you yourself have a question), raise your hand. Most teachers appreciate students who take chances and who participate in class. At the same time, be polite: don’t monopolize discussion or interrupt others when they’re speaking.

Get involved.   Get to know other students; study with them; join a campus organization. People who see themselves as part of something larger, even just a study group with three or four others, engage more in what they’re doing than those who try to go it alone.

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Be Curious When we’re young, we’re curious about everything, and we learn by asking questions (why? why not?) and by exploring our surroundings (digging holes, cutting up magazines, investigating attics and basem*nts). As we get older, though, we focus on things that interest us — and may as a result start to ignore other things or even to forget how to explore. In college, you’ll be asked to research, study, and write about many topics you know nothing about. Seize the opportunity. Be curious! And take a tip from Dr. Seuss: “The more that you read, the more things you will know. / The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.”

Ask questions.  It’s tempting to stay within our comfort zones, thinking about things we know and like, listening to those whose views we tend to agree with — to say what we already believe rather than to stop and think. Resist that temptation! Take every opportunity to ask questions, to learn more about things you’re already interested in, and especially to learn about things you don’t (yet) know anything about. As marine biologist Sylvia Earle says, “The best scientists and explorers have the attributes of kids! They ask questions and have a sense of wonder. They have curiosity. Who, what, where, why, when, and how! They never stop asking questions, and I never stop asking questions, just like a five year old.”

Listen!   Pay attention to what others say, including those who you don’t necessarily agree with. The words and ideas of others can challenge the way we think, prompt us to rethink what we think — and spark our curiosity: Why does X think that? What do I think — and why? Why do my neighbors oppose the Common Core academic standards? What do educators think about it? Paying attention to all sides of an argument, doing research to find out what others have said about a topic, or searching social media to see the latest postings on a trending topic are all ways you can listen in on (and engage in) conversations on important issues of all kinds.

Be Open to New Ideas No matter where you’re in school, you’re going to encounter ideas and concepts and even facts that challenge your own beliefs; you’re also likely to meet people whose backgrounds and ways of looking at life are very

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different from your own. Be open-minded, open to new ideas and to what others think and say. Consider the perspectives and arguments of others. Learning involves accepting new ideas, acknowledging the value of different perspectives, and coming to understand our own beliefs in new ways. Listen to what others say, and think before you respond. • Treat the ideas of others with respect, whether you agree with them or not, and encourage others to do the same. We don’t open up if we don’t feel safe. • Try to withhold judgment. Be willing to listen to the thoughts of others and to consider ideas that may at first seem alien or weird (or wrong). Remember that your weird is likely someone else’s normal — and the reverse. • Look for common ground between your perspectives and those of others — places where you can agree, even in the midst of serious disagreement.

Be Flexible Being flexible means being adaptable. In college, you’ll likely face novel situations and need to find new ways to address problems, such as juggling school, work, and family; adjusting to roommates and making new friends; and figuring out how to do unfamiliar new assignments and how to take tests. You’ll even have to do new kinds of writing: lab reports, reflections, literacy narratives, and many, many more; if your school writing up until this point has usually (or always) called for a five-paragraph theme, that’s not going to be the case anymore.

Look for new ways to do things.  As the saying goes, “If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.” Look for other tools to add to your toolbox: try solving math problems with words or by drawing, or starting a writing project by sketching out the parts.

Try not to see things as right or wrong, good or bad.   Be willing to consider alternative points of view and to withhold judgment. Often ideas or actions can only be judged in context; they may be true in some cases or in part, and you often need to understand the larger situation or take into account various perspectives. For example, you may believe that lying is

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wrong, but is it excusable if telling the truth will cause someone pain? You find a required reading assignment boring and useless, but why, then, did your instructor assign it?

57

Approach academic assignments rhetorically.   Analyze each assignment’s purpose, intended audience, and the rest of its  rhetorical situation . Think about what’s required in terms of content and format — and also about what’s appropriate in terms of language and style. And what’s expected in the discipline: informal language, sentence fragments, and photographs without captions might be appropriate for a sociology blog, for example, whereas a research project for a history course might have different requirements for how it’s organized, formatted, and documented.

Be Creative If you think that creativity is something artists have (and are born with), think again. From the young man selling homemade granola at a local farm market to the woman who puts together an eye-catching outfit from thrift-store bins, many of us are at work expressing ourselves in distinctive ways. Psychologists tell us that acting creatively opens us up to becoming more creative — and it’s safe to say that doing so will make your work more productive and very likely more fun.

333–44

• Play with ideas. Freewrite. Make lists. Try looping, clustering, and the other ways of  generating ideas  covered in this book. Take some time to think about the ideas you come up with. • Don’t wait until the last minute. Some students say they do better under the pressure of a deadline. Don’t believe it! It’s always better to give yourself time to think, to explore ideas, to “sleep on” assignments that first stump you. • Take risks! Explore questions and topics that you haven’t thought about before. Try out methods you haven’t used previously. Challenge yourself to come up with ten ideas. Or twenty. • Ask questions. And remember that there’s no such thing as a dumb question.

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Persist Sometimes the key to success is simply sticking to the task at hand: ignoring distractions, hanging in there, forgetting frustration, getting the work done even in the face of setbacks and failures. Here’s some advice from actress and singer Julie Andrews: “Perseverance is failing 19 times and succeeding the 20th.” • Don’t quit. Assume that you can complete the task, and make up your mind to do it. If you’re reading a book that seems hopelessly confusing or over your head, for example, keep at it until it starts to make sense. Reread,  outline chapters ,  summarize ,  annotate , and do whatever else you need to do to understand it. • Remember that sometimes you’ll encounter setbacks — and that the goal (a passing grade, a degree, a job) is still reachable if you keep trying. Those who play video games know that failing is an inherent part of playing them; the same is true of many other things as well.

340–42 20 16–17

• Make a plan and establish a schedule, and stick to them. • Break large projects into smaller goals. Especially with assignments that call for a huge amount of work, approach it in stages: focus on getting through the next chapter, the next draft, the next whatever. It may be good to “keep your eyes on the prize,” but it’s usually best to take it one step at a time. • When you’re working on several assignments, tackle the hardest ones first. Work on them when you’re fresh and your mind is clear. • If you don’t understand something, ask for clarification. Better to admit to confusion than to act as if you know something when you don’t. • Ask for help when you need it. Teachers are usually happy to help students during office hours or by appointment, before or after class, or over email. Get to know your teachers: they’re there to help you. • Take advantage of whatever help is available at your school’s writing center or learning center and in class. An important part of being persistent is getting help when you need it.

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Reflect Pay attention to the ways you work and make decisions. Reflect on the ways you think and on how you think about the world. This kind of “metacognitive” thinking is one of the most important habits of mind, and it’s one that will continue to serve you well throughout your life. • Figure out when you are most efficient and do your best work — and try to schedule your work accordingly. 11–32

• Pay attention to what you’re reading and how you’re doing it. Think about why you’re reading x, and use  reading strategies  appropriate to your purpose. If you lose the thread of an explanation or argument, figure out where you got lost and why. • After completing an assignment, reflect in writing on what you did well, what problems you had, and how you solved them (or not). What would you do differently next time — or if you had more time? You’ll find prompts for “Taking Stock of Your Work” at the end of Chapters 10–22 that can help. • Troubleshoot. Pay attention to bumps in the road as you encounter them. Try to understand what caused the problem, what you did to solve it, how successful you were and why. • Try to focus on your achievements, what you can do, rather than on what you may not be able to do or to do as well as you’d like.

Collaborate Whether you’re working in a face-to-face group, posting on an online discussion board, or exchanging drafts with a classmate for peer review, you likely spend a lot of time working with others on writing tasks. Even if you do much of your writing sitting alone at a computer, you probably get help from others at various stages in the writing process — and provide help as well. Two (or more) heads can be better than one — and learning to work well with a team is as important as anything else you’ll learn in college.

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Working with others face-to-face.   While informal groups can sometimes accomplish a lot, it’s often better to be organized. • Make sure everyone is facing everyone else and is physically part of the group. Doing that makes a real difference in the quality of the interactions — think how much better conversation works when you’re sitting around a table than it does when you’re sitting in a row. • Thoughtfulness, respect, and tact are key, since most writers (as you know) are sensitive and need to be able to trust those commenting on their work. Respond to the contributions of others as you would like others to respond to yours. • Each meeting needs an agenda — and careful attention paid to time. Appoint one person as timekeeper to make sure all necessary work gets done in the available time. • Appoint another person to be group leader or facilitator. That person needs to make sure everyone gets a chance to speak, no one dominates the discussion, and the group stays on task. • Appoint a member of the group to keep a record of the group’s discussion, jotting down the major points as they come up and afterward writing a  summary  of the discussion that the group members then approve.

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Working with others online.  You’re likely to work with one or more people online. When sharing writing or collaborating with others online in other ways, consider the following suggestions: • As with all online communication, remember that you need to choose your words carefully to avoid inadvertently hurting someone’s feelings. Without facial expressions, gestures, and other forms of body language and without tone of voice, your words carry all the weight. • Remember that the  audience  for what you write may well extend beyond your group — your work might be forwarded to others, so there’s no telling who else might read it.

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• Decide as a group how best to deal with the logistics of exchanging drafts and comments. You can cut and paste text directly into email, send it as an attachment to a message, or post it to your class course management system site or a file-sharing site like Dropbox or Google Docs. You may need to use a combination of methods, depending on each group member’s access to equipment and software. In any case, name your files carefully so that everyone knows which version to use. • If you’re using conferencing software like Zoom or Microsoft Teams, be aware that only one person at a time can speak and those who chime in quickly can dominate the conversation, sometimes silencing quieter members of the group. Be sure that everyone has a chance to contribute.

Creating group projects.   Creating a document with a team is common in business and professional work and in some academic fields as well. Here are some tips for making collaboration of this kind work well: • Define the task as clearly as possible. Make sure everyone understands and agrees with the stated goals. • Divide the task into parts. Decide which parts can be done by individuals, which can be done by a subgroup, and which need to be done by everyone together. • Assign each group member certain tasks. Try to match tasks to each person’s skills and interests and to divide the work equally. • Establish a deadline for each task. Allow time for unforeseen problems before the project deadline. • Try to accommodate everyone’s style of working. Some people value discussion; others want to get right down to the writing. There’s no best way to get work done; everyone needs to be conscious that their way is not the only way. • Work for consensus — not necessarily total agreement. Everyone needs to agree that the plan to get the writing accomplished is doable and appropriate — if not exactly the way you would do the project if you were working alone.

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• Make sure everyone performs. In some situations, your instructor may help, but in others the group itself may have to develop a way to make sure that the work gets done well and fairly. During the course of the project, it’s sometimes helpful for each group member to write an assessment both of the group’s work and of individual members’ contributions.

Making the most of writing conferences.   Conferences with instructors or writing tutors, whether face-to-face or online, can be an especially helpful kind of collaboration. These one-on-one sessions often offer the most strongly focused assistance you can get — and truly valuable instruction. Here are some tips for making the most of conference time: • Be prepared. Have at hand all necessary materials, including the draft you’ll be discussing, your notes, any outlines — and, of course, any questions. • Be prompt. Your instructor or tutor has set aside a block of time for you, and once that time is up, there’s likely to be another student writer waiting. • Listen carefully, discuss your work seriously, and try not to be defensive. Your instructor or tutor is only trying to help you produce the best piece possible. If you sense that your work is being misunderstood, explain what you’re trying to say. Don’t get angry! If a sympathetic reader who’s trying to help can’t understand what you mean, maybe you haven’t conveyed your meaning well enough. • Take notes. During the conference, jot down keywords and suggestions. Immediately afterward, flesh out your notes so you’ll have a complete record of what was said. • Reflect on the conference. Afterward, think about what you learned. What do you have to do now? Create a plan for revising or doing further work, and write out questions you will ask at your next conference or in a follow-up email or text.

Take Responsibility In one way or another, all the habits of mind discussed above involve taking responsibility for your own actions. It may be tempting to blame others

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or society or bad luck for problems in your academic life, but the more you take ownership of your own learning, the more control you have over the results. Some ways you can enhance your sense of responsibility and demonstrate it include these: • Acknowledge that how much you learn and what grades you get depend mostly on you. Teachers often say that they don’t give grades, students earn grades — an important difference. • Treat school as you do a job, one for which you must show up on time, perform tasks at a certain level of competence, and meet deadlines. In college, where your time is mostly unstructured, you have to become your own boss. So attend class regularly, follow instructions, and turn in assignments on time. • Get organized. Maintain a calendar so you know what’s due when. Create a schedule for your day that includes time for class, studying, working, and personal activities. Develop a system for organizing your written work and notes for each course you’re taking. Learn where to find the materials you need to do your classwork. 542–54 560–63

• Use research sources responsibly.  quote ,  paraphrase , and  summarize  the work of others accurately, and  document  it correctly. Give appropriate credit to those whose ideas and words you are using.

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Part 2

Rhetorical Situations Whenever we write, whether it’s a text to a friend or a toast for a wedding, an English essay or a résumé, we face some kind of rhetorical situation. We have a purpose , a certain audience , a particular stance , a genre , and a medium to consider — and, as often as not,

a design . All are important elements that we need to think about carefully. The following chapters offer brief discussions of those elements of the rhetorical situation, along with questions that can help you make the choices you need to as you write. See also the genre chapters for guidelines for considering your rhetorical situation in each of these specific kinds of writing.

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Rhetorical Situations 5 Purpose  59 6 Audience  61 7 Genre  65 8 Stance  72 9 Media / Design   75

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All writing has a purpose. We write to explore our thoughts and emotions, to express ourselves, to entertain; we write to record words and events, to communicate with others, to try to persuade others to believe as we do or to behave in certain ways. In fact, we often have several purposes at the same time. We may write an essay in which we try to explain something to an audience, but at the same time we may be trying to persuade that audience of something. Look, for example, at this passage from a New York Times opinion essay by Christian B. Miller, a professor of philosophy at Wake Forest University. Miller explores the question of how cheating on exams can be discouraged, especially in online courses and homeschooling, and states, “I suggest that a practice that has been used widely in other educational contexts be extended to the world of online testing: pledging one’s honor.” He then explores honor codes “from elementary to graduate level”: Donald McCabe at Rutgers Business School and Linda Treviño at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State found a 23 percent rate of helping someone with answers on a test at colleges without an honor code, versus only 11 percent at schools with an honor code. They reported impressive differences as well for plagiarism (20 percent versus 10 percent), unauthorized crib notes (17 percent versus 11 percent), and unpermitted collaboration (49 percent versus 27 percent), among other forms of cheating. A serious commitment to the honor code is crucial to its efficacy. As Professors McCabe and Treviño insist, an honor code should be “well implemented and strongly embedded in the student culture.” What does that look like in practice? A few schools start the academic year with an actual commitment ceremony, where each student has to publicly pledge to uphold the school’s code. To this can be added a requirement to affirm the honor code on each graded assignment. ­ — Christian B. Miller, “Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?”

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Miller is reporting information here, outlining how honor codes affect students’ honesty in schooling. He is also making an argument that honor codes are preferable to other, surveillance- or punishment-focused methods of curbing cheating because “Most students are not deeply dishonest.” His main purpose, then, is to persuade readers that schools should adopt honor codes. Even though our purposes may be many, knowing our primary reason for writing can help us shape that writing and understand how to proceed with it. Our purpose can determine the genre we choose, our audience, even the way we design what we write.

Identify your purpose.   While a piece of writing often has many purposes, a writer usually focuses on one. When you get an assignment or see a need to write, ask yourself what the primary purpose of the writing task is: to entertain? to inform? to persuade? to demonstrate your knowledge or your writing ability? What are your own goals? What are your audience’s expectations, and do they affect the way you define your purpose?

Thinking about Purpose • W hat do you want your audience to do, think, or feel? How will your readers use what you tell them?

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• W hat does this writing task call on you to do? Do you need to show that you have mastered certain content or skills? Do you have an assignment that specifies a particular  strategy  or  genre  — to compare two things, perhaps, or to argue a position? • What are the best ways to achieve your purpose? What  stance  should you take? Should you write in a particular genre? Do you have a choice of  medium , and does your text require any special format or   design  elements?

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Who will read (or hear) what you are writing? A seemingly obvious but crucially important question. Your audience affects your writing in v ­ arious ways. Consider a piece of writing as simple as a text from a mother to her son: Pls. take chicken out to thaw and feed Annye. Remember Dr. Wong at 4.

On the surface, this brief note is a straightforward reminder to do three things. But in fact it is a complex message filled with compressed information for a specific audience. The writer (the mother) counts on the reader (her son) to know a lot that can be left unsaid. She expects that he knows that the chicken is in the freezer and needs to thaw in time to be cooked for dinner; she knows that he knows who Annye is (a pet?), what they are fed, and how much; she assumes that he knows who (and where) Dr. Wong is. She doesn’t need to spell out any of that because she knows what her son knows and what he needs to know — and in her text she can be brief. She understands her audience. Think how different such a reminder would be were it written to another audience — a babysitter, perhaps, or a friend helping out while Mom is out of town. What you write, how much you write, how you phrase it, even your choice of  genre  (essay, email, text, social media post, speech) — all are influenced by the audience you envision. And your audience will interpret your writing according to their own expectations and experiences, not yours. When you are a student, your audience is most often your teachers, so you need to be aware of their expectations and learn about the conventions (rules, often unstated) for writing in specific academic fields. You may make statements that seem obvious to you, not realizing that your

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instructors may consider them assertions that must be proved with evidence of one sort or another. Or you may write more or less formally than teachers expect. Understanding your audience’s expectations — by asking outright, by reading materials in your field of study, by trial and error — is important to your success as a college writer. This point is worth dwelling on. You’re probably reading this textbook for a writing course. As a student, you’ll be expected to edit and proofread your essays carefully. But if you correspond with family, friends, or coworkers using email and texts, you might not proofread your messages much (or at all) — and your readers are probably fine with that. Whatever the rhetorical situation, your writing must meet the expectations of your audience.

Identify your audience.   Audiences may be defined as known, multiple, or unknown. Known audiences can include people with whom you’re familiar as well as people you don’t know personally but whose needs and expectations you do know. You yourself are a known, familiar audience, and you write to and for yourself often. Class notes, to-do lists, reminders, and journals are all written primarily for an audience of one: you. For that reason, they are often in shorthand, full of references and code that you alone understand. Other known, familiar audiences include anyone you actually know —  friends, relatives, teachers, classmates — and whose needs and expectations you understand. You can also know what certain readers want and need, even if you’ve never met them personally, if you write for them within a specific shared context. Such a known audience might include PC gamers who read cheat codes that you’ve posted on the internet for beating a game; you don’t know those people, but you know roughly what they know about the game and what they need to know, and you know how to write about it in ways they will understand. You often have to write for multiple audiences. Business memos or reports may be written initially for a supervisor, who may pass them along to others. Grant proposals may be reviewed by four to six levels of r­eaders — each, of course, with its own expectations and perspectives. Even writing for a class might involve multiple audiences: your instructor and your classmates.

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Unknown audiences can be the most difficult to address since you can’t be sure what they know, what they need to know, how they’ll react. Such an audience could be your downstairs neighbor, with whom you’ve chatted occasionally in the laundry room. How will she respond to your letter ­asking her to sponsor you in an upcoming charity walk? Another unknown audience — perhaps surprisingly — might be many of your instructors, who want — and expect! — you to write in ways that are new to you. While you can benefit from analyzing any audience, you need to think most carefully about those you don’t know.

Thinking about Audience • Whom do you want to reach? To whom are you writing (or speaking)? • What is your audience’s background — their education and life experiences? It may be important for you to know, for example, whether your readers attended college, fought in a war, or have young children. • What are their interests? What do they like? What motivates them? What do they care about? • Is there any demographic information that you should keep in mind? Consider whether race, gender, sexual orientation, disabilities, occupation, religious beliefs, economic status, and so on should affect what or how you write. For example, writers for Men’s Health, InStyle, and Out must consider the particular interests of each magazine’s readers. • What political circ*mstances may affect their reading? What attitudes —  opinions, special interests, biases — may affect the way your audience reads your piece? Are your readers conservative, liberal, or middle of the road? Politics may take many other forms as well — retirees on a fixed income may object to increased school taxes, so a letter arguing for such an increase would need to appeal to them differently than would a similar letter sent to parents of young children. • What does your audience already know — or believe — about your topic? What do you need to tell them? What is the best way to do so? Those retirees who oppose school taxes already know that taxes are a burden for them; they may need to know why schools are justified in asking

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for more money every few years. A good way to explain this may be with a bar graph showing how property values benefit from good schools with adequate funding. Consider which  strategies  will be effective — narrative, comparison, something else?

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• What’s your relationship with your audience, and how should it affect your language and tone? Do you know them, or not? Are they friends? colleagues? mentors? adversaries? strangers? Will they likely share your  stance ? In general, you need to write more formally when you’re addressing readers you don’t know, and you may address friends and colleagues more informally than you would a boss. • What does your audience need and expect from you? Your history professor, for example, may need to know how well you can discuss the economy of the late Middle Ages in order to assess your learning; he may expect you to write a carefully reasoned argument, drawing conclusions from various sources, with a readily identifiable thesis in the first paragraph. Your boss, on the other hand, may need an informal email that briefly lists your sales contacts for the day; she may expect that you list the contacts in the order in which you saw them, that you clearly identify each one, and that you briefly say how well each contact went. What  genre  is most appropriate? • What kind of response do you want? Do you want readers to believe or do something? to accept as valid your information on a topic? to understand why an experience you once had still matters to you now?

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• How can you best appeal to your audience? Is there a particular  medium  that will best reach them? Are there any  design  requirements? (Elderly readers may need larger type, for instance.)

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7 Genre

Genres are kinds of writing. Letters, profiles, reports, position papers, poems, blog posts, instructions, parodies — even jokes — are genres. For example, here is the beginning of a  profile  of a mechanic who repairs a specific kind of automobile:

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Her business card reads Shirley Barnes, M.D., and she’s a doctor, all right — a Metropolitan Doctor. Her passion is the Nash Metropolitan, the little car produced by Austin of England for American Motors between 1954 and 1962. Barnes is a legend among southern California Met ­lovers — an icon, a beacon, and a font of useful knowledge and freely offered opinions.

A profile offers a written portrait of someone or something that informs and sometimes entertains, often examining its subject from a particular angle — in this case, as a female mechanic who fixes old cars. While the language in this example is informal and lively (“she’s a doctor, all right”), the focus is on the subject, Shirley Barnes, “M.D.” If this same excerpt were presented as a poem, however, the new genre would change our reading: Her business card reads Shirley Barnes, M.D., and she’s a doctor, all right — a Metropolitan Doctor. Her passion is the Nash Metropolitan, the little car produced by Austin of England for American Motors between 1954 and 1962. Barnes is a legend among southern California Met lovers — an icon,

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a beacon, and a font of useful knowledge and freely offered opinions.

The content hasn’t changed, but the different presentation invites us to read not only to learn about Shirley Barnes but also to explore the significance of the words and phrases on each line, to read for deeper meaning and greater appreciation of language. The genre thus determines how we read and how we interpret what we read. Genres help us write by establishing features for conveying certain kinds of content. They give readers clues about what sort of information they’re likely to find and so help them figure out how to read (“This article begins with an abstract, so it’s probably a scholarly source” or “Thank goodness! I found the instructions for editing videos on my phone”). At the same time, genres are flexible; writers often tweak the features or combine elements of different genres to achieve a particular purpose or connect with an audience in a particular way. Genres also change as writers’ needs and available technologies change. For example, computers have enabled us to add audio and video content to texts that once could appear only on paper.

Choosing the Appropriate Genre How do you know which genre you should choose? Often the words and phrases used in writing assignments can give you clues to the best choice. Here are typical terms used in assignments and the genres they usually call for. 81–103

 literacy narrative   If you’re assigned to explore your development as a writer or reader or to describe how you came to be interested in a particular subject or career, you’ll likely need to write a literacy narrative or a variation on one. Some terms that might signal a literacy narrative: “describe a learning experience,” “tell how you learned,” “trace your development,” “write a story.”

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 textual analysis  or  literary analysis  If your assignment calls on you to look at a nonfiction text to see not only what it says but also how it works, you likely need to write a textual analysis. If the text is a short story,

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novel, poem, or play, you probably need to write a literary analysis. If you are analyzing a text or texts in multiple media, you might choose either genre or mix the two. Some terms that might signal that a textual or literary analysis is required: “analyze,” “examine,” “explicate,” “read closely,” “interpret.”

 report   If your task is to research a topic and then tell your audience in a balanced, neutral way what you know about it, your goal is probably to write a report. Some terms that might signal that a report is required: “define,” “describe,” “explain,” “inform,” “observe,” “record,” “report,” “show.”

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 position paper  or  argument  Some terms that might signal that your

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instructor wants you to take a position or argue for or against something: “agree or disagree,” “argue,” “claim,” “criticize,” “defend,” “justify,” “position paper,” “prove.”

 summary   If your assignment is to reduce a text into a single paragraph or so, a summary is called for. Some terms that might signal that a summary is expected: “abridge,” “boil down,” “compress,” “condense,” “recap,” “summarize.”

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 evaluation  If your instructor asks you to say whether or not you like

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something or whether it’s a good or bad example of a category or better or worse than something else, an evaluation is likely required. Some terms that might signal that an evaluation is expected: “assess,” “critique,” “evaluate,” “judge,” “recommend,” “review.”

 memoir   If you’re asked to explore an important moment or event in your life, you’re probably being asked to write a memoir. Some terms that likely signal that a memoir is desired: “autobiography,” “chronicle,” “narrate,” “a significant personal memory,” “a story drawn from your experience.”

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 profile   If your instructor assigns you the task of portraying a subject in

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a way that is both informative and entertaining, you’re likely being asked to write a profile. Some terms that might indicate that a profile is being asked for: “angle,” “describe,” “dominant impression,” “interview,” “observe,” “report on.”

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 proposal   If you’re asked to offer a solution to a problem, to suggest some action — or to make a case for pursuing a certain project, a proposal is probably in order. Some terms that might indicate a proposal: “argue for [a solution or action],” “propose,” “put forward,” “recommend.”

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 exploration  If your assignment calls on you to think in writing about something or to play with ideas, you are likely being asked to write an exploratory essay. Some terms that may mean that an exploration is called for: “consider,” “explore,” “ponder,” “probe,” “reflect,” “speculate.”

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 remix   If you’re asked to adapt something you’ve written to create something new — perhaps for a new purpose, audience, or medium — a remix is probably in order. Some terms that might indicate a remix is asked for: “convert,” “modify,” “recast,” “reimagine,” “transform.”

Dealing with Ambiguous Assignments Sometimes even the key term in an assignment doesn’t indicate clearly which genre is wanted, so you need to read such an assignment especially carefully. A first step might be to consider whether it’s asking for a report or an argument. For example, here are two sample assignments: Discuss ways in which the invention of gas and incandescent lighting significantly changed people’s daily lives in the nineteenth century. Discuss why Willy Loman in Death of a Salesman is, or is not, a tragic hero.

Both assignments use the word “discuss,” but in very different ways. The first may simply be requesting an informative, researched report: the thesis — new forms of lighting significantly changed people’s daily lives in various ways — is already given, and you may just be expected to research and explain what some of these changes were. It’s also possible, though, that this assignment is asking you to make an argument about which of these changes were the most significant ones. In contrast, “discuss” in the second assignment is much more openended. It does not lead to a particular thesis but is more clearly asking you to present an argument: to choose a position (Willy Loman is a tragic hero; Willy Loman is not a tragic hero; even, possibly, Willy Loman both

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is and is not a tragic hero) and to marshal reasons and evidence from the play to support your position. A clue that an argument is being asked for lies in the way the assignment offers a choice of paths. Other potentially ambiguous words in assignments are “show” and “explore,” both of which could lead in many directions. If after a careful reading of the entire assignment you still aren’t sure what it’s asking for, ask your instructor to clarify the appropriate genre or genres.

Combining Genres Often your writing will include more than one genre. An  evaluation  of mining practices might include a  profile  of a coal company CEO. A  proposal  to start a neighborhood watch might begin with a  report  on crime in the area. In fact, genres are seldom “pure.” When you write, you’ll need to consider how you’ll choose aspects of various genres to achieve your purpose. Your writing situation will often call for a certain genre that is appropriate for your purpose — an argument, a proposal, a report, a textual analysis, and so forth. Additional genres then play supporting roles. Each genre must contribute to your main point: one genre may serve as the introduction, and others may be woven throughout the text in other ways, but all must address some aspect of the topic and support your central claim. When a text includes several genres, those genres need to fit together clearly and be connected in some way.  transitions  do that, and in so doing, they help readers make their way through the text. It’s possible to mix almost any genres together. Following are some of the most commonly mixed genres and how they combine with other genres.

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Memoirs.  Sometimes a personal anecdote can help support an ­  argument  or enhance a  report . Stories from your personal experience can

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help readers understand your motivations for arguing a certain position and can enhance your credibility as a writer.

Profiles.  One way to bring a  report  on an abstract topic to life is to

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include a profile of a person, place, or event. For example, if you were

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writing a report for your boss on the need to hire more sales representatives, including a profile of one salesperson’s typical day might drive home the point that your sales force is stretched too thin.

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Textual analyses.   You might need to analyze a speech or other document as part of an  argument , especially on a historical or political topic. For instance, you might analyze speeches by Abraham Lincoln and Jefferson Davis if you’re writing about the causes of the Civil War, or an advertisem*nt for e-cigarettes if you’re making an argument about teen smoking. Evaluations.    You might include an evaluation of something when you write a  proposal  about it. For example, if you were writing a proposal for additional student parking on your campus, you would need to evaluate the current parking facilities to discuss their inadequacy.

Thinking about Genre • How does your genre affect what content you can or should include? Objective information? Researched source material? Your own opinions? Personal experience? A mix? 403 214–22 437–44 258–68

236–44 81–103

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• Does your genre call for any specific  strategies ? Profiles, for example, usually include some narration;  evaluations  often require  comparing and contrasting . • Does your genre require a certain organization?  proposals , for instance, usually need to show a problem exists before offering a solution. Some genres leave room for choice.  memoirs  and  literacy narratives  might begin at the beginning, middle, or end of the story. • Does your genre affect your tone? An abstract of a scholarly paper calls for a different  tone  than a memoir. Should your words sound serious and scholarly? brisk and to the point? objective? opinionated? Sometimes your genre affects the way you communicate your  stance . • Does the genre require formal (or informal) language? A letter to the mother of a friend asking for a summer job in her bookstore calls for

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7 Genre

more formal language than does an email or text to the friend thanking them for the lead. • Do you have a choice of medium? Some genres call for print; others for an electronic medium. Sometimes you have a choice: a résumé, for instance, can be printed to bring to an interview, or it may be downloaded or emailed. Some teachers want reports turned in on paper; others prefer that they be emailed or posted in the class course management system. If you’re not sure what  medium  you can use,ask. • Does your genre have any design requirements? Some genres call for paragraphs; others require lists. Some require certain kinds of fonts — you wouldn’t use impact for a personal narrative, nor would you likely use chiller for an invitation to Grandma’s sixty-fifth birthday party. Different genres call for different  design  elements.

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8 Stance

Whenever you write, you have a certain stance, an attitude toward your topic. The way you express that stance affects the way you come across to your audience as a writer and a person. This email from a college student to his father, for example, shows a thoughtful, reasonable stance for a carefully researched argument: Hi Dad, I’ll get right to the point: I’d like to buy a car. I saved over $4,500 from working this summer, and I’ve found three different cars that I can get for under $3,000. That’ll leave me $1,400 to cover the insurance. I can park in Lot J, over behind Monte Hall, for $75 for both semesters. And I can earn gas and repair money by upping my hours at the cafeteria. It won’t cost you any more, and if I have a car, you won’t have to come and pick me up when I want to come home. May I buy it? Love, Michael

While such a stance can’t guarantee that Dad will give permission, it’s more likely to produce results than this version: Hi Dad, I’m buying a car. A guy in my Western Civ course has a cool Nissan he wants to get rid of. I’ve got $4,500 saved from working this summer, it’s mine, and I’m going to use it to get some wheels. Mom said you’d freak out at me if I did, but I want this car and I’m getting it. Michael

The writer of the first email respects his reader and offers reasoned arguments and evidence of research to convince him that buying a car is an action that will benefit them both. The writer of the second, by contrast,

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seems impulsive, ready to buy the first car that comes along, and defiant — he’s picking a fight. Each email reflects a certain stance that shows the writer as a certain kind of person dealing with a topic in a c ­ ertain way and establishing a certain relationship with his audience.

Identify your stance.   What is your attitude toward your topic? Objective? Critical? Curious? Opinionated? Passionate? Indifferent? Your stance may be affected by your relationship to your  audience . How do you want them to see you? As a colleague sharing information? a good student showing what you can do? an advocate for a position? Often your stance is affected by your  genre : for example, lab reports require an objective, unemotional stance that emphasizes the content and minimizes the writer’s own attitudes. Memoir, by comparison, allows you to reveal your feelings about your topic. Your stance is also affected by your  purpose , as the two emails about cars show. Your stance in a piece written to entertain will likely differ from the stance you’d adopt to persuade. You communicate (or downplay) your stance through your tone — through the words you use and other ways your text expresses an attitude toward your subject and audience. For example, in an academic essay you would state your position directly — “The Bachelor reflects the values of American society today” — using a confident, authoritative tone. In contrast, using qualifiers like “might” or “I think” can give your writing a wishy-washy, uncertain tone: “I think The Bachelor might reflect some of America’s values.” A sarcastic tone might be appropriate for a comment on a blog post but isn’t right for an academic essay: “The Bachelor’s star has all the personality of a bowling ball.” Like every other element of writing, your tone must be appropriate for your rhetorical situation. Just as you likely alter what you say depending on whether you’re speaking to a boss, an instructor, a parent, or a good friend, so you need to make similar adjustments as a writer. It’s a question of appropriateness: we behave in certain ways in various social situations, and writing is a social situation. You might sign an email to a friend with an XO, but in an email to your supervisor you’ll likely sign off with a “Many thanks” or “Sincerely.” To write well, you need to write with integrity, to say as much

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as possible what you wish to say; yet you also must understand that in writing, as in speaking, your stance and tone need to suit your purpose, your relationship to your audience, the way in which you wish your audience to perceive you, and your medium. In writing as in other aspects of life, the Golden Rule applies: “Do unto audiences as you would have them do unto you.” Address readers respectfully if you want them to respond to your words with respect.

Thinking about Stance

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• What is your stance, and how does it relate to your purpose for writing? If you feel strongly about your topic and are writing an argument that tries to persuade your audience to feel the same way, your stance and your  purpose  fit naturally together. But suppose you’re writing about the same topic with a different purpose — to demonstrate the depth of your knowledge about the topic, for example, or your ability to consider it in a detached, objective way. You will need to adjust your stance to meet the demands of this different purpose. • How should your stance be reflected in your tone? Can your tone grow directly out of your stance, or do you need to “tone down” your attitude toward the topic or take a different tone altogether? Do you want to be seen as reasonable? angry? thoughtful? gentle? funny? ironic? If you’re writing about something you want to be seen as taking very seriously, be sure that your language and even your font reflect that seriousness. Check your writing for words that reflect the tone you want to convey — and for ones that do not (and revise as necessary).

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• How is your stance likely to be received by your audience? Your tone and especially the attitude it projects toward your  audience  will affect how they react to the content of what you say. • Should you openly discuss your stance? Do you want or need to announce your own perspective on your topic? Will doing so help you reach your audience, or would it be better not to say directly where you’re ­coming from?

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9 Media / Design

In its broadest sense, a medium is a go-between: a way for information to be conveyed from one person to another. We communicate through many media, verbal and nonverbal: our bodies (we catch someone’s eye, wave, nod); our voices (we whisper, talk, shout, groan); and various technologies, including handwriting, print, phone, radio, video, and digital media. Each medium has unique characteristics that influence both what and how we communicate. As an example, consider this message: “I haven’t told you this before, but I love you.” Most of the time, we communicate such a message in person, using the medium of voice (with, presumably, help from eye contact and touch). A phone call will do, though most of us would think it a poor second choice, and a handwritten letter or note would be acceptable, if necessary. Few of us would break such news on a website, with a tweet, or during a radio call-in program. By contrast, imagine whispering the following sentence in a darkened room: “By the last decades of the nineteenth century, the territorial expansion of the United States had left almost all Native Americans confined to reservations.” That sentence starts a chapter in a history textbook, and it would be strange indeed to whisper it into someone’s ear. It is appropriate, however, in the textbook, in print or in an e-book, or as a quotation in an oral presentation. As you can see, we can often choose among various media depending on our purpose and audience. In addition, we can often combine media to create  multimedia  texts. And different media enable us to use different ways or modes of expressing meaning, from words to images to sound to hyperlinks, that can be combined in various ways. No matter the medium or media, a text’s design affects the way it is received and understood. A typed letter on official letterhead sends a different message than the same words handwritten on pastel ­stationery.

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674–80

670–72

­ lassic type sends a different message than flowery italics. Some genres C and media (and audiences) demand  photos ,  diagrams , or color. Some information is easier to explain — and read — in the form of a  pie chart  or a  bar graph  than in the form of a paragraph. Some reports and documents are so long and complex that they need to be divided into sections, which are then best labeled with  headings . These are some of the elements to consider when thinking about how to design what you write.

Identify your media and design needs.   Does your writing situation call for a certain medium and design? A printed essay? An oral report with visual aids? A blog? A podcast? Academic assignments often assume a particular medium and design, but if you’re unsure about your options or the degree of flexibility you have, check with your instructor.

Thinking about Media • What medium are you using — print? spoken? electronic? a combination? — and how does it affect the way you will create your text? A printed résumé is usually no more than one page long; an electronic résumé posted on an employer’s website has no length limits. An oral presentation should contain detailed information; accompanying slides should provide only an outline. 403

• How does your medium affect your organization and  strategies ? Long paragraphs are fine on paper but don’t work well on the web. On presentation slides, phrases or keywords work better than sentences. In print, you need to define unfamiliar terms; on the web, you can sometimes just add a link to a definition found elsewhere. • How does your medium affect your language? Some print documents require a more formal voice than spoken media; email and texting often invite greater informality. • How does your medium affect what modes of expression you use? Should your text include photos, graphics, audio or video files, or links? Do you need slides, handouts, or other visuals to accompany an oral presentation?

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Thinking about Design • What’s the appropriate look for your  rhetorical situation ? Should your text look serious? whimsical? personal? something else? What design elements will suit your audience, purpose, stance, genre, and medium?

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• What elements need to be designed? Is there any information you would like to highlight by putting it in a box? Are there any key terms that should be boldfaced? Do you need navigation buttons? How should you indicate links? • What font(s) are appropriate to your audience, purpose, stance, genre, and medium? • Are you including any  visuals ? Should you? Will your  audience  expect or need any? Is there any information in your text that would be easier to understand as a chart or graph? If you need to include video or audio clips, how should the links be presented?

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• S hould you include headings? Would they help you organize your materials and help readers follow the text? Does your  genre  or  medium require them?

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• Should you use a specific format?  mla ?  apa ?

mla

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apa

615–55

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Part 3

Genres When we make a shopping list, we automatically write each item we need in a single column. When we email a friend, we begin with a salutation: “Hi, Jordan.” Whether we are writing a letter, a résumé, or a proposal, we know generally what it should contain and what it should look like because we are familiar with each of those genres. Genres are kinds of writing, and texts in any given genre share goals and features — a proposal, for instance, generally starts out by identifying a problem and then suggests a certain solution. The chapters in this part provide guidelines for writing in twelve common academic genres. First come detailed chapters on four genres often assigned in writing classes — literacy narratives , textual analyses , reports , and arguments  — followed by brief chapters on eight other genres and one on remixes .

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Genres 10 Writing a Literacy Narrative   81 11 Analyzing Texts  104 12 Reporting Information  140 13 Arguing a Position   164 14 Abstracts  196 15 A nnotated Bibliographies and Reviews of Scholarly Literature   201 16 Evaluations  214 17 Literary Analyses  223 18 Memoirs  236 19 Profiles  245 20 Proposals  258 21 Explorations  269 22 Remixes  280

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10 W riting a Literacy Narrative

Narratives are stories, and we read and tell them for many different purposes. Parents read their children bedtime stories as an evening ritual. College applicants write about significant moments in their lives. In psychology courses, you may write a personal narrative to illustrate how individuals’ stories inform the study of behavior. In education courses, you may share stories of your teaching experiences. And in computer science courses, you may write programming narratives to develop programming skills. This chapter provides detailed guidelines for writing a specific kind of narrative: a literacy narrative. Writers of literacy narratives traditionally explore their experiences with reading or writing, but we’ll broaden the definition to include experiences with various literacies, which might include learning an academic skill, a sport, an artistic technique, or something else. For example, the third narrative in this chapter explores one writer’s realization that she needs “automotive literacy” to work in her parents’ car repair shop. Along with this essay, this chapter includes two additional good examples, the first annotated to point out the key features found in most literacy narratives.

REA KARIM

Becoming an American Girl Rea Karim earned an associate’s degree in arts and sciences at Bellevue College, where she wrote this literacy narrative. It was nominated for the Norton Writer’s Prize. Karim plans to major in political science at a university and then go to law school.

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Attention-getting opening.

Here Karim describes the ­setting — what hindered her literacy.

Clearly described details.

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GENRES

I stood on the monument’s marble steps, surveying my country’s capital. Elizabeth eagerly tugged on my denim jacket, “You gotta see this!” I turned around to see her smiling at the scene before us. We stood, mesmerized by the beauty of the golden hour, as the sun set over Washington, DC, in the summer of 2017. Like all the other girls surrounding me, I belonged here. I was the walking embodiment of my ancestors’ hopes and dreams. In 2005, though, I felt far from belonging. I was four years old, and I could not speak. My life was filled with words in English, Urdu, Hindi, and Bengali. These four languages painted my dining room table and added zest into my young life, but while I could understand, none of the words came out of my mouth. My mom was extremely concerned about my inability to talk but found reassurance from a linguistics professional who told us that my speaking abilities would develop late because of the diversity of voices within our household. But once I could talk, I still felt difference from the kids around me. I was the only child on my block whose parents came from two different South Asian countries. My dinner plate was a battle between Indian curried vegetables and the juice of Bengali kebabs. Even though I was born in Seattle, I often felt like I was from another planet, strug­ gling to integrate into my Cascadian hometown. At the same time, I didn’t feel like I fit in with the other south Asian kids I knew either. I had roots from both India and Bangladesh, and while those countries are close in proximity, their competition could stretch for miles. On top of that, my classmates introduced me to the “Indian” stereotype that all brown kids are naturally smart, good at math, and excellent students. As hard as I tried, I could not fit in to that image. I was late to start speaking, and I couldn’t read. Mama would sit with me for hours trying to get me to give up TV and learn to read with her from one of the Dot books, but I didn’t like Dot the dog. He was boring, and I was stubborn. Studying always seemed like a chore, and reading didn’t spark the same interest in me that it did for my classmates. Kids my age were cruising through Dot and picking up Lemony Snicket, while I was still learning the difference between p and q. Because of my reading level, I didn’t feel smart enough to be around the students in my class. Even though I made friends, a huge part of me felt like I couldn’t fit in. I didn’t feel American enough to live in my predominantly white community, and I didn’t feel “brown” enough

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10 Writing a Literacy Narrative

to hang out with the kids of my parents’ friends. Instead of socializing with my peers, I sought refuge in my elementary school library. The library’s tall walls covered with princess and dragon murals, the dozens of birch bookshelves, and the solitude gave me comfort. Every morning, as soon as the bus parked in the roundabout, I dashed to the library’s glass doors. The librarian, Ms. McEldowney, always let me in with a comforting smile. She knew I wasn’t the best reader, but she still narrated the blurbs from the newly arrived books and introduced me to some of her old favorites. Usually, I snatched whatever was on display, found a quiet spot next to a shelf, and ran my fingers over the words, trying to sound them out. In that way, I started building a friendship with books. I touched the pictures on the front and back cover, imagin­ ing that I was a part of the adventures I held in my hand. The library became my safe haven. Days quickly turned into months, and soon I could read a book without pictures. Every day I practiced running my fingers through sentences, absorbing whatever was in front of me and reading the sentences aloud. In a matter of a few months and a dozen McEldowney recommendations, I could read. Yet, a huge part of me could not relate to the characters in front of me. I still felt like an outsider. I lacked the courage of the main charac­ ters from my books, often feeling like a token side character. I wanted to be fearless like the boys and girls in my stories, but sometimes I felt as if a distant force was holding me back from being fearless outside of the library. I wanted to embody red, white, and blue like the heroes American history books told me about. More than anything, I wanted to belong. Even though I had found a place among these imaginary books, I desired a place in the real world around me.

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A key person in Karim’s narrative.

The library is a key to her literacy development.

The conflict in the story.

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This brief paragraph emphasizes the moment’s significance.

More specific details.

The significance of Karim’s reading becomes clear to her.­

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GENRES

The perceptions I had about being American were all about to change one crisp fall morning during library hour when Ms. McEl­ downey pulled out a thick set of chapter books. Once a glistening white, their faded covers were now coated in a thick gray dust. “These” she said with a enthusiastic tone, “are the American Girls.” Ms. McEldowney explained to our class that each book was about a different girl in a different period of American History. As she held each one up for us to see, I noticed that not all the girls on the covers were white. Each girl had a unique outfit, her own personality, and her own story. Her story. My friends and I rushed to the books. Among the piles, I found Meet Molly. On the cover a quirky-looking girl with thick glasses, braided pigtails, and a checkered dress looked back at me. I spent that evening sitting at the dining table reading about Molly’s family, her friends, and the new girl from England living with her who was seeking shelter during World War II. I read about how the two girls first felt a cultural clash between them but grew to be fascinated by each other’s experi­ ences. Their struggles reminded me of the cultural differences I had with some of my friends. Instead of viewing our lives as polar opposites, I considered sharing with them some of my household’s celebrations like Chaand Raat and learning more about holidays like Easter. What started with just a book became my lifestyle. I went to the library every morning, checked out whatever American Girl book was available, and finished it by the afternoon. From the story of Addy I learned of a family’s escape from slavery. From Josephine I learned about living without a mother and having the sole responsibility of raising her Mexican American family in 1824. From Kaya I learned about the impact of the settlers on the Native Americans and the struggle of holding on to what is yours. Each book shaped my perspective of what it means to be an American. I learned that life in this country isn’t on one set path. Rather, our country is a mixture of different paths, and each story matters. I started to believe that my story mattered. After elementary school, I kept reading. My avid obsession with books grew from the American Girl books to Louisa May Alcott and Ta-Nehisi Coates. Once I entered high school, I pursued the passion for history that the American Girl books instilled in me and tried my hand at AP United States History, World Government, and Comparative Politics.

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In the summer of 2017, I was accepted to a program that invited sixty girls from all over the country to visit Washington, DC, and learn what it takes for a woman to run for a seat in Congress. As I packed for the trip, I glanced at the old American Girl novels I had purchased, once new and now dusty like the ones I read as a child. I thought about how I spent so much of my childhood wrapped up in the stories of other girls. I realized, then, that I was ready to live my life as the main character. I kept that realization in mind when I met and grew close to the other girls in DC. They came from diverse backgrounds like me, and we shared our passions and stories with each other, each one of us the heroine. By putting myself at the center of my own story, I finally belonged. As I stood at the steps of the Lincoln Memorial underneath the set­ ting sun, I reflected on my journey to get to that moment. I had fallen in love with the roots my parents planted in Seattle, and I was a smart South Asian American in my own way, well versed not in math, but in history. I was no longer confined to a stereotype. Instead, I embodied the brown color of my skin and belonged to the United States — on my own terms.

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The end refers back to the opening anecdote but deepens its significance.

In this literacy narrative, Karim tells the story of how learning to read and reading American Girl novels helped her understand her identity as an American of South Asian heritage. The significance of her story lies in the role that reading played in developing her sense of who she is and where she belongs.

KARLA MARIANA HERRERA GUTIERREZ

Reading, Writing, and Riding A Literacy Narrative Karla Mariana Herrera Gutierrez recently graduated from Austin College with a triple major in English, Spanish, and public health. Her literacy narrative was nominated for the Norton Writer’s Prize and is documented in MLA style.

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GENRES

Eight faces sleep peacefully as my grandmother surveys the bedroom and closes the door before going outside. Out on the street, the sky is shattered by the soft yellows and pinks that break through the clouds, indicating the start of a new day. My grandmother walks down the side­ walk with her hands grasping her black bag as her mind processes recent events and tries to focus on the task at hand today. “Toma el autobus a la oficina y pide la pension,” my grandmother whispers to herself as she approaches the bus stop to go to the police office for her pension. It’s early in the day, but slowly more and more people begin to crowd the streets of Mexico City. The sounds of people talking and the angry honking of horns envelop my grandmother as she looks frantically down the road for the bus. It’s only been a few minutes, but she has no time to lose. They told her to be at the office at a certain time, and as a recent widow she does not want to make a bad impression on the people who could make it harder for her to secure the money she needs. Finally, the white and green speck she had fixated on grows closer until she sees it’s the bus she has been waiting for. Adjusting her bag, she prepares to step forward but scrunches her brow in concern when the bus doesn’t seem to be slowing down. I can picture my grandmother’s confused look as the bus passes by without picking her up. My mother said this was my grandmother’s breaking point, and she began to cry on the side of the road. “By God’s grace,” my mother continued, “a lady happened to pass by, and upon seeing my mother’s agitated state, she offered her assistance.” A simple arm signal stopped the next bus so my grandmother could get on and go to the police department. During the following two weeks my grandmother learned to no longer fear taking the bus; she got used to traveling downtown to the police station, to the chief’s office, sometimes twice in the same day. But her obstacles were only beginning. The process involved in receiv­ ing my deceased grandfather’s pension was a struggle. The police were reluctant to give it to my grandmother, hoping to wear her out because they didn’t care that she had to leave her children to make these trips downtown; they only worried about the money they’d lose. I can’t imagine my grandmother’s will to hide her worry as she withstood the harsh glares of the police officers with her back straight and a stone face, determined to fight for what was her family’s due. I can’t imagine having to trust that the legal documents a stranger presented to her were a written representation of what he was telling

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her and not a trap that would make her lose her pension. But I can imagine my grandmother realizing then the importance of knowing how to read and write. Similar to the collective history of the May family described in literacy scholar Deborah Brandt’s article “Accumulating Literacy,” my maternal grandmother’s experiences provided opportunities for learn­ ing that piled up from the moment she hailed that bus. The many obstacles my grandmother faced began with the unfamiliarity of hav­ ing to navigate new experiences and then intensified when she found herself at the mercy of government officials because she was illiterate. The importance of literacy became apparent in my mother’s house­ hold, but obtaining an education was still not a priority. My mother and her siblings learned to read and write, but none finished high school, though one of my uncles later received his GED when he moved to the United States. Literacy and education were two separate things in my mother’s youth — but that changed once she moved to the United States with my father and needed to help me when I started school. My own experiences navigating two languages and two cultures expanded my literacy as reading became a key tool not only in learning school subjects but also in learning to navigate a new environment. I started kindergarten being thrown to the sharks — that is, the English native sharks. Like the Jaws theme song, any English word that reached my ears quickened my heartbeat as I turned my head from side to side, hoping to identify the source of such frightening, unfamiliar sounds. I flailed around in the uncharted waters, sobbing and crying for my mother. Every morning my stomach groaned in protest at going to this institution that filled me with dread. However, I wasn’t in this alone. In the afternoons I pored over my textbooks and worksheets with my mother and her English-to-Spanish dictionary by my side. Together we conquered my homework, and the sounds that had first put me in fight-or-flight mode gradually became parts of my second language. It takes more than learning a new language to fully assimilate into a new culture, however. Literacy constitutes more than reading and writing; it also involves the ability to understand and become a part of one’s environment. Linguist James Paul Gee calls our “ways of being in the world” Discourses, beginning with the “primary Discourse” we learn at home; he defines literacy as “the mastery or fluent control over a secondary Discourse,” the discourse or discourses that include the

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social practices and behaviors that allow us to communicate effectively with others and that we learn through becoming members of social institutions, like churches, stores, community groups — and schools (6–9). For the most part, reading books about “typical” non-Hispanic households uncovered the norms of a culture I knew little about, and it also opened a place for conflict to arise when there were conflicting cultural ideas. Such was the case after I read a book from my favorite series, Junie B. Jones. When Junie B. gets invited to a sleepover, the idea of spend­ ing the night at another person’s house riveted seven-year-old me. In the book, the sleepover takes place in the giant house of Junie B.’s rich friend, Lucille; however, Junie B.’s crazy antics alter the experience of the sleepover in the way only she knows how to do (Park). I thought my dream would come true when a school friend invited me to come over to her house. I asked my mother for permission even though I was sure she was going to say yes — but I got a lecture instead. My mother refused my request and in fast-spoken Spanish listed all the horrible things that could happen to me if I went to a sleepover. Redfaced and slightly out of breath, she ended her sermon by asking me what was wrong with my bed that I felt the need to sleep in someone else’s. My mother, and father, rejected some of the freedoms other kids my age had, such as staying at each other’s houses or hanging out after school, because they focused on the potential dangers that could come of such activities. I didn’t want to upset my parents, so I only saw my friends at school and read my books to experience what I couldn’t in real life. If reading sometimes caused conflict at home, it was my method for success at school. I was an avid reader and when the school set up a reading program, I took full advantage of it. My school hoped to present reading as a fun activity, so it promoted what was called the Star Program, which offered prizes to students for progressing in the program, with the ultimate prize a ride in a limousine. When the pro­ gram ended, the twenty kids who had completed the course pressed our young, eager faces against our classroom window as the giant white limo pulled up to the front of the school building. We waited, bouncing in anxious joy, for the teachers to open the school doors and show the wonders of this marvelous car. The driver, in a black suit and sunglasses, walked to the back of the limo and opened the car’s door. It could have been the glare of the blazing sun or my young, imaginative mind, but

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the limo seemed to come alive as we caught a glimpse of its sleek black interior. Upon being released to climb in and enjoy our prize, we felt a blast of cold air that cut against the warmth of that spring afternoon. The flash of a camera redirected our attention to our teachers, who positioned us for a picture for the school newspaper. The Star Program focused on a ride in a limousine, but it failed to mention the bonus prize: feeling like a superstar. My eyes bulged as I took in all the features of this elegant white car as we drove away. The many buttons and compartments for food and drinks (which this ride unfortunately failed to provide) were a novelty to me. Feeling the cold leather of the seats, I traced the shape of the interior until I reached the buttons on the door. With one push the window went down, reveal­ ing to the world my awestruck face. The breeze whipped my curly hair around, but I didn’t care. I can still see the wondering faces of the people in the cars next to us doing double takes when they saw the stretched car pulling up beside them. As we drove through a roundabout, I felt regal and waved a royal wave to all my subjects because I ruled the world . . . at least for the ride’s thirty minutes. In my elementary years, I thought the Star Program was the epitome of what reading could do, and that limousine ride was only a small taste of what I could achieve by reading and focusing on my academics. Many people would assume that literacy begins like this, by an educa­ tional institution, but our literacy actually begins before our time. Brandt observes that literacy “piles up,” so that “many generations of literacy . . . now occupy the same social space” (652). This piling up of earlier and more recent literacies produces a “propelling effect”; as Brandt explains, “Schooling typically brings into a family’s possession books, manuals, typewriters, and the like that then become the first forms of literacy that the next generation encounters” (659). My literacy began with my grandmother, but it evolved over two generations to include more than simply learning how to read and write — it also meant assimilating into a new culture. Unlike my grandmother’s experience with the bus, my ride in the limousine was a marker of my assimilation. It was the first moment that I can remember when I stood out not because of my dif­ ferent background, but because of the reading I had accomplished in a program open to all. Not only did reading help me assimilate into a new culture, it also helped me with learning a new language. There wasn’t someone at home who could teach me how to properly speak and write English, so

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it was difficult for me to become fluent. While my mother did her best to help me with her English-to-Spanish dictionary, she couldn’t teach me anything that wasn’t a part of my homework. It was only through reading that I managed to expand my vocabulary and use the grammar rules I learned in school. By contrast, it was easier for my sister to learn English than it was for me because she had me to converse with at home. My sister’s earlier comprehension of English led to her “graduat­ ing” from ESL classes in just one year, instead of the four years it took me. My sister had me as her source of English at home, and integrat­ ing this new language into our household created a culturally diverse environment that differed from the one my parents had grown up with. In accumulating new literacies, we improve ourselves for the next generation, and what we improve is our ability to immerse ourselves in new situations because in doing so we elevate the standards of our education to reflect our experiences. But the piling up of literacies isn’t an individual effort. My grandmother learned to ride the bus after receiving help from a stranger, and the legal obstacles she faced because she was illiterate pushed her to make sure that my mom and her siblings learned to read. Because my mother knew how to read, she could help me with my homework, and because I learned English, I could converse with my sister in our new language. Each generation is shaped by the collective history of people’s literacies because of the opportunities we have to learn from those who came before us and to contribute to those who follow us. Works Cited Brandt, Deborah. “Accumulating Literacy: Writing and Learning to Write in the Twentieth Century.” College English, vol. 57, no. 6, 1995, pp. 649–66. Gee, James Paul. “Literacy, Discourse, and Linguistics: Introduction.” Journal of Education, vol. 171, no. 1, 1989, pp. 5–25. Park, Barbara. Junie B. Jones Is a Party Animal. Illustrated by Denise Brunkus, Scholastic, 1997.

Gutierrez traces her literacy development not just to her own life and experiences but to the literacies, or lack of them, of her mother and grandmother as well. Her references to scholarly work on literacy deepen her story and show its significance for many, not just her personally.

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ANA-JAMILEH KASSFY

Automotive Literacy In the following literacy narrative, Ana-Jamileh Kassfy describes an experience that taught her that literacy takes many forms, as well as the importance of knowing what goes on in the family business, auto repair. She wrote this essay in a college writing class at the University of Texas at El Paso and posted it on her class blog. My father runs a well-known family-owned auto shop here in El Paso, Texas. I come from a family of five, which consists of me, two older brothers, and my parents. My father manages the place, while one of my brothers works as a mechanic in charge of most of the heavy labor and the other spends all day standing by a state inspection machine making sure the cars can run safely on the streets of El Paso. My mother works as the shop’s secretary, answering the phone and handling all paperwork. I, on the other hand, was not given the option of being a part of the family business; my job is to graduate from college. And I’ll gladly accept going to school and learning in place of spending my days working on cars, even though I spent a lot of time at the shop throughout my childhood. Since I come from a family whose life revolves around cars, and since I practically lived at the auto shop until I was able to drive, you’d think that I’d understand most of the jargon a mechanic would use, right? Wrong. During my first sixteen years of life, I did manage to learn the difference between a flathead and a Torx screwdriver. I also learned what brake pads do and that a car uses many different colorful fuses. However, rather than paying attention to what was happening and what was being said around me, most of the time I chose to focus on the social aspect of the business. While everyone was running around ordering different pads, filters, and starters or explaining in precise detail why a customer needed a new engine, I preferred to sit and speak with customers and learn their life stories. Being social worked for me — until it didn’t. One day my mother couldn’t come to work and decided to have me fill in for her. That was fine with me. I thought to myself, “How hard could it be to answer a phone and say, ‘Good afternoon, M & J

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Service, how may I help you?’ or to greet customers and then turn them over to my dad?” My morning went by pretty smoothly. I thought I had my duties down to a science. I figured aside from the permanent ringing in my ear from the annoyingly loud air compressors, a few minor paper cuts, and the almost perpetual stench of gasoline and burnt oil, my day was going to fly by. Then, around lunchtime, my dad left to pick up a part at a car dealership and my brothers went out for lunch. A woman pulled up in a ‘01 Hyundai Elantra that was desperately in need of a new paint job and walked into the shop. The woman seemed to be in her late forties and was wearing professional clothing with green eye shadow and bright orange lipstick. Her copper-brown hair was feathered out and she wore extremely large gold earrings. And she was angry. She demanded I tell her why she was having a difficult time starting her car. As I began to dust off the file stored in my memory as “Automo­ tive Terms I Will Never Use,” I attempted to calm her down, and then I made the mistake of asking her what the problem was. She said in a harsh tone, “My car doesn’t start, your dad just replaced the spark plugs and the motor head, and now my ‘blah blah blah’ is making noise! I took it to my friend who’s a mechanic and he told me your dad fixed the wrong part.” I took a few seconds and just stood there looking at her, trying to add up what I had learned in my life as a “mechanic” and recall what spark plugs were. But it was useless. After a few moments, I gave up. I told her that I couldn’t help her, but that she was more than welcome to wait for a mechanic to return. After giving me an unpleasant look, she proceeded to say, while waving her hands in front of me, “I want my money back! Here is my receipt. I’m taking my car elsewhere. Your dad screwed me over. I told him it was the ‘blah blah blah.’ Why did he take out the ‘blah blah blah’? WHY CAN’T YOU HELP ME? WHY ARE YOU HERE? BLAH BLAH BLAH!” I stood there, overwhelmed. I began to fidget and push my hair back nervously as I wished some knowledge would kick in. It seemed unbelievable, but despite growing up in a family that lived and breathed automobiles, there was nothing I could do to help her. And my six­ teen years of socializing with customers hadn’t even paid off because I couldn’t calm her down. When I saw my dad walk in, I sighed with

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relief, explained the problem to him, and it was resolved. But standing in front of that woman like a deer caught in headlights was so embar­ rassing. Having somebody shout, “Why can’t you help me?” and “Why are you here?” made me feel so ignorant. Unfortunately, that was only the first of many occasions when people have automatically expected that I know how to take apart and rebuild an engine, or perform some other auto-related task. In reality, I know as much about cars as the next person. After that incident, it became clear to me that I could be literate on very different levels. I’m an expert at running social networks like my Twitter feed, and I can zip through and analyze an entire novel written in Spanish, but in other subjects, like automobiles, I am completely illiterate. And when I’m expected to know them, I feel anything but competent.

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A confrontation with an irate costumer forces Kassfy to realize that she could be very literate in some situations but almost illiterate in others, and that her lack of knowledge in a workplace context put her at a real disadvantage.

Key Features / Literacy Narratives A well-told story.   As with most narratives, those about literacy often set up some sort of situation that needs to be resolved. That need for resolution makes readers want to keep on reading. We want to know how Kassfy will deal with an irate customer. Some literacy narratives simply explore the role that developing literacy of some kind played at some time in someone’s life, as when Karim discovered the school library and American Girl novels. And some, like Gutierrez’s, explore the writer’s literacy development in a larger context.

Vivid detail.   Details can bring a narrative to life for readers by giving them vivid mental sensations of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place. The details you use when describing something can help readers picture places, people, and events; dialogue can help them hear what is being said. We grasp the importance of books for Karim as she “touched the pictures on the front and back cover.” Similarly, we can picture and hear Gutierrez as a little girl who speaks only Spanish in an English-language kindergarten, “sobbing and crying for my mother.”

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Some indication of the narrative’s significance.   By definition, a literacy narrative tells something the writer remembers about learning to read, write, or gain competence in a specific area. In addition, the writer needs to make clear why the incident matters to them. You may reveal its sig­ nificance in various ways. Kassfy comes to understand that to work in an auto repair shop, she needs to understand automotive repair terms. Gutierrez places her literacy in a tradition going back generations — and continuing with her sister’s relationship with her. Karim’s narrative shows that her literacy was a key to understanding her place in society.

A GUIDE TO WRITING LITERACY NARRATIVES Choosing a Topic In general, it’s a good idea to focus on a single event that took place during a relatively brief period of time — though sometimes learning to do or understand something may take place over an extended period. In that case, several snapshots or important moments may be needed. Here are some suggestions for topics: • any early memory about writing, reading, speaking, or another form of literacy that you recall vividly • someone who taught you to read or write • someone who helped you understand how to do something • a book, video game, recording, or other text that has been significant for you in some way • an event at school that was related to your literacy and that you found interesting, humorous, or embarrassing • a literacy task that you found (or still find) especially difficult or challenging 385–90

• a memento that represents an important moment in your literacy development (perhaps the start of a  literacy portfolio ) • the origins of your current attitudes about writing, reading, speaking, or doing something

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• learning to text, learning to write an email appropriately, creating and maintaining a Facebook page or blog Make a list of possible topics, and then choose one that you think will be interesting to you and to others — and that you’re willing to share with others. If several seem promising, try them out on a friend or classmate. Or just choose one and see where it leads; you can switch to another if need be. If you have trouble coming up with a topic, try  freewriting ,  listing ,  clustering , or  looping .

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Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Why do you want to tell this story? To share a mem-

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ory with others? To fulfill an assignment? To teach a lesson? To explore your past learning? Think about the ­reasons for your choice and how they will shape what you write.

audience

Are your readers likely to have had similar experi-

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ences? Would they tell similar stories? How much explaining will you have to do to help them understand your narrative? Can you assume that they will share your attitudes toward your story, or will you have to work at making them see your perspective? How much about your life are you willing to share with this audience?

stance

What attitude do you want to project? Affectionate?

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Neutral? Critical? Do you wish to be sincere? serious? humorously detached? self-critical? self-effacing? something else? How do you want your readers to see you?

media  / design Will your narrative be in print? presented orally?

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online? Should you use photos, tables, graphs, or video or audio clips? Is there a font that conveys the right tone? Do you need headings?

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Generating Ideas and Text

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Good literacy narratives share certain elements that make them interesting and compelling for readers. Remember that your goals are to tell the story as clearly and vividly as you can and to convey the meaning the incident has for you today. Start by thinking about what you already know about writing a literacy narrative. Then write out what you remember about the setting of your narrative and those involved, perhaps trying out some of the methods in the chapter on  generating ideas and text . You may also want to  interview  a teacher or parent or other person who figures in your narrative.

Explore what you already know about writing a literacy narrative.   Think about recent occasions when you’ve had to narrate a story, either orally or in writing, in school or out. Take a few moments to think about a couple of those occasions, especially ones involving your reading, writing, speaking, or learning to do something. Why and to whom were you telling these stories? How successful do you think your narratives were? What aspects of telling the story did you feel most confident about or do especially well? What could you have done better? What do you still need to learn about writing a literacy narrative? Describe the setting.  Where does your narrative take place? List the 456–63

places where your story unfolds. For each place, write informally for a few minutes,  describing  what you remember: • W hat do you see? If you’re inside, what color are the walls? What’s hanging on them? What can you see out any windows? What else do you see? Books? Lined paper? Red ink? Are there people? places to sit? a desk or a table? • What do you hear? A radiator hissing? Leaves rustling? The wind howling? Rain? Someone reading aloud? Shouts? Cheers? Children playing? Music? The chime of a text arriving on your phone? • What do you smell? Sweat? Perfume? Incense? Food cooking? • H ow and what do you feel? Nervous? Happy? Cold? Hot? A scratchy wool sweater? Tight shoes? Rough wood on a bench? • What do you taste? Gum? Mints? Graham crackers? Juice? Coffee?

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Think about the key people.  Narratives include people whose actions play an important role in the story. In your literacy narrative, you are probably one of those people. A good way to develop your understanding of the people in your narrative is to write about them: • Describe each person in a paragraph or so. What do the people look like? How do they dress? How do they speak? Quickly? Slowly? With an accent? Do they speak clearly, or do they mumble? Do they use any distinctive words or phrases? You might begin by describing their movements, their posture, their bearing, their facial expressions. Do they have a distinctive scent? • Recall (or imagine) some characteristic dialogue. A good way to bring people to life and move a story along is with  dialogue , to let readers hear them rather than just hearing about them. Try writing six to ten lines of dialogue between two people in your narrative. If you can’t remember an actual conversation, make up one that could have happened. (After all, you are telling the story, and you get to decide how it is to be told.) Try to remember (and write down) some of the characteristic words or phrases that the people in your narrative used.

Write about “what happened.”  At the heart of every good  narrative  is the answer to the question “What happened?” The action in a literacy narrative may be as dramatic as winning a spelling bee or as subtle as a conversation between two friends; both contain action, movement, or change that the narrative tries to capture for readers. A good story dramarative in a tizes the action. Try  summarizing  the action in your nar­ paragraph — try to capture what happened. Use active and specific ­ verbs (“pondered,” “shouted,” “laughed”) to describe the action as vividly as possible.

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Consider the significance of the narrative.  You need to make clear the ways in which any event you are writing about is significant for you now. Write a page or so about the meaning it has for you. How did it change or otherwise affect you? What aspects of your life now can you trace to that event? How might your life have been different if this event had not happened or had turned out differently? Why does this story matter to you?

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Ways of Organizing a Literacy Narrative 340–42

Start by  outlining  the main events in your narrative. Then think about how you want to tell the story. Don’t assume that the only way to tell your story is just as it happened. That’s one way — starting at the beginning of the action and continuing to the end. But you could also start in the middle — or even at the end. Karla Gutierrez, for example, could have begun her narrative by discussing her current literacy and then gone back to trace the influences of her family. Several ways of organizing a narrative follow.

[Chronologically, from beginning to end] Introduce the story.

Describe the setting and people.

Say how the story was resolved.

Tell what happened.

Say something about the significance.

[Beginning in the middle] Start in the middle of the action, giving enough information to let readers know what was happening.

Fill in details: setting, people, specific actions.

Make clear how the situation was resolved.

Say something about the significance.

[Beginning at the end] Start at the end of the story: tell how the story ends up, then introduce the subject.

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Go back to the beginning of the story, telling what happens chronologically and describing the setting and people.

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Conclude by saying something about the story’s significance.

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Writing Out a Draft Once you have generated ideas and thought about how you want to organize your narrative, it’s time to begin  drafting . Do this quickly — try to write a complete draft in one sitting, concentrating on getting the story on paper or screen and on putting in as much detail as you can. Some writers find it helpful to work on the beginning or ending first. Others write out the main event first and then draft the beginning and ending.

Draft a  beginning .   A good narrative grabs readers’ attention right from the start. Here are some ways of beginning:

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• C reate a question to be answered. Karim begins her narrative at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., leading readers to wonder how this scene connects to her literacy. • D escribe the context. You may want to provide background information at the start of your narrative, as Gutierrez does with an anecdote about her illiterate grandmother’s struggle to collect a pension. • Describe the setting, especially if it’s important to the narrative. Kassfy begins by describing her family’s roles working in her father’s auto shop.

Draft an  ending .  Think about what you want readers to read last. An effective ending helps them understand the meaning of your narrative. Here are some possibilities:

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• E nd where your story ends. It’s up to you to decide where a narrative ends. Karim ends on a field trip in high school. • Say something about the significance of your narrative. Gutierrez explores the meaning of her experience over several paragraphs, and Kassfy discusses her ignorance and resulting embarrassment. The trick is to touch on the narrative’s significance without stating it too directly. • Refer back to the beginning. Karim refers back to her trip to Washington, D.C., and Gutierrez to her grandmother and the “piling up” of literacies over several generations.

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Consider  rewriting .   If you have time and want to explore alternatives, you might try rewriting your draft to see if a different plan or approach might work better.

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Come up with a title.   A good  title  indicates something about the subject of your narrative — and makes readers want to take a look. Kassfy’s title joins two terms — “automotive” and “literacy” — that aren’t usually seen together. Gutierrez uses wordplay — “Reading, Writing, and Riding,” to suggest the multiple roles literacy plays in our lives.

Considering Matters of Design You’ll probably write your narrative in paragraph form, but think about the information you’re presenting and how you can design it to enhance your story and appeal to your audience. 668–69

• What would be an appropriate  font ? Something serious, like Times Roman? Something whimsical, like Comic Sans? Something else?

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• Would it help your readers if you added  headings  in order to divide your narrative into shorter sections?

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• Would photographs or other  visuals  show details better than you can describe them with words alone? If you’re writing about learning to read, for example, you might scan in an image of one of the first books you read. Or if your topic is learning to write, you could include something you wrote. You could even include a video or audio recording. Would your narrative best be conveyed as a multimedia composition that combines written text, images, and video or audio?

Getting Response and Revising 372–74

The following questions can help you study your draft with a critical eye.  getting response  from others is always good, and these questions can guide their reading, too. Make sure they know your purpose and audience.

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• Do the title and first few sentences make readers want to read on? If not, how else might you begin? • Is the sequence of events in the narrative clear? Does it flow, and are there effective transitions? Does the narrative get sidetracked at any point? • Is anything confusing? • Is there enough detail, and is it interesting? Will readers be able to imagine the setting? Can they picture the characters and sense what they’re like? Would it help to add some dialogue so that readers can “hear” them? • Are visuals used effectively and integrated smoothly with the written text? If there are no visuals, would using some strengthen the ­narrative? • Have you made the narrative meaningful enough for readers so that they wonder and care about what will happen? • Do you narrate any actions clearly? vividly? Does the action keep ­readers engaged? • Is the significance of the narrative clear? • Is the ending satisfying? What are readers left thinking? The preceding questions should identify aspects of your narrative you need to work on. When it’s time to  revise , make sure your text appeals to your audience and achieves your purpose as successfully as ­possible.

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Editing and Proofreading Once you’ve revised your draft, follow these guidelines for  editing  a narrative:

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• Make sure events are  narrated  in a clear order and include appropriate time markers,  transitions , and summary phrases to link the parts and show the passing of time.

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• Be careful that verb tenses are consistent throughout. If you start your narrative in the past tense (“he taught me how to use a computer”), be careful not to switch to the present (“So I look at him and say ... ”) along the way. • Check to see that verb tenses correctly indicate when an action took place. If one action took place before another action in the past, for example, you should use the past perfect tense: “I forgot to dot my i’s, a mistake I had made many times before.” 464–68

• Punctuate  dialogue  correctly. Whenever someone speaks, surround the speech with quotation marks (“No way,” I said). Periods and commas go inside quotation marks; exclamation points and question marks go inside if they’re part of the quotation, outside if they’re part of the whole sentence: INSIDE Opening the door, Ms. Cordell announced, “Pop quiz!” OUTSIDE It wasn’t my intention to announce “I hate to read”!

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•  proofread  your finished narrative carefully before turning it in.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering to these questions: • How did you go about coming up with ideas and generating text? Did you try freewriting, looping, mapping, something else? Which activities were most productive for you? • How effectively did you use dialogue, description, or other narrative strategies in your writing? • Did you use photographs or other visual or audio elements? If so, what did they add? If not, why not? • Did you take any risks with your writing, or did you experiment in some way? Was the experiment a success? A failure? What can you learn from it? • How did others’ responses influence your writing?

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• What did you learn about reading, writing, or other literacies as you worked on your piece? How might you use this learning in the future? • Overall, what did you do well in this piece? What could still be improved? What would you do differently next time?

If you need more help See also  MEMOIRS  (Chapter 18), a kind of narrative that focuses more generally on a significant event from your past, and  EXPLORATIONS  (Chapter 21), a kind of essay for thinking about a topic in writing. See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your literacy narrative as part of a writing  PORTFOLIO .

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236–44 269–79 385–90

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Both HuffPost and National Review cover the same events, but each one interprets them differently. All toothpaste ads claim to make teeth “the whitest.” The Environmental Protection Agency is a guardian of America’s air, water, and soil — or an unconstitutional impediment to economic growth, depending on which politician is speaking. Those are but three examples that demonstrate why we need to be careful, analytical readers of magazines, newspapers, blogs, websites, ads, political documents, even textbooks. Text is commonly thought of as words, as a piece of writing. In the academic world, however, text can include not only writing but images —  photographs, illustrations, videos, films — and even sculptures, buildings, and music and other sounds. And many texts combine words, images, and sounds. We are constantly bombarded with texts: on the web, in print, on signs and billboards, even on our clothing. Not only does text convey information, but it also influences how and what we think. We need to read, then, to understand not only what texts say but also how they say it and how they try to persuade or influence what we think. Because understanding how texts say what they say and achieve their effects is so crucial, assignments in many disciplines ask you to analyze texts. You may be asked to analyze candidates’ speeches in a political science course or to analyze the imagery in a poem for a literature class. In a statistics course, you might analyze a set of data — a numerical text — to find the standard deviation from the mean. This chapter offers detailed guidelines for writing an essay that closely examines a text both for what it says and for how it does so, with the goal of demonstrating for readers how — and how well — the text achieves its effects. We’ll begin with three good examples, the first annotated to point out the key features found in most textual analyses.

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PAT FINN

The Architecture of Inequality On Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite Pat Finn writes for Architizer, an online resource for architects. In Bong Joon-ho’s Academy Award–winning film Parasite, architecture isn’t silent, it speaks. Again and again, the built environment indicates where people fit into the social hierarchy — or if there is a place for them at all. The film opens in the apartment of the Kim family, the movie’s protagonists. This is a semi-basem*nt apartment, or banjiha, a common type of working-class residence in South Korea. “It really reflects the psyche of the Kim family,” Bong told Rachel Wallace for Architectural Digest. “You’re still half overground, so there’s this hope and this sense that you still have access to sunlight and you haven’t completely fallen to the basem*nt yet. It’s this weird mixture of hope and this fear that you can fall even lower.”

A clear thesis.

The meaning behind the design is explained in a quote by the filmmaker.

An early rendering of the Kim family’s semi-basem*nt apartment.

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Clear description of the apartment and how the family lives in it.

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From the first shot of the film, the viewer can see that this is an improvised living situation, a space where nothing ever feels settled. As the opening credits flash across the screen, the camera lingers over socks hanging from a light fixture that is being used as a makeshift drying rack. In the next shot, we see the two youngest members of the Kim family, siblings Ki-jung and Ki-woo, frantically scanning the apartment with their phones, searching for an unsecured wi-fi signal they can connect to. They eventually find service in the strange bathroom, in which the toilet is elevated on a tiled platform. Now, it seems, the bathroom will become a new communal space where the family will hang out and browse the internet. The way the Kim family lives in their space, improvising as necessary, reflects the way they exist economically. Without stable jobs, the Kim family is forced to constantly hustle, make adjustments, and find new ways to make money. If they slow down, even for a second, it might prevent them from making ends meet.

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Park So-dam, left, and Choi Woo-shik play the two children of the Kim family.

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The Kims’ stressful lifestyle is emblematic of the so-called “gig economy” that has emerged in recent years. In his now-classic 2009 book Capitalist Realism, the late theorist and blogger Mark Fisher argued that the proliferation of “gig” work in the twenty-first century has taken a serious psychological toll on workers worldwide. “To function effectively as a component of just–in-time production you must develop a capacity to respond to unforeseen events, you must learn to live in conditions of total instability, or ‘precarity,’ as the ugly neologism has it,” Fisher explained. “Periods of work alternate with periods of unemployment. Typically, you find yourself employed in a series of short-term jobs, unable to plan for the future” (38). This passage, like many others in the book, could have been written about the Kims. In Parasite, the crucial difference between the experience of the working class and the upper class is not opulence but stability. The only other living space that features prominently in the film is a gleaming modern estate enclosed by concrete walls. It belongs to the Park

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The family’s life is analyzed with support from a scholarly source.

The Kim family’s most recent “gig” is folding pizza boxes.

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family, for whom the Kims’ college-age son, Ki-woo, goes to work as an English tutor. (With fabricated credentials, of course; like his other family members, Ki-woo is adept at hustling, or doing what he needs to survive.) Much has been written about the Parks’ gorgeous house, which is said in the film to have been designed by a famous architect named Namgoong Hyeonja. The space is so convincing that many viewers of the film assumed it was a real house, an architectural marvel. However, it is actually a series of sets designed by Lee Ha Jun, the film’s production designer. “Bong left it all to me in terms of its architectural style,” Lee explained in an interview with Dezeen. “He showed me a simple floor plan which he sketched whilst writing the script.” Instead of sticking to one architectural style, Lee took inspiration from multiple homes that had a minimalist design. The key element he wanted to capture was “great space arrangement.” The fact that the Parks’ house was supposedly designed by a famous architect is a significant detail. As soon as Ki-woo steps into the house,

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The residence of the wealthy Park family is said to have been built by a famous architect. This is an early rendering developed by production designer Lee Ha Jun.

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The illustrations and photos replace written descriptions of the set.

The sets were designed to convey “great space arrangement,” according to production designer Lee Ha Jun.

he is leaving the chaotic and improvisatory space of working-class Seoul and entering planned, architectural space. Here, light fixtures do not double as drying racks and bathrooms aren’t used for surfing the web. In contrast, every detail of the Parks’ house speaks to the logic of its overall design.

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Analysis of the significance of the home, ­contrasted with the apartment.

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In Parasite, secrets lurk even in spaces that appear meticulously logical in their design.

Clear interpretation of the significance of the two dwellings.

This is a living space that has carved out its niche in the social order. It asserts its right to exist. However, the seeming stability of the Park household ultimately proves to be an illusion. The shocking ending of the film illustrates that dark secrets lurk in every house, even ones with open floor plans. It also shows that class tensions can only be tamped down for so long. If inequality persists, and workers continue to be unable to take control of their lives, something is eventually going to crack. Works Cited Fisher, Mark. Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Zero Books, 2009. Lee Ha Jun. “Parasite House Designed from ‘Simple Floor Plan’ Sketched by Bong Joon-ho.” Interview by Bridget Cogley. Dezeen, 16 Apr. 2020, www.dezeen.com/2020/04/16/parasite -film-set-design-interview-lee-ha-jun-bong-joon-ho. Parasite. Directed by Bong Joon-ho, Barunson E and A, 2019. Wallace, Rachel. “Inside the House from Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite.” Architectural Digest, 31 Oct. 2019, www.architecturaldigest.com /story/bong-joon-ho-parasite-movie-set-design-interview.

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Finn’s analysis of the film centers on the two main sets ­ — one family’s squalid apartment and another family’s lovely home. He compares and contrasts the two dwellings but, interestingly, does not reveal the feature of the house that leads to the “shocking ending of the film.”

DANIELLE ALLEN

Our Declaration Danielle Allen is a political theorist, teaches at Harvard University, and directs Harvard’s Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. This analysis is a chapter from her book Our Declaration: A Reading of the Declaration of Independence in Defense of Equality. There’s something quite startling about the phrase “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” Perhaps it can be made visible most easily with a comparison. The Catholic Church, too, is committed to a set of truths. At every mass priest and parishioners together recite a list of their beliefs called the Credo. One version, called the Apostles’ Creed, starts like this: “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only son and Lord.” Each section begins with the words “I believe,” and that’s why this recitation is called the Credo. Latin, “credo” simply means “I believe.” The Declaration launches its list of truths altogether differently. Jefferson and his colleagues do not say, “I believe,” or even “we believe,” that all men are created equal. Instead, they say, “We hold these truths to be self-evident,” and then they give us a set of either three or five truths, depending on how you count. What’s the difference between “We believe” and “We hold these truths to be self-evident”? In the Catholic Credo, when one says, “I believe,” the basis for that belief is God’s revealed word. In contrast, when Jefferson and his colleagues say, “We hold these truths to be self-­ evident,” they are claiming to know the truths thanks to their own powers of perception and reasoning. These truths are self-evident, and so humans can grasp and hold them without any external or divine assistance.

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In order to understand what “We hold these truths to be self-evident” really means, then, it is important to know what “self-evident” means. Sometimes people take it to mean that we can instantly understand an idea, but that’s not really right. It’s true that sometimes the idea of self-­evidence is used for things that we simply perceive. For instance, when I look out my window I immediately perceive that the world includes things like trees and flowers. If outside my window there are many different kinds of tree — hickory and maple and oak, for instance — when I look at them, I nonetheless rapidly perceive that they are all the same kind of thing. That many different kinds of a particular sort of growing thing are all trees is self-evident. We can call this self-evidence from sense perception. The immediacy of perception, though, is not the same as instantly understanding an idea. And, in fact, to call a proposition self-evident is not at all to say that you will instantly get it. It means instead that if you look into the proposition, if you entertain it, if you reflect upon it, you will inevitably come to affirm it. All the evidence that you need in order to believe the proposition exists within the proposition itself. This second kind of self-evidence comes not from perception but from logic and how language works. For instance, we define a chair as an object with a seat and some structure of legs to hold that seat up; and the artifact serves the purpose of having someone sit on it. Then, if I say that a chair is for sitting on, I am expressing a self-evident truth based only on the definition of a chair. Of course a chair is for sitting on! That is how I’ve defined the word, after all. That’s a pretty trivial example of self-evidence. If that were all there were to the idea of self-evidence, it wouldn’t be very interesting. So here is where matters get more interesting: one can string together more than one kind of self-evident proposition — let’s call them “premises” — in order to lead to a new piece of knowledge, a conclusion, which will also count as self-evident, since it has been deduced from a few basic self-evident premises. Aristotle called this method of stringing together valid premises to yield a self-evident conclusion, a syllogism. . . . Here is a basic example:

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FIRST PREMISE: Bill Gates is a human being. SECOND PREMISE: All human beings are mortal. CONCLUSION: Bill Gates is mortal.

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This is a bit like math. We can use a Venn diagram to show how the syllogism works. Venn diagrams represent sets of things and how they overlap, and the argument of a syllogism can be thought of as expressing facts about sets and their members. Bill Gates is in the set of human beings. And the set of human beings is entirely contained within the set of mortals. It follows that Bill Gates is in the set of mortals. The validity of this syllogism becomes self-evident when those facts are represented as in this Venn diagram:

Bill Gates All humans

All mortals

Now, in this syllogism, our two premises are both self-evident truths based on sense perception. We know Bill Gates is a human being by looking at and listening to him. As to the idea that human beings are mortal, we know that human beings die by seeing it happen all around us and never seeing a counterexample. Then we take these two premises, each self-evident through sense perception, and generate a third self-evident proposition, in this case a conclusion, through deduction. From the two premises, we can deduce the certain conclusion that Bill Gates will die. The Declaration introduces a similar kind of argument when it says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident.” At first glance, it looks as if we just have three separate self-evident truths. But if we look closer, we notice that our truths also represent an argument with two premises, which are true from sense perception, and a conclusion that is deduced from them. Here’s how it works.

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After the Declaration says, “We hold these truths to be selfevident,” the text proceeds to identify three truths: one about human beings, one about government, and one about revolution. The truth about human beings, though, is a three-part truth. It is self-evidently true: that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. How do these three claims make a single truth? Human beings are equal in all acquiring the same rights at the moment of their creation. From the moment of their emergence as living beings, human beings seek to survive, to be free from domination, and to be happy. This is something we simply observe about human beings. For that matter, we observe it about other animals, too. For instance, I’ve never seen a cat that didn’t want to survive, to be free, and to be happy. Then, with the next truth, we come to the difference between human beings and animals. The Declaration says, it is self-evidently true  That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted — among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed. This is a truly salient point. The signers are saying that, in contrast to the animal kingdom, the world of human beings is indeed full of kingdoms and other kinds of governments. The so-called animal kingdom is a kingdom only metaphorically. There are no governments among animals. Animals have social hierarchies, and they have their own methods for seeking their survival, freedom, and happiness, but human beings use politics. Human beings display self-conscious thought about social organization, and politics is the activity that flows from that self-­consciousness about power. Again, this is simply a matter of observation. From the beginning of time to the present day, human beings have formed governments. Human beings have done this just as regularly as birds build nests. Then the Declaration puts these first two truths together. Since human beings seek their own survival, freedom, and happiness, and since they have a special tool for doing so — namely, the ability to form

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governments — it makes sense for them to stick with any particular version of that tool, any particular government, only if it’s doing the work it’s been built to do. Compare it to a bird with a nest. What’s the point of a bird’s staying in a nest if it turns out that the nest has been built out of material inimical or poisonous to the bird? What’s the use, in other words, of having a government, if it doesn’t serve the purposes of protecting life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness for which governments are set up in the first place? The Declaration puts it this way: It is self-evidently true  That whenever any Form of Government becomes destruc— tive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. From the facts, first, that people are simply wired, as are all animals, to seek their survival, freedom, and happiness, and, second, that human beings use governments as their central instrument for protecting their life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, we can deduce that people have a right to change governments that aren’t working for them. This makes an argument that goes like this: PREMISE 1: All people have rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. PREMISE 2: Properly constituted government is necessary to their securing these rights. CONCLUSION: All people have a right to a properly constituted government. In fact, a philosopher would say that a premise is missing from that argument and that the full formally valid syllogism would look like this:

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PREMISE 1: All people have rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. PREMISE 2: Properly constituted government is necessary to their securing these rights.

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PREMISE 3: [All people have a right to whatever is necessary to secure what they have a right to.] CONCLUSION: All people have a right to a properly constituted government. Politicians often craft maxims simply by dropping out pieces of their argument. With the missing premise inserted, the Declaration’s truths fit together almost like the pieces of a mathematical equation; we intuitively feel the puzzle pieces snap together. That is how selfevidence should feel.

Allen’s analysis focuses on the Declaration’s second sentence, unpacking its logic through a careful examination of its key term, “self-evident,” and explaining how the rest of the sentence forms a syllogism that “snaps together.” She looks carefully at every word, restricting her analysis here to a very brief part of the text — but provides insights that illuminate the whole document.

ROY PETER CLARK

Why It Worked A Rhetorical Analysis of Obama’s Speech on Race Roy Peter Clark teaches writing at the Poynter Institute. This essay, which Clark describes as “an X-ray reading of the text,” appeared online on the Poynter Institute’s website, first in 2008 and again in 2017, with a new introduction. The National Conference of Teachers of English (NCTE) has declared today [October 20, 2017] a National Day on Writing. I celebrate such a day. The introduction of my book Writing Tools imagines what America might look like and sound like if we declared ourselves a “nation of writers.” After all, what good is freedom of expression if we lack the means to express ourselves? To mark this day — and to honor language arts teachers everywhere — Poynter is republishing an essay I wrote almost a decade ago.

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Remember? It was the spring of 2008 and Barack Obama was running for president. Many of us wondered if America was ready to elect an African-American president (a man with the middle name Hussein). To dispel the fears of some white Americans and to advance his chances for election, Obama delivered a major address on race in America, a speech that was praised even by some of his adversaries. Obama had / has a gift for language. He is a skilled orator. To neutralize that advantage, his opponents — including Hillary Clinton at one point — would characterize Obama’s words as empty “rhetoric” — an elaborate trick of language. The spring of 2008 seems like such a long time ago. A time just before the Great Recession [that affected the United States from 2008 to 2009]. A time just before the ascendancy of social networks and the trolls who try to poison them. A time before black lives were said to matter in a more assertive way. A time before fake news was anything more dangerous than a piece of satire in the Onion. A time before Colin Kaepernick took a knee — except when he was tired. A time before torch-bearing white supremacists marched through the night in Charlottesville, Virginia. It feels like the perfect time for a restart on a conversation about race. To prepare us, let’s take another look at the words of Barack Obama before he was president. Let’s review what he said, and, more important, how and why he said it. My X-ray analysis of that speech is meant not as a final word on that historical moment, but as an invitation, a doorway to a room where we can all reflect on American history and the American language. Have a great National Day on Writing.

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More than a century ago, scholar and journalist W. E. B. Du Bois wrote a single paragraph about how race is experienced in America. I have learned more from those 112 words than from most book-length studies of the subject: After the Egyptian and Indian, the Greek and Roman, the Teuton and Mongolian, the Negro is a sort of seventh son, born with a veil, and gifted with second-sight in this American world, a world which yields him no true self-consciousness, but only lets him see himself through the revelation of the other world. It is a peculiar sensation, this doubleconsciousness, this sense of always looking at one’s self through the eyes

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of others, of measuring one’s soul by the tape of a world that looks on in amused contempt and pity. One ever feels his two-ness, — an American, a Negro; two souls, two thoughts, two unreconciled strivings; two warring ideals in one dark body, whose dogged strength alone keeps it from being torn asunder. Much has been said about the power and brilliance of Barack Obama’s March 18, 2008, speech on race, even by some of his detractors. The focus has been on the orator’s willingness to say things in public about race that are rarely spoken at all, even in private, and his expressed desire to move the country to a new and better place. There has also been attention to the immediate purpose of the speech, which was to reassure white voters that they had nothing to fear from the congregant of a fiery African-American pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Amid all the commentary, I have yet to see an X-ray reading of the text that would make visible the rhetorical strategies that the orator and authors used so effectively. When received in the ear, these effects breeze through us like a harmonious song. When inspected with the eye, these moves become more apparent, like reading a piece of sheet music for a difficult song and finally recognizing the chord changes. Such analysis, while interesting in itself, might be little more than a scholarly curiosity if we were not so concerned with the language issues of political discourse. The popular opinion is that our current president [George W. Bush], though plain spoken, is clumsy with language. Fair or not, this perception has produced a hope that our next president will be a more powerful communicator, a Kennedy or Reagan, perhaps, who can use language less as a way to signal ideology and more as a means to bring the disparate parts of the nation together. Journalists need to pay closer attention to political language than ever before. Like most memorable pieces of oratory, Obama’s speech sounds better than it reads. We have no way of knowing if that was true of Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, but it is certainly true of Dr. King’s “I Have a Dream” speech. If you doubt this assertion, test it out. Read the speech1 and then experience it in its original setting2 recited by his soulful voice.

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1. http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkihaveadream.htm 2. https://archive.org/details/MLKDream

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The effectiveness of Obama’s speech rests upon four related rhetorical strategies: 1. 2. 3. 4.

The power of allusion and its patriotic associations. The oratorical resonance of parallel constructions. The “two-ness” of the texture, to use Du Bois’s useful term. His ability to include himself as a character in a narrative about race.

Allusion Part of what made Dr. King’s speech resonate, not just for black people, but for some whites, was its framing of racial equality in familiar patriotic terms: “This will be the day when all of God’s children will be able to sing with new meaning, ‘My country ’tis of thee, sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing. Land where my fathers died, land of the pilgrim’s pride, from every mountainside, let freedom ring.’” What follows, of course, is King’s great litany of iconic topography that carries listeners across the American landscape: “Let freedom ring from the snowcapped Rockies of Colorado! . . .” In this tradition, Obama begins with “We the people, in order to form a more perfect union,” a quote from the Constitution that becomes a recurring refrain linking the parts of the speech. What comes next is “Two hundred and twenty one years ago,” an opening that places him in the tradition of Lincoln at Gettysburg and Dr. King at the Lincoln Memorial: “Five score years ago.” On the first page, Obama mentions the words democracy, Declaration of Independence, Philadelphia convention, 1787, the colonies, the founders, the Constitution, liberty, justice, citizenship under the law, parchment, equal, free, prosperous, and the presidency. It is not as well known as it should be that many black leaders, including Dr. King, use two different modes of discourse when addressing white vs. black audiences, an ignorance that has led to some of the hysteria over some of Rev. Wright’s comments. Obama’s patriotic lexicon is meant to comfort white ears and soothe white fears. What keeps the speech from falling into a pandering sea of slogans is language that reveals, not the ideals, but the failures of the American experiment: “It was stained by this nation’s original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the

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convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.” And “what would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part . . . to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.” Lest a dark vision of America disillusion potential voters, Obama returns to familiar evocations of national history, ideals, and language: — — — — — — — —

“Out of many, we are truly one.” “survived a Depression.” “a man who served his country” “on a path of a more perfect union” “a full measure of justice” “the immigrant trying to feed his family” “where our union grows stronger” “a band of patriots signed that document.”

Parallelism At the risk of calling to mind the worst memories of grammar class, I invoke the wisdom that parallel constructions help authors and orators make meaning memorable. To remember how parallelism works, think of equal terms to express equal ideas. So Dr. King dreamed that one day his four children “will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” (By the content of their character is parallel to by the color of their skin.) Back to Obama: “This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign — to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America.” If you are counting, that’s five parallel phrases among 43 words. And there are many more:

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“. . . we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction.” “So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college

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because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they’re told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.” “. . . embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past.”

Two-ness I could argue that Obama’s speech is a meditation upon Du Bois’s theory of a dual experience of race in America. There is no mention of Du Bois or two-ness, but it is all there in the texture. In fact, once you begin the search, it is remarkable how many examples of two-ness shine through: — — — — — — — — — — — — —

“through protests and struggles” “on the streets and in the courts” “through civil war and civil disobedience” “I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas.” “white and black” “black and brown” “best schools . . . poorest nations” “too black or not black enough” “the doctor and the welfare mom” “the model student and the former gang-banger” “raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor” “political correctness or reverse racism” “your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams”

Such language manages to create both tension and balance and, without being excessively messianic, permits Obama to present himself as the bridge builder, the reconciler of America’s racial divide. Autobiography There is an obnoxious tendency among political candidates to frame their life story as a struggle against poverty or hard circ*mstances. As satirist Stephen Colbert once noted of presidential candidates, it is not

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enough to be an average millionaire. To appeal to populist instincts it becomes de rigueur to be descended from “goat turd farmers” in France. Without dwelling on it, Obama reminds us that his father was black and his mother white, that he came from Kenya, but she came from Kansas: “I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slave owners — an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles, and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.” The word “story” is a revealing one, for it is always the candidate’s job (as both responsibility and ploy) to describe himself or herself as a character in a story of his or her own making. In speeches, as in homilies, stories almost always carry the weight of parable, with moral lessons to be drawn. Most memorable, of course, is the story at the end of the speech —  which is why it appears at the end. It is the story of Ashley Baia, a young, white Obama volunteer from South Carolina, whose family was so poor she convinced her mother that her favorite meal was a mustard and relish sandwich. “Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they’re supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who’s been sitting there quietly the entire time. . . . He simply says to everyone in the room, ‘I am here because of Ashley.’ ” During most of the 20th century, demagogues, especially in the South, gained political traction by pitting working class whites and blacks against each other. How fitting, then, that Obama’s story points in the opposite direction through an old black man who feels a young white woman’s pain.

  For four more textual analyses, see CHAPTER 61.

25

Clark traces four patterns of rhetorical strategies used by President Obama in his speech: allusion, parallelism, W. E. B. Du Bois’s “two-ness,” and autobiography. His analysis shows how these strategies combine to provide Obama with the opportunity to address and bring together a broad audience through memorable prose.

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Key Features / Textual Analysis A summary or description of the text.  Your readers may not know the text you are analyzing, so you need to include it or tell them about it before you analyze it. Allen’s text, the Declaration of Independence, is well known, so she assumes that her readers already know its first sentences. Texts that are not so well known require a more detailed summary or description. For example, Finn provides just enough information on Parasite’s plot that readers can see how the sets fit into it. Attention to the context.  Texts don’t exist in isolation: they are influenced by and contribute to ongoing conversations, controversies, debates, and cultural trends. To fully engage a particular text, you need to understand its larger context. Clark begins by quoting a 1903 book on race in America, and Finn relates the film’s characters and sets to contrasts between social classes.

A clear interpretation or judgment.  Your goal in analyzing a text is to lead readers through careful examination of the text to some kind of interpretation or reasoned judgment, sometimes announced clearly in a thesis statement. When you interpret something, you explain what you think it means, as Allen does when she carefully constructs the logical argument underlying the Declaration of Independence. Clark argues that through Obama’s use of four rhetorical strategies, he “present[s] himself as the bridge builder, the reconciler of America’s racial divide.” Reasonable support for your conclusions.  Written analysis of a text is generally supported by evidence from the text itself and sometimes from other sources as well. The writer might support their interpretation by quoting words or passages from a verbal text or referring to images in a visual text. Allen, for example, interprets the term “self-evident” by referring to formal logic, Venn diagrams, and the Catholic Credo. Finn offers photos of the sets and quotations from the director and set designer to support his argument. Clark provides lists of phrases from Obama’s speech to support his thesis. Note that the support you offer for your interpretation need only be “reasonable” — there is never only one way to interpret something.

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A GUIDE TO WRITING TEXTUAL ANALYSES Choosing a Text to Analyze Most of the time, you will be assigned a text or a type of text to analyze: a poem in a literature class, the work of a political philosopher in a political science class, a speech in a history or communications course, a painting or sculpture in an art class, a piece of music in a music theory course. If you must choose a text to analyze, look for one that suits the demands of the assignment — one that is neither too large or complex to analyze thoroughly (a Dickens novel or a Beethoven symphony is probably too big) nor too brief or limited to generate sufficient material (a ten-second TV news brief or a paragraph from Hillbilly Elegy would probably be too small). You might also choose to analyze three or four texts by examining elements common to all. Be sure you understand what the assignment asks you to do, and ask your instructor for clarification if you’re not sure.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation 59–60

purpose

Why are you analyzing this text? To demonstrate that you understand it? To show how its argument works — or doesn’t? Or are you using the text as a way to make some other point?

61–64

audience Are your readers likely to know your text? How much detail will you need to supply?

72–74

stance What interests you (or not) about your text? Why? What do you know or believe about it, and how will your own beliefs affect your analysis?

75–77

media / design Will your analysis appear in print? on the web? How will your medium affect your analysis? If you are analyzing a visual text, you will probably need to include an image of it.

Generating Ideas and Text In analyzing a written text,  your goal is to understand what it says, how it works, and what it means. To do so, you may find it helpful to follow a

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certain sequence: read, respond, summarize, analyze, and draw conclusions from your analysis.

Read to see what the text says.   Start by reading carefully, to get a sense of what it says. This means first skimming to  preview the text , rereading for the main ideas, then questioning and  annotating . Consider your  initial response . Once you have a sense of what the text says, what do you think? What’s your reaction to the argument, the tone, the language, the images? Do you find the text difficult? puzzling? Do you agree with what the writer says? disagree? agree and disagree? Your reaction to a text can color your analysis, so start by thinking about how you react — and why. Consider both your intellectual and any emotional reactions. Identify places in the text that trigger or account for those reactions. If you think that you have no particular reaction or response, try to articulate why. Whatever your response, think about what accounts for it. Next, consolidate your understanding of the text by  summarizing  what it says in your own words. You may find it helpful to  outline  its main ideas. For instance, Allen carefully maps out the parts of the syllogism at the heart of her analysis.

13 16–17 14–15

550–51 340–42

Decide what you want to analyze.   Having read the text carefully, think about what you find most interesting or intriguing and why. Does the argument interest you? its logic? its attempt to create an emotional response? its reliance on the writer’s credibility or reputation? its use of design to achieve its aims? its context? Does the text’s language, imagery, or structure intrigue you? something else? You might begin your analysis by exploring what attracted your notice.

Think about the larger context.   All texts are part of larger conversations with other texts that have dealt with the same topic. An essay arguing for handgun trigger locks is part of an ongoing conversation about gun regulation, which is itself part of a conversation on individual rights and responsibilities. Academic texts include documentation in part to weave in voices from the conversation. And, in fact, anytime you’re reading to learn, you’re probably reading for some larger context. Whatever your reading goals, being aware of that larger context can help you better understand

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what you’re reading. Here are some specific aspects of the text to pay attention to: • W ho else cares about this topic? Especially when you’re reading in order to learn about a topic, the texts you read will often reveal which people or groups are part of the conversation — and might be sources of further reading. For example, an essay describing the formation of the Grand Canyon could be of interest to geologists, environmentalists, Native Americans, travel writers, or tourists. If you’re reading such an essay while doing research on the canyon, you should consider how the audience addressed determines the nature of the information provided — and its suitability as a source for your research. • Ideas. Does the text refer to any concepts or ideas that give you some sense that it’s part of a larger conversation? An argument on airport security measures, for example, is part of larger conversations about government response to terrorism, the limits of freedom in a democracy, and the possibilities of using technology to detect weapons and explosives, among others. • Terms. Is there any terminology or specialized language that reflects the writer’s allegiance to a particular group or academic discipline? If you run across words like “false consciousness,” “ideology,” and “hegemony,” for example, you might guess the text was written by a Marxist scholar. • Citations. Whom does the writer cite? Do the other writers have a particular academic specialty, belong to an identifiable intellectual school, share similar political leanings? If an article on politics cites Michael Moore and Maureen Dowd in support of its argument, you might assume the writer holds liberal opinions; if it cites Ben Shapiro and Sean Hannity, the writer is likely a conservative. Write a brief paragraph describing the larger context surrounding the text and how that context affects your understanding of the text.

Consider what you know about the writer.  What you know about the person who created a text can influence your understanding of it. Their 525

 credentials , other work, reputation, stance, and beliefs are all useful windows into understanding a text. You may need to conduct an online search

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to find information on the writer. Then write a sentence or two summarizing what you know about the writer and how that information affects your understanding of the text.

Study how the text works.  Written texts are made up of various ­ omponents, including words, sentences, paragraphs, headings, lists, c punctuation — and sometimes images as well. Look for patterns in the way these components are used and try to decide what those patterns reveal about the text. How do they affect its message? See the sections on  thinking about how the text works  and  identifying patterns  for specific guidelines on examining patterns this way. Then write a sentence or two describing the patterns you’ve discovered and how they contribute to what the text says.

21–23 23–25

Analyze the argument.   Every text makes an argument and provides some kind of support for it. An important part of understanding any text is to recognize its argument — what the writer wants the audience to believe, feel, or do. Here are some questions you’ll want to consider when you analyze an argument: • W hat is the claim?  What is the main point the writer is trying to make? Is there a clearly stated  thesis , or is the thesis merely implied? Is it appropriately qualified?

347–49

• W hat support does the writer offer for the claim?  What  reasons  are given to support the claim? What  evidence  backs up those reasons? Facts? Statistics? Examples? Testimonials by authorities? Anecdotes or stories? Are the reasons and evidence appropriate, plausible, and sufficient? Are you convinced by them? If not, why not?

413–14

• How does the writer appeal to readers?  Do they appeal to your  emotions ? rely on  logic ? try to establish  common ground ? demon­strate  credibility ?

426–27

• How evenhandedly does the writer present the argument?   Is there any mention of  counterarguments ? If so, how does the writer deal with them? By refuting them? By acknowledging them and responding to them reasonably? Does the writer treat other arguments respectfully? dismissively?

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414–22

411–22 424 423–426 424–25

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• Does the writer use any logical  fallacies ?  Are the arguments or beliefs of others distorted or exaggerated? Is the logic faulty? • What authorities or other sources of outside information does the writer use? How are they used? How credible are they? Are they in any way biased or otherwise unreliable? Are they current? • How does the writer address you as the reader?   Does the writer assume that readers know something about what is being discussed? Does their language include you or exclude you? (Hint: If you see the word “we,” do you feel included?) Do you sense that you and the writer share any beliefs or attitudes? If the writer is not writing to you, what audience is the target? How do you know? Then write a brief paragraph summarizing the argument the text makes and the main way the writer argues it, along with your reactions to or questions about that argument.

In analyzing a visual text,  your goal is to understand its intended effect on viewers as well as its actual effect, the ways it creates that effect, and its relationship to other texts. If the visual text accompanies a written one, you need to understand how the texts work together to convey a message or make an argument. Describe the text.  Your first job is to examine the image carefully. Focus on specific details; given the increasing use of Photoshop and other digital image manipulation tools, you can usually assume that every detail in the image is intentional. Ask yourself these questions: • What kind of image is it? Does it stand alone, or is it part of a group? Are there typical features of this kind of image that it includes — or lacks? • What does the image show? What stands out? What is in the background? Are some parts of the image grouped together or connected? Are any set apart from one another?

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• As you look at the image, does the content seem far away, close up, or in between? Are you level with it, looking down from above, or looking up from below? What is the effect of your viewing position? • Does the image tell or suggest a story about what has happened or is about to happen? • Does the image allude to or refer to anything else? For example, the Starbucks logo features the image of a Siren, a mythical being who lured sailors to their doom.

Explore your response.   Images, particularly those in advertisem*nts, are often trying to persuade us to buy something or to feel, think, or behave a certain way. News photographs and online videos also try to evoke  emotional  responses, from horror over murdered innocents to amusem*nt at cute kittens. Think about your response:

426–27

• How does the image make you feel? What emotional response, if any, does the image make you feel? Sympathy? Concern? Anger? Happiness? Contentment? Something else? • What does the image lead you to think about? What connections does it have to things in your life, in the news, in your knowledge of the world? • Do the image and any accompanying words seem to be trying to persuade you to think or do something? Do they do so directly, such as by pointing out the virtues of a product (Buick Encore: “Sized to fit the way your life moves”)? Or indirectly, by setting a tone or establishing a mood (many perfume ads, like this one for Christina Aguilera’s Unforgettable: “The feminine essence of timeless fascination, sensual notes like night blooming jasmine make you unforgettable”)? • Does the  genre  affect your response? For example, do you expect to laugh at a comic? feel empathy with victims of a tragedy in a photo accompanying a news story? find a satirical editorial cartoon offensive?

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Consider the context.  Like written texts, visual texts are part of larger conversations with other texts that have dealt with the same topic or used similar imagery. This editorial cartoon on climate change, for example, is part of an ongoing conversation about how quickly we must act on climate change:

Consider what you know about the artist or sponsor.  Editorial cartoons, like the one above, are usually signed, and information about the artist and their other work is usually readily available on the web. Many commercials and advertisem*nts, however, are created by ad agencies, so the organization or company that sponsored or posted the image should be identified and researched. How does that information affect your understanding of the text?

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Decide on a focus for your analysis.  What do you find most interesting about the text, and why? Its details and the way they work together (or not)? The argument it makes? The way it uses images to appeal to its audience? The emotional response it evokes? The way any words and images work together to deliver a message? These are just some ways of thinking about a visual text, ones that can help you find a focus. However you choose to focus your analysis, it should be limited in scope so that you can zero in on the details of the visual you’re analyzing. Here, for example, is an excerpt from an essay from 2014 by an art historian responding to a statement made by former president Barack Obama that manufacturing skills may be worth more than a degree in art history: “I promise you, folks can make a lot more potentially with skilled manufacturing or the trades than they might with an art history degree.”  President Barack Obama Charged with interrogating this quote from the president, I Google “Obama art history.” I click on the first result, a video from CNN, in which the quote is introduced by a gray-haired man in a dark and serious suit, standing in front of a bank of monitors in a digitally created nonspace. The camera cuts from this man to President Obama, who stands in shirtsleeves, his tie slightly loosened. His undershirt is visible through his buttondown under the intense light from what I assume is the work-day sun. Behind him is a crowd of men and women in more casual clothing, some wearing sweatshirts that have the name of a union printed across them. Their presence creates a spectrum of skin tones. Each person was clearly vetted for visual effect, as were the president’s and the newscaster’s costumes, the size of their flag lapel pins, the shape of the microphones they speak into, and the angle of the light on their faces. The president makes the comment in question, immediately declares his love for art history, and says that he doesn’t want to get a bunch of angry emails from art historians. The crowd behind him laughs and the clip cuts off abruptly. A click away, I find a digitized copy of a handwritten note from President Obama, apologizing to an angry art history professor who emailed him to complain about his comments. The card on which the note is written is plain, undecorated save for two lines of text printed in a conservative, serif font in a shade of blue that is just on the vibrant

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side of navy — THE WHITE HOUSE — and under it in smaller letters, WASHINGTON. Its tasteful, minimal aesthetic pulls double duty, meant to convey both populist efficiency (note the absence of gold gilding) and stern superiority (you know where Washington is, right?). It sets up a productive contrast with the friendliness of the president’s own handwriting, particularly his looping signature, soft on the outside with a strong slash through the middle. Like the video of the president’s speech, it is a screen-scale tour de force of political imagecraft, certainly produced with the full knowledge that it would be digitized and go viral, at least among a particular demographic. — Joel Parsons, “Richness in the Eye of the Beholder”

Parsons begins by describing the images — Obama’s clothing, the people standing behind him, the letterhead on his note card, his “looping

Barack Obama speaking at a General Electric plant in Waukesha, Wisconsin, 2014.

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Obama’s apology note to Ann Johns, art history professor at the University of Texas at Austin.

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signature” — followed by an analysis of how every aspect of the video and the note card was “certainly produced with the full knowledge that it would be digitized and go viral.” Notice as well that Parsons’s analysis focuses more on the visual aspects of the video and note card than on what was said or written. And in a part of his essay not shown here, he notes that his analysis is grounded in “tools . . . he learned in a first-year art history course” — a not-so-subtle response to what President Obama said.

Coming Up with a Thesis 410–30

347–49

When you analyze a text, you are basically ­  arguing  that the text should be read or seen in a certain way. Once you’ve studied the text thoroughly, you need to identify your analytical goal: Do you want to show that the text has a certain meaning? uses certain techniques to achieve its purposes? tries to influence its audience in particular ways? relates to some larger context in some significant manner? should be taken seriously — or not? something else? Come up with a tentative  thesis  to guide your thinking and analyzing — but be aware that your thesis may change as you continue to work.

Ways of Organizing a Textual Analysis 340–42

Examine the information you have to see how it supports or complicates your thesis. Look for clusters of related information that you can use to structure an  outline . Your analysis might be structured in at least two ways. You might, as Clark does, discuss patterns, elements, or themes that run through the text. Alternatively, you might analyze each text or section of text separately, as Allen does. Following are graphic representations of some ways of organizing a textual analysis:

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[Thematically] Introduce your analysis: • Summarize or describe the text. •  Provide needed context. • Outline your method or focus. State your thesis.

Analyze the text: • Identify a theme or pattern. • Use examples from the text and appropriate contexts as evidence. Continue as needed.

Conclude: Explain what your analysis reveals about the text.

[Part by part, or text by text] Introduce your analysis: • Summarize or describe the text. • Provide needed context. • Outline your method or focus. State your thesis.

Analyze first section of text.

Analyze next section of text.

Continue as needed.

Conclude: Explain what your analysis reveals about the text.

[Spatially, as the text is likely to be experienced by viewers] Introduce your analysis: • Summarize or describe the text. • Provide needed context. • Outline your method or focus. State your thesis.

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Analyze the most prominent part of the text or the part viewers see first. Continue the analysis in the order the text is experienced: •  top to bottom •  left to right •  center to edges •  foreground to background • what becomes visible as text is scrolled, video is played, or images are seen in succession

Conclude: Explain what your analysis reveals about the text.

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Writing Out a Draft

489

346–54

550–51 456–63

In drafting your analysis, your goal should be to integrate the various parts into a smoothly flowing, logically organized essay. However, it’s easy to get bogged down in the details. Consider writing one section of the analysis first, then another and another, until you’ve drafted the entire middle; then draft your beginning and ending. Alternatively, start by summarizing the text and moving from there to your analysis and then to your ending. However you do it, you need to support your analysis with evidence: from the text itself (as Finn’s analysis of the “text” of a film does)‚ or from  research  on the larger context of the text (as Allen does), or by comparing the text you are analyzing to another text (as Clark does).

Draft a  beginning .   The beginning of an essay that analyzes a text generally has several tasks: to introduce or summarize the text for your readers, to offer any necessary information on the larger context, and to present your thesis. • S ummarize or describe the text. If the text is one your readers don’t know, you need to  summarize  or  describe  it early on to show that you understand it fully. For example, as Finn describes the Kim family apartment and the Parks’ house. • S how the text. If you’re analyzing a visual text online, consider starting off with an image, a video, or a link to it or something similar, as Finn does by including several illustrations of the sets and photos of scenes from the film. • P rovide a context for your analysis. If there is a larger context that is significant for your analysis, you might mention it in your introduction. Allen does this by comparing the Declaration’s statement about self-evident truths to the statements of belief in the Apostles’ Creed of the Catholic Church.

347–49

• State your  thesis . Finn begins by asserting that in Parasite “the built environment indicates where people fit into the social hierarchy — or if there is a place for them at all.” Clark promises to analyze “the rhetorical strategies that the orator and authors used so effectively.”

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Draft an  ending .   Think about what you want your readers to take away from your analysis, and end by getting them to focus on those thoughts.

354–58

• R estate your thesis — and say why it matters. Finn, for example, begins by asserting that Parasite’s sets show “where people fit into the social hierarchy” and ends by discussing the dangers of “class tensions” and inequality. • E xplain what your analysis reveals. Your analysis should tell your readers something about the way the text works or about what it means or says. Allen, for example, concludes by noting that “the Declaration’s truths fit together almost like the pieces of a mathematical equation; we intuitively feel the puzzle pieces snap together. That is how selfevidence should feel.”

Come up with a  title .  A good title indicates something about the subject of your analysis — and makes readers want to see what you have to say about it. Finn’s title provides a preview of his thesis that the architecture seen in Parasite reflects the social inequality at the core of the film, while Clark’s title straightforwardly announces his topic.

363

Consider  rewriting .   If you have time and want to explore alternatives,

378–79

you might try rewriting your draft to see if a different plan or approach might work better.

Considering Matters of Design • If you cite written text as evidence, be sure to set long quotations and  documentation  according to the style you’re using. • If your essay is lengthy, consider whether  headings  would make your analysis easier for readers to follow.

560–63 670–72

• If you’re analyzing a visual text, include a copy of the image and a caption identifying it. • If you’re submitting your essay electronically, p ­ rovide links to whatever text you are analyzing. • If you’re analyzing an image or a screen shot, consider annotating elements of it right on the image.

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Getting Response and Revising 372–74

The following questions can help you and others study your draft with a critical eye. Make sure that anyone you ask to read and  respond  to your text knows your purpose and audience. • Is the beginning effective? Does it make a reader want to continue? • Does the introduction provide an overview of your analysis? Is your thesis clear? • Is the text described or summarized clearly and sufficiently? • Is the analysis well organized and easy to follow? Do the parts fit together coherently? Does it read like an essay rather than a collection of separate bits of analysis? • Does each part of the analysis relate to and support the thesis? • Is anything confusing or in need of more explanation? • Are all quotations accurate and correctly documented? • Is it clear how the analysis leads to the interpretation? Is there adequate evidence to support the interpretation? • Does the ending make clear what your analysis shows?

375–77

Then it’s time to  revise . Make sure your text appeals to your audience and think hard about whether it will achieve your purpose.

Editing and Proofreading Once you’ve revised your draft, edit carefully: 347–49

• Is your  thesis  clearly stated?

542–54 560–63

• Check all  quotations ,  paraphrases , and  summaries  for accuracy and form. Be sure that each has the required  documentation .

361–62

• Make sure that your analysis flows clearly from one point to the next and that you use  transitions  to help readers move through your text.

383–84

•  proofread  your finished analysis carefully before turning it in.

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Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written and learned by considering these questions: • What reading strategies did you use as you analyzed your text —  annotating? coding? something else? Which strategies were most helpful? • What writing strategies did you use to analyze your text — defining? comparing? others? Which ones helped you the most? • Did you provide enough evidence to support your analysis? Can you point to a place in your text where you did an especially good job of providing evidence? • Did you include any visuals, and if so, what did they add? Could you have shown the same thing with words? • What did you learn from providing feedback on your peers’ work? How did that learning affect your own writing? • What kinds of analytical writing, if any, have you done in the past? How does your current work compare? • Was anything new to you about this kind of writing? If so, how did you adapt to the task? • Are you pleased with your analysis? What did it teach you about the text you analyzed? If you were to write another text analysis, what would you do differently?

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your analysis in a writing  PORTFOLIO . See Chapter 57 for help using  VISUALS .

364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84 385–90 673–83

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Many kinds of writing report information. Newspapers report on local and world events; textbooks give information about biology, history, writing; websites provide information about products (jcrew.com), people (billieeilish .com), institutions (smithsonian.org). We write out a lot of information ourselves, from a note we post on our door saying we’ve gone to choir practice to a text we send to tell a friend where to meet us for dinner and how to get there. College assignments often call for reporting information as well. In a history class, you may be assigned to report what you’ve learned about the state of US relations with Japan just before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. A biology course may require you to report the effects of an experiment in which plants are deprived of sunlight for different periods of time. In a nursing class, you may have to report the changes in a patient’s symptoms after the administration of a particular drug. This chapter focuses on reports that are written to inform readers about a particular topic. Very often this kind of writing calls for some kind of research: you need to know your subject in order to report on it! When you write to report information, you are the expert. We’ll begin with three good examples, the first annotated to show the key features found in most reports.

RENAE TINGLING

Sleepless Nights of a University Student In the following report, Drexel University student Renae Tingling explains how inadequate sleep can affect college students’ performance. Her essay, which is documented in MLA style, originally appeared in The 33rd, an anthology of student writing published by Drexel Publishing Group.

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When can we say we’ve had “enough” sleep? Does the amount of sleep someone gets in a night make a difference? Is getting enough sleep even worth it? According to Newton’s first law of motion, a body in motion will stay in motion unless acted upon by an opposing external force. The human body experiences this opposing force in the form of tiredness, slowly approaching as our day comes to an end. For most college students, every day is jam-packed with an infinite number of responsibilities, ranging from exam preparation and homework assignments to managing student organizations and completing chores. Many students find themselves trapped in a cycle of work and activities with rest on the back burner. As a first-year student, I took on a list of new and exciting ventures during my first week. As the weeks progressed, the announcement of midterms marked the end of the adjustment period. I found myself adding more tasks to my to-do list than I was marking off, while time ran shorter by the day. Surrendering a portion of my sleeping hours to my work was unavoidable. Even though I felt satisfied to have completed my assignments, the lack of sleep did not go unnoticed by my body. My body’s demand for compensation resulted in my waking up at some ungodly hour the following Saturday afternoon. This hadn’t been common practice for me before college, making me wonder if the same could be said for other students. Is this something that most college students perpetually struggle with? If so, why? How does this kind of schedule affect their lives as students, if at all? It’s best if we start by figuring out what the big deal is about sleep. Sleep is indeed a big deal. It plays a crucial role in an individual’s overall health and wellness. A good and consistent quantity and quality of sleep can help with the regulation of physiological processes (Kabrita and Hajjar-Muça 190), such as cardiovascular activity and glucose regulation (Cheng et al. 270). For students, sleep is in some ways like our very own pot of gold. It is essential for effective processing of information (Kabrita and Hajjar-Muça 190), memorization, and proper immune function (Carter et al. 315). As David Dinges, a professor of psychology and chief of the sleep and chronobiology division in the department of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, notes:

Introduces topic.

Offers a personal connection to the topic.

Tingling frames her thesis as questions her report will answer.

Accurate, well-researched information.

Synthesis of information from several sources.

We know, for example, that sleep is critical for waking cognition —  that is, for the ability to think clearly, to be vigilant and alert, and

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sustain attention. We also know that memories are consolidated during sleep, and that sleep serves a key role in emotional regulation. (qtd. in Worley 758)

Sleep processes explained.

Causes of sleep difficulties outlined.

Tingling includes her own research study to give another perspective on the topic.

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So, what exactly is a good quality of sleep? Some would argue that it’s almost entirely subjective. Some students find taking short and frequent naps is an effective way of getting all their hours in, while others couldn’t disagree more. According to Dinges, for the average person, the target should be “ideally somewhere between seven to seven and a half hours” of uninterrupted sleep (qtd. in Worley 759). The National Sleep Foundation recommends that young adults get a total of seven to nine hours of sleep with no fewer than six and no more than ten. Anything below six hours and you’ve reached the danger zone (Suni). Sleep deficiency can have a severe and lasting impact on a student’s academic performance. Poor sleep quality can also greatly impact our decision-making process (Pilcher et al.). Ask any university student and they would probably agree that sleep is a privilege. Countless factors at play during a student’s academic journey can heavily disrupt their sleep schedule. Habitual procrastination is a major cause of increased stress among university students (Sirois), which may result in health issues such as insomnia (difficulty falling and/ or staying asleep). Drinking too much coffee can be a problem. A study conducted by two Turkish dieticians finds that though consumption of most caffeinated beverages had no correlation to poor quality of sleep, coffee was the exception: students with poor sleep quality consumed a notably larger amount of coffee than those with good sleep quality (Suna and Ayaz S132). Prolonged internet usage and cigarette smoking are other behavioral factors that can eat away at students’ precious hours of sleep. This brings into question those factors that exist beyond the control of the student — and to determine those factors, who better to ask than the students themselves? A total of thirty-three students participated in a survey I conducted, ranging from freshman to pre-junior year. The questionnaire collected information pertaining to participants’ class level, sleep patterns, and factors that may disrupt their sleep schedule and how those factors affect them academically. Most students (eighty percent) reported sleeping for the recommended number of hours (seven to nine) either a few times or not at all. Behavioral influences, like prolonged internet usage and late-night studying for upcoming exams, were common reasons for

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losing sleep. As for external influences, many students reported that disruptive roommates and outside noise hindered them from sleeping. Some students also pointed out that trying to complete assignments before their fast-approaching deadlines caused heavy stress and prevented them from getting more hours of sleep. Very few placed the blame on social activities. With habitual and external factors such as these, it is understandable that low quality of sleep can lead to poor academic performance (Carter et al. 315). Consequently, many students found it difficult to be attentive and involved during lectures (eightyseven percent), successfully complete an exam (fifty-six percent), and maintain their involvement in student organizations (sixty-five percent) after a night of little or no sleep. Approximately half of the participants reported that they rely or have relied on medication and/or caffeinated beverages to feel alert during the day. At this point I decided to try an experiment: for three days I would only allow myself half my normal hours of sleep to see how my mind and body would react. About halfway through my experiment, I didn’t mind the thought of having a cup of coffee myself. I’ll admit, getting out of bed at 5:00 a.m. was a bit of a challenge, especially after sleeping for a total of four and a half hours. It wasn’t by chance that by the start of the first day, I had already reached my quota of embarrassing absentminded mistakes after having pressed the wrong button on the elevator and wandered into the wrong classroom. This unusual behavior was due to the effect that lack of sleep had on my level of self-control and alertness (Pilcher et al.). This can greatly throw off a person’s decision-making process­ — as it did mine. By the second day, getting half a night’s worth of sleep took a greater toll on me. Most of the day’s lectures managed to slip right past me. Too often to count, I found myself opening eyes I hadn’t even realized were closed. What little attention span I had left went to counting down the minutes until the end of each class session. Now, we can all agree that conducting an experiment like this during the exam period would not be the wisest thing to do. Knowing this, I was prepared to add this to my list of mistakes. Funnily enough, my lack of sleep did not have its way with the quiz I took that day. In that moment, the effects of my sleep deprivation seemingly vanished. It was as though my brain ensured that I was able to place all my efforts into not failing math. Sadly, those effects came back sometime afterward and with a vengeance. I became so demotivated to do just about anything

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The author reports on a third kind of research, a self-study.

She clearly describes the process of sleep deprivation as she experienced it.

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Conclusion: A summary of the research and its implication for Tingling’s audience, college students.

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afterward that even having dinner with friends seemed like too much. I was completely against the idea of preparing for upcoming lectures and exams and used how tired I felt as an excuse. This response drives home the notion that sleep deprivation can have serious psychological impacts and weaken our ability to concentrate on academic material (Kabrita and Hajjar-Muça 190). Oddly enough, I felt a lot less tired on the third day. Though I still felt somewhat tired, it was as if my body was getting used to the lack of sleep. At the end of the day my experiment came to a close, allowing me a well-deserved night’s rest. What took me by surprise was how exhausted I felt the following morning after a full eight hours of rest. I initially expected to feel rested, having given myself the chance to get the recommended amount of sleep. But I felt as I had on the first morning of the experiment, even though I had double the amount of sleep. Thankfully, a few days of seven to eight hours of sleep was enough to get me back on track. I was able to focus on discussions during lectures and was more motivated to attend club meetings and study with friends for whatever the next exam would be. It was surprising to discover just how greatly each day was affected by the amount of sleep I got several nights before. It wasn’t too hard for me to imagine the damaging effects that poor sleep habits would have over time. Sleep is a beautiful thing; my experiment is a testament to this. Many of us see it as the easiest and most convenient thing to sacrifice on our journey to academic success. How ironic is it that, as we continue to undermine its significance, sleep can potentially determine whether we achieve that success. It should be mentioned that students often find themselves in situations where valuable hours of sleep are stolen from them by circ*mstances beyond their control. Whether deliberate or unintentional, lost sleep can take a lot more from us than we bargained for. If I had to summarize what I took from my research, it would be that we as students have fallen for the misconception that less sleep is the only way to stay on top of everything. As a result, we tend to make everything a priority except ourselves. We place getting those extra hours of studying above resting the brain that has to take the exam the following day. At the end of the day, the benefits of a good night’s rest are limitless, so ask yourself this: Do I get enough sleep?

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Works Cited Carter, Briana, et al. “An Analysis of the Sleep Quality of Under­ graduate Students.” College Student Journal, vol. 50, no. 3, 2017, pp. 315-22. Gale Academic Onefile, go.galegroup.com. Cheng, Shu Hui, et al. “A Study on the Sleep Quality of Incoming University Students.” Psychiatry Research, vol. 197, Feb. 2012, pp. 270–74. Kabrita, Colette S., and Theresa A. Hajjar-Muça. “Sex-Specific Sleep Patterns among University Students in Lebanon: Impact on Depression and Academic Performance.” Nature and Science of Sleep, vol. 8, 2016, pp. 189–96. DovePress, https://doi.org/10.2147 /NSS.S104383. Pilcher, June J., et al. “Interactions between Sleep Habits and Self-­Control.” Frontiers in Human Neuroscience, vol. 9, 11 May 2015, www .frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnhum.2015.00284/full. Sirois, F. M., et al. “Is Procrastination Related to Sleep Quality? Testing an Application of the Procrastination–Health Model.” Cogent Psychology, vol. 2, 2015. Taylor and Francis Online, https://doi.org/10.1080/23311908.2015.1074776. Suna, G., and A. Ayaz. “Relationship between Caffeinated Beverages and Sleep Quality in University Students.” Clinical Nutrition, vol. 37, Sept. 2018, pp. S131–S132. ScienceDirect, https://doi .org/10.1016/j.clnu.2018.06.1492. Supplement 1. Suni, Eric. “How Much Sleep Do We Really Need?” SleepFoundation .org, 10 Mar. 2021, www.sleepfoundation.org/how-sleep-works /how-much-sleep-do-we-really-need. Worley, Susan L. “The Extraordinary Importance of Sleep: The Detrimental Effects of Inadequate Sleep on Health and Public Safety Drive an Explosion of Sleep Research.” Pharmacy and Therapeutics: A Peer-Reviewed Journal for Managed Care and Hospital Formulary Management, vol. 43, no. 12, 2018, pp. 758–63. PubMedCentral, https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30559589.

Tingling’s report draws on published research, her own survey research, and informal research using personal experience to provide a multifaceted view of the effects of inadequate sleep on college students’ performance.

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FRANKIE SCHEMBRI

Edible Magic In the following report, written for a first-year writing class at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Frankie Schembri explains the science behind how popcorn pops. Originally published in Angles 2016: Selected Essays from Introductory Writing Subjects at MIT, this report is documented in APA style. Life is studded with little pockets of magic. These are the moments with mysterious emergent qualities, when the whole is greater than the sum of the parts, when one plus one somehow equals three. Such magic is even better when it comes in edible form. When an unassuming little kernel of corn meets hot oil, it is transformed. It is elevated with an unmistakable “pop!” into a fluffy cloud of goodness ready to be dressed with butter, caramel, or whatever your heart desires. This magic is called popcorn. Popcorn exploded in popularity in the early 20th century but surprisingly only made it into movie theaters with the advent of sound films, or “talkies,” in 1927. Silent films catered to a smaller, more exclusive clientele and owners worried that the sound of the snack being munched would detract from the experience (Geiling, 2013). By the 1940s, popcorn had become an inextricable part of going to the movies, and from then on, over half of the popcorn consumed yearly in America was eaten at movie theaters (Geiling, 2013). Fast-forward some 70 years and the relationship remains unbreakable. Step into any movie theater lobby across America and your senses are bombarded with the unmistakable scent of salt and butter. Popcorn snuck into the American household in the

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1960s with Jiffy Pop, a self-contained stovetop popper including kernels, oil, and even the pan, and it flourished with the popularity of microwave ovens in the 1970s (Smith, 1999, p. 124). Popcorn cultivated an important relationship with microwaves in the latter half of the 20th century, important enough that popcorn was eventually given the rare honor of its own designated microwave button (Smith, 1999, p. 127). “But how?” you might ask. How do these ordinary kernels magically spring to life with a little heat and oil, enchanting kids and grownups alike? Like most acts of magic, popcorn’s “pop” can be understood with a little science. Botanically speaking, popcorn is a type of maize, the only domesticated subgroup in the genus Zea, a group of plants in the grass family. The different types of maize are classified based on their kernel’s size, shape, and composition (Smith, 1999, p. 6). Corn kernels have three main structural components. First, there is the germ (from the Latin germen, meaning seed or sprout), a small pocket of genetic material that is essentially a baby corn plant waiting to grow. The germ is surrounded by the endosperm (the Greek endon, within, and sperma, seed), a larger parcel of water mixed with soft and hard starch granules that make up most of the kernel’s weight and would provide food for the corn plant if it were to sprout. Finally, the germ-endosperm complex is surrounded by the pericarp (from the Greek peri, around, and karpos, fruit), the hard shell that winds up stuck between your molars after you enjoy a bag of popcorn (Ghose, 2015). Popcorn kernels are unique in that they are relatively small, they have endosperms containing a larger number of hard starch granules, and their pericarps are hard and impermeable, essentially sealing off the contents of the kernel from the outside environment. These characteristics have endowed popcorn kernels with the ability to pop (Ghose, 2015). In an attempt to better understand the physics of popcorn, aeronautical engineer Emmanuel Virot and physicist Alexandre Ponomarenko, who seem to have also fallen under popcorn’s spell (judging by the language of their published report), experimented with the temperature at which a kernel pops. As Virot and Ponomarenko (2015) explained, when heat is applied to the kernels via hot oil on a stovetop or in a microwave, the temperature of the kernels begins to rise accordingly. Most

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affected by this increase in heat is the water stored between the starch granules in the endosperm. Much like a bubbling pot of water brought to a boil, the water in the kernel begins to change from liquid into gas. While liquid water is content to stay put, gaseous water in the form of steam craves space to move, but the hard shell of the pericarp effectively keeps the water trapped inside the kernel. As a result, the kernel acts like a tiny steamer and the starch granules inside are cooked into a gooey mass. As the mass gets hotter and hotter, the steam presses harder and harder on the inside surface of the kernel’s shell like the hands of a million tiny creatures trapped inside a bubble (Virot & Ponomarenko, 2015). The tension is palpable. The kernel begins to shake with anticipation. It rocks back and forth, back and forth, faster and faster, and faster still. Then finally . . . pop! The bubble bursts, the lid flies off the pot, and fireworks explode as the hard shell of the pericarp cracks and the steam breaks free from its kernel prison. The starchy goop also bubbles out into the world, where it meets cold, fresh air and rapidly hardens into spongy cloudlike shapes. Just like that, in just one-fifteenth of a second, a new piece of popcorn is born (Virot & Ponomarenko, 2015). Virot and Ponomarenko (2015) determined that the temperature at which kernels typically pop is 180 degrees Celsius. The pair also determined that the resulting popped kernel can be up to 40 times its unpopped volume, although usually the kernel’s radius merely doubles. But what propels the kernel, with what Virot and Ponomarenko (2015) called “all the grace of a seasoned gymnast,” into the air as it pops? When the pericarp fractures, it does so in only one place first, giving some of the steam and starchy goop a head start on escaping. The starch released first extends to create a leg of sorts, off of which the rest of the kernel springboards, launching it somersaulting into the air like an Olympic gymnast. Popcorn jumps typically only reach a height of a few centimeters, but still manage to create endless entertainment for the hungry viewer. Where does the “pop” sound come from? Arguably the most important part of the whole experience, popcorn’s characteristic noise is not, contrary to popular belief, the sound of the kernel’s shell breaking open. The popping sound is created by the release of trapped water vapor resonating in the kernel, similar to how, when removed, a champagne cork makes a popping sound that resonates in the glass bottle (Virot & Ponomarenko, 2015).

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Making popcorn hardly seems like an opportunity to learn about physics, but the kernels’ unique transformation illustrates some principles of thermodynamics, biomechanics, and acoustics, as the properties of different materials dictate how they respond to pressure and heat. Life is studded with little pockets of magic. From the enticing smell during a night at the movies to the rising staccato sound of a bag coming to life in your microwave, popcorn is magic-meets-science in its most delicious form. And it always leaves you hungry for more. References Geiling, N. (2013, October 3). Why do we eat popcorn at the movies? Smithsonianmag.com. https://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts -culture/why-do-we-eat-popcorn-at-the-movies-475063/ Ghose, T. (2015, February 10). The secret acrobatics of popcorn revealed. Live Science. https://www.livescience.com/49768 -mechanics-of-popcorn.html Smith, A. (1999). Popped culture: A social history of popcorn in America. University of South Carolina Press. Virot, E., & Ponomarenko, A. (2015). Popcorn: Critical temperature, jump and sound. Journal of the Royal Society Interface, 12(104). https://doi.org/10.1098/rsif.2014.1247

Schembri introduces her subject by placing it in a cultural context of the movies, Jiffy Pop, and microwave popcorn. She then distinguishes popcorn from other varieties of corn or maize and goes on to describe what happens when popcorn kernels are heated, pop, and fly into the air. To explore her subject from these various perspectives, she draws on scientific, historical, and popular sources.

JON MARCUS

The Reason College Costs More Than You Think Writing online for Time in 2014, Hechinger Report editor Jon Marcus examines the length of time students take to graduate and how that affects the cost of getting a degree.

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When Alex Nichols started as a freshman at the University of Mississippi, he felt sure he’d earn his bachelor’s degree in four years. Five years later, and Nichols is back on the Oxford, Mississippi, campus for what he hopes is truly his final semester. “There are a lot more students staying another semester or another year than I thought there would be when I got here,” Nichols says. “I meet people once a week who say, ‘Yes, I’m a second-year senior,’ or, ‘I’ve been here for five years.’” They’re likely as surprised as Nichols still to be toiling away in school. Nearly nine out of 10 freshmen think they’ll earn their bachelor’s degrees within the traditional four years, according to a nationwide survey conducted by the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. But the U.S. Department of Education reports that fewer than half that many actually will. And about 45 percent won’t have finished even after six years. That means the annual cost of college, a source of so much anxiety for families and students, often overlooks the enormous additional expense of the extra time it will actually take to graduate. “It’s a huge inconvenience,” says Nichols, whose college career has been prolonged for the common reason that he changed majors and

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took courses he ended up not needing. His athletic scholarship — Nichols was a middle-distance runner on the cross-country team — ran out after four years. “I had to get some financial help from my parents.” The average added cost of just one extra year at a four-year public university is $63,718 in tuition, fees, books, and living expenses, plus lost wages each of those many students could have been earning had they finished on time, according to the advocacy group Complete College America. A separate report by the Los Angeles–based Campaign for College Opportunity finds that the average student at a California State University campus who takes six years instead of four to earn a bachelor’s degree will spend an additional $58,000 and earn $52,900 less over their lifetime than a student who graduates on time, for a total loss of $110,900. “The cost of college isn’t just what students and their families pay in tuition or fees,” says Michele Siqueiros, the organization’s executive director. “It’s also about time. That’s the hidden cost of a college education.” So hidden that most families still unknowingly plan on four years for a bachelor’s degree, says Sylvia Hurtado, director of the Higher Education Research Institute at UCLA. Although the institute does not poll parents in its annual survey, “that high percentage of freshmen [who are confident they’ll finish in four years] is probably reflecting their parents’ expectation — ‘This is costing me a lot, so you’re going to be out in four years.’ So the students think, ‘Sure, why not?’ I don’t think the parents even initially entertain or plan for six years or some possible outcome like that.” Yet many students almost immediately doom themselves to taking longer, since they register for fewer courses than they need to stay on track. Surveys of incoming freshmen in California and Indiana who said they expected to graduate in four years found that half signed up for fewer courses than they’d needed to meet that goal, according to a new report by the higher-education consulting firm HCM Strategists. It’s not entirely the students’ fault. More than half of community-college students are slowed down by having to retake subjects such as math and reading that they should have learned in high school, says Complete College America. And at some schools, budget cuts have made it difficult to register for the

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courses students do need to take. Two-thirds of students at one California State University campus weren’t able to get into their required courses, according to a 2010 study by the University of California’s Civil Rights Project. Most state financial-aid programs, meanwhile, cover only four years. “They do not fund a fifth or sixth year,” says Stan Jones, president of Complete College America and a former Indiana commissioner of higher education. “And by that time the parents’ resources and the students’ resources have run out. So that fifth year is where you borrow.” Students at the most elite colleges and universities tend not to have this problem, which means that schools with some of the highest annual tuition can turn out to be relative bargains. These schools “would have a revolt if their students had to go a fifth year,” Jones says. “But that recognition has really not hit the public sector yet, about the hidden cost of that extra year.” Policymakers urge speeding students through remedial classes more quickly, adding more sections of required courses so students can get in when they need them, and encouraging students to take 15 credits per semester instead of the typical 12. Change won’t come soon enough for Nichols, who is determined that it won’t take more than one extra semester to finish his degree in integrated marketing communications. “That’s time you’re wasting,” he says, “that you could be out making money.”

  For four more reports, see CHAPTER 62.

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Marcus combines information from various research institutes, advocacy groups, surveys, and academic sources to support his argument. His statistics are given a human face by quotations from a student who is taking longer to graduate than he expected.

Key Features / Reports A tightly focused topic.    The goal of this kind of writing is to inform readers about something without digressing — and without, in general, bringing in the writer’s own opinions. All three examples focus on a particular topic — sleep deprivation, popping popcorn, and the cost of college — and present information about the topics evenhandedly.

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Accurate, well-researched information.    Reports usually require research. The kind of research depends on the topic. Sometimes internet research will suffice, though reports done for college courses may require library research to locate scholarly sources — Tingling, for example, uses various sources available through her university library’s databases, and Schembri uses a mix of scholarly and popular sources. Other topics may require or benefit from field research — interviews, observations, surveys, and so on. In addition to doing library and online research, for example, Marcus interviewed a student, and Tingling conducted a survey of students. A synthesis of ideas.   Reports seldom rely on a single source of information. Rather, they draw on several sources, making connections among the facts and ideas found in them. For example, Schembri combines information from a magazine article and a book to provide a brief history of the growth of popcorn’s popularity in the United States. Marcus compares undergraduate students’ expectations of finishing college in four years with statistics showing that more than half will take longer, using information from a university study and a government report as well as an interview with a student. Various writing strategies.    Presenting information usually requires various organizing patterns — defining, comparing, classifying, explaining ­processes, analyzing causes and effects, and so on. Schembri explains the process governing popcorn popping and classifies different kinds of maize. Marcus analyzes the financial effects of delaying graduation, and Tingling traces the effects of inadequate sleep on college students’ performance. Clear definitions.    Reports need to provide clear definitions of any key terms that their audience may not know. Schembri defines several components of corn kernels, including the germ, endosperm, and pericarp. Tingling includes a definition of “waking cognition.” Appropriate design.    Reports often combine paragraphs with information presented in lists, tables, diagrams, and other illustrations. When you’re

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presenting information, you need to think carefully about how to design it  — numerical data, for instance, can be easier to understand and remember in a table than in a paragraph. Often a photograph can bring a subject to life, as does the photo on page 146, which accompanies “Edible Magic.” Online reports offer the possibility of video and audio clips as well as links to source materials and more detailed ­information.

A GUIDE TO WRITING REPORTS Choosing a Topic Whether you get to choose your topic or are working with an assigned one, see if you can approach the topic from an angle that interests you.

If you get to choose.    What interests you? What do you wish you knew more about? The possible topics for informational reports are limitless, but the topics that you’re most likely to write well on are those that engage you. They may be academic in nature or reflect your personal interests or both. If you’re not sure where to begin, here are some places to start: • an intriguing technology: driverless cars, touchscreens, tooth whiteners • sports: soccer, snowboarding, ultimate Frisbee, ­basketball • an important world event: the Arab Spring, the fall of Rome, the COVID-19 pandemic • a historical period: the African diaspora, the Middle Ages, the Ming dynasty, the Great Depression • a common object: hoodies, gel pens, mascara, Post-it notes • a significant environmental issue: melting Arctic ice, deer overpopulation, mercury and the fish supply • the arts: rap, outsider art, the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, Savion Glover, Mary Cassatt 334–35

 list  a few possibilities, and then choose one that you’d like to know more about — and that your audience might find interesting, too. You might start

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out by phrasing your topic as a question that your research will attempt to answer. For example: How is Google different from Yahoo!? How was the Great Pyramid constructed? What kind of training do football referees receive?

If your topic is assigned.    If your assignment is broad — “Explain some aspect of the US government” — try focusing on a more limited topic within the larger topic: federalism, majority rule, political parties, states’ rights. Even if an assignment seems to offer little flexibility — “Explain the physics of roller coasters” — your task is to decide how to research the topic, and sometimes even narrow topics can be shaped to fit your own interests and those of your audience.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose

Why are you presenting this information? To teach

59–60

readers about the subject? To demonstrate your research and writing skills? For some other reason?

audience Who will read this report? What do they already know

61–64

about the topic? What background information do they need in order to understand it? Will you need to define any terms? What do they want or need to know about the topic? Why should they care about it? How can you attract their ­interest?

stance What is your own attitude toward your subject? What

72–74

interests you most about it? What about it seems important?

media / design What medium are you using? What is the best way to

75–77

pre­sent the information? Will it all be in paragraph form, or is there information that is best presented as a chart, table, or infographic? Do you need headings? Would diagrams, photographs, or other illustrations help you explain the information?

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Generating Ideas and Text Good reports share certain features that make them useful and interesting to readers. Remember that your goal is to present information clearly and accurately. Start by exploring your topic.

333–36

Explore what you already know about your topic.    Write out whatever you know or want to know about your topic, perhaps by  freewriting ,  listing , or  clustering . Why are you interested in this topic? What questions do you have about it? Such questions can help you decide what you’d like to focus on and how you need to direct your research efforts. Narrow your topic.    To write a good report, you need to narrow your

501–23

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focus — and to narrow your focus, you need to know a fair amount about your subject. If you are assigned to write on a subject like biodiversity, for example, you need to know what it is, what the key issues are, and so on. If you do, you can simply list or brainstorm possibilities, choose one, and start your research. If you don’t know much about the subject, though, you need to do some research to discover focused, workable topics. This research may shape your thinking and change your focus. Start with  sources  that can give you a general sense of the subject, such as a Wikipedia entry, a magazine article, a website, perhaps an interview with an expert. Your goal at this point is simply to find out what issues your topic might include and then to focus your efforts on an aspect of the topic you will be able to cover.

Come up with a tentative thesis.    Once you narrow your topic, write out a statement that explains what you plan to report or explain. A good  thesis  is potentially interesting (to you and your readers) and limits your topic enough to make it manageable. Schembri phrases her thesis as a question: “How do these ordinary kernels magically spring to life with a little heat and oil?” Marcus presents detailed information on the effects of taking six years to earn a bachelor’s degree and then offers a simple thesis: “It’s not entirely the students’ fault.” At this point, however, you need only a tentative thesis that will help focus any research you do.

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Do any necessary research, and revise your thesis.    To focus your research efforts,  outline the aspects of your topic that you expect to discuss. Identify

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any aspects that require additional research, and develop a research plan. Expect to revise your outline as you do your research, since more information will be available for some aspects of your topic than others, some may prove irrelevant to your topic, and some may turn out to be more than you need. You’ll need to revisit your tentative thesis once you’ve done any research, to finalize your statement. ­

Ways of Organizing a Report Reports can be organized in various ways. Here are three common organizational structures:

[Reports on topics that are unfamiliar to readers] Begin with an anecdote, quote, or other means of interesting readers.

Provide background, and state your thesis.

Describe your topic, defining any key terms.

Explain by comparing, classifying, analyzing causes or effects, explaining processes, and so on.

Conclude by restating your thesis or referring to your beginning.

[Reports on events or procedures] Introduce the topic; provide any necessary background information; state your thesis.

Narrate the first event or procedure.

Narrate the second event or procedure.

Narrate the third event or procedure.

Repeat as necessary.

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Conclude by telling the outcome of the event or the procedure, or stating its implications.

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[Reports that compare and contrast] Introduce the topic; provide any necessary background information; state your thesis.

Describe one item. Describe the other items, using the same structure used to describe the first.

Conclude by restating your thesis.

Many reports use a combination of organizational structures; don’t be afraid to use whatever method of organization best suits your material and your purpose.

Writing Out a Draft 364–66

469–73 405–9

437– 44

346–54

Once you have generated ideas and thought about how you want to organize your report, it’s time to start  drafting . Do this quickly — try to write a complete draft in one sitting, concentrating on getting the report on paper or screen and on putting in as much detail as you can. Writing that reports information often calls for certain writing strategies. The report on popcorn, for example,  explains the process  of popping, whereas the report on college costs  analyzes the effects  of delaying college graduation. When you’re reporting on a topic your readers aren’t familiar with, you may wish to  compare  it with something more familiar; you can find useful advice on these and other writing strategies in Part 6 of this book.

Draft a  beginning .    Essays that report information often need to begin in a way that will get your audience interested in the topic. Here are a few ways of beginning: • Simply state your thesis. Opening with a thesis works well when you can assume your readers have enough familiarity with your topic that you don’t need to give much detailed background information.

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• B egin by providing a context for your report. Tingling starts her report on sleep deprivation by describing college students’ busy lives, which often cause them to get inadequate sleep. • Start with something that will provoke readers’ interest. Marcus’s report begins with an anecdote about a college student. • Begin with an illustrative example. Schembri evokes the childhood wonder of popping corn before exploring its history and physics.

Draft an  ending .    Think about what you want your readers to read last.

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An effective ending leaves them thinking about your topic. • Summarize your main points. This is a good way to end when you’ve presented several key points you want readers to remember. Tingling ends this way, summarizing the results of her research. • P oint out the implications of your report. Tingling ends by noting that lost sleep can have greater effects than simply sleepiness: it “can take a lot more than bargained for.” • F rame your report by referring to its introduction. Marcus begins and ends his report by quoting the same student, and Schembri returns to her introductory evocation of popcorn as “little pockets of magic.” • T ell what happened. If you are reporting on an event, you could conclude by telling how it turns out.

Come up with a title.    You’ll want a title that tells readers something about your subject — and makes them want to know more. Tingling’s title, “Sleepless Nights of a University Student,” clearly indicates what’s to come in her report. Marcus suggests that his essay will disclose the reason college costs more than you think — but doesn’t tell us in the title. See the chapter on  organizing your writing and guiding your readers  for tips on coming up with titles that are informative and enticing enough to make readers wish to read on.

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345–63

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Considering Matters of Design You’ll probably write the main text of your report in paragraph form, but think about what kind of information you’re presenting and how you can design and format it to make it as easy as possible for your readers to understand. You might ask yourself these questions: 668–69

• What is an appropriate  font ? A font like Times New Roman that is easy to read in print? A font like Arial or Verdana that looks good onscreen? Something else?

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• Would it help your readers if you divided your report into shorter sections and added  headings ?

669–70

• Is there any information that would be easier to follow in a  list ?

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• Could any of your information be summarized in a  table  or  figure ?

676

• Do you have any data that readers would more easily understand in the form of a bar  graph , line graph, or pie chart?

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• Would  illustrations  (diagrams, photos, drawings, and so on), video or audio clips, or links help you explain anything in your report?

Getting Response and Revising 372–74

The following questions can help you study your draft with a critical eye.  getting response  from others is always good, and these questions can guide their reading, too. Make sure they know your purpose and audience. • Do the title and opening sentences get readers’ interest? If not, how might they do so? • What information does this text provide, and for what purpose? • Does the introduction explain why this information is being presented? Does it place the topic in a larger context? • Are all key terms defined that need to be? • Do you have any questions? Where might more explanation or an example help you understand something better?

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• Is any information presented visually, with a chart, graph, table, drawing, or photograph? If so, is it clear how the illustration relates to the written text? Is there any text that would be more easily understood if it were presented visually? • Is any information presented through digital media, such as hyperlinks, video clips, or audio files? If so, is the relation of these elements to the written text made clear? Would any aspect of the report be clearer if presented using such elements? • Does the organization help make sense of the information? Does the text include description, comparison, or any other writing strategies? Does the topic or rhetorical situation call for any particular strategies that should be added? • If the report cites any sources, are they quoted, paraphrased, or summarized effectively (and with appropriate documentation)? Is information from sources introduced with  signal phrases ?

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• Does the report end in a satisfying way? What are readers left t­ hinking? These questions should identify aspects of your report you need to work on. When it’s time to  revise , make sure your report appeals to your audience and achieves your purpose as successfully as possible. If you have time and want to explore alternatives, you might try  rewriting  your draft to see if a different plan or approach might work better.

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378–79

Editing and Proofreading Once you’ve revised your draft, follow these guidelines for  editing  a report:

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• Check your use of key terms. Repeating key words is acceptable in reports; using synonyms for unfamiliar words may confuse readers, while the repetition of key words or the use of clearly identified­ pronouns for them can be genuinely helpful.

Glossary

• Check to be sure you have  transitions  where you need them.

361–62

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670–72

• If you have included  headings , make sure they’re parallel in structure and consistent in design.

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• Make sure that any photos or other  illustrations have captions, that charts and graphs have headings — and that all are referred to in the main text. Use white space as necessary to separate sections of your report and to highlight graphic elements.

560–63

• Check any  documentation  to see that it follows the appropriate style.

383–84

•   proofread  and spell-check your report carefully.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How well did you convey the information? Is it complete enough for your audience’s needs? • What writing strategies (for example, defining, comparing, classifying) did you rely on, and how did they help you achieve your purpose? • What element of your rhetorical situation (purpose, audience, genre, stance, media/design) was the easiest to figure out for this writing project? What element was the hardest to figure out? Why? • How did you go about researching the information for this piece? • How did you go about drafting this piece? For example, did you write out an outline or plan? Do something else? How could you make the drafting process more productive in the future? • How well did you synthesize information from your sources? Can you point to a specific place in your text where you did an especially good job of making connections among the facts and ideas in your sources? • Did you use tables, graphs, diagrams, photographs, illustrations, or other graphics? If so, what did they add to the piece? If not, can you think of such elements you might have used?

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• What did you do to keep yourself engaged with your writing task? If you weren’t engaged, how could you improve in the future? • What did you learn about yourself as a writer through your work on this project? How can you apply that learning to future writing tasks?

If you need more help See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your report in a writing  PORTFOLIO . See also Chapter 14 on  ABSTRACTS  if your report requires one; and Chapter 19 on  PROFILES , a report based on firsthand research.

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385–90 196–200 245–57

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13 Arguing a Position

Everything we say or do presents some kind of argument, takes some kind of position. Often we take overt positions: “Everyone in the United States is entitled to affordable health care.” “The university needs to offer more language courses.” “Photoshopped images should carry disclosure notices.” But arguments can be less direct and specific as well, from empty chairs that honor fallen veterans and COVID-19 victims to a yellow smiley face, which might be said to argue for a good day. In college course work, you are constantly called on to argue positions: in an English class, you may argue for a certain interpretation of a poem; in a business course, you may argue for the merits of a flat tax; in a linguistics class, you may argue that English is now a global language. All of those positions are arguable — people of goodwill can agree or disagree with them and present reasons and evidence to support their positions. This chapter provides guidelines for writing an essay that argues a position. We’ll begin with three good examples, the first one annotated to point out key features of this kind of writing.

KELLY CORYELL

All Words Matter The Manipulation behind “All Lives Matter” Kelly Coryell wrote this essay in her first-year writing course at Diablo Valley College in Pleasant Hill, California. An English major, Coryell works as a tutor in the college’s learning center and serves as a supplemental instruction leader for multilingual students. This essay was nominated for the Norton Writer’s Prize and is documented in MLA style.

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I’ve never understood the popular saying “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I grew up as a tomboy; I’ve had more than my fair share of scrapes, bruises, and stitches. But I’ve found that words inflict the most painful injuries. On sleepless nights when I toss and turn, I’m not replaying the time I broke my foot over and over in my head — I’m thinking about some embarrassing thing I said that still makes me physically cringe or a time someone said something hurtful to me. Broken bones heal — words stay with us. This is because words have power. A skilled wordsmith can influence us by using evocative words that elicit an emotional response. The meanings of these “loaded” words aren’t located in a dictionary. There is a context surrounding them that implies a meaning beyond the basic information they convey. Loaded words and phrases appeal to our emotions, not our logic — they enter our hearts, not our minds. They can manipulate, so sometimes people use loaded language to distract us from a flawed argument. Such is the case when people use the phrase “all lives matter” to oppose the phrase “Black lives matter.” In 2012, neighborhood watch coordinator George Zimmerman shot and killed Trayvon Martin, an unarmed African American teenager returning home from a latenight snack run. In 2013, Zimmerman was acquitted of all charges. This sparked the birth of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement, when activists Alicia Garza, Opal Tometi, and Patrisse Cullors, frustrated with the systemic inequality and oppression exemplified by Zimmerman’s trial, started using the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter on Twitter. As more and more Black people died during police confrontations or in police custody — Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Walter Scott, Freddie Gray — the movement, and the phrase “Black lives matter,” gained momentum, eventually becoming a major talking point in the 2016 presidential election. And in the spring of 2020, the deaths of Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, Rayshard Brooks, Dominique “Rem’mie” Fells, and Riah Milton reignited the BLM movement, leading to an overdue reckoning with racism in the United States. As a direct response, Americans who either disagreed with the BLM movement as a whole or supported the movement but were uncomfortable with its slogan began to chant their own phrase: “all lives matter.” It should be acknowledged that some of those who have used the phrase “all lives matter” did so naïvely aiming to unify people in a time

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Coryell defines an underlying premise: words have power.

Background: Events leading to Black Lives Matter movement.

Background: “All lives matter” as response to BLM.

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A banner in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Thesis: “All lives matter” sends a dangerous message.

First reason supporting thesis.

Evidence to support first reason.

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of division, thinking of the words as a positive affirmation to which no one could object. However, saying “all lives matter” as a response to “Black lives matter” is, in reality, sending a dangerous message: it steals attention from the systematic oppression of Black Americans and actively distorts the message behind the BLM movement, manipulating the American people into maintaining the oppressive status quo. The phrase “all lives matter” belies racial inequality in America by implying that all lives are at equal risk. The racism and prejudice endured by African Americans didn’t end when slavery was abolished in 1865, it didn’t end when Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and it didn’t end when a Black man was elected president of the United States in 2008. Racial inequality in America persists to this day, ingrained and interwoven so deeply in American society that our prison systems and manufacturing industries depend on it. It’s so expertly hidden under layers of celebrity gossip in our media and blatant and bold lies from our politicians, and so “normalized” in our culture, that many people may not even be aware of the plight of Black Americans. But the statistics speak for themselves. According to the NAACP, African Americans are incarcerated at six times the rate of White Americans for drug crimes (“Criminal Justice Fact Sheet”). The Center for American Progress reported that in 2016, the median wealth of Black families was only ten percent of the median wealth of White families (Hanks et al.). Police shoot and kill Black Americans at two and a half times the rate of White Americans, according to a 2016 report (Lowery). All these statistics point to the fact that Black lives

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in America are valued less than White lives. The BLM movement aims to change this depressing reality by insisting that “Black lives matter.” Responding to “Black lives matter” with “all lives matter” ignores the unique prejudices and discrimination Black people experience in America. In an essay explaining why she calls herself a feminist, ­Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie observes that “[f]eminism is, of course, part of human rights in general — but to choose to use the vague expression human rights is to deny the specific and particular problem of gender.” Adichie’s point, that not every human being suffers the oppression that women suffer, parallels the way that emphasizing all lives takes focus away from the oppression specifically felt only by Black Americans. “All lives matter” implies that all lives endure an equal amount of hardship; therefore, the struggles of Black Americans deserve no more attention than the struggles of White Americans — which is statistically false. Daniel Victor illustrates the harmful way the phrase “all lives matter” removes focus from the hardships of Black Americans in his article “Why ‘All Lives Matter’ Is Such a Perilous Phrase.” He writes: Those in the Black Lives Matter movement say black people are in immediate danger and need immediate attention. . . . Saying “All Lives Matter” in response would suggest to them that all people are in equal danger, invalidating the specific concerns of Black people. “You’re watering the house that’s not burning but you’re choosing to leave the house that’s burning unattended,” said Allen Kwabena Frimpong, an organizer for the New York chapter of Black Lives Matter. “It’s irresponsible.” To put it simply, focusing too much on the whole can divert muchneeded attention from crises affecting a specific group. Using “all lives matter” as a response to “Black lives matter” perpetuates the misconception that BLM activists do not believe both sentiments. The core of the BLM movement is the belief that all lives matter — including Black lives, which are treated differently than White lives, not just by law enforcement but by America as a whole. As J. Clara Chan explains in her article “What Is ‘All Lives Matter’? A Short Explainer”:

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Second reason.

Here she makes the analogy clear and extends her argument with another analogy.

Summary of this argument.

Third reason: “All lives matter” misinterprets the meaning of “Black lives matter.”

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Here and below, evidence supporting the third reason. Also, an appeal to readers’ shared values — in this case, fairness.

The essay refers back to its underlying premise, that words have power — but focuses on the power of “all lives matter” to shape perception.

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GENRES

BLM supporters stress that the movement isn’t about believing no other races matter. Instead, the movement seeks to highlight and change how racism disproportionately affects the black community, in terms of police brutality, job security, socioeconomic status, educational opportunities, and more. The BLM movement’s focus on particular inequities doesn’t mean other races don’t matter, but the phrase “all lives matter” is loaded language that implies they don’t. As Dave Bry explains, “Understanding ‘black lives matter’ to mean ‘only’ black lives matter has been a misinterpretation from the beginning.” “All lives matter” is the point of the BLM m ­ ovement — that all lives do matter; therefore, Black lives need to matter as much as White lives. It isn’t “only Black lives matter”; it’s “Black lives matter, too.” “All lives matter” manipulates people into believing those who say “Black lives matter” are against other lives. Jason Stanley explains the many ways language can be used as a tool for suppression: “Words are misappropriated and meanings twisted. I believe that these tactics are not really about making substantive claims, but rather play the role of silencing. They are, if you will, linguistic strategies for stealing the voices of others.” In other words, a group can be silenced if the language vital to their ability to express themselves and their beliefs is co-opted by another group. Supporters of “all lives matter” co-opted the language of the BLM movement, forcing a separation between the two phrases. As a result, BLM activists cannot say “all lives matter” without sounding like they oppose the views of the BLM movement, since “all lives matter” is no longer just a phrase but a rebuttal — a counterargument. Saying “all lives matter” is premature, since it presupposes that equality has already been achieved. If Black lives really did matter as much as White lives in American society, then saying so would be as uncontroversial as stating any other fact. In fact, America is not a postracial society: poverty, education, health, incarceration rates — all are unequal between different races in America. We must acknowledge this ugly truth if we are ever going to change it. “All lives matter” invokes a naïve reality in which all races are holding hands in a great big circle, singing “This Land Is Your Land” as the sun smiles down on

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the world. “All lives matter,” like the statement “I don’t see race, I just see people,” may, at first, seem like a beautiful sentiment. Those who say such things may truly do so with the intent of creating a world where everyone is treated equally — regardless of race, gender, creed, orientation, and so on. But upon close examination, these phrases — however well-­ meaning — are harmful because, aside from robbing people of their racial identities, they ignore race-based discrimination. How can one notice racism when one does not “see race”? How can one point out discrimination against African Americans if the only response one gets is “everyone matters”? If one insists that a goal has already been met when it hasn’t, why would anyone put in more effort toward reaching that goal? This is why “all lives matter” is so manipulative and damaging. It’s an attempt to convince us we don’t have to keep reaching for equality and justice, even though every fact around us tells us this is far from the case. Only by consciously acknowledging racial inequality will we ever be able to put an end to it. The root of “all lives matter” boils down to one thing: privilege, and the reluctance to give it up in the name of equality. As Chris Boeskool puts it, “Equality can feel like oppression. But it’s not. What you’re feeling is just the discomfort of losing a little bit of your privilege.” Evening the playing field can feel like a bad thing to the person benefiting from the imbalance. In the 1960s, a White bus rider may have felt oppressed when she started having to compete with Black bus riders for the front seat — she lost the privilege of getting a guaranteed front seat because of her race. In the 1970s, a man might have complained that he could no longer “compliment” his female coworkers without being accused of sexual harassment — he lost the privilege of being able to say offensive things because of his gender. If American society starts to accept that Black lives matter as much as White lives, White Americans will lose some of the privileges afforded to them as a result of the oppression of Black Americans. Therefore, people who either do not realize they have this privilege, or simply don’t want to give it up, chant “all lives matter” in an effort to hold on to that privilege. If the BLM movement is silenced, the status quo of racial inequality will be maintained. The privileged must resist this unethical temptation and not mistake oppression for equality.

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A counterargument is presented and refuted.

Strong conclusion.

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Works Cited Adichie, Chimamanda Ngozi. “I Decided to Call Myself a Happy Feminist.” The Guardian, 17 Oct. 2014, www.theguardian.com /books/2014/oct/17/chimamanda-ngozi-adichie-extract-we-should -all-be-feminists. Boeskool, Chris. “When You’re Accustomed to Privilege, Equality Feels Like Oppression.” HuffPost, 14 Mar. 2016, www.huffpost .com/entry/when-youre-accustomed-to-privilege_b_9460662. Bry, Dave. “‘All Lives Matter’ Is and Always Was Racist — and This Weekend’s Trump Rally Proved It.” The Guardian, 23 Nov. 2015, www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/23/all-lives -matter-racist-trump-weekend-campaign-rally-proved-it. Chan, J. Clara. “What Is ‘All Lives Matter’? A Short Explainer.” The Wrap, 13 July 2016, www.thewrap.com/what-is-all-lives -matter-a-short-explainer. “Criminal Justice Fact Sheet.” NAACP, www.naacp.org/criminal -justice-fact-sheet. Accessed 25 Feb. 2019. Hanks, Angela, et al. Systematic Inequality: How America’s Structural Racism Helped Create the Black–White Wealth Gap. Center for American Progress, Feb. 2018, cdn.americanprogress.org /content/uploads/2018/02/20131806/RacialWealthGap-report.pdf. Lowery, Wesley. “Aren’t More White People Than Black People Killed by Police? Yes, but No.” The Washington Post, 11 July 2016, www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/ wp/2016/07/11/arent-more-white-people-than-black-people -killed-by-police-yes-but-no. Stanley, Jason. “The Ways of Silencing.” The New York Times, 25 June 2011, opinionater.blogsnytimes.com/2011/06/25 /the-ways-of-silencing. Opinionator. Victor, Daniel. “Why ‘All Lives Matter’ Is Such a Perilous Phrase.” The New York Times, 15 July 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/07 /16/us/all-lives-matter-black-lives-matter.html.

Coryell bases her argument on a clear premise, that “words have power” and that the phrase “all lives matter” reflects a misunderstanding and negative manipulation of the Black Lives Matter movement.

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BRIANNA SCHUNK

Come Look at the Freaks Examining and Advocating for Disability Theatre In this essay, Wilkes University student Brianna Schunk argues that our culture should support disability theatre in various ways. Schunk’s essay was nominated for the Norton Writer’s Prize, and it is documented in MLA style. When I first saw Gaten Matarazzo in the TV show Stranger Things and some of the first words out of his toothless little mouth were, “I have cleidocranial dysplasia” (“Chapter One” 00:35:21), I actually cried with joy. Until then, I had never seen another human not related to my family who had cleidocranial dysplasia on television in a popular TV show. I was so shocked, I made my friend rewind the episode so I could hear him say it again. Having cleidocranial dysplasia myself, it is so much easier to be able to compare myself to Matarazzo when explaining my condition to other people, and I only wish he could have come into my life earlier. Representation — how we portray ourselves and are portrayed by others — is incredibly important to all groups of people, but especially to people with disabilities. Disability, until recently, has rarely been studied through the lens of culture. Up until the last fifty years, disability was studied in the fields of medicine and science by doctors and surgeons. However, the world has recently begun to publish works not related to science and medicine, and this study of the true experience of disability is called disability culture. Disability culture has taken root in many fields, such as fiction, nonfiction, the analysis of stories, sociological studies of the disability experience, and visual, musical, and theatre arts. Champions like Rosemarie Garland-Thomson have brought disability culture to a wider audience. In her book Extraordinary Bodies, Garland-Thomson uses the lens of feminist critique as well as comparison to the study of race and gender to explain disability culture in America. Her publications are regarded as some of the earliest works on the emerging field of disability culture. Disability refers to an incredibly wide spectrum of

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things, ranging from physical conditions to unseeable mental illnesses and cognitive impairment, but all are part of disability culture. Using studies and reports like Garland-Thomson’s, we can share our experiences of being disabled with both able-bodied and disabled people. Disability theatre is about making theatre for and with people with disabilities, and it is an important topic to me because I am an actor with a disability. Cleidocranial dysplasia affects me physically but is not immediately noticeable and manifests in less visible ways, such as hearing loss in my left ear and years of corrective orthodontic surgery. Throughout most of my life I didn’t even consider myself disabled because my disability does not affect my life as much as some other people’s disabilities affect theirs. In addition, people around me discouraged me from considering myself disabled, likely because the idea of disability is so stigmatizing. This stems from the power difference found between people with disabilities and people without. Garland-Thomson asserts that people who have “ordinary” (non-disabled) bodies are considered superior to those who do not, and these “normates” have social power and authority (8). However, by considering myself an actress with a ­disability — an identity important to me — I assert my power. Disability is not bad, it’s just different. In the same way able-bodied people are different from one another, so people with disabilities are different from one another and from people who are able-bodied. However, people advocate less for people with disabilities than for any other minority group, and especially so in the theatre and entertainment world. As Lennard Davis notes in a HuffPost article, many people turn a blind eye when an able-bodied actor portrays a disabled person, but if anyone does blackface today it is widely acknowledged to be racist. Many people in the field of disability theatre think it is acceptable for able-bodied actors to portray people with disabilities. This is a strange gray area for two main reasons. One, there are often not enough actors with disabilities available to play the roles; and two, sometimes the character needs to go through a period of time when they are not disabled, such as the story of Stephen Hawking (a role played by able-bodied actor Eddie Redmayne), whose disability developed as he grew older — a situation that has no definite solution. Unfortunately, “the current reality is that non-disabled actors get to

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play whatever roles they want whereas disabled actors don’t” (Davis). That there aren’t enough disabled actors stems from a vicious cycle identified by disability scholar Carrie Sandahl, who observes that most theatre departments are inaccessible to people with disabilities. They are often denied admission to acting programs because educators are not willing to work with them or the programs do not have the means to accommodate them (255). Also, many training programs can be a challenge to people with disabilities. Sandahl notes that the origin of the “neutral” body in many acting techniques stems from the study of body normalcy (261). Bodies were considered “damaged physically and emotionally from the process of living, and those bodies capable of cure are suitable actors” — disabled bodies could not be “cured” and therefore could not be actors (262). These limitations then lead to fewer actors with disabilities in the professional world. And directors are not willing to work with or adapt stories for actors with disabilities, thinking “their impairments would detract from the playwright’s or director’s intent for a nondisabled character” (255). We can get to the root of the problem by recognizing and eliminating disability stereotypes. Marilyn Dahl’s essay “The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability” explores common metaphors surrounding people with disabilities, such as villains who are marked as evil because of a missing body part or victims who are completely helpless and dependent on others. However, Dahl’s essay also highlights how news reports do the same thing in creating fantastic stories out of the lives of people with disabilities, creating what Dahl calls “heroes by hype.” Jack Nelson has also done research into stereotyped characters, even going so far as to categorize them: the “supercrip,” the disabled villain, the burden, the misfit, and the victim. However, Nelson gives examples of a few positive representations as well, such as Nemo and his “lucky fin” in the children’s animated movie Finding Nemo. Nelson stresses that “what most people with disabilities ask is that they [should] be portrayed as real people with real problems that often are not connected to their disability” (289). Some actors and directors worry that in casting people with disabilities in disabled roles they face “typecasting” them, an idea that stems from years of stereotyping characters with disabilities. When people

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deny actors with disabilities opportunities to expand their repertoire and play parts traditionally played by able-bodied actors, they close their minds to creating a whole new level of theatre. Having someone with a disability play a typically able-bodied role can add much depth to the character and to the story and can bring to life the character’s journey and problems through the medium of the human body. For example, when I was in a local production of the musical Side Show, a story about a pair of conjoined twins on the freak show circuit who later achieved vaudeville and film performance fame, I played one of the “World’s Tiniest Cossacks,” among other ensemble roles. I resonated deeply with my character, because even though I do not have dwarfism, my short stature relates to my disability, and I took to playing a “freak” easily because my condition leads me to entertain people. Playing a character who makes a living by entertaining people with their different body structure was easy, because I drew on my real-life experience. It wasn’t the best thing that we didn’t have actors with dwarfism to play that part, but at least there was a disabled actor playing the part — a part that honored disability. In the same way that our having actual twin sisters play the main characters added a whole new level of connection between the sisters in our production, so I felt that my playing the part of a disabled character created a whole new connection to the show for myself and for the audience. People with disabilities originally had a connection to disability theatre through the world of freak shows. Freak shows “challenged the boundaries of the individual” (Garland-Thomson 59) to audiences by presenting bodies different from their own. Those shows were among the early origins of the celebration of disability culture. They also provided a place for people to “identify with nonconformity” (Garland-Thomson 68)  —  specifically, people wounded and missing limbs from war. When the shows gradually shut down in the midtwentieth century, people with disabilities couldn’t find jobs to sustain themselves because the people who took away their celebration of bodily difference refused to hire them to work anywhere else. They found some work in the developing film industry, in films such as Tod Browning’s 1932 movie Freaks. It features a cast of actors with disabilities, including people with dwarfism, a pair of conjoined twins, and “pinheads,” or actors with microcephaly.

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This movie, in addition to providing jobs and representation to actors with disabilities, also challenged traditional stereotypes about people with disabilities. As the movie progresses and one sees the freaks going about their daily lives, one comes to root for them and value their lives and ambitions as humans, not as freaks or disabled characters. The script even recognizes this, with the characters calling out the ableism of one able-bodied woman in the movie by saying, “Cleopatra ain’t one of us. Why, we’re just filthy things to her” (Freaks 00:25:21–23). Nowadays, we have countless organizations and forms of media that celebrate disability. Derrick Vanmeter, a theatre professor at Clayton State University, lists several organizations, such as Full Radius Dance, which puts on dance shows with people in wheelchairs, and That Uppity Theatre Company, which introduces artists with disabilities in their work The DisAbility Project. The Star Wars movies portray people losing limbs — becoming disabled — without any accompanying storylines or stereotypes, instead tying their disabilities to the overarching theme of keeping the universe in balance, which video blogger Hank Green of the vlogbrothers channel summarizes as “when someone cuts someone’s hand off in Star Wars . . . they’re gonna get their hand chopped off too” (“13 Severed Hands” 00:01:21–26). Even musicals such as Sideshow, Next to Normal (a story about a woman with bipolar disorder), and Deaf West’s production of Spring Awakening create stories using characters with disabilities and support them as humans with desires and goals. In 2019, actor Ali Stroker, who played Ado Annie in the Broadway revival of the classic musical Oklahoma!, became the first person who uses a wheelchair to win a Tony award, proving actors with disabilities can excel in starring roles created for able-bodied characters. I encourage other people with disabilities to do theatre and see theatre and seek out opportunities to participate in theatre, and I encourage everyone to support us in our endeavors and to support disability theatre on a whole. Directors: cast more disabled actors; open up your shows to a completely different take by using an actor with a disability. Choose to perform more shows about people with disabilities, and honor those roles with actors who truly know the disabled experience, not just able-bodied actors who can fake a limp. Theatre is the place for everyone to express themselves and tell their stories, and we as a

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Ali Stroker as Ado Annie in the 2019 Broadway revival of Oklahoma!

theatre community need to honor all people. As a performer with a skeletal condition, my whole life is technically disability theatre. I am evidence that these two worlds can work together, and I want to show that to the world. No one can stop me from doing what I love to do, and I hope I can extend this confidence and belief to every other human that I meet. We can all be brilliant. Works Cited “Chapter One.” Stranger Things, season 1, episode 1, 21 Laps ­Entertainment / Monkey Massacre, 2016. Netflix, www .netflix.com. Dahl, Marilyn. “The Role of the Media in Promoting Images of Disability: Disability as Metaphor: The Evil Crip.” Canadian Journal of Communication, vol. 18, no. 1, 1993. ProQuest Central, https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.1993v18n1a718.

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Davis, Lennard J. “Let Actors with Disabilities Play Characters with Disabilities.” HuffPost, 6 Dec. 2017, www.huffpost.com/entry /let-actors-with-disabilit_b_380266. Freaks. Directed by Tod Browning, Metro-Goldwyn Mayer, 1932. Garland-Thomson, Rosemarie. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature. Columbia UP, 1997. Nelson, Jack A. “Invisible No Longer: Images of Disability in the Media.” Images That Injure: Pictorial Stereotypes in the Media, edited by Susan Dente Ross and Paul Martin Lester, 3rd ed., Praeger, 2011, pp. 274–91. Sandahl, Carrie. “The Tyranny of Neutral: Disability and Actor Training.” Bodies in Commotion: Disability and Performance, edited by Sandahl and Philip Auslander, U of Michigan P, 2005, pp. 255–67. “13 Severed Hands!” YouTube, uploaded by vlogbrothers, 30 Sept. 2009, youtube.com/watch?v=lDlqwbMCBg4. Vanmeter, Derrick. “Disability and Theatre: Access for All.” Southeastern Theatre Conference, 3 Mar. 2017, Hilton Hotel, Lexington, Kentucky.

Schunk argues that actors with disabilities should be cast in the roles of characters with disabilities — and in roles of nondisabled characters as well. To make her argument, she draws on recent scholarship on disability culture and her own experiences.

NICHOLAS KRISTOF

Our Blind Spot about Guns In this essay, which first appeared in the New York Times in 2014, columnist Nicholas Kristof argues that if guns and their owners were regulated in the same way that cars and their drivers are, thousands of lives could be saved each year.

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If we had the same auto fatality rate today that we had in 1921, by my calculations we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually in vehicle accidents. Instead, we’ve reduced the fatality rate by more than 95 percent — not by confiscating cars, but by regulating them and their drivers sensibly. We could have said, “Cars don’t kill people. People kill people,” and there would have been an element of truth to that. Many accidents are a result of alcohol consumption, speeding, road rage or driver distraction. Or we could have said, “It’s pointless because even if you regulate cars, then people will just run each other down with bicycles,” and that, too, would have been partly true. Yet, instead, we built a system that protects us from ourselves. This saves hundreds of thousands of lives a year and is a model of what we should do with guns in America. Whenever I write about the need for sensible regulation of guns, some readers jeer: Cars kill people, too, so why not ban cars? Why are you so hypocritical as to try to take away guns from law-abiding people when you don’t seize cars? That question is a reflection of our national blind spot about guns. The truth is that we regulate cars quite intelligently, instituting evidence-based measures to reduce fatalities. Yet the gun lobby is too strong, or our politicians too craven, to do the same for guns. So guns and cars now each kill more than 30,000 in America every year. One constraint, the argument goes, is the Second Amendment. Yet the paradox is that a bit more than a century ago, there was no universally recognized individual right to bear arms in the United States, but there was widely believed to be a “right to travel” that allowed people to drive cars without regulation. A court struck down an early attempt to require driver’s licenses, and initial attempts to set speed limits or register vehicles were met with resistance and ridicule. When authorities in New York City sought in 1899 to ban horseless carriages in the parks, the idea was lambasted in the New York Times as “devoid of merit” and “impossible to maintain.” Yet, over time, it became increasingly obvious that cars were killing and maiming people, as well as scaring horses and causing accidents. As a distinguished former congressman, Robert Cousins, put it in 1910: “Pedestrians are menaced every minute of the days and nights by a

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wanton recklessness of speed, crippling and killing people at a rate that is appalling.” Courts and editorial writers alike saw the carnage and agreed that something must be done. By the 1920s, courts routinely accepted driver’s license requirements, car registration and other safety measures. That continued in recent decades with requirements of seatbelts and air bags, padded dashboards and better bumpers. We cracked down on drunken drivers and instituted graduated licensing for young people, while also improving road engineering to reduce accidents. The upshot is that there is now just over 1 car fatality per 100 million miles driven. Yet as we’ve learned to treat cars intelligently, we’ve gone in the opposite direction with guns. In his terrific new book, The Second Amendment: A Biography, Michael Waldman, the president of the Brennan Center for Justice at the New York University School of Law, notes that “gun control laws were ubiquitous” in the nineteenth century. Visitors to Wichita, Kansas, for example, were required to check their revolvers at police headquarters. And Dodge City, symbol of the Wild West? A photo shows a sign on the main street in 1879 warning: “The Carrying of Fire Arms Strictly Prohibited.” The National Rifle Association supported reasonable gun control for most of its history and didn’t even oppose the landmark Gun Control Act of 1968. But, since then, most attempts at safety regulation have stalled or gone backward, and that makes the example of cars instructive. “We didn’t ban cars, or send black helicopters to confiscate them,” notes Waldman. “We made cars safer: air bags, seatbelts, increasing the drinking age, lowering the speed limit. There are similar technological and behavioral fixes that can ease the toll of gun violence, from expanded background checks to trigger locks to smart guns that recognize a thumbprint, just like my iPhone does.” Some of these should be doable. A Quinnipiac poll this month found 92 percent support for background checks for all gun buyers. These steps won’t eliminate gun deaths any more than seatbelts eliminate auto deaths. But if a combination of measures could reduce the toll by one-third, that would be 10,000 lives saved every year.

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Dodge City, Kansas, 1879. The sign reads, “The Carrying of Fire Arms strictly prohibited.”

A century ago, we reacted to deaths and injuries from unregulated vehicles by imposing sensible safety measures that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives a year. Why can’t we ask politicians to be just as rational about guns?

  For four more arguments, see CHAPTER 63.

Kristof argues that because regulating cars has made them much safer, guns should be regulated similarly. He supports his argument with data on fatality rates and the history of automobile and gun regulation in the United States.

Key Features / Arguments A clear and arguable position.   At the heart of every argument is a claim with which people may reasonably disagree. Some claims are not arguable because they’re completely subjective, matters of taste or opinion (“I hate

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sauerkraut”), because they are a matter of fact (“The first Star Wars movie came out in 1977”), or because they are based on belief or faith (“There is life after death”). To be arguable, a position must reflect one of at least two points of view, making reasoned argument necessary: guns should (or should not) be regulated; selling human organs should be legal (or illegal). In college writing, you will often argue not that a position is correct but that it is plausible — that it is reasonable, supportable, and worthy of being taken seriously.

Necessary background information.   Sometimes we need to provide some background on a topic we are arguing so that readers can understand what is being argued. Coryell recounts the origin of the phrase “Black lives matter” before launching her argument that “all lives matter” misrepresents the BLM phrase and movement; Kristof describes the history of automobile regulation. Good reasons.   By itself, a position does not make an argument; the argument comes when a writer offers reasons to back up the position. There are many kinds of good reasons. Kristof makes his argument by comparing cars to guns. Schunk offers several reasons why actors with disabilities should get more parts: using non-disabled actors in roles of characters with disabilities is discriminatory; if there is a shortage of actors with disabilities, it derives from barriers to participation of those actors; and stereotypes limit the roles available to actors with disabilities.

Convincing evidence.  Once you’ve given reasons for your position, you then need to offer evidence for your reasons: facts, statistics, expert testimony, anecdotal evidence, case studies, textual evidence. All three ­ arguments use a mix of these types of evidence. Coryell cites statistics on the differences between Black Americans and White Americans in terms of their incarceration, wealth, and incidence of being shot and killed by police. Kristof shows how regulating cars led to dramatic decreases in driving deaths and injuries. Both Schunk and Coryell cite anecdotes from their own experience to support their arguments.

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Appeals to readers’ values.  Effective arguers try to appeal to readers’ values and emotions. Kristof appeals to the idea that reducing traffic deaths — and, by extension, shooting deaths — is a worthy goal. Coryell appeals to her readers’ sense of fairness, that “Black lives matter, too” — as much as the lives of White people. These values are deeply held and may be seen as common ground we share with one another.

A trustworthy tone.  Arguments can stand or fall on the way readers perceive the writer. Very simply, readers need to trust the person who’s making the argument. One way of winning this trust is by demonstrating that you know what you’re talking about. Kristof offers plenty of facts to show his knowledge of the history of automotive regulation — and he does so in a ­self-assured tone. There are many other ways of establishing yourself (and your argument) as trustworthy — by showing that you have some e ­ xperience with your subject, that you’re fair, and of course that you’re honest.

Careful consideration of other positions.  No matter how reasonable and careful we are in arguing our positions, others may disagree or offer ­counterarguments. We need to consider those other views and to acknowledge and, if possible, refute them in our written arguments. Coryell, for example, acknowledges some people’s discomfort with the phrase “Black lives matter,” but she counters that to say instead that “all lives matter” is to make a mistake — “Black lives matter” asserts that racism against Black people needs to be pointed out and that Black lives are as worthy as everyone else’s lives.

A GUIDE TO WRITING ARGUMENTS Choosing a Topic A fully developed argument requires significant work and time, so choosing a topic in which you’re interested is very important. Students often find that widely debated topics such as “animal rights” or “abortion” can

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be difficult to write on because they don’t feel any personal connection to them. Better topics include those that • interest you right now • are focused, but not too narrowly • have some personal connection to your life One good way to  generate ideas  for a topic that meets those three criteria is to explore your own roles in life.

Start with your roles in life.   Make four columns with the headings “Personal,” “Family,” “Public,” and “School.” Then  list  the roles you play that relate to each heading. Here is a list one student wrote: Personal

Family

Public

School

gamer

son

voter

college student

dog owner

homeless-shelter volunteer

work-study employee

old-car owner

younger brother

male

grandson

American

primary-education major

White

333–44

334–35

dorm resident

resident of Texas

middle class

Identify issues that interest you.   Think, then, about issues or controversies that may concern you as a member of one or more of those groups. For instance, as a primary-education major, this student cares about the controversy over whether teachers’ jobs should be focused on preparing kids for high-stakes standardized tests. As a college student, he cares about the costs of a college education. Issues that stem from these subjects could include the following: Should student progress be measured by standardized tests? Should college cost less than it does? Pick four or five of the roles you list. In five or ten minutes, identify issues that concern or affect you as a person who takes on of each of those roles. It might help to word each issue as a question starting with “Should.”

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Frame your topic as a problem.   Most position papers address issues that are subjects of ongoing debate — their solutions aren’t easy, and people disagree on which ones are best. Posing your topic as a problem can help you think about the topic, find an issue that’s suitable to write about, and find a clear focus for your essay. For example, if you wanted to write an argument on the lack of student parking at your school, you could frame your topic as one of several problems: What causes the parking shortage? Why are the university’s parking garages and lots limited in their capacity? What might alleviate the shortage?

Choose one issue to write about.  Remember that the issue should be interesting to you and have some connection to your life. It is a tentative choice; if you find later that you have trouble writing about it, simply go back to your list of roles or issues and choose another.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation 59–60

purpose

o you want to persuade your audience to do someD thing? Change their minds? Consider alternative views? Accept your position as plausible — see that you have thought carefully about an issue and researched it appropriately?

61–64

audience

ho is your intended audience? What do they likely W know and believe about this issue? How personal is it for them? To what extent are they likely to agree or disagree with you — and with one another? Why? What common ground can you find with them?

72–74

stance

W hat’s your attitude toward your topic, and why? How do you want your audience to perceive your attitude? How do you want your audience to perceive you? As an authority on your topic? As someone much like them? As calm? reasonable? impassioned or angry? something else?

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media / design W hat media will you use, and how do your media

75–77

affect your argument? Does your print or online argument call for photos or charts? If you’re giving an oral presentation, should you put your reasons and support on slides? If you’re writing electronically, should you include audio or video evidence or links to counter­ arguments or your sources?

Generating Ideas and Text Most essays that successfully argue a position share certain features that make them interesting and persuasive. Remember that your goal is to stake out a position and convince your readers that it is plausible.

Explore what you already know about the issue.   Write out whatever you know about the issue by  freewriting  or as a  list  or  outline . Why are you interested in this topic? What is your position on it at this point, and why? What aspect do you think you’d like to focus on? Where do you need to focus your research efforts? This activity can help you discover what more you need to learn. Chances are you’ll need to learn a lot more about the issue before you even decide what position to take. Do some research.  At this point, try to get an overview. Start with one  general source  of information that will give you a sense of the ins and outs of your issue, one that isn’t overtly biased. The Atlantic, Time, Slate, and other online newspapers and magazines can be good starting points on current issues. For some issues, you may need to  interview  an expert. For example, one student who wanted to write about chemical abuse of animals at 4-H competitions interviewed an experienced show competitor. Use your overview source to find out the main questions raised about your issue and to get some idea about the various ways in which you might argue it.

333–34 334–35 340–42

513

518–20

Explore the issue strategically.  Most issues may be argued from many different perspectives. You’ll probably have some sense of the different views that exist on your issue, but you should explore multiple perspectives

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before deciding on your position. The following methods are good ways of exploring issues: 445–55

• As a matter of  definition . What is it? How should it be defined? How can “organic” or “genetically modified food” be defined? How do proponents of organic food define it — and how do they define “genetically modified food”?How do advocates of “genetically modified food” define it — and how do they define “organic food”? Considering such definitions is one way to identify different perspectives on the topic.

431–36

• As a matter of  classification . Can the issue be divided into categories? Are there different kinds of, or different ways of, producing organic foods and genetically modified foods? Do different categories suggest particular positions or perhaps a way of supporting a certain position? Are there other ways of categorizing foods?

437–44

• As a matter of  comparison . Is one subject being considered better than another? Is organic food healthier or safer than genetically modified food? Is genetically modified food healthier or safer than organic? Is the answer somewhere in the middle?

469–73

• As a matter of  process . Should somebody do something? What? Should people buy and eat more organic food? More genetically modified food? Should they buy and eat some of each?

410–30

Reconsider whether the issue can be argued.  Is this issue worth discussing? Why is it important to you and to others? What difference will it make if one position or another prevails? Is it  arguable ? At this point, you want to be sure that your topic is worth arguing about. Draft a thesis.   Having explored the possibilities, decide your position, and write it out as a complete sentence. For example: Parents should be required to have their children vaccinated. Pod-based coffeemakers should be banned. Genetically modified foods should not be permitted in the United States.

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Qualify your thesis.  Rather than taking a strict pro or con position, in most cases you’ll want to  qualify your position  — in certain circ*mstances, with certain conditions, with these limitations, and so on. This is not to say that we should settle, give in, sell out; rather, it is to say that our position may not be the only “correct” one and that other positions may be valid as well.  qualifying your thesis  also makes your topic manageable by limiting it. For example:

412

348–49

Parents should be required to have their children vaccinated, with only medical exemptions allowed. Pod-based coffeemakers should be banned unless the pods are recyclable. Genetically modified foods should not be permitted in the United States if a link between GMOs and resistance to antibiotics is proven.

Come up with good reasons.   Once you have a thesis, you need to come up with good  reasons  to convince your readers that it’s plausible. Write out your position, and then list several reasons. For instance, if your thesis is that pod-based coffeemakers should be banned, two of your reasons might be:

413–14

The pods cannot be recycled. Other methods of making coffee are more environmentally sound.

Think about which reasons are best for your purposes. Which seem the most persuasive? Which are most likely to be accepted by your audience? Which seem to matter the most now? If your list of reasons is short or you think you’ll have trouble developing them enough to write an appropriate essay, this is a good time to rethink your topic — before you’ve invested too much time in it.

Develop support for your reasons.  Next you have to come up with ­ evidence  to support your reasons: facts, statistics, examples, testimony by authorities and experts, anecdotal evidence, scenarios, case studies and observation, and textual evidence. For some topics, you may want or need to use evidence in visual form like photos, graphs, and charts; online,

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you could also use video or audio evidence and links to evidence in other websites. What counts as evidence varies across audiences. Statistical evidence may be required in certain disciplines but not in others; anecdotes may be accepted as evidence in some courses but not in engineering. Some audiences will be persuaded by emotional appeals while others will not. For example, if you argue that foods produced from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) should be allowed to be sold because they’re safe, you could support that reason with facts: GMOs are tested thoroughly by three separate US government agencies. Or you could support it with statistics: a study of 29 years of data on livestock fed GMO feed found that GMO-fed cattle had no adverse health effects on people who ate them. Expert testimony might include R. E. Goodman of the Department of Food Science and Technology at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, who writes that “there is an absence of proof of harm to consumers from commercially available GMOs.”

Identify other positions.   Now think about positions other than yours and the reasons people are likely to give for those positions. Be careful to represent their points of view as accurately and fairly as you can. Then decide whether you need to acknowledge or to refute each position. 424–25

Acknowledging other positions.  Some positions can’t be refuted but are too important to ignore, so you need to  acknowledge  concerns and objections they raise to show that you’ve considered other perspectives. For example, in an essay arguing that vacations are necessary to maintain good health, medical writer Alina Tugend acknowledges that “in some cases, these trips — particularly with entire families in tow — can be stressful in their own way. The joys of a holiday can also include lugging around a ridiculous amount of paraphernalia, jet-lagged children sobbing on airplanes, hotels that looked wonderful on the Web but are in reality next to a construction site.” Tugend’s acknowledgment moderates her position and makes her argument appear more reasonable.

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Refuting other positions.  State the position as clearly and as fairly as ­ erhaps you can, and then  refute it by showing why you believe it is wrong. P the reasoning is faulty or the supporting evidence inadequate. Acknowledge the merits of the position, if any, but emphasize its shortcomings. Avoid logical  fallacies  such as attacking the person holding the position or bringing up a competing position that no one seriously entertains.

426

427–29

Ways of Organizing an Argument Readers need to be able to follow the reasoning of your argument from beginning to end; your task is to lead them from point to point as you build your case. Sometimes you’ll want to give all the reasons for your argument first, followed by discussion of any other positions. Al­ternatively, you might discuss each reason and any opposing arguments together.

[Reasons to support your argument, followed by opposing arguments] Introduce the issue, and provide any necessary background information.

State your thesis.

Give the first reason, with support.

Give the second reason, with support.

Continue as needed.

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Acknowledge and/or refute opposing arguments.

End with a call to action, a restatement of your thesis, or a statement of implications.

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[Reason/opposing argument, reason/opposing argument] Introduce the issue, and provide any necessary background information.

State your thesis.

Give the first reason, with support.

Acknowledge and/ or refute opposing arguments.

Give the second reason, with support.

Acknowledge and/or refute opposing arguments.

Continue this pattern as needed, discussing reasons and opposing arguments one by one.

End with a call to action, a restatement of your thesis, or a statement of implications.

Consider carefully the order in which you discuss your reasons. Usually what comes last makes the strongest impression on readers and what comes in the middle the least impression, so you might want to put your most important or strongest reasons first and last.

Writing Out a Draft 364–66

346–58

Once you have generated ideas, done some research, and thought about how you want to organize your argument, it’s time to start  drafting . Your goal in the initial draft is to develop your argument — you can fill in support and transitions as you revise. You may want to write your first draft in one sitting, so that you can develop your reasoning from beginning to end. Or you may write the main argument first and the introduction and conclusion after you’ve drafted the body of the essay; many writers find that beginning and ending an essay are the hardest tasks they face. Here is some advice on how you might  begin and end  your argument:

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Draft a beginning.  There are various ways to begin an argument essay, depending on your audience and purpose. Here are a few suggestions: • Offer background information. You may need to give your readers information to help them understand your position. Coryell first establishes the truth of the assertion that “Words have power” and then provides a brief history of the events leading to the formation of the Black Lives Matter movement. • Begin with an anecdote. Schunk starts by describing the first time she saw on television an actor who had the same disability that she has. • D efine a key term. You may need to show how you’re using certain keywords. Coryell carefully defines “loaded” words as “evocative words that elicit an emotional response. . . . They can manipulate, so sometimes people use loaded language to distract us from a flawed argument.” • E xplain the context for your position. All arguments are part of a larger, ongoing conversation, so you might begin by showing how your position fits into the arguments others have made. Kristof places his argument about guns in the  context  of government regulation of other dangerous technologies.

125–26

• B egin with something that will get readers’ attention. Kristof begins with an eye-popping statistic: “If we had the same auto fatality rate today that we had in 1921, by my calculations we would have 715,000 Americans dying annually in vehicle accidents.”

Draft an ending.   Your conclusion is the chance to wrap up your argument in such a way that readers will remember what you’ve said. Here are a few ways of concluding an argument essay: • S ummarize your main points. Especially when you’ve presented a complex argument, it can help readers to  summarize  your main point. Schunk sums up her argument by stating, “Theatre is the place for

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everyone to express themselves and tell their stories, and we as a theatre community need to honor all people.” • C all for action. Kristof does this by asking politicians to consider “sensible safety measures.” Schunk calls for theater and film directors to cast more actors with disabilities. • F rame your argument by referring to the introduction. Kristof ends by returning to the country’s response “to death and injuries from unregulated vehicles,” suggesting that “sensible safety measures” similar to those adopted 100 years ago for cars could be devised for guns.

345–63

Come up with a title.    Most often you’ll want your title to tell readers something about your topic — and to make them want to read on. Kristof’s title, “Our Blind Spot about Guns,” entices us to find out what that blind spot is. Schunk’s “Come Look at the Freaks: Examining and Advocating for Disability Theatre” offers a shocking suggestion — and then a subtitle phrased in scholarly language. Coryell also offers a two-part title, the first part a play on the two slogans she discusses in the essay and the second a clear description of the contents. See the chapter on  organizing your writing and guiding your reader  for more advice on composing a good title.

Considering Matters of Design You’ll probably write the main text of your argument in paragraph form, but think about what kind of information you’re presenting and how you can design it to make your argument as easy as possible for your readers to understand. Think also about whether any visual or audio elements would be more persuasive than written words. 668–69

670–72

• What would be an appropriate  font ? Something serious like Times Roman? Something traditional like Courier? Something else? • Would it help your readers if you divided your argument into shorter sections and added  headings ?

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• If you’re making several points, would they be easier to follow if you set them off in a  list ?

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• Do you have any supporting evidence that would be easier to understand in the form of a bar  graph , line graph, or pie chart?

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• Would  illustrations  — photos, diagrams, or drawings — add support for your argument? Online, would video, audio, or links help?

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Getting Response and Revising At this point you need to look at your draft closely, and if possible  get response  from others as well. Following are some questions for looking at an argument with a critical eye.

372–74

• Is there sufficient background or context? • Have you defined terms to avoid misunderstandings? • Is the thesis clear and appropriately qualified? • Are the reasons plausible? • Is there enough evidence to support these reasons? Will readers accept the evidence as valid and sufficient? • Can readers follow the steps in your reasoning? • Have you considered potential objections or other positions? Are there any others that should be addressed? • Have you cited enough sources, and are these sources credible? • Are source materials documented carefully and completely, with intext citations and a works-cited or references section? • Are any visuals or links that are included used effectively and integrated smoothly with the rest of the text? If there are no visuals or links, would using some strengthen the argument? Next it’s time to  revise , to make sure your argument offers convincing evidence, appeals to readers’ values, and achieves your purpose. If you have

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time and want to explore alternatives, you might try  rewriting  your draft to see if a different plan or approach might work better.

Editing and Proofreading 380–83

72–74

361–62 542–54 560–63

Once you’ve revised your draft, follow these guidelines for  editing  an argument: • Check to see that your tone is appropriate and consistent throughout, reflects your  stance  accurately, and enhances the argument you’re making. • Be sure readers will be able to follow the argument; check to see you’ve provided  transitions  and summary statements where necessary. • Make sure you’ve smoothly integrated  quotations ,  paraphrases , and  summaries  from source material into your writing and  documented  them accurately. • Look for phrases such as “I think” or “I feel” and delete them; your essay itself expresses your opinion.

673–83

• Make sure that  illustrations  have captions and that charts and graphs have headings — and that all are referred to in the main text. • If you’re writing online, make sure all your links work.

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•   proofread  and spell-check your essay carefully.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you go about researching your topic? What would you do differently next time? • Did your stance change as you researched and wrote your argument? Why or why not? • What types of evidence did you use in your argument — facts? statistics? expert testimony? something else? Why did you choose those types of evidence?

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• How did feedback from peers, teachers, tutors, or others influence your writing? • In what ways were you open to other perspectives as you worked on your argument? • If you were going to revise this argument for a different audience (say, a letter to an online forum or a newspaper), what changes would you need to make? • What was most meaningful to you about this piece or about your experience of writing it?

If you need more help See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your argument as part of a writing  PORTFOLIO . See also Chapter 11 on  ANALYZING TEXTS , Chapter 16 on  EVALUATIONS , and Chapter 20 on  PROPOSALS  for advice on writing those specific types of arguments.

385–90 104–39 214–22 258–68

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14 Abstracts

140–63

Abstracts are summaries written to give readers the gist of a  report  or presentation. Sometimes they are published in conference proceedings or databases. In courses in the sciences, social sciences, and engineering, you may be asked to create abstracts of your proposed projects and completed reports and essays. Abstracts are brief, typically 100–200 words, sometimes even shorter. Two common kinds are informative abstracts and proposal abstracts.

INFORMATIVE ABSTRACTS Informative abstracts state in one paragraph the essence of a whole paper about a study or a research project. That one paragraph must mention all the main points or parts of the paper: a description of the study or project, its methods, the results, and the conclusions. Here is an example of the abstract accompanying a seven-page article that appeared in the Journal of Clinical Psychology: The relationship between boredom proneness and health-symptom reporting was examined. Undergraduate students (N 5 200) completed the Boredom Proneness Scale and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. A multiple analysis of covariance indicated that individuals with high boredom-proneness total scores reported significantly higher ratings on all five subscales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (Obsessive– Compulsive, Somatization, Anxiety, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Depression). The results suggest that boredom proneness may be an important element to consider when assessing symptom reporting. Implications for

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determining the effects of boredom proneness on psychological- and physical-health symptoms, as well as the application in clinical settings, are discussed. — Jennifer Sommers and Stephen J. Vodanovich, “Boredom Proneness”

The first sentence states the nature of the study being reported. The next summarizes the method used to investigate the problem, and the following one gives the results: students who, according to specific tests, are more likely to be bored are also more likely to have certain medical or psychological symptoms. The last two sentences indicate that the paper discusses those results and examines the conclusion and its implications.

PROPOSAL ABSTRACTS Proposal abstracts contain the same basic information as informative abstracts, but their purpose is very different. You prepare proposal abstracts to persuade someone to let you write on a topic, pursue a ­project, conduct an experiment, or present a paper at a scholarly conference. This kind of abstract is not written to introduce a longer piece but rather to stand alone, and often the abstract is written before the paper itself. Titles and other aspects of the proposal deliberately reflect the theme of the proposed work, and you may use the future tense, rather than the past, to describe work not yet completed. Here is a possible proposal for doing research on ­boredom: Undergraduate students will complete the Boredom Proneness Scale and the Hopkins Symptom Checklist. A multiple analysis of covariance will be performed to determine the relationship between boredomproneness total scores and ratings on the five subscales of the Hopkins Symptom Checklist (Obsessive–Compulsive, Somatization, Anxiety, Interpersonal Sensitivity, and Depression).

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Key Features / Abstracts A summary of basic information.  An informative abstract includes enough information to substitute for the report itself, and a proposal abstract gives an overview of the planned work. Objective description.  Abstracts present information on the contents of a report or a proposed study; they do not present arguments about or personal perspectives on those contents. The informative abstract on boredom proneness, for example, offers only a tentative conclusion: “The results suggest that boredom proneness may be an important element to consider.” Brevity.   Although the length of abstracts may vary, journals and organizations often restrict them to 120–200 words — meaning you must carefully select and edit your words.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING ABSTRACTS Considering the Rhetorical Situation 59–60

purpose Are you giving a brief but thorough overview of a completed study? only enough information to create interest? a proposal for a planned study or presentation?

61–64

audience For whom are you writing this abstract? What information about your project will your readers need?

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stance Regardless of stance in the longer work, your abstract must be objective.

75–77

media / design How will you set off your abstract from the rest of the text? If you are publishing it online, should it be on a separate page? What format do your readers expect?

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Generating Ideas and Text Write the paper first, the abstract last.  You can then use the finished work as the guide for the abstract, which should follow the same basic structure. Exception: you may need to write a proposal abstract months before the work it describes will be complete. Copy and paste key statements.   If you’ve already written the work, highlight your  thesis , objective, or purpose; basic information on your meth-

347–49

ods; your results; and your conclusion. Copy and paste those sentences into a new document to create a rough version of your abstract.

Pare down the rough abstract.   summarize  the key ideas in the docu-

550–51

ment, editing out any nonessential words and details. In your first sentence, introduce the overall scope of your study. Also include any other information that seems crucial to understanding your paper. Avoid phrases that add unnecessary words, such as “It is concluded that.” In general, you probably won’t want to use “I”; an abstract should cover ideas, not say what you think or will do.

Conform to any requirements.   In general, an informative abstract should be at most 10 percent of the length of the entire work and no longer than the maximum length allowed. Proposal abstracts should conform to the requirements of the organization calling for the proposal.

Ways of Organizing an Abstract Organizing abstracts is straightforward: in a single paragraph, briefly state the nature of the report or presentation, followed by an overview of the paper or the proposal.

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[An informative abstract]

State nature of study.

Summarize results or findings of study.

Summarize method of study.

Summarize discussion of results or findings.

State conclusions of study. and/or State implications of study.

[A proposal abstract] Announce subject of study.

Summarize method to be used.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you decide on the type of abstract — informative or proposal —  to write? • Describe your process for writing your abstract. What was easy, and what was challenging? • What writing skills did you develop or refine by working on this piece? How might you use those skills in other writing situations? • What did you do well in this piece? What could still be improved? What would you do differently next time?

If you need more help 364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84

See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN ­ RITING  , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and C W ­ hapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING .

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15 A nnotated Bibliographies and Reviews of Scholarly Literature

When we do research, we may consult annotated bibliographies to evaluate potential sources and literature reviews when we need an overview of the important research (“literature”) on a topic. In some courses, you may be asked to create annotated bibliographies or literature reviews to demonstrate that you have researched your topic thoroughly. This chapter offers advice on writing both.

ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES Annotated bibliographies describe, give publication information for, and sometimes evaluate each work on a list of sources. There are two kinds of annotations, descriptive and evaluative; both may be brief, consisting only of phrases, or more formal, consisting of sentences and paragraphs. Sometimes an annotated bibliography is introduced by a short statement explaining its scope. Descriptive annotations simply summarize the contents of each work, without comment or evaluation. They may be very short, just long enough to capture the flavor of the work, like the examples in the following excerpt from a bibliography of books and articles on teen films, published in the Journal of Popular Film and Television.

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MICHAEL BENTON, MARK DOLAN, AND REBECCA ZISCH

Teen Film$ In the introduction to his book The Road to Romance and Ruin, Jon Lewis points out that over half of the world’s population is currently under the age of twenty. This rather startling fact should be enough to make most Hollywood producers drool when they think of the potential profits from a target movie audience. Attracting the largest demographic group is, after all, the quickest way to box-office success. In fact, almost from its beginning, the film industry has recognized the importance of the teenaged audience, with characters such as Andy Hardy and locales such as Ridgemont High and the ‘hood. Beyond the assumption that teen films are geared exclusively toward teenagers, however, film researchers should keep in mind that people of all ages have attended and still attend teen films. Popular films about adolescents are also expressions of larger cultural currents. Studying the films is important for understanding an era’s common beliefs about its teenaged population within a broader pattern of general cultural preoccupations. This selected bibliography is intended both to serve and to stimulate interest in the teen film genre. It provides a research tool for those who are studying teen films and their cultural implications. Unfortunately, however, in the process of compiling this list we quickly realized that it was impossible to be genuinely comprehensive or to satisfy every interest. Doherty, Thomas. Teenagers and Teenpics: The Juvenilization of Ameri­ can Movies in the 1950s. Unwin Hyman, 1988. Historical discussion of teenagers as a film market. Foster, Harold M. “Film in the Classroom: Coping with ‘ Teenpics.’ ” En­ glish Journal, vol. 76, no. 3, Mar. 1987, pp. 86–88. Evaluation of the potential of using teen films such as Sixteen Candles, The Karate Kid, and The Breakfast Club to instruct adolescents on the difference between film as communication and film as exploitation.

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Washington, Michael, and Marvin J. Berlowitz.“Blaxploitation Films and High School Youth: Swat Superfly.” Jump Cut, vol. 9, Oct.–Dec. 1975, pp. 23–24. Marxist reaction to youth-oriented Black action films. Article seeks to illuminate the negative influences the films have on students by pointing out the false ideas about education, morality, and the Black family espoused by the heroes in the films.

These annotations are purely descriptive; the authors express none of their own opinions. They describe works as “historical” or “Marxist” but do not indicate whether they’re “good.” The bibliography entries are documented in MLA style. Evaluative annotations offer opinions on a source as well as describe it. They are often helpful in assessing how useful a source will be for your own writing. The following evaluative annotations are from a bibliography by Kelly Green, a student at Arizona State University. Following her instructor’s directions, she labeled each required part of her annotation —  summary, degree of advocacy, credibility, and reliability.

KELLY GREEN

Researching Hunger and Poverty Abramsky, Sasha. “The Other America, 2012: Confronting the Poverty Epidemic.” The Nation, vol. 294, no. 20, 25 Apr. 2012, www.thenation .com/article/other-america-2012-confronting-poverty-epidemic/. The author presents the image of American poverty in 2012 with examples from various families living in poverty. The author explores the conditions that make up the new recession and suggests that people in America notice the scale of the issue and take action to solve it [Summary]. The author advocates poverty reform and shows bias toward the interests of low-income families. He acknowledges other perspectives on the issue respectfully [Degree of Advocacy]. Abramsky is a freelance journalist with experience in several magazines and newspapers. He has written several books on the topic of

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poverty [Credibility]. The Nation is one of the oldest-running magazines in the United States and contains opinions on politics and culture [Reliability]. Ambler, Marjane. “Sustaining Our Home, Determining Our Destiny.” Tribal College Journal, vol. 13, no. 3, spring 2002, www.tribalcollegejournal .org/sustaining-home-determining-destiny/. The author examines the causes of poverty on Native American reservations, the factors that lead to solutions to Native American poverty, and the ways in which tribal colleges have helped improve life on reservations [Summary]. The author is strongly biased toward Native American interests and advocates that effective solutions to poverty originate within the reservations, especially in tribal colleges and universities [Degree of Advocacy]. Marjane Ambler was an editor for the Tribal College Journal for nine years and worked in national park service for nearly a decade [Credibility]. This article was published in 2002 in the Tribal College Journal, a national magazine published by the American Indian Higher Education Consortium [Reliability].

These annotations not only summarize the sources in detail but also evaluate their bias, or “degree of advocacy”; credibility; and reliability.

Key Features / Annotated Bibliographies A statement of scope.  Sometimes you need or are asked to provide a brief introductory statement to explain what you’re covering. The authors of the bibliography on teen films introduce their bibliography with three paragraphs establishing a context for the bibliography and announcing their purpose for compiling it.

499

Complete bibliographic information.  Annotations should provide all the information about each source using one documentation system (MLA, APA, or another one) so that you, your readers, or other researchers will be able to find the source easily. It’s a good idea to include sources’ URLs or  permalinks  to make accessing online sources easier. A concise description of the work.  A good annotation describes each item as carefully and objectively as possible, giving accurate information

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and showing that you understand the source. These qualities will help to build authority — for you as a writer and for your annotations.

Relevant commentary.   If you write an evaluative bibliography, your comments should be relevant to your purpose and audience. The best way to achieve relevance is to consider what questions a potential reader might have about each source: What are the main points of the source? What is its argument? How even-handed or biased is it? How current and reliable is it? Will the source be helpful for your project?

Consistent presentation.   All annotations should follow a consistent pattern: if one is written in complete sentences, they should all be. Each annotation in the teen films bibliography, for example, begins with a phrase (not a complete sentence) characterizing the work.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHIES Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Will your bibliography need to demonstrate the depth

59–60

or breadth of your research? Will your readers actually track down and use your sources? Do you need or want to convince readers that your sources are good?

audience For whom are you compiling this bibliography? What

61–64

does your audience need to know about each source?

stance Are you presenting yourself as an objective describer

72–74

or evaluator? Or are you expressing a particular point of view toward the sources you evaluate?

media / design If you are publishing the bibliography electronically,

75–77

will you provide links from each annotation to the source itself? Online or offline, should you distinguish the bibliographic information from the annotation by using a different font?

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Generating Ideas and Text Decide what sources to include.  You may be tempted to include in a bibliography every source you find or look at. A better strategy is to include only those sources that you or your readers may find potentially useful in researching your topic. For an academic bibliography, consider the qualities in the list below. Some of these qualities should not rule a source in or out; they simply raise issues you need to think about. • Appropriateness. Is this source relevant to your topic? Is it a primary source or a secondary source? Is it aimed at an appropriate audience? General or specialized? Elementary, advanced, or somewhere in between? • Credibility. Is the author reputable? Is the publication, publishing company, or sponsor of the site reputable? Do the ideas more or less agree with those in other sources you’ve read? • B alance. Does the source present enough evidence for its assertions? Does it show any particular bias? Does it present opposing arguments fairly? • Timeliness. Is the source recent enough? Does it reflect current thinking or research about the subject? If you need help  finding sources , see Chapter 47.

501–23

mla

564–614

apa

615–55

Compile a list of works to annotate.  Give the sources themselves in whatever documentation style is required; see the guidelines for  mla  and  apa  styles in Chapters 53 and 54. Determine what kind of bibliography you need to write.   Will your bibliography be descriptive or evaluative? Will your annotations be in the form of phrases? complete sentences? paragraphs? The form will shape your reading and note taking. If you’re writing a descriptive bibliography, your reading goal will be just to understand and capture the writer’s message as clearly as possible. If you’re writing an evaluative bibliography, you will

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also need to assess the source as you read in order to include your own opinions of it.

Read carefully.   To write an annotation, you must understand the source’s argument; but when writing an annotated bibliography as part of a

 proposal , you may have neither the time nor the need to read the whole

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text. Here’s a way of quickly determining whether a source is likely to serve your needs: • Check the publisher or sponsor (university press? scholarly journal? popular magazine? website sponsored by a reputable organization?). • Read the preface (of a book), abstract (of a scholarly article), introduction (of an article in a nonscholarly magazine or a website). • Skim the table of contents or the headings. • Read the parts that relate specifically to your topic.

Research the writer, if necessary.  If you are required to indicate the writer’s credentials, you may need to do additional research. You may find information by typing the writer’s name into a search engine or looking up the writer in Gale Literature: Contemporary Authors. In any case, information about the writer should take up no more than one sentence in your annotation.

Summarize the work in a sentence or two.   describe  it as objectively as

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possible: even if you’re writing an evaluative annotation, you can evaluate the central point of a work better by stating it clearly first. If you’re writing a descriptive annotation, you’re done.

Establish criteria for evaluating sources.  If you’re  evaluating sources 

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for a project, you’ll need to evaluate them in terms of their usefulness for your project, their  stance , and their overall credibility.

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Write a brief evaluation of the source.   If you can generalize about the worth of the entire work, fine. You may find, however, that some parts are useful while others are not, and what you write should reflect that mix. Be consistent — in content, sentence structure, and format. • Content. Try to provide about the same amount of information for each entry. If you’re evaluating, don’t evaluate some sources and just describe others. • Sentence structure. Use the same style throughout — complete sentences, brief phrases, or a mix. 668–69

• F ormat. Use one documentation style throughout; use a consistent  font  for each element in each entry — for example, italicize or underline all book titles.

Ways of Organizing an Annotated Bibliography Depending on their purpose, annotated bibliographies may or may not include an introduction. Most annotated bibliographies cover a single topic and so are organized alphabetically by author’s or editor’s last name. When a work lacks a named author, alphabetize it by the first important word in its title. Consult the documentation system you’re using for additional details about alphabetizing works appropriately.

State scope.

List first alphabetical entry, and annotate it.

List second alphabetical entry, and annotate it.

Continue listing and annotating.

List final alphabetical entry, and annotate it.

Sometimes an annotated bibliography needs to be organized into several subject areas (or genres, periods, or some other category); if so, the entries are listed alphabetically within each category. For example, a bibliography about terrorism breaks down into subject categories such as “Global Terrorism” and “Weapons of Mass Destruction.”

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[Multicategory bibliography] Category 1

State scope; identify categories.

Explain category 1.

List entries alphabetically, and annotate them.

Category 2

Explain category 2.

List entries alphabetically, and annotate them.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • Did curiosity about your topic play a role in your research and writing? If so, how? • What previous experience did you have with research? In what ways, if any, did you draw on that experience for your annotated bibliography? • How did you go about researching the entries in this bibliography? What databases or other tools did you use? How did you decide on keywords for your search? • How did you approach sources that were difficult to understand? What reading strategies did you use to make sense of them? • How did you decide which sources to include in your bibliography and which ones to leave out? • Did you cite sources accurately? • Overall, what was challenging about writing an annotated bibliography? What was rewarding?

REVIEWS OF SCHOLARLY LITERATURE Reviews of scholarly literature describe and evaluate important research (“literature”) available on a topic. In writing a literature review, your goal is to give an overview of the literature on a topic. You do that by discussing the literature that is most relevant to your topic and your purposes, providing

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clear and accurate summaries of appropriate source material, and describing relationships among facts and concepts. Here is a brief excerpt from a literature review that describes scholarship in zombie movies; it was written by a student at the University of Mary Washington.

CAMERON CARROLL

Zombie Film Scholarship A Review of the Literature Zombies are the shambling undead creatures that attack in hordes and strike terror into the hearts of moviegoers with their mindless aggression. Monsters on the big screen fascinate American audiences and scholars alike as representations of cultural fears and reflections of public perceptions, and they have done so since they first shuffled into theaters. The walking dead first haunted cinemas in 1932 with the release of White Zombie and have gone through cycles of popularity both at the box office and in scholarly debate. Without a doubt, the height of zombie scholarship began in the mid-2000s with only shallow mentions made in horror analyses before then. Only the English discipline gave the zombie credit as a subject worthy of study. As author and English professor Kyle Bishop wrote in 2010, “The zombie phenomenon has yet to be plumbed to its depths by the academic and literary markets.”1 Although significant zombie research has only surfaced in the 2000s, a valiant effort is currently being made to explore zombie symbolism and its historical and cultural context across nontraditional scholarly fields, such as anthropology, psychology, sociology, and philosophy. ... Zombies, as creatures that waver between living and dead, necessarily bring forth questions on the nature of being and thus also fall into the realm of philosophy as seen in Zombies, Vampires, and

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Philosophy: New Life for the Undead published in 2010 and edited by Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammed, professors of philosophy and English, respectively. Philosophers in the study of zombies seek to answer such questions as, is it better to be undead or dead? Richard Greene argues that since death is a state of nonexistence and Undeath is at least a primal existence, the question comes down to the classic “to be, or not to be?” For him, Undeath is the only option for a state of being, since death is nonexistence. Existence in any form is inherently better than utterly ceasing to be.16 Greene’s philosophy colleague, William Larkin, counters that zombies are driven to actions seen as evil and mindless, both states that humans do not usually choose. He cites how zombie films repeatedly depict survivors who ask their friends and family to kill them should it appear that they will turn into zombies, so desperate are they to avoid Undeath.17 Simon Clark, a writer with a master’s degree in Fine Arts, discusses morality in relation to zombies: if zombies are nonmoral and whether or not they are the freest creatures because of their lack of morality. Clark writes that they become ultimately free in their modern incarnations from turn-of-the-millennium cinema.18 Zombies break through barriers that survivors put up to keep them confined and are so primal that they cannot be held accountable for their actions, making them truly liberated. A fictional creature encourages real discussions in philosophical debate, demonstrating yet another area that inspires scholars to reexamine their own field because of zombies. ... The message to take away from zombie scholarship is that what it represents is evolutionary and infinitely debatable, but the victory for zombie studies is that zombies are being studied at all. After decades of being underrepresented in horror scholarship, zombies are finally getting their due as a cultural icon, complete with varying opinions and interpretations. Scholarly debate proves that the zombie is a valid resource for understanding American culture and worthy of the enthusiastic pursuit of interdepartmental scholarship. As shown within the scholarly works above, the debate over the meaning of the living dead is quite lively, indeed.

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Notes 1. Kyle William Bishop, American Zombie Gothic: The Rise and Fall (and Rise) of the Walking Dead in Popular Culture (Jefferson, NC: ­McFarland, 2010), 7. ... 16.  Richard Greene and K. Silem Mohammed, eds., Zombies, Vam­ pires, and Philosophy: New Life for the Undead (Chicago: Open Court, 2010), 13. 17.  Greene and Mohammed, 20. 18.  Greene and Mohammed, 208.

Carroll begins by establishing a context for her discussion and then focuses on her topic, the scholarship of zombies in film. In her review, she discusses the history of zombie scholarship in general and then in psychology, social trends, fiction, and, in this excerpt, philosophy. A history major, she follows Chicago style; in addition to the notes, she included a bibliography listing all her sources, including the two noted here.

Key Features / Reviews of Scholarly Literature Careful, thorough research.   A review of scholarly literature demands that you research all the major literature on the topic — or at least the major literature available to you, given the time you have.

Accurate, objective summaries of the relevant literature.  Readers expect a literature review to objectively summarize the main ideas or conclusions of the texts reviewed.

Critical evaluation for the literature.   A literature review offers considered selection of the most important, relevant, and useful sources of information on its topic, so you must evaluate each source to decide whether it should be included and then to determine how it advances understanding of the topic. 535–41

 synthesis  of the scholarship.   A literature review differs from an annotated bibliography in that the review identifies key concepts, similarities, and differences within the body of literature, showing how the sources relate to one another by method, study findings, themes, main ideas, or something else.

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A clear focus.   Because a literature review provides an overview of your topic’s main issues and explains the main concepts underlying your research, it must be carefully organized and clearly focused on your specific topic.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • Did curiosity about your topic play a role in your research and writing? If so, how? • What previous experience did you have with research? In what ways, if any, did you draw on that experience for your literature review? • How did you approach sources that were difficult to understand? What reading strategies did you use to make sense of them? • What helped you the most in finding, keeping track of, and evaluating the scholarship? What can you do next time to make the process more efficient and productive? • How did you decide which sources to include in your literature review and which ones to leave out? • What led you to group related sources together as you did? • How did you go about synthesizing similar sources? • Overall, what was challenging about writing a literature review? What was rewarding?

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , ­ Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and ­ Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your bibliography in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

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Techspot reviews computer gaming equipment. The Princeton Review and U.S. News & World Report evaluate colleges and universities. You probably consult such sources to make decisions, and you probably evaluate things all the time — when you recommend a film (or not) or a teacher (ditto). An evaluation is basically a judgment; you judge something according to certain criteria, supporting your judgment with reasons and evidence. You need to give your reasons for evaluating it as you do because often your evaluation will affect your audience’s actions: they must see this movie,

Techspot aggregates reviews of electronics from across the web and Amazon.

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needn’t bother with this book, should be sure to have the Caesar salad at this restaurant, and so on. In college courses, students in literature, film, drama, and art classes may be assigned to evaluate poems, fiction, movies, plays, and artwork, and those in business and political science classes may be asked to evaluate advertising or political campaigns or plans for business or public-policy initiatives. In a review that follows, written for The Daily Bruin, UCLA’s student newspaper, Olivia Mazzucato offers her evaluation of the film The Lovebirds.

OLIVIA MAZZUCATO

Difficult-to-Follow Narrative Redeemed by Well-Executed Comedy in The Lovebirds Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani are two of the brightest stars in modem comedy — pairing them together is an obvious winning combo. The two play the beleaguered couple Leilani and Jibran in The Lovebirds, the first film to be released on Netflix after its theatrical premiere was canceled as a result of the coronavirus pandemic. The central pair unwittingly become accomplices to a murder just minutes after breaking up and quickly decide to work together to clear their names, leading them down a rabbit hole of blackmail and black-tie cult gatherings. Though the film’s story gets convoluted, Rae and Nanjiani are able to salvage the muddy plot with their razor-sharp comedic wit and hilarious chemistry. The plot of The Lovebirds starts out with an air of intrigue but is soon bogged down with unnecessary complications and loose threads, becoming less a mystery and more of a mess. Within minutes, Leilani and Jibran are wrapped up in a complex web of conspiracy, having to confront an absurd lineup of foes — a congressman and his wife, a blackmail ring operating out of a fraternity, and eventually a nefarious cult that’s equal parts Illuminati, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Eyes Wide Shut. All the individual capers with one-off characters make for entertaining vignettes but fail to tie together cohesively. The final plot twist fails to make sense of the jumble, barely registering as an anticlimactic reveal. In a film full of inventive quips and conversations, the finale is

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Rae and Nanjiani in a scene from The Lovebirds.

far from the most memorable scene in the film, which deflates a lot of the momentum the story generates. Luckily, Rae and Nanjiani’s easy chemistry and awkward humor transcend the narrative jumble. Whether they’re arguing over the odds of orgy schedulers using a calendar app or intimidating answers out of a terrified fraternity brother, their back and forth feels effortless as they operate on the same wavelength of frenetic, weird energy. Their palpable onscreen connection makes it easy to both believe the love between the two as well as understand why they’ve started to grate on each other after four years together. They might argue with comical conviction about whether or not they’d do well on The Amazing Race, but the conversation hints at the deeper emotional insecurities about incompatibility that plague their relationship. The two comedians also bring versatility and depth to their characters. Within the first fifteen minutes of the movie, Leilani and Jibran are falling in love, breaking up, and witnessing their first murder. The actors take the fast pacing in stride, matching it with equally fast-paced jokes.

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Though The Lovebirds isn’t necessarily a traditional romantic comedy, the movie makes Leilani and Jibran’s breakup more than just a plot point — it’s a scene with heartbreaking gravity. The quiet tension that fills the car after another blowout argument adds a sense of realism to their relationship, making it impossible not to root for their reconciliation as they go on their adventure. The narrative arc of the film may fail, but the emotional arc is where the film finds its footing. Not to mention, The Lovebirds is flat-out funny. From the ridiculous scenarios Leilani and Jibran find themselves in to the one-liners Rae and Nanjiani scatter throughout the film, The Lovebirds never fails to earn a laugh, even in its most serious scenes. The easily enjoyable film is able to span the range of comedy by blending physical slapstick comedy with witty dialogue to produce a compact eighty-six-minutes full of levity and heart. The film is in no way groundbreaking, but it puts Rae and Nanjiani firmly into the spotlight, demonstrating their potential for larger silver-screen roles. The two transform an easily mediocre film into a fun, enjoyable comedy that offers a brief escape from reality.

10

Mazzucato provides a brief summary of the plot of The Lovebirds and the context of its release and then evaluates the film using clear criteria: its plot, the chemistry between the leading actors, their comedic and acting skill, and its ability to generate laughs.

  For four more evaluations, see CHAPTER 64.

Key Features / Evaluations A concise description of the subject.  You should include just enough information to let readers who may not be familiar with your subject understand what it is; the goal is to evaluate, not summarize. Depending on your topic and medium, some of this information may be in visual or audio form. In her introduction, Mazzucato briefly describes The Lovebirds’ main plot to provide what readers need to understand the context of her evaluation, and then she goes into more detail when evaluating the plot and its shortcomings.

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Clearly defined criteria.   You need to determine clear criteria as the basis for your judgment. In reviews or other evaluations written for a broad audience, you can integrate the criteria into the discussion as reasons for your assessment, as Mazzucato does in her evaluation of The Lovebirds. In more formal evaluations, you may need to announce your criteria explicitly. Mazzucato evaluates the film based on the stars’ performances, the complexity and coherence (or lack thereof) of the plot, the acting ability of the main characters and their chemistry together, and the film’s ability to generate laughs.

A knowledgeable discussion of the subject.   To evaluate something credibly, you need to show that you know it yourself and that you understand its context. Mazzucato cites many examples from The Lovebirds, demonstrating her knowledge of the film. Some evaluations require that you research what other authoritative sources have said about your subject. Mazzucato might have referred to other reviews of the film to show that she’d researched others’ views. A balanced and fair assessment.  An evaluation is centered on a judgment. Mazzucato concedes that “the film’s story gets convoluted” and does not “tie together cohesively,” and that “the finale . . . deflates a lot of the momentum the story generates.” Nevertheless, the overall humorousness and the chemistry between the leads “transform an easily mediocre film into a fun, enjoyable comedy.” It is important that any judgment be balanced and fair. Seldom is something all good or all bad. A fair evaluation need not be all positive or all negative; it may acknowledge both strengths and weaknesses. For example, a movie’s soundtrack may be wonderful while the plot is not. Well-supported reasons.  You need to argue for your judgment, providing reasons and evidence that might include visual and audio as well as verbal material. Mazzucato gives several reasons for her overall positive assessment of The Lovebirds — the problems with the plot, the strong performances of Issa Rae and Kumail Nanjiani, the film’s emotional arc, that the film “is flat-out funny” — and she supports these reasons with several examples from the film.

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A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING EVALUATIONS Choosing Something to Evaluate You can more effectively evaluate a limited subject than a broad one: review certain dishes at a local restaurant rather than the entire menu; review one film or scene rather than all the films by Alfred Hitchco*ck or all seventy-three Game of Thrones episodes. The more specific and focused your subject, the better you can write about it.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Are you writing to affect your audience’s opinion of a

59–60

subject? to help others decide what to see, do, or buy? to demonstrate your expertise in a field?

audience To whom are you writing? What will your audience

61–64

already know about the subject? What will they expect to learn from your evaluation of it? Are they likely to agree with you or not?

stance What is your attitude toward the subject, and how will

72–74

you show that you have evaluated it fairly and appropriately? Think about the tone you want to use: Should it be reasonable? passionate? critical?

media / design How will you deliver your evaluation? In print? Elec-

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tronically? As a speech? Can you show images or audio or video clips? If you’re submitting your text for publication, are there any format requirements?

Generating Ideas and Text Explore what you already know.   freewrite  to answer the following

333–34

questions: What do you know about this subject or subjects like it? What are your initial or gut feelings, and why do you feel as you do? How does this subject reflect or affect your basic values or beliefs? How have others evaluated subjects like this?

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Identify criteria.   Make a list of criteria you think should be used to evalu61–64 336

ate your subject. Think about which criteria will likely be important to your  audience . You might find  cubing  and questioning  to be useful processes for thinking about your criteria.

337

Evaluate your subject.   Study your subject closely to determine to what extent it meets each of your criteria. You may want to list your criteria and take notes related to each one, or you may develop a rating scale for each criterion to help stay focused on it. Come up with a tentative judgment.

437–44

Compare your subject with others.   Often, evaluating something involves  comparing and contrasting  it with similar things. We judge movies in comparison with the other movies we’ve seen and french fries with the other fries we’ve tasted. Sometimes those comparisons can be made informally. For other evaluations, you may have to do research — to try on several pairs of jeans before buying any, for example — to see how your subject compares.

347–49

State your judgment as a tentative thesis statement.  Your  thesis ­statement  should be one that addresses both pros and cons. “Hawaii FiveO is fun to watch despite its stilted dialogue.” “Of the five sport-utility vehicles tested, the Toyota 4Runner emerged as the best in comfort, power, and durability, though not in styling or cargo capacity.” Both of these examples offer a judgment but qualify it according to the writer’s criteria.

424–25 426

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Anticipate other opinions.   I think Anthony Anderson is a comic genius whose TV show black·ish is first-rate. You think Anderson is a terrible actor whose show is unwatchable. How can I write a review of his latest series that you will at least consider? One way is by  acknowledging  other opinions — and  refuting  those opinions as best I can. I may not persuade you to watch Anderson’s show, but I can at least demonstrate that by certain criteria he should be appreciated. You may need to  research  how others have evaluated your subject.

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Identify and support your reasons.  Write out all the  reasons  you can

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think of that will convince your audience to accept your judgment. Review your list to identify the most convincing or important reasons. Then review how well your subject meets your criteria, and decide how best to  support  your reasons: through examples, authoritative opinions, statistics, visual or audio evidence, or something else.

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Ways of Organizing an Evaluation Evaluations are usually organized in one of two ways. One way is to introduce what’s being evaluated, followed by your judgment, discussing your criteria along the way. This is a useful strategy if your audience may not be familiar with your subject.

[Start with your subject]

Describe what you’re evaluating.

State your judgment.

Provide reasons and evidence, discussing criteria as you apply them.

Acknowledge objections or other opinions.

Restate your overall judgment.

You might also start by identifying your criteria and then follow with a discussion of how well your subject meets those criteria. This strategy foregrounds the process by which you reached your conclusions.

[Start with your criteria] Identify criteria for evaluation.

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Describe what you’re evaluating.

Evaluate it against each of your criteria, one at a time, adding potential objections or other opinions in relation to each criterion.

State your overall judgment.

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Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you decide on your stance for your evaluation? How well does your evaluation communicate that stance? • How did you develop criteria for your evaluation? • In working on this piece, did you use a process or strategy you’ve used before? If so, what was it? How well did it work? What new strategies or processes do you want to try in the future? • What academic habits of mind — like creativity, flexibility, persistence, or another habit — did you need in order to write this evaluation? What specific examples can you give? • How satisfied are you with your writing? What would you do differently next time?

If you need more help 364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84

See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND ­PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your evaluation in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

385–90

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17 Literary Analyses

Literary analyses are essays that examine literary texts closely to understand their messages, interpret their meanings, appreciate their techniques, or understand their historical or social contexts. Such texts traditionally include novels, short stories, poems, and plays but may also include films, TV shows, videogames, music, and comics. You might read Gwendolyn Brooks’s poem “We Real Cool” and notice how she uses slang to get across her message. You could explore the distinctive point of view in Ambrose Bierce’s story “An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge.” Or you could point out the differences between Stephen King’s The Shining and Stanley Kubrick’s screenplay based on that novel. In all these cases, you use specific analytical techniques to go below the surface of the work to deepen your understanding of how it works and what it means. You may be assigned to analyze works of literature in courses in En­ glish, film, drama, and many other subjects. Here is a poem by the twentiethcentury American poet Robert Frost, followed by a student’s analysis of it written for a literature course at the University of South Dakota and chosen as a winner of the 2017 Norton Writer’s Prize.

ROBERT FROST

The Road Not Taken Two roads diverged in a yellow wood, And sorry I could not travel both And be one traveler, long I stood And looked down one as far as I could To where it bent in the undergrowth;

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Then took the other, as just as fair, And having perhaps the better claim, Because it was grassy and wanted wear; Though as for that the passing there Had worn them really about the same,

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And both that morning equally lay In leaves no step had trodden black. Oh, I kept the first for another day! Yet knowing how way leads on to way, I doubted if I should ever come back.

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I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — I took the one less traveled by, And that has made all the difference.

20

MATTHEW MILLER

Frost’s Broken Roads “The Road Not Taken” by Robert Frost is arguably one of the most popular poems ever written. Read at graduations, eulogies, even in movies and car commercials, it is often interpreted as an ode to individualism. Frost’s image of the road “less traveled” has become synonymous with daring life choices that make “all the difference” in living a fulfilling life (lines 19–20). Some may latch on to this as the poem’s deeper meaning. However, this convenient conclusion ignores several conflicting, yet beautiful, details that lead the poem down a path of broken metaphor and temporal inconsistency. To truly recognize what Frost is building in this poem, a few nagging inconsistencies must be considered. In the first line of the poem, the traveler is depicted hiking in a “yellow wood” wherein he finds a fork in his path (1). This setting is the foundation of a common metaphor, but transposing familiar notions of a figurative fork in the road onto Frost’s poem requires acceptance of the traveler’s metaphoric natural world and its “temporal scheme,”

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or some form of unified movement through time, as the critic Cleanth Brooks describes it in his classic book on poetic structure, The Well Wrought Urn (203). If the path that is covered “[i]n leaves no step had trodden black” (Frost, line 12) makes “all the difference” (20) in a life, common sense indicates the decision to choose that path has to occur early enough during a lifetime to properly affect its outcome. The speaker/traveler affirms this, telling the reader that he “shall be telling” them the story of his decision “with a sigh / Somewhere ages and ages hence” (16–17). In other words, the traveler must be fairly young, otherwise he wouldn’t have “ages and ages” (17) left to tell his story. It may not be apparent at a surface level, but this complicates our understanding of the poem’s implicit story. It is common knowledge that morning, the beginning of the day, is often paralleled figuratively with the beginning of other things (e.g., “the dawn of civilization”). In this sense, the setting helps to solidify the poem’s established temporal sense; the earliness of the day —  “morning” (16) — parallels the early point in life when the traveler makes his life-altering decision. However, the description of the scene, the “yellow wood” (1) where the ground “lay / In leaves” (11–12), indicates that late autumn has set in around the forest. Parallels between seasonal progression and the human life cycle saturate literature and art with such metaphors as the “springtime of youth” and the “hoary winter of old age” (Kammen 23). With that in mind, the end of autumn represents the bitter end of productive years and the first step into the cold and death of winter. So, embedded in the poem is a temporal inconsistency; the traveler is young, with “ages and ages” yet to live, but the autumn setting implies his world is quickly coming to an end. Another question that complicates a traditional understanding of the poem is that of identity. The narrator claims he is “sorry” he “could not travel both” paths “and be one traveler” (Frost, lines 2–3). For him to stray off his path would equal becoming a different person; he “could not travel both / And be one traveler” (2–3; emphasis added). However, one person can easily be two different travelers in a lifetime (i.e., one person can take both a cruise vacation and a backpacking trip: two very different traveling styles). The traveler/speaker even admits this is possible by saying he could keep “the first for another day” (13). His excuse for not traveling both paths was not that it was impossible but rather that “knowing how way leads on to way, / I doubted if I should

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ever come back” (14–15). Although he believes one of the paths has “the better claim, / Because it was grassy and wanted wear” (7–8), in practically the same breath he casts doubt on the claim that it is “less traveled” (19), admitting other travelers have worn down the two trails “really about the same” (10). The speaker in this poem is not Ralph Waldo Emerson’s self-reliant transcendentalist, who can “speak what [he] think[s] to-day in words as hard as cannon balls, and to-morrow speak what to-morrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict every thing [he] said to-day” (214). Frost’s syntax and punctuation add even more nuance. The poem consists of one sentence that takes up the first two stanzas and part of the third, in which our traveler deliberates and, eventually, makes his decision; and the three sentences of the third and fourth stanzas, in which our traveler lives with his choice. As the poem progresses to the point where our traveler makes his decision, we see punctuation that is irregular when compared with the rest of the poem: an exclamation point when the traveler finally makes a decision (possibly showing excess emotion); an em dash (—) followed by a repeated word when retelling his story that functions almost like a stutter, possibly showing regret/ lack of confidence in his choice. With this in mind, it seems as though our traveler had a tough time making his decision, and afterward, there is no obvious approval or happiness with it, only that it “made all the difference” (Frost, line 20), which could be positive or negative. Placing the poem in its historical context further complicates these questions. According to an article by the poet Katherine Robinson, “The Road Not Taken” was actually written “as a joke for a friend, the poet Edward Thomas.” Robinson writes:

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Indeed, when Frost and Thomas went walking together, Thomas would often choose one fork in the road because he was convinced it would lead them to something. . . . In a letter, Frost goaded Thomas, saying, “No matter which road you take, you’ll always sigh, and wish you’d taken another.” (emphasis added) Introducing the poet’s biography might be considered by many a sin against the work, especially for those espousing Cleanth Brooks’s celebration of poetic unity and universal meaning. However, knowing

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this information fills in several gaps about the poem; instead of confusing inconsistencies and paradoxical meanings, the poem can now be viewed — at least partly — as teasing from a friend. It is easy to imagine an indecisive Thomas, standing and staring down the fork in the path, afraid of what he’ll miss if he picks the wrong trail, and then on the way home “telling” Frost, “with a sigh” (Frost, line 16), about all he swore he missed on the road he didn’t take. This being said, Frost published this work knowing full well of its depth and epistemological possibilities, saying in a letter, “My poems . . . are all set to trip the reader head foremost into the boundless” (qtd. in Robinson). Frost’s timeless poem is an elegant narrative, filled with serene imagery and laced with layers of mystery. Readers of this canonical work can easily find themselves slipping into the easy, traditional reading of an ode to individualism. Upon closer inspection, there is only one thing clear about “The Road Not Taken,” which is said best in words Frost loved to tell his readers regarding his classic poem: “[Y]ou have to be careful of that one; it’s a tricky poem — very tricky” (qtd. in Robinson). Works Cited Brooks, Cleanth. The Well Wrought Urn: Studies in the Structure of Poetry. Harcourt, 1975. Emerson, Ralph Waldo. “Self-Reliance.” The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Robert S. Levine et al., general editors, 9th ed., vol. B, W. W. Norton, 2017, pp. 236–53. Frost, Robert. “The Road Not Taken.” Poetry Foundation, www .poetryfoundation.org/poems/44272/the-road-not-taken. Kammen, Michael G. A Time to Every Purpose: The Four Seasons in American Culture. U of North Carolina P, 2004. Robinson, Katherine. “Robert Frost: ‘The Road Not Taken.’” Poetry Foundation, 27 May 2016, www.poetryfoundation.org/articles /89511/robert-frost-the-road-not-taken.

Miller focuses his analysis on “tricky” aspects of Frost’s poem. In addition, he uses aspects of Frost’s biography and letters to resolve some of the seeming contradictions and tensions in the poem.

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  For two more literary analyses, see Chapter 65.

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Key Features / Literary Analyses An arguable thesis.   A literary analysis is a form of argument; you are arguing that your analysis of a literary work is valid. Your thesis, then, should be arguable, as Miller’s is: “To truly recognize what Frost is building in this poem, a few nagging inconsistencies must be considered.” A mere summary —  “Frost writes about someone trying to decide which road to take” — would not be arguable and therefore would not be a good thesis.

Careful attention to the language of the text.  The key to analyzing a text is looking carefully at the language, which is the foundation of its meaning. Specific words, images, metaphors — these are where analysis begins. You may also bring in contextual information, such as cultural, historical, or biographical facts, or you may refer to similar texts. But the words, phrases, and sentences that make up the text you are analyzing are your primary source when dealing with texts. That’s what literature teachers mean by “close reading”: reading with the assumption that every word of a text is meaningful.

Attention to patterns or themes.   Literary analyses are usually built on evidence of meaningful patterns or themes within a text or among several texts. These patterns and themes reveal meaning. In Frost’s poem, images of diverging roads and yellow leaves create patterns of meaning, while the regular rhyme scheme (“wood”/“stood”/“could,” “both”/“undergrowth”) creates patterns of sound and structure that may contribute to the overall meaning. A clear interpretation.  A literary analysis demonstrates the plausibility of its thesis by using evidence from the text and, sometimes, relevant contextual evidence to explain how the language and patterns found there support a particular interpretation. When you write a literary analysis, you show readers one way the text may be read and understood; that is your interpretation.

MLA style.  Literary analyses usually follow MLA style. Miller’s essay includes a works-cited list and refers to line numbers using MLA style.

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A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING LITERARY ANALYSES Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose What do you need to do? Show that you have exam-

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ined the text carefully? Offer your own interpretation? Demonstrate a particular analytical technique? Or some combination? If you’re responding to an assignment, does it specify what you need to do?

audience What do you need to do to convince your readers that

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your interpretation is plausible and based on sound analysis? Can you assume that readers are already familiar with the text you are analyzing, or do you need to tell them about it?

stance How can you see your subject through interested, curi-

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ous eyes — and then step back in order to see what your observations might mean?

media / design Will your analysis focus on an essentially verbal text

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or one that has significant visual content, such as a graphic novel? Will you need to show visual elements in your analysis? Will it be delivered in a print, spoken, or electronic medium? Are you required to follow MLA or some other style?

Generating Ideas and Text Look at your assignment.   Does it specify a particular kind of analysis? Does it ask you to consider a particular theme? To use any specific critical approaches? Look for any terms that tell you what to do, words like “analyze,” “compare,” “interpret,” and so on. Study the text with a critical eye.  When we read a literary work, we often come away with a reaction to it: we like it, we hate it, it made us cry or laugh, it perplexed us. That may be a good starting point for a literary

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analysis, but to write about literature you need to go beyond initial reactions, to think about  how the text works: What does it say, and what does it do? What elements make up this text? How do those elements work together or fail to work together? Does this text lead you to think or feel a certain way? How does it fit into a particular context (of history, culture, technology, genre, and so on)?

Choose a method for analyzing the text.   There are various ways to analyze your subject. Three common focuses are on the text itself, on your own experience reading it, and on other cultural, historical, or literary contexts.

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• T he text itself. Trace the development and expression of themes, characters, and language through the work. How do they help to create the overall meaning, tone, or effect for which you’re arguing? To do this, you might look at the text as a whole, something you can understand from all angles at once. You could also pick out parts from the beginning, middle, and end as needed to make your case,  defining  key terms,  describing  characters and settings, and  narrating  key scenes. Miller’s essay about “The Road Not Taken” offers a text-based analysis that looks at Frost’s treatment of time in the poem. You might also examine the same theme in several different works. • Y our own response as a reader. Explore the way the text affects you or develops meanings as you read through it from beginning to end. By doing such a close reading, you’re slowing down the process to notice how one element of the text leads you to expect something, confirming earlier suspicions or surprises. You build your analysis on your experience of reading the text — as if you were pretending to drive somewhere for the first time, though in reality you know the way intimately. By closely examining the language of the text as you experience it, you explore how it leads you to a set of responses, both intellectual and emotional. If you were responding in this way to the Frost poem, you might discuss how the narrator keeps trying to assert that one road is preferable to another but admits that both are the same, so that his willful assertion that one is “less traveled by” and that his choice “made all the difference” is no difference at all.

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• Context. Analyze the text as part of some larger  context  — as part of a certain time or place in history or as an expression of a certain culture (how does this text relate to the time and place of its creation?), as one of many other texts like it, a representative of a genre (how is this text like or unlike others of its kind? how does it use, play with, or flout the conventions of the genre?). A context-based approach to the Frost poem might look at Frost’s friendship with another poet, Edward Thomas, for whom Frost wrote the poem, and its influence on Thomas’s decision to enlist in the army at the start of World War I.

Read the work more than once.  Reading literature, watching films, or listening to speeches is like driving to a new destination: the first time you go, you need to concentrate on getting there; on subsequent trips, you can see other aspects — the scenery, the curve of the road, other possible routes — that you couldn’t pay attention to earlier. When you experience a piece of literature for the first time, you usually focus on the story, the plot, the overall meaning. By experiencing it repeatedly, you can see how its effects are achieved, what the pieces are and how they fit together, where different patterns emerge, how the author crafted the work. To analyze a literary work, then, plan to read it more than once, with the assumption that every part of the text is there for a reason. Focus on details, even on a single detail that shows up more than once: Why is it there? What can it mean? How does it affect our experience of reading or studying the text? Also, look for anomalies, details that don’t fit the patterns: Why are they part of the text? What can they mean? How do they affect the experience of the text? See the  reading in academic contexts  chapter for several different methods for reading a text. Compose a strong thesis.  The  thesis  of a literary analysis should be specific, limited, and open to potential disagreement. In addition, it should be analytical, not evaluative: avoid thesis statements that make overall judgments, such as a reviewer might do: “Virginia Woolf’s The Waves is a failed experiment in narrative” or “No one has equaled the achievement of The Lego Movie.” Rather, offer a way of seeing the text: “The choice presented

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in Robert Frost’s ‘The Road Not Taken’ ultimately makes no difference”; “The plot of The Lego Movie reflects contemporary American media culture.”

Read the text carefully.  When you analyze a text, you need to find specific, brief passages that support your interpretation. Then you should interpret those passages in terms of their language, their context, or your reaction to them as a reader. To find such passages, you must read the text closely, questioning it as you go, asking, for example: • What language provides evidence to support your thesis? • What does each word (phrase, passage) mean exactly? • Why does the writer choose this language, these words? What are the implications or connotations of the language? If the language is dense or difficult, why might the writer have written it that way? • What images, similes, or metaphors are used? What is their effect on the meaning? • What patterns of language, imagery, or plot do you see? If something is repeated, what significance does the repetition have? • How does each word, phrase, or passage relate to what precedes and follows it? • How does the experience of reading the text affect its meaning? 11–32

• What words, phrases, or passages connect to a larger  context ? What language demonstrates that this work reflects or is affected by that context? • How do these various elements of language, image, and pattern support your interpretation?

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Your analysis should focus on analyzing and interpreting your subject, not simply summarizing or paraphrasing it. Many literary analyses also use the strategy of  comparing  two or more works.

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Find evidence to support your interpretation.  The parts of the text you examine in your close reading become the evidence you use to support your interpretation. Some think that we’re all entitled to our own opinions about literature. And indeed we are. But when writing a literary analysis, we’re entitled only to our own well-supported and well-argued opinions. When you analyze a text, you must treat it like any other  argument: you need to discuss how the text creates an effect or expresses a theme, and then you have to show  evidence  from the text — significant plot or structural elements; important characters; patterns of language, imagery, or action — to back up your argument.

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Pay attention to matters of style.   Literary analyses have certain conventions for using pronouns and verbs. • In informal papers, it’s OK to use the first person: “I believe Frost’s narrator has little basis for claiming that one road is ‘less traveled.’ ” In more formal essays, make assertions directly; claim authority to make statements about the text: “Frost’s narrator has no basis for claiming that one road is ‘less traveled.’ ” • Discuss textual features in the present tense even if quotations from the text are in another tense: “When Nick finds Gatsby’s body floating in the pool, he says very little about it: ‘the laden mattress moved irregularly down the pool.’ ” Describe the historical context of the setting in the past tense: “In the 1920s, such estates as Gatsby’s were rare.”

Cite and document sources appropriately.  Use  mla  citation and documentation style unless told otherwise. Format  quotations  properly, and use  signal phrases  to introduce quoted material.

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Think about format and design.   Brief essays do not require  headings ; text divisions are usually marked by  transitions  between paragraphs. In longer papers, though, headings can be helpful.

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Organizing a Literary Analysis [Of a single text] Introduce the text you’re analyzing, and state your thesis.

Cite passages from the text, one by one, explaining how each one supports your thesis and your interpretation.

Sum up your interpretation in light of your analysis.

Document your sources.

[Comparing two texts] Introduce the texts you’re analyzing, and state your thesis.

Give your first supporting reason, and provide evidence for it from text no. 1 and text no. 2.

Give your next supporting reason, and provide evidence for it from text no. 1 and text no. 2.

Continue this pattern as needed, discussing reasons and evidence for them one by one.

Sum up your interpretation in light of your analysis.

Document your sources.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you go about analyzing the text? Did you focus on the text itself? your own response? the larger context? something else? Why? • How did you come up with your thesis? Did you need to revise, expand, or narrow it? • Did you provide enough evidence from the text or its context to support your analysis?

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• How did your audience affect the language and tone you used in your piece? • Did you try anything new in your writing process for this piece? A new way of generating ideas and text? A new way of drafting or revising? Something else? If so, what was the result? • How did you plan and manage your time for this project? How well did you stick to your plan? If changes were needed, how did you adapt? • What did you learn about yourself as a reader through your work on this piece? How can you apply that learning to future reading tasks? • Are you pleased with your analysis? What did it teach you about the text you analyzed? Did it make you want to read more works by the same author?

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and ­Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your analysis in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

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We write memoirs to explore our past — about shopping for a party dress with Grandma, or driving a car for the first time, or breaking up with our first love. Memoirs focus on events and people and places that are important to us. We usually have two goals when we write a memoir: to capture an important moment and to convey something about its significance for us. You may be asked to write memoirs or personal reflections that include memoirs in psychology, education, and English courses. The following example is from All Over but the Shoutin’ by Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Rick Bragg. Bragg grew up in Alabama, and in this memoir he recalls when, as a teenager, he paid a final visit to his dying father.

RICK BRAGG

All Over but the Shoutin’ He was living in a little house in Jacksonville, Alabama, a college and mill town that was the closest urban center — with its stoplights and a high school and two supermarkets — to the country roads we roamed in our raggedy cars. He lived in the mill village, in one of those houses the mills subsidized for their workers, back when companies still did things like that. It was not much of a place, but better than anything we had ever lived in as a family. I knocked and a voice like an old woman’s, punctuated with a cough that sounded like it came from deep in the guts, told me to come on in, it ain’t locked. It was dark inside, but light enough to see what looked like a bundle of quilts on the corner of a sofa. Deep inside them was a ghost of a man, his hair and beard long and going dirty gray, his face pale and cut with deep grooves. I knew I was in the right house because

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my daddy’s only real possessions, a velvet-covered board pinned with medals, sat inside a glass cabinet on a table. But this couldn’t be him. He coughed again, spit into a can and struggled to his feet, but stopped somewhere short of standing straight up, as if a stoop was all he could manage. “Hey, Cotton Top,” he said, and then I knew. My daddy, who was supposed to be a still-young man, looked like the walking dead, not just old but damaged, poisoned, used up, crumpled up and thrown in a corner to die. I thought that the man I would see would be the trim, swaggering, high-toned little rooster of a man who stared back at me from the pages of my mother’s photo album, the young soldier clowning around in Korea, the arrow-straight, good-looking boy who posed beside my mother back before the fields and mop handle and the rest of it took her looks. The man I remembered had always dressed nice even when there was no cornmeal left, whose black hair always shone with oil, whose chin, even when it wobbled from the beer, was always angled up, high. I thought he would greet me with that strong voice that sounded so fine when he laughed and so evil when, slurred by a quart of corn likker, he whirled through the house and cried and shrieked, tormented by things we could not see or even imagine. I thought he would be the man and monster of my childhood. But that man was as dead as a man could be, and this was what remained, like when a snake sheds its skin and leaves a dry and brittle husk of itself hanging in the Johnson grass. “It’s all over but the shoutin’ now, ain’t it, boy,” he said, and when he let the quilt slide from his shoulders I saw how he had wasted away, how the bones seemed to poke out of his clothes, and I could see how it killed his pride to look this way, unclean, and he looked away from me for a moment, ashamed. He made a halfhearted try to shake my hand but had a coughing fit again that lasted a minute, coughing up his life, his lungs, and after that I did not want to touch him. I stared at the tops of my sneakers, ashamed to look at his face. He had a dark streak in his beard below his lip, and I wondered why, because he had never liked snuff. Now I know it was blood. I remember much of what he had to say that day. When you don’t see someone for eight, nine years, when you see that person’s life red on their lips and know that you will never see them beyond this day, you listen close, even if what you want most of all is to run away.

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“Your momma, she alright?” he said. I said I reckon so. “The other boys? They alright?” I said I reckon so. Then he was quiet for a minute, as if trying to find the words to a question to which he did not really want an answer. “They ain’t never come to see me. How come?” I remember thinking, fool, why do you think? But I just choked down my words, and in doing so I gave up the only real chance I would ever have to accuse him, to attack him with the facts of his own sorry nature and the price it had cost us all. The opportunity hung perfectly still in the air in front of my face and fists, and I held my temper and let it float on by. I could have no more challenged him, berated him, hurt him, than I could have kicked some three-legged dog. Life had kicked his ass pretty good. “How come?” I just shrugged. For the next few hours — unless I was mistaken, having never had one before — he tried to be my father. Between coughing and long pauses when he fought for air to generate his words, he asked me if I liked school, if I had ever gotten any better at math, the one thing that just flat evaded me. He asked me if I ever got even with the boy who blacked my eye ten years ago, and nodded his head, approvingly, as I described how I followed him into the boys’ bathroom and knocked his dick string up to his watch pocket, and would have dunked his head in the urinal if the aging principal, Mr. Hand, had not had to pee and caught me dragging him across the concrete floor. He asked me about basketball and baseball, said he had heard I had a good game against Cedar Springs, and I said pretty good, but it was two years ago, anyway. He asked if I had a girlfriend and I said, “One,” and he said, “Just one?” For the slimmest of seconds he almost grinned and the young, swaggering man peeked through, but disappeared again in the disease that cloaked him. He talked and talked and never said a word, at least not the words I wanted. He never said he was sorry. He never said he wished things had turned out different. He never acted like he did anything wrong.

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Part of it, I know, was culture. Men did not talk about their feelings in his hard world. I did not expect, even for a second, that he would bare his soul. All I wanted was a simple acknowledgment that he was wrong, or at least too drunk to notice that he left his pretty wife and sons alone again and again, with no food, no money, no way to get any, short of begging, because when she tried to find work he yelled, screamed, refused. No, I didn’t expect much. After a while he motioned for me to follow him into a back room where he had my present, and I planned to take it and run. He handed me a long, thin box, and inside was a brand-new, well-oiled Remington .22 rifle. He said he had bought it some time back, just kept forgetting to give it to me. It was a fine gun, and for a moment we were just like anybody else in the culture of that place, where a father’s gift of a gun to his son is a rite. He said, with absolute seriousness, not to shoot my brothers. I thanked him and made to leave, but he stopped me with a hand on my arm and said wait, that ain’t all, that he had some other things for me. He motioned to three big cardboard egg cartons stacked against one wall. Inside was the only treasure I truly have ever known. I had grown up in a house in which there were only two books, the King James Bible and the spring seed catalog. But here, in these boxes, were dozens of hardback copies of everything from Mark Twain to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. There was a water-damaged Faulkner, and the nearly complete set of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Tarzan. There was poetry and trash, Zane Grey’s Riders of the Purple Sage, and a paperback with two naked women on the cover. There was a tiny, old copy of Arabian Nights, threadbare Hardy Boys, and one Hemingway. He had bought most of them at a yard sale, by the box or pound, and some at a flea market. He did not even know what he was giving me, did not recognize most of the writers. “Your momma said you still liked to read,” he said. There was Shakespeare. My father did not know who he was, exactly, but he had heard the name. He wanted them because they were pretty, because they were wrapped in fake leather, because they looked like rich folks’ books. I do not love Shakespeare, but I still have those books. I would not trade them for a gold monkey.

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“They’s maybe some dirty books in there, by mistake, but I know you ain’t interested in them, so just throw ’em away,” he said. “Or at least, throw ’em away before your momma sees ’em.” And then I swear to God he winked. I guess my heart should have broken then, and maybe it did, a little. I guess I should have done something, anything, besides mumble “Thank you, Daddy.” I guess that would have been fine, would not have betrayed in some way my mother, my brothers, myself. But I just stood there, trapped somewhere between my long-standing, comfortable hatred, and what might have been forgiveness. I am trapped there still.

  For four more memoirs, see CHAPTER 66.

Bragg’s memoir illustrates all the features that make a memoir good: how the son and father react to each other creates the kind of suspense that keeps us reading; vivid details and rich dialogue bring the scene to life. His later reflections make the significance of that final meeting very clear.

Key Features / Memoirs A good story.   Your memoir should be interesting, to yourself and others. It need not be about a world-shaking event, but your topic — and how you write about it — should interest your readers. At the center of most good stories stands a conflict or question to be resolved. The most compelling memoirs feature some sort of situation or problem that needs resolution. That need for resolution is another name for suspense. It’s what makes us want to keep reading. Vivid details.  Details bring a memoir to life by giving readers mental images of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and textures of the world in which your story takes place. The goal is to show as well as tell, to take readers there. When Bragg describes a “voice like an old woman’s, punctuated with a cough that sounded like it came from deep in the guts,” we can hear his dying father ourselves. A memoir is more than simply a report of what happened; it uses vivid details and dialogue to bring the events of the past to life, much as good fiction brings to life events that the writer makes up or embellishes. Depending on your topic and medium, you may want to provide some of the details in audio or visual form.

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Clear significance.  Memories of the past are filtered through our view from the present: we pick out some moments in our lives as significant, some as more important or vivid than others. Over time, our interpretations change, and our memories themselves change. A good memoir conveys something about the significance of its subject. As a writer, you need to reveal something about what the incident means to you. You don’t, however, want to simply announce the significance as if you’re tacking on the moral of the story. Bragg tells us that he’s “trapped between [his] long-standing, comfortable hatred, and what might have been forgiveness,” but he doesn’t come right out and say that’s why the incident is so important to him.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING MEMOIRS Choosing an Event to Write About  list  several events or incidents from your past that you consider signifi-

334–35

cant in some way. They do not have to be earthshaking; indeed, they may involve a quiet moment that only you see as important — a brief encounter with a remarkable person, a visit to a special place, a memorable achievement (or failure), something that makes you laugh whenever you think about it. Writing about events that happened at least a few years ago is often easier than writing about recent events because you can more easily step back and see those events with a clear perspective. To choose the event that you will write about, consider how well you can recall what happened, how interesting it will be to readers, and whether you want to share it with an audience.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose What is the importance of the memory you are trying

59–60

to convey? How will this story help you understand yourself and your readers understand you, as you were then and as you are now?

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audience Who are your readers? Why will they care about your memoir? What do you want them to think of you after reading it? How can you help them understand your experience?

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stance What impression do you want to give, and how can your words contribute to that impression? What tone do you want to project? Sincere? Serious? Humorous? Detached? Self-critical?

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media / design Will your memoir be a print document? a speech? Will it be posted on a website? Can you include photographs, audio or video clips, or other visual texts?

Generating Ideas and Text 337

Think about what happened.   Take a few minutes to write out an account of the incident:  what  happened,  where  it took place,  who  else was involved, what was said, how you feel about it, and so on. Can you identify any tension or conflict that will make for a compelling story? If not, you might want to rethink your topic.

Consider its significance.  Why do you still remember this event? What effect has it had on your life? What makes you want to tell someone else about it? Does it say anything about you? What about it might interest someone else? If you have trouble answering these questions, you should probably find another topic. But in general, once you have defined the significance of the incident, you can be sure you have a story to tell — and a reason for telling it.

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674–80 464–68

Think about the details.  The best memoirs connect with readers by giving them a sense of what it was like to be there, leading them to experience in words and images what the writer experienced in life. Spend some time  describing  the incident, writing what you see, hear, smell, touch, and taste when you envision it. Do you have any photos or memorabilia or other  visual  materials you might include in your memoir? Try writing out  dialogue , things that were said (or, if you can’t recall exactly, things

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that might have been said). Look at what you come up with — is there detail enough to bring the scene to life? anything that might be called vivid? If you don’t have enough detail, you might reconsider whether you recall enough about the incident to write about it. If you have trouble coming up with plenty of detail, try  freewriting ,  listing , or  looping .

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Ways of Organizing Memoirs [Tell about the event from beginning to end] Start by telling about the earliest incidents.

Tell about other incidents, one by one, in the order they occurred.

Explain the significance of the event.

[Start at the end and tell how the event came about] Start by telling what happened overall.

Tell about earlier incidents, introducing key people and describing key places.

Explain the significance of the event.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering to these questions: • How did you decide on your topic and determine the conflict or question to be resolved in your memoir? • How effectively did you use dialogue, description, or other narrative strategies in your memoir? • Did you use photographs or other visual or audio elements? What did they add? Can you think of such elements you might have used? • How did you go about revising your work? How effective do you think your revisions were? • What previous writing experiences, if any, did you draw on in writing your memoir? Did those experiences help you or hinder you?

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How much did you reflect on your story and what it means to you — and might mean to others?

• What was your most important achievement in this piece? What’s the best part of this memoir? Why?

If you need more help 364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84 385–90

See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and ­Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your memoir in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

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Profiles are written portraits — of people, places, events, or other things. We find profiles of celebrities, travel destinations, and offbeat festivals in magazines and newspapers, on radio and TV, on the web and through various social media. A profile presents a subject in an entertaining way that conveys its significance, showing us something or someone that we may not have known existed or that we see every day but don’t know much about. In college journalism classes, students learn to create profiles using words and, in many cases, photos and video as well. Here is a profile of a young woman whose path to college included hopping freight trains, battling addiction, and becoming a boxer. This profile originally appeared in a longer version in The PennStater, the alumni magazine of Penn State University, where writer Ryan Jones is the senior editor.

RYAN JONES

A Fighter’s Chance The end of the world begins on Rebecca Maine’s right shoulder, an apocalypse of skulls and trees and snarling beasts that wraps around her arm until it reaches the back of her hand, where a serpent clenches an eyeball in its jaws. The scene is a tattoo depiction of Ragnarok, the violent denouement in ancient Norse mythology. Her mother has traced the family’s genealogy back to the Vikings, and Maine appreciates the connection to her lineage. But mostly, she says, “I just think it’s badass.” Maine began work on the tattoo nearly a decade ago, but only got it finished last year. She’s got a number of other pieces — the comic-book

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heroine Tank Girl on her left arm, others of varying complexity on her neck, legs, and back — but she’s particularly fond of that full sleeve. “It’s silly,” she says, “but finishing it felt like an accomplishment.” The greater achievement is that she lived long enough to see it through. It’s difficult to reconcile the 26-year-old dean’s-list student-athlete Maine is today with the young woman — still a girl, really — she was eight or nine years ago, the one who left a difficult home life looking for adventure, acceptance, and escape. She carried little more than the clothes on her back and a burgeoning taste for substances that could numb her pain. She ended up hopping freight trains, traveling the country that way for the better part of three years. And she fell deep into the throes of heroin addiction that nearly killed her. In March, near the end of her first year in the physical therapist assistant program at Penn State DuBois, she celebrated five years sober. A few months earlier, Maine had completed an award-winning season on the campus cross-country team; in May, she fought in the national Golden Gloves tournament. Still, the darkest parts of her past are never far out of mind. “I feel like I’ve had to keep accomplishing more and more, trying to kind of bury all that,” she says. “But I can’t get too removed from it. I need it, as a reminder.” So she has embraced the pain and loss and anger and guilt, because the future she’s set her mind to requires nothing less. Talking about it took longer, because it meant exposing herself to judgment, but she has embraced that, too. She sees the value of sharing her experience, both for herself and, she hopes, for others, kids who are where she was: in a small town, without many options, in the midst of a national

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epidemic of opioid abuse, bearing emotional burdens that few around them are willing or able to understand. “I don’t think she recognized how big of a deal her story is — it hits home for a lot of people, especially in our community,” says DuBois cross-country coach Kyle Gordon. “It’s a story of hope.” Rebecca started drinking in middle school in Punxsutawney, PA, both to fit in and to cope with the stress of family life: Though close with her mother, Rebecca describes her father as a functional alcoholic who was unfaithful, abusive, and often absent, and it was for the best when her parents’ marriage ended when she was in high school. But it was an unrelated incident during her freshman year that helped send Rebecca spiraling: She describes herself as a reluctant member of the popular crowd, hanging with kids who “just drank all the time.” Her mother, Louise — a teacher at the local high school — found photos of a booze-fueled underage party on Rebecca’s phone, and decided her best move — the right move — would be calling the other kids’ parents. “I thought I should talk to them about what was happening,” Louise says. “But they didn’t welcome that.” Instead, their kids targeted Rebecca for retribution. “They tormented me for it,” she says. Louise remembers her daughter coming to her classroom to eat lunch, moody and miserable but desperate to avoid the relentless bullying of the classmates she had once considered friends. Ostracized from her peer group, Rebecca began hanging out with older kids, many of whom had already moved beyond drinking to more dangerous substances. She followed suit: “By my sophom*ore year,” Rebecca says, “I did anything I could get my hands on.” Around this time, Louise found drug paraphernalia in Rebecca’s room, but she says she still didn’t fully grasp the turmoil that was driving her daughter to self-medicate. Rebecca got a reprieve of sorts when her mother allowed her to finish high school via online courses. Louise was skeptical, thinking her daughter was just looking for a way to quit school altogether, but Rebecca stuck it out and finished ahead of schedule — a sign of the persistence she’d show years later. But Rebecca was also entrenched in a social circle that enabled her worst tendencies, including substance abuse. Not long after she turned 18, she and her boyfriend moved 80 miles southwest to Pittsburgh. Once there, she toyed with the idea of culinary school or a veterinary tech

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program, but nothing took. And then, she says, “I pretty much snapped. I had suppressed so much, and I just felt like I had to do . . . something.” She sold everything she owned, minus a backpack full of clothes, and bought a plane ticket to New Orleans. She felt guilty leaving her mom and brother, and she hated herself for feeling like she deserved the turmoil that defined her life. She had no idea what came next. She only knew that running away felt like something she could control. They were on the road to Scranton for a cross-country meet last fall, the coach and his three runners, one of them a 26-year-old freshman. Kyle Gordon was struck by the fact that the young woman beside him seemed so excited to visit a city famous for its train museum. “I thought it was a little bizarre,” he says with a laugh. “That’s when she told us about her train-hopping.” She had left Pittsburgh and landed in New Orleans and spent a couple of months there with friends, thinking she’d hitchhike across the country. And then she linked up with the amorphous community of train-hoppers — “travelers,” as she calls them, a group she describes as an underground society, hidden in plain sight. “I was a little punk rocker, and it was the most punk-rock thing I’d ever seen,” she says. “I wanted in.” All these years later, there are aspects of her nearly three years on the rails that provide fond memories. She learned all the tricks, like which trains ran faster or offered better hiding places. How to wait until the conductors’ shift change, when trains would generally be left unattended on the edge of a yard, and she and fellow hoppers would wait, hidden, until they were sure it was clear. And of course, she got to see so much of the country for free. But it was often dangerous, and always illegal, and it’s impossible to fully separate the good parts from the bad. About a month into traveling, she says, she was “eating, sleeping, drinking heroin.” Money was always tight: Maine quickly burned through the money she’d made selling her things, and the spare change she made playing music on the mandolin she traveled with never lasted long. She remembers one bleak stretch near the high desert town of Twentynine Palms, a few hours east of Los Angeles, when it occurred to her that she’d barely eaten in two weeks. “Del Taco had 49-cent burritos, and

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I’d get one of those, once or twice a week,” she says. “All my money was going elsewhere.” There were other wake-up calls: Maine says she was “Narcanned” several times, referring to emergency doses of the medication carried by police and EMTs to block the effects of opioid overdose. There was the traveling companion, someone she thought she could trust, who she learned had offered to “sell” her for sex. There were friends whose addictions got the best of them, who weren’t as tough, or as lucky, and who never made it home. She never thought of herself as homeless, not as long as her mom was back in Punxsutawney, wishing for her safe return. They would talk by phone, and Louise held out hope that the travel might be good for Rebecca, that at least she’d be far from the roots of her problems. But Rebecca could only maintain the facade for so long. More than once, Rebecca tried to get sober. She returned to Punxsutawney, moving back in with her mom until she started using again, then moving in with a friend. She tried Pittsburgh again, even tried Brooklyn, where she played in a folk-punk band that hoped to record an album. Each time, she backslid. “She would be OK for a while,” Louise says, “but you always know when they relapse. It would be immediate.” She tried therapy but hated it. She got a part-time job as a hospital housekeeper near her home. She made regular trips to and from Pittsburgh, scoring drugs for herself and occasionally re-selling the surplus to support her habit. She’d ruined the veins in her arms and started shooting into her neck. Finally, Rebecca says, something — some combination of guilt, desperation, and exhaustion — clicked. She deleted her dealer’s number from her phone. She took all the time off she could afford from her job at the hospital, and she went cold turkey. It was February in Punxsutawney, in a house with no heat, and she burrowed into her couch, chain-smoking cigarettes, flinging off the blankets when the sweats came, piling them back on when they passed. Her roommate had box sets of the first five seasons of Sons of Anarchy, and she watched every episode. It took two weeks before she was able to function, to keep any food down, and to tell her mom — and for the first time, mean it — that she needed help. And here Rebecca knows her experience might not be fully transferable: She did this largely on her own. Her mom was a rock, family and

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close friends helped hold her accountable, but she never felt comfortable in 12-step programs, and so she focused instead on staying busy. She was about a month sober, still wracked with cold sweats, when she took seasonal work as a merchandiser for a garden wholesaler. Around the same time, she and her mom went to watch a local boxing showcase; Louise was dating the physician who sat ringside for the bouts, and she thought the discipline and physical activity would be good for her daughter. They were introduced to a trainer, who saw before him a young woman who was, in her own words, “un-athletic and a wreck.” She told him she wanted to learn how to fight. Rebecca dove right in, going through an intensive workout her first day at the gym. The next day, she says with a laugh, “I couldn’t walk.” But she stuck with it, never missing practice, and along the way she found that the sport had a way of helping other issues. She had struggled for years with body image, and she’d battled both bulimia and anorexia; training for fights forced her to eat well and made her proud of the athlete she was becoming. Through endless hours at the gym, Maine transformed her body and her life, and before long she’d decided she wanted to try to make a career as a professional fighter. But that hope was nearly derailed with a pair of diagnoses, first hepatitis C — a relic from her days of sharing needles — and then endometriosis. She’s since undergone treatment for both conditions and says the silver lining was that she developed a curiosity about her body — how it worked and how to take care of it. “Boxing was everything — boxing may have saved my life — but I didn’t realize maybe it was a stepping stone to the next thing,” Rebecca says. It turned out the next thing was Penn State.

25

The letter arrived not long before the start of the school year, informing Rebecca Maine that she could pick up two additional kinesiology credits if she participated in an intercollegiate sport at Penn State DuBois. I want to go for a doctorate someday, Maine thought to herself, so I might as well get as many credits as I can. She had yet to complete a single credit in anything, of course, but Maine was thinking ahead. She was already running as part of her boxing training; joining the DuBois cross-country team didn’t seem like too much of a stretch. The team featured just three runners, and Maine was

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the only woman, a 26-year-old freshman who’d never raced competing against 18- and 19-year-olds fresh off their high school teams. She’d seen and endured so much more of life than most of her opponents ever would, and yet when she lined up for her first race, she was terrified. “I’m on the starting line, and there’s all these young people — all these young athletes,” she says. “I was scared. I didn’t know what to expect.” And yet she thrived, finishing sixth in her first race, and first among runners from Penn State campuses. She went on to finish fourth in the PSUAC championship meet, earning a spot on the all-conference team and a trip to nationals. And it was there that her coach finally convinced her to tell her story. Gordon asked Rebecca if she’d mind him nominating her for a conference award. As they’d gotten to know each other over the course of the semester, she had grudgingly offered Gordon bits of her past. For this, she agreed to open up a bit more. It was in Virginia Beach in November, at the U.S. Collegiate Athletic Association banquet, that strangers first heard pieces of Maine’s story. In the write-up honoring her as the USCAA’s Student-Athlete of the Year, the key details stood out: addicted to heroin . . . hitchhiking and train-hopping . . . boxing as a means to turn her life around. And there were more achievements to come. Maine would go on to compete in the 2018 Golden Gloves boxing championship, winning two fights in her weight class before falling in the semifinals. Back at DuBois, she earned the highest GPA among first-semester freshmen, started a campus PT assistant’s club, and led the campus LGBTQA support group. When we first spoke last winter, Maine was reeling, her eyes welling a half dozen times as she laid out her story to a stranger for the first time. “It was things surfacing that I’d repressed, things I don’t want to remember,” she said then. “All the positive things people are saying now, it’s new to me. It’s very alien.” But by the spring, having had time to process her feelings and appreciate the value of her story, she had come around. She knew the stigma around issues like mental health and addiction, knew how it felt to believe there was something “wrong” with her, and not that she simply needed help. She understood that her story could help others and that telling it could help her, too.

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  For four more profiles, see CHAPTER 67.

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Jones’s profile traces Rebecca Maine’s unusual life from her teen years to the present. Because it’s a profile, the piece focuses on a part of her life, rather than trying to describe her entire life story. Jones provides details, from Maine’s tattoos to her first boxing workout, that give us snapshots of Maine’s life and character.

Key Features / Profiles An interesting subject.   The subject may be something unusual, or it may be something ordinary shown in an intriguing way. You might profile an interesting person (like a local celebrity), a place (like a company that makes paper straws), an event (like the rescue of a sea turtle), or an object (like a rare automobile). Any necessary background.   A profile usually includes just enough information to let readers know something about the subject’s larger context. Jones provides some details about why Maine left home (an alcoholic and abusive father, ostracism by her peers), but he leaves out other details about her life that don’t matter for this profile. An interesting angle.  A good profile captures its subject from a particular angle. Sometimes finding an angle will be fairly easy because your topic — like the history of a local coffee shop — is offbeat enough to be interesting in and of itself. Other topics, though, may require you to find a particular aspect that you can focus on. For example, a profile of a person might focus on the important work the person does or a challenging hobby they pursue; it would likely ignore aspects of the person’s life that don’t relate to that angle.

A firsthand account.  Whether you’re writing about a person, place, object, or event, you need to spend time observing and interacting with your subject. With a person, interacting means watching and conversing. Journalists tell us that “following the guy around,” getting your subject to do something and talk about it at the same time, yields excellent material for a profile. When one writer met Theodor Geisel (Dr. Seuss) before profiling him, she asked him not only to talk about his characters but also to

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draw one — resulting in an illustration for her profile. With a place, object, or event, interacting may mean visiting and participating, although sometimes you may gather even more information by playing the role of the silent observer.

Engaging details.  You need to include details that bring your subject to life. These may include specific information (“She learned all the tricks, like which trains ran faster or offered better hiding places. How to wait until the conductors’ shift change, when trains would generally be left unattended on the edge of a yard, and she and fellow hoppers would wait, hidden, until they were sure it was clear”); sensory images (“she burrowed into her couch, chain-smoking cigarettes, flinging off the blankets when the sweats came, piling them back on when they passed”); figurative language (“The end of the world begins on Rebecca Maine’s right shoulder, an apocalypse of skulls and trees and snarling beasts”); dialogue (“‘Boxing was everything — boxing may have saved my life — but I didn’t realize maybe it was a stepping stone to the next thing,’ Rebecca says”); and anecdotes (Rebecca started training for boxing, “going through an intensive workout her first day at the gym. The next day, she says with a laugh, ‘I couldn’t walk.’”). Choose details that show rather than tell — that let your audience see and hear your subject rather than merely read an abstract description of it. Sometimes you may let them see and hear it literally, by including photographs or video and audio clips. And be sure all the details create some dominant impression of your subject: the impression that we get out of this profile, for example, is of a strong-willed, ambitious young woman who has persevered despite many challenges and setbacks.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING PROFILES Choosing a Suitable Subject A person, a place, an object, an event — whatever you choose, make sure it’s something that arouses your curiosity and that you’re not too familiar with. Knowing your subject too well can blind you to interesting details.  list  five to ten interesting subjects that you can experience firsthand. Obviously,

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you can’t profile a person who won’t be interviewed or a place or activity that can’t be observed. So before you commit to a topic, make sure you’ll be able to carry out firsthand research.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation 59–60

purpose Why are you writing the profile? What angle will best achieve your purpose? How can you inform and engage your audience?

61–64

audience Who is your audience? How familiar are they with your subject? What expectations of your profile might they have? What background information or definitions do you need to provide? How interested will they be — and how can you capture and hold their interest?

72–74

stance What view of your subject do you expect to present? Sympathetic? Critical? Sarcastic? Will you strive for a carefully balanced perspective?

75–77

media / design Will your profile be a print document? electronic? an oral presentation? Can (and should) you include images or any other visuals? Will it be recorded as an audio file or a multimodal text?

Generating Ideas and Text

333–44

Explore what you already know about your subject.  Why do you find this subject interesting? What do you know about it now? What do you expect to find out about it from your research? What preconceived ideas about or emotional reactions to this subject do you have? Why do you have them? It may be helpful to try some of the activities in the chapter on  generating  ideas and text . Visit your subject.   If you’re writing about an amusem*nt park, go there; if you’re profiling the man who runs the carousel, make an appointment to meet and interview him. Get to know your subject — if you profile the owner of a local BBQ place, sample the ribs! Take photos or videos if there’s

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anything you might want to show visually in your profile. Find helpful hints for  observing  and  interviewing  in the chapter on finding sources.

520–21 518–20

If you’re planning to interview someone, prepare questions.  Jones likely asked Rebecca Maine such questions as, “What triggered your interest in train-hopping? You did it for three years; what are some of your good memories of that time? What are some of the bad ones?” See the  interviewing  guidelines in Chapter 47 for help with planning good questions and conducting interviews.

518–20

Do additional research.   You may be able to write a profile based entirely on your field research. You may, though, need to do some library or web  research  as well, to deepen your understanding, get a different perspective, or fill in gaps. Often the people you interview can help you find sources of additional information; so can the sponsors of events and those in charge of places. To learn more about a city park, for instance, contact the government office that maintains it. Download any good photos of your subject that you find online, both to refer to as you write and to illustrate your profile.

Analyze your findings.  Look for patterns, images, recurring ideas or phrases, and engaging details. Look for contrasts or discrepancies: between a subject’s words and actions, between the appearance of a place and what goes on there, between your expectations and your research findings. Jones may have expected to meet an athlete with an unusual background — but he may not have expected Maine’s life to be as difficult as it turned out to be. You may find the advice in the  reading in academic contexts  chapter helpful here.

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11–32

Come up with an angle.  What’s most memorable about your subject? What most interests you? What will interest your audience? Jones focuses on the aspects of Maine’s life that set her apart from most young women. Sometimes you’ll know your angle from the start; other times you’ll need to look further into your topic. You might try  clustering ,  cubing ,  freewriting , and  looping , to help you see your topic from many d ­ ifferent angles.

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Note details that support your angle.  Use your angle to focus your research and generate text. Try  describing  your subject as clearly as you can,  comparing  your subject with other subjects of its sort, writing­   dialogue  that captures your subject. Jones, for instance, describes Maine’s tattoos, compares her to the much younger runners on her team, and includes several quotes from Maine that capture her impressions — and her spirit. Engaging details will bring your subject to life for your audience. Together, these details should create a dominant impression of your subject.

Ways of Organizing a Profile 474–82

One common way to organize a profile is by  narrating . For example, if you’re profiling a chess championship, you may write about it chronologically, creating suspense as you move from start to finish.

[As a narrative] Introduce your subject and your angle on it; provide any necessary background. 456–63

Tell about various incidents or characteristics, one by one, that bring your subject to life.

Conclude by stating your overall impression — with an anecdote, a quote, a summary comment, or some other ending.

Sometimes you may organize a profile by  describing  — a person or a place, for instance.

[As a description] Introduce your subject and your angle on it, providing any necessary background.

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Present details that create some dominant impression of your subject: •  sensory details • examples • dialogue • anecdotes •  and so on

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State your overall impression, offering a final anecdote or quote or finishing a description begun earlier.

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Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you go about choosing a subject — and an angle on that subject? • What strategies did you use for the beginning and ending of your profile? How did you decide on those strategies? • What design or media choices did you make? Why did you make them, and how effective were they? • In what ways did you reflect on your writing as you worked on it? How did the act of reflecting help you in your writing? • What setbacks did you face as you worked on your writing? How did you overcome them and persist as a writer? • How did you use concepts or methods you learned elsewhere (in other classes, for example) as you worked on your profile? • What were your writing goals for yourself in this piece? How well did you achieve them? How could you improve in the future?

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and ­ Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your profile in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

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364–66 367–71 372–79 380–84 385–90

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Proposals are part of our personal lives: lovers propose marriage, friends propose sharing dinner and a movie, you offer to pay half the cost of a car and insurance if your parents will pay the other half. They are also part of our academic and professional lives: student leaders lobby for lights on bike paths. Musicians, artists, writers, and educators apply for grants. Researchers in all fields of the humanities, social sciences, sciences, and technology seek funding for their projects. In business, contractors bid on building projects, and companies and freelancers solicit work from potential clients. These are all examples of proposals, ideas put forward for consideration that say, “Here is a solution to a problem” or “This is what ought to be done.” For example, here is a proposal for reducing cheating among college students, written by a philosophy professor at Wake Forest University who directs a team of scholars examining the role of honesty in our lives. The team’s undertaking is called The Honesty Project.

CHRISTIAN B. MILLER

Just How Dishonest Are Most Students? I teach philosophy to college students, and there was no way I was going to give them exams this semester, with our classes being held online. Why not? Simple — cheating. It is nothing personal with these particular students, but I have read enough psychological research to know that it would be very hard for them to resist looking for help in places where they are not supposed to, such as their notes, their friends, and the internet.

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I am fortunate that papers are a great alternative means of assessment in philosophy courses. But they do not work so well in certain other fields, like the sciences. In this time of widespread online learning and home-schooling, what can be done to curb cheating on exams? One solution is remote proctoring, where the student is videorecorded during the exam, with any suspicious web browsing reported. That might be effective, but it strikes me as a crude approach, relying as it does on active surveillance, which creates an overt atmosphere of distrust. Naturally enough there are also privacy concerns (Hubler; Patil and Bromwich), as well as some anecdotal evidence (Patil and Bromwich; Swauger) that remote proctoring technology encodes racial biases. Instead I suggest that a practice that has been used widely in other educational contexts be extended to the world of online testing: pledging one’s honor. Honor pledges not only are surprisingly effective in curbing cheating; they also promote honesty. Students who abide by them refrain from cheating not because they can’t, but because they choose not to.

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It is easy to be cynical about honor pledges and honor codes. They can seem to be — and sadly too often are — PR stunts for schools looking to burnish their image. Or administrative mandates that do not have buyin from the faculty. Or just a formality, where students check a box on a form during first-year orientation and then never give it any thought for the rest of the year. Honor codes like these are indeed mere facades. But many schools and programs, from elementary to graduate level, take their honor codes seriously. And for good reason. Empirical research has repeatedly found that schools that are committed to honor codes have significantly reduced cheating rates compared with schools that are not. Donald McCabe at Rutgers Business School and Linda Treviño at the Smeal College of Business at Penn State found a 23 percent rate of helping someone with answers on a test at colleges without an honor code, versus only 11 percent at schools with an honor code. They reported impressive differences as well for plagiarism (20 percent versus 10 percent), unauthorized crib notes (17 percent versus 11 percent), and unpermitted collaboration (49 percent versus 27 percent), among other forms of cheating (224). A serious commitment to the honor code is crucial to its efficacy. As Professors McCabe and Treviño insist, an honor code should be “well implemented and strongly embedded in the student culture” (224). What does that look like in practice? A few schools start the academic year with an actual commitment ceremony, where each student has to publicly pledge to uphold the school’s code. To this can be added a requirement to affirm the honor code on each graded assignment. When I was an undergraduate at Princeton, every paper we turned in had to have the honor code written out and then signed. Now as a professor at Wake Forest, I make my class recite aloud with me before each exam our entire honor code and then sign it. Signing an honor code can, among other things, serve as a moral reminder. As we know from both ordinary life and recent experimental findings, most of us are willing to cheat to some extent if we think it would be rewarding and we can get away with it. At the same time, we also want to think of ourselves as honest people and genuinely believe that cheating is wrong. But our more honorable intentions can be pushed to one side in our minds when tempting opportunities arise to come out ahead, even if by cheating. What a moral reminder does, then, is help to place our values front and center in our minds.

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This is borne out by recent findings in the lab. In a widely cited study, Nina Mazar at the Questrom School of Business at Boston University and her colleagues had one group of students take a 20-problem test where they would be paid 50 cents per correct answer. It was a hard test — students averaged only 3.4 correct answers. A second group of students took the same test, but they graded their own work and reported their “scores” with no questions asked. The average in this group was 6.1 correct answers, suggesting some cheating. The third and most interesting group, though, began by signing an honor code and then took the test, followed by grading their own work. The result? An honorable 3.1 correct answers. Cheating was eliminated at the group level. Signing the honor code did the job (636–37). Studies of honor codes and cheating have typically been conducted in face-to-face environments. But as we settle into the routine of online instruction, we should consider trying to extend the impact of an honor code virtually as well. Honor codes won’t eliminate cheating. Deeply dishonest students will not be deterred. But fortunately, the research confirms what experience suggests: most students are not deeply dishonest. Works Cited Hubler, Shawn. “Keeping Online Testing Honest? Or an Orwellian Overreach?” The New York Times, 10 May 2020, www.nytimes .com/2020/05/10/us/online-testing-cheating-universities -coronavirus.html. Mazar, Nina, et al.“The Dishonesty of Honest People: A Theory of Self-Concept Maintenance.” Journal of Marketing Research, vol. 45, 2008, pp. 633–44. McCabe, Donald L., et al. “Cheating in Academic Institutions: A Decade of Research.” Ethics & Behavior, vol. 11, no. 3, 2001, pp. 219–32. Patil, Anushka, and Jonah Engel Bromwich. “How It Feels When Software Watches You Take Tests.” The New York Times, 29 Sept. 2020, www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/style/testing-schools -proctorio.html. Swauger, Shea. “Software That Monitors Students during Tests Perpetuates Inequality and Violates Their Privacy.” MIT Technology Review, 7 Aug. 2020, www.technologyreview .com/2020/08/07/1006132/software-algorithms-proctoring -onlinetests-ai-ethics.

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  For four more proposals, see ­CHAPTER 68.

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This proposal clearly defines the problem — students cheat on exams — and offers a solution: honor pledges and honor codes. The author provides arguments and evidence from research to show why this is a good solution.

Key Features / Proposals A well-defined problem.   Some problems are self-evident and relatively simple, and you would not need much persuasive power to make people act — as with the problem “This university discards too much paper.” While some people might see nothing wrong with throwing paper away, most are likely to agree that recycling is a good thing. Other issues are controversial: some people see them as problems while others do not, such as this one: “Motorcycle riders who do not wear helmets risk serious injury and raise health-care costs for everyone.” Some motorcyclists believe that wearing or not wearing a helmet should be a personal choice; you would have to present arguments to convince your readers that not wearing a helmet is indeed a problem needing a solution. Any written proposal must establish at the outset that there is a problem — and that it’s serious enough to require a solution. For some topics, visual or audio evidence of the problem may be helpful. A recommended solution.   Once you have defined the problem, you need to describe the solution you’re suggesting and to explain it in enough detail for readers to understand what you are proposing. Again, photographs, diagrams, or other visuals may help. Sometimes you might ­suggest several solutions, weigh their merits, and choose the best one. A convincing argument for your proposed solution.  You need to convince readers that your solution is feasible — and that it is the best way to solve the problem. Sometimes you’ll want to explain in detail how your proposed solution would work: “The honor code proposal offers several reasons why honor codes work, drawing on both empirical research and understanding of human nature.” Visuals may strengthen this part of your argument as well.

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A response to anticipated questions.  You may need to consider any questions readers may have about your proposal — and to show how its advantages outweigh any disadvantages. Had the honor code proposal been written for college judicial officers, it would have needed to anticipate and answer questions about how such a code would be implemented. A call to action.   The goal of a proposal is to persuade readers to accept your proposed solution. This solution may include asking readers to take action.

An appropriate tone.   Since you’re trying to persuade readers to act, your tone is important — readers will always react better to a reasonable, respectful presentation than to anger or self-righteousness.

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING PROPOSALS Deciding on a Topic Choose a problem that can be solved. Complex, large problems, such as poverty, hunger, or terrorism, usually require complex, large solutions. Most of the time, focusing on a smaller problem or a limited aspect of a large problem will yield a more manageable proposal. Rather than tackling the problem of world poverty, for example, think about the problem faced by people in your community who have lost jobs and need help until they find employment.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Do you have a stake in a particular solution, or do you

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simply want to eliminate the problem by whatever solution might be adopted?

audience Do your readers share your view of the problem as a

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serious one needing a solution? Are they likely to be open to possible solutions or resistant? Do they have the authority to carry out a proposed solution?

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stance How can you show your audience that your proposal is reasonable and should be taken seriously? How can you demonstrate your own authority and credibility?

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media / design How will you deliver your proposal? In print? Electronically? As a speech? Would visuals, or video or audio clips, help support your proposal?

Generating Ideas and Text Explore potential solutions to the problem.  Many problems can be

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solved in more than one way, and you need to show your readers that you’ve examined several potential solutions. You may develop solutions on your own; more often, though, you’ll need to do  research  to see how others have solved — or tried to solve — similar problems. Don’t settle on a single solution too quickly — you’ll need to  compare  the advantages and disadvantages of several solutions in order to argue convincingly for one.

Decide on the most desirable solution(s).  One solution may be head and shoulders above others — but it’s important to be open to rejecting all the possible ­solutions on your list and starting over if you need to, or to combining two or more potential solutions in order to come up with an acceptable fix. Think about why your solution is the best one.  Why did you choose your solution? Why will it work better than others? What has to be done to enact it? What will it cost? What makes you think it can be done? Writing out answers to these questions will help you argue for your solution: to show that you have carefully and objectively outlined a problem, analyzed the potential solutions, weighed their merits, and determined the reasons the solution you propose is the best.

Ways of Organizing a Proposal You can organize a proposal in various ways, but always you will begin by establishing that there is a problem. You may then identify several possible

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solutions before recommending one of them or a combination of ­several. Sometimes, however, you might discuss only a single solution.

[Several possible solutions] Introduce and explain the problem.

Identify possible solutions, and consider their pros and cons one by one.

Propose a solution, and give reasons why it is best.

Call for action, or reiterate your proposed action.

[A single solution] Introduce and explain the problem.

Explain the proposed solution.

Give reasons why it is the best solution.

Call for action, or reiterate your proposal.

Anticipate and answer questions.

Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you determine your audience for this piece? • How did you decide on and limit your topic? • How did you determine the best solution to the problem you defined? • What writing strategies did you use to guide your reader through your text? How effectively did you use them? • What editing and proofreading processes did you use, and how effective were they? • Based on your experiences with this piece, what academic habit of mind — for example, being flexible, creative, and so on — do you want to work on as you tackle your next writing project?

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• What did you learn about writing as you wrote your proposal? How might you use that learning as you write in other contexts now or in the future? • What did you do well in this piece? What could still be improved? What would you do differently next time?

TOPIC PROPOSALS

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Instructors often ask students to write topic proposals to ensure that their topics are appropriate or manageable. Some instructors may also ask for an  annotated bibliography  showing that appropriate sources of information are available — more evidence that the project can be carried out. Here a student proposes a topic for an assignment in a writing course in which she has been asked to take a position on a global issue.

CATHERINE THOMS

Social Media and Data Privacy The relationship between social media and data privacy is an issue that has recently risen to the forefront of many social media users’ concerns. While we have been posting and sharing online, major companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Google have been silently collecting information about our personal lives and leaving that data vulnerable to potentially harmful exposure. As someone who has had their private information compromised multiple times by large-scale data breaches, I feel compelled to share my research on the dangers of such security breaches and how they can happen. In this paper, I will argue that it is crucial for consumers to be aware of the ways in which social media platforms can gain access to consumers’ private data and what those platforms can do with that data. In March 2018, it was revealed that 87 million Facebook profiles were exposed to manipulation by the political consulting firm Cambridge

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Analytica during the 2016 presidential election. I will use this scandal as an example of how the unlawful exposure of personal data can have far-reaching effects on external world events, and I plan to analyze how this scandal has functioned as a global catalyst for further scrutiny into the privacy mechanisms of social media. I will concentrate on the specific ways personal data may be misused. Although sharing thoughts and pictures on social media may not seem like anything to think twice about, many people don’t realize just how much is at stake should enough of that personal data fall into the wrong hands. Much of my research will be done on specific social media applications such as Facebook and Google Analytics, as that is where the heart of the issue resides and where consumers can learn the most about their personal data exposure and protection.

Thoms defines and narrows her topic (from data breaches to the specific ways consumers’ data may be misused), discusses her interest, outlines her argument, and discusses her research strategy. Her goal is to convince her instructor that she has a realistic writing project and a clear plan.

Key Features / Topic Proposals You’ll need to explain what you want to write about, why you want to explore it, and what you’ll do with your topic. Unless your instructor has additional requirements, here are the features to include:

A concise discussion of the subject.   Topic proposals generally open with a brief discussion of the subject, outlining any important areas of controversy or debate associated with it and clarifying the extent of the writer’s current knowledge of it. In its first two paragraphs, Thoms’s proposal includes a concise statement of the topic she wishes to address.

A clear statement of your intended focus.   State what aspect of the topic you intend to write on as clearly as you can, narrowing your focus appropriately. Thoms does so by stating her intended topic — data breaches —  and then showing how she will focus on the specific ways consumers’ data may be misused.

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A rationale for choosing the topic.  Tell your instructor why this topic interests you and why you want to write about it. Thoms both states what made her interested in her topic and hints at a practical reason for choosing it: plenty of information is available. Mention of resources.   To show your instructor that you can achieve your goal, you need to identify the available research materials.

If you need more help 364–66 367–71 371–79 380–84

See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and C ­ hapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING . See Chapter 34 if you are required to submit your proposal in a writing  PORTFOLIO .

385–90

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Sometimes we write essays just to think about something — to play with an idea, develop a thought, explore possible solutions to a problem, or even to figure out what the problem is. Exploratory essays are our attempt to think something through by writing about it and to share our thinking — or the progression of our understanding — with others. In college, you might be asked in courses across the curriculum to write formal or informal exploratory essays, journals, design reports, or learning log entries. Have a look at one example of an exploratory essay written for a first-year composition class at Columbus State Community College. The author, Brian Diehl, was a high school student taking college courses when he wrote his exploration.

BRIAN DIEHL

Talking with Granddad An overcast sky chokes the usual radiant light of summer on this Sunday afternoon — an ironic backdrop to the sign in front of me, which reads “Sunrise on the Scioto.” Upon entering the nursing home’s lobby, I’m met with a clash of two scents: the buttery aroma of a nearby popcorn machine and that distinct “old people” smell. The latter always seems to outlast its opponent and seeps into my nostrils around every corner of the building. I make sure to grab a few hard candies before taking an elevator up to the third floor. Knock, knock, knock. No answer. Peeking into the doorway, I see a man slouched in his bed absorbing the sounds of a televised college football game.

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“Hey granddad, it’s me!” A slow turn allows him to see the boy now in front of him. “You know who I am, right?” He stares blankly. “I’m Brian, your grandson!” The scruff around his face rises, revealing a smile of recognition. “. . . Yes,” he responds. “How’ve you been holding up?” I ask. The drone of the TV fills the silence. “Hey, I have a girlfriend now! Would you like to see her?” I bring the image on my phone closer to him. After some scrutiny, he exclaims, “Well, I’ll be damned!” “Has grandma stopped by recently?” “. . . Well, I’ll be damned!” He repeats this phrase after every question I ask. After a while, I lightly wrap my arms around his motionless body, and we part ways. For the longest time, there has been no medical phenomenon more intriguing to me than dementia. One may be familiar with Alzheimer’s disease, the most common type of dementia characterized by plaques and tangles that spread throughout the brain, destroying tissue and eventually affecting memory, language, and other neurological functions (“Dementia”). When my grandfather showed signs of Alzheimer’s in its early stages, I found myself struggling in my attempts to talk with him; my words sometimes seemed to bounce off a brick wall. Knowing that my other grandparents could be at risk of dementia as well, I wondered: How could I communicate more effectively with family members who may exhibit memory loss in the future? Of course, communication is a two-way street, so before I could explore verbal tactics on my end, I decided to first gain an understanding of how people with dementia might express their mental state — how they try to communicate their experiences and perceptions. This is when I came across the story of artist William Utermohlen, who was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in 1995. As a way of understanding the disease, the artist chose to paint himself. Below is a series of Utermohlen’s self-portraits, revealing changes in his perception of himself over time. Comparing the 1996 portrait to the one drawn pre-diagnosis, we can notice an immediate disappearance of details such as hair texture and facial shadows. Utermohlen’s unicolor portrayal of himself inside a green framework reflects neurologist Bruce Miller’s comments on artistic

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A collage showing details from William Utermohlen’s self-portraits. The first (top left) was made in 1967, and the rest were made following his diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease: the top middle in 1996, the top right in 1997, and the bottom row, from left to right, in 1998, 1999, and 2000.

creativity among people with brain diseases: “Alzheimer’s affects the right parietal lobe in particular, which is important for visualizing something internally and then putting it onto a canvas. The art becomes more abstract, the images are blurrier and vague, more surrealistic” (qtd. in Grady). This surrealism becomes more apparent in the next portrait, where the eyes are positioned far too low, the forehead and ear are enlarged, and the frown of the artist becomes more solemn. The true erasure of identity begins in the 1998 portrait, revealing a fragmented Utermohlen with his most melancholic facial expression yet. Perhaps the most devastating work is the fifth portrait; other than an oval serving as the bare structure of a human head, there is hardly a distinguishable facial feature contained in the canvas. The final portrait — with its pencil scratches, eraser smudges, and incompleteness — suggests a dramatic alteration of Utermohlen’s sense of self. What can perhaps be represented by this artist’s works are the combined voices of those just like him — those who cannot verbalize their reality. As heartbreaking as Utermohlen’s portraits are, they offer caregivers and others a bridge toward understanding dementia from the perspective of those who experience it. After gaining insight into the possible mental state of someone with dementia, I sought to find concrete methods of verbal communication

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that could best meet the needs of individuals with Alzheimer’s. I came across a study published in the Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research conducted by Jeff Small and colleagues, who set out to evaluate the effectiveness of ten common strategies for communicating with people with Alzheimer’s. As part of the study, the researchers audio-recorded twenty-two couples — individuals with Alzheimer’s and their spouses — as the couples engaged in everyday tasks like setting the table, getting an item upon request, and using the telephone. The success of each communication strategy was measured by the number of communication breakdowns that occurred after its usage. Small and colleagues report that “eliminating distractions, speaking in simple sentences, and employing yes/no questions” resulted in fewer breakdowns (364). On the other hand, using a slower rate of speech caused an increase in the number of breakdowns. This study suggests the viability of some verbal techniques over others, but I was still left with a burning question: Doesn’t communication effectiveness ultimately depend on what personally works for the individual with Alzheimer’s? At this point, I decided to reach out to somebody who could shed light on my question: my grandmother, Andrea Diehl. Being the embodiment of positivity that she is, her continual presence by my grandfather’s side at the nursing home was one of the greatest factors that helped keep him stable. Below is a portion of our interview that highlights their communication dynamic in the midst of his dementia. Brian: Did you make any changes to your communication with granddad during his state of dementia? If so, what methods worked for you? Andrea: Anything that worked for me was something that was familiar already to him, something that he wanted to say. I always made sure he was smiling. Anything that I knew was going to please him was the object of my time with him. I would give him a hot chocolate and give him a little hug, and then when I put a marshmallow in that hot chocolate, he would smile! There were many things that I tried to do to keep him above board and happy. There were many little tricks like that. I wanted him to have the memories that were still living in both of our minds. Brian: In what ways did grandpa communicate with you?

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Andrea: He would reminisce about old times. For example, we had taken seven cruises on one cruise line, and we would relive those because he remembered those! He would ask, “Do you remember that meal we had? Do you remember when I found just the right things to make the drink I wanted to make?” He could remember those things and then ask me if I remembered them! It was a joy, every minute. Reflecting on my grandmother’s experiences, it becomes clear that one does not need to be a master of psychological techniques in order to properly approach communication with a person affected by dementia. What’s needed is a repeated effort to be present with the individual, expressing joy over what they say instead of sweating over anything we could ever say. Even if one were to find a golden strategy that makes conversation a breeze, its use alone will never mitigate the frustration of identity loss portrayed so vividly by Utermohlen. Instead, the most important action one can take is a demonstration of love. Ranging from hugs to marshmallow drops, small acts of kindness honor the humanity of the person with Alzheimer’s. It is the enjoyment of their company that fosters communication. It is relationship, not repetition, that gives way to a signal of understanding, even if that signal is as simple as a smile. Looking back on my initial visit with my grandfather, I knew that he processed every word I said. Those shining blue eyes and unwavering smile told me that he fully knew of my presence, but he was unable to express that awareness in my world. I like to think that my grandfather’s mind found an entire universe overflowing with worlds unique to him, each planet representing a blissful memory of a life full of love. Did dementia ever take his universe away? No. Well, I’ll be damned!

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Works Cited “Dementia.” The Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, edited by Jacqueline L. Longe, 3rd ed., Gale, 2016. Credo Reference, search .credoreference.com/content/entry/galegp/dementia/0. Diehl, Andrea. Interview with author. 11 Nov. 2020. Grady, Denise. “Self-Portraits Chronicle a Descent into Alzheimer’s.” The New York Times, 24 Oct. 2006, www.nytimes.com/2006/10/24 /health/24alzh.html. Small, Jeff A., et al. “Effectiveness of Communication Strategies Used by Caregivers of Persons with Alzheimer’s Disease during Activities of Daily Living.” Journal of Speech, Language, and Hearing Research, vol. 46, no. 2, Apr. 2003, pp. 353–67. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1044/1092-4388(2003/028).

  For four more explorations, see CHAPTER 69.

Diehl’s challenges in conversing with a grandparent with Alzheimer’s disease spur him to explore ways to communicate effectively with people with dementia. Through his exploration, Diehl ponders the merits of several communication strategies, including those recommended by experts and those used by his own grandmother.

Key Features / Explorations A topic that intrigues you.  ​​An exploratory essay has a dual purpose: to ponder something you find interesting or puzzling, and to share your thoughts with an audience. Your topic may be anything that interests you. You might write about someone you’ve never met and are curious about, an object or occurrence that makes you think, a problem you need to solve — or one you need to define. Your goal is to explore the meaning that the person, object, event, or problem has for you in a way that will interest others. One way to do that is by making connections between your personal experience and more general ones that readers may share. Diehl writes about his interactions with his own grandfather, but in so doing he raises questions and offers insights about how others communicate with people affected by dementia.

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Some kind of structure.  ​An exploratory essay can be structured in many ways, but it needs to be structured. It may seem to wander, but all its paths and ideas should relate, one way or another. The challenge is to keep your readers’ interest as you explore your topic and to leave readers satisfied that the journey was pleasurable, interesting, and profitable. Often doing this requires  combining genres . For example, Diehl begins with a narrative that includes snippets of dialogue, moves into a visual analysis of a series of self-portraits, summarizes a study of communication strategies, and then recounts an interview with his grandmother. He ends by proposing that demonstrating love for a person with dementia is more important than using any particular strategy for communication.

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Specific details.  ​You’ll need to provide specific details to help readers understand and connect with your subject, especially if it’s an abstract or unfamiliar one. Diehl notes how his grandfather is “slouched in his bed, absorbing the sounds of a televised college football game” and how the “scruff around his face rises, revealing a smile of recognition.” Later, Diehl captures an anecdote from his grandmother to help bring her relationship with her husband to life: “‘I always made sure he was smiling. Anything that I knew was going to please him was the object of my time with him. I would give him a hot chocolate and give him a little hug, and then when I put a marshmallow in that hot chocolate, he would smile!’” In addition to details and anecdotes, exploratory essays may include researched information, as Diehl’s does when it mentions a study of communication strategies among couples affected by Alzheimer’s. In some cases, photographs or other visuals — like the self-portraits Diehl analyzes — help provide examples as well as set a certain tone for an exploration.

A questioning, speculative tone.  ​In an exploratory essay, you are working toward answers, not providing them neatly organized and ready for consumption. So your tone is usually tentative and open, demonstrating a willingness to entertain, accept, and reject various ideas as your essay

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progresses from beginning to end. Often this tone is achieved by asking questions, like Diehl does: “Knowing that my other grandparents could be at risk of dementia as well, I wondered: How could I communicate more effectively with family members who may exhibit memory loss in the future?” “This study suggests the viability of some verbal techniques over others, but I was still left with a burning question: Doesn’t communication effectiveness ultimately depend on what personally works for the individual with Alzheimer’s?”

A BRIEF GUIDE TO WRITING EXPLORATIONS Deciding on a Topic Choose a subject you want or need to explore. Write a list of things that you think about, wonder about, find puzzling or annoying. They may be big things — life, relationships — or little things — quirks of certain people’s behavior, curious objects, everyday events. Try clustering one or more of those things, or begin by freewriting to see what comes to mind as you write. If you need to define and solve a problem, try googling the topic to see what others have said about it and how you might think about it — and to see what potential solutions have already been proposed.

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purpose What’s your goal in writing this essay? To explore a topic that interests you? To work through an issue or problem that concerns you? To provoke readers to think about something? What aspects of your subject do you want to ponder and reflect on?

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audience Who is the audience? How familiar are they with your subject? How will you introduce it in a way that will interest them? Even if your primary audience is yourself, how will you help readers understand your thinking?

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What is your attitude toward the topic you plan to stance

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explore — questioning? playful? critical? curious? something else?

media / design Will your essay be a print document? an oral presenta-

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tion? Will it be posted on a website or a blog? Would it help to include any visuals or video or audio files?

Generating Ideas and Text Explore your subject in detail.  ​Exploratory essays often include descriptive details. Diehl, for example, describes Utermohlen’s self-portraits as he speculates about their meaning and effect: “This surrealism becomes more apparent in the next portrait, where the eyes are positioned far too low, the forehead and ear are enlarged, and the frown of the artist becomes more solemn.” Diehl also compares and contrasts the portraits, pointing out the changes between the pre-diagnosis portrait and those that follow. You may also make your point by defining, narrating, even classifying. Virtually any organizing pattern will help you explore your subject.

Back away.  ​Ask yourself why your subject matters: Why is it important or intriguing or significant? You may try listing or outlining possibilities, or you may want to start drafting to see where the first round of writing takes your thinking. Your goal is to think onscreen (or on paper) about your subject, to play with its possibilities. Think about how to keep readers with you.  ​Explorations may seem loose or unstructured, but they must be carefully crafted so that readers can follow your train of thought. It’s a good idea to sketch out a rough thesis to help focus your thoughts. You might not include the thesis in the essay itself, but every part of the essay should in some way relate to it. If Diehl’s essay has a thesis, it’s this: “One does not need to be a master of psychological techniques in order to properly approach communication with a person affected by dementia. What’s needed is a repeated effort to be present with the individual, expressing joy over what they say instead of sweating over anything we could ever say.”

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Ways of Organizing an Exploratory Essay Exploratory essays may be organized in many ways because they mimic the way we think, associating one idea with another in ways that make sense but do not necessarily form a “logical” progression. In general, you might consider organizing an exploration using this overall strategy: Begin by defining or describing your subject or perhaps with an anecdote or observation.

Explore your topic with • anecdotes • observations • definitions • speculations

End with • a telling image • material for further thought • a statement about the implications of your topic

Another way to organize this type of essay is as a series of brief anecdotes and ideas that together create an overall impression:

Introduce your subject.

Offer an anecdote or idea related to your subject.

Offer another anecdote or idea.

Continue as needed, making sure each anecdote or idea relates to the others.

End with thoughts, questions, or implications of the ideas and their relationships.

If you’re pondering solutions to a problem, you might organize your essay like this:

Introduce your subject and define the problem.

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Offer one potential solution, including its pros and cons.

Describe another potential solution, including its pros and cons.

Continue outlining potential solutions as needed.

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End by weighing the merits of each one and settling on a tentative best solution (though it may not be perfect).

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Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve written by considering these questions: • How did you decide on your topic? • Why did you organize your piece as you did? • Describe your revision process for this piece. What worked, and what didn’t work? Did you learn anything new — about your topic, about yourself, about something else — as you revised your piece? • Did you use visual elements (photographs, diagrams, drawings), audio elements, or links? If so, what did they add? If not, what might you have used? • How did curiosity play a role in the writing of your exploration? Can you point to a specific part of your text that illustrates your curiosity about your topic? • What have you learned about your writing ability from writing this piece? What do you need to work on in the future? • What was most rewarding about your work on this piece?

If you need more help See Chapter 30 for guidelines on  DRAFTING , Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING , Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING , and Chapter 33 on  EDITING AND PROOFREADING .

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Just as musicians alter existing tracks to create new ones, writers sometimes “remix” or refashion their writing for new contexts. A mechanical engineer uses elements of her technical report about a new engine part to write instructions for the machinists who assemble the part. A historian turns his scholarly article on slavery and disability into a podcast episode for the general public. A sociology student transforms her essay on food insecurity into an infographic to persuade her college administration to start a food pantry. In each case, the writer modifies all or part of their earlier work for a new purpose, audience, genre, stance, or medium. In college courses across the curriculum, you might be asked to do the same — for example, by writing a researched report for a class assignment and then sharing your work through a multimedia presentation for your classmates or others. For a capstone project in your major, you might be asked to return to some earlier writing you’ve done, reimagining or extending it for a new purpose. This chapter offers suggestions for creating remixes — texts that grow out of and “play on” earlier texts you’ve composed. Let’s start by looking at an example: a profile originally published in a university alumni magazine that gets remixed into two different videos for the university’s website.

Original Text: A Print Profile “Rare Earth,” a profile that inspired two remixes, traces Dr. Rattan Lal’s path from refugee to premier soil scientist. Following is an excerpt from the piece, which appeared in the Ohio State Alumni Magazine. The author, Todd Jones, is a senior writer for the magazine.

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TODD JONES

Rare Earth The thin man in the Ohio State ballcap hunches down near his home garden, in the backyard with the two buckeye trees. He’s holding a clump of dirt. “No, no. Not dirt,” he says. “This is soil. Soil is not the same as dirt. Soil is a living entity. That’s the part we must understand.” His hands are cupped, as if holding a baby bird. He gazes in admiration, points to roots and a worm. He tells us a tablespoon of soil contains billions of microorganisms. “Soil is one. Indivisible. Interconnected,” he says. “Soil is the basis of all terrestrial life. Every living thing on the planet depends on it, and yet this material is underappreciated and unrecognized.” His face is wrinkled and weathered, a testament to years spent researching in the fields, forging wisdom about our place in the world. “We belong to nature. We belong to soil,” he says. “Therefore, we have a duty and obligation to soil.” He has researched soil for five decades on five continents, traveling to 106 countries to spread a message: that we must “make an investment to restore [soil]. You always want to leave something behind,” the concept underlying regenerative agriculture. But more work must be done to spread understanding about the critical role of soil in the health of the planet. “That challenge,” he says, “is my motivator, my driving force.”

Lal surveys an Ohio cornfield.

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Thomson Reuters has long listed Dr. Rattan Lal, Ohio State Distin­guished University Professor of Soil Science, among the top 1 percent of the most frequently cited agricultural

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researchers in the world. In 2007, Lal was recognized for his contributions to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize with former U.S. vice president Al Gore. In 2019, Lal was awarded the Japan Prize, one of the most prestigious honors in science and technology. That same year, he won the Alumni Medalist Award, the highest honor bestowed by The Ohio State University Alumni Association. Such status suggests that Lal deserves a gilded lair, but he sits behind an ordinary metal desk in a painted cinder-block room measuring 9 feet by 12 feet. “My office is fine,” Lal says. “The office is in proportion to your contributions.” His modesty also masks a fierce inner drive. Three heart attacks have not slowed him, and praise from international peers has not inflated him. He has more speeches to give, papers to write, conference calls to join, classes to teach, research to conduct, and students to mentor. “This is who he is,” says Sukhvarsha Sharma, his wife of 48 years. “He has very high expectations of himself. He wants to make a difference in the environment, and through that, make a difference in peoples’ lives.”

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There are times when Lal looks like a symphony conductor as he speaks, his voice accompanied by slowly moving hands, as if words about soil were notes in a musical sonnet. In those moments, your eyes might fall on an ancient symbol in faded blue ink on the back of Lal’s right hand. He thinks he was about 8 years old when a stranger on a bicycle came to his school in India offering cheap tattoos. The boy couldn’t resist. Nearly seven decades later, he regrets his choice. “I would not get it done now,” Lal says. “But a small decision about a tattoo, that’s very little in importance. Decisions about soil are very, very important. Those are decisions that influence other people’s lives and have very long-lasting impact.” The impact is intensifying because the world’s population is projected to increase nearly 50 percent in the next 80 years — an ominous forecast that Lal tells Ohio State students on a summer afternoon while lecturing in an Introduction to Soil Science class. Humanity, Lal warns, is facing a dire necessity to advance food security by protecting finite, fragile soil resources. “Agriculture and soil are, can be, and must be a solution,” he says, clasping and shaking his hands for emphasis.

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In that moment, you could see Lal’s tattoo, an ink version of the symbol for om, considered the most sacred of mantras in his Hindu religion. Through the word’s three distinct sounds — ”a-u-m” — the speaker is meant to understand the essence of the universe: Everything is connected. Om is the sound of Lal’s life. “There’s just kind of an equanimity, a sense of mental peace, about him,” says Ellen Maas, one of Lal’s current doctoral students. “His manner is not one that is focused on himself. He just cares so deeply about humanity and the planet. He finds an inner strength in caring about things bigger than himself.” Lal’s family experience shaped his worldview. The youngest of three, he was raised by his father after his mother died of an illness when Lal was 3 months old. When India was partitioned to form Pakistan in 1947, his family fled as refugees to the Indian village of Rajaund, about 120 miles northwest of New Delhi. They left a 9-acre farm and settled on one totaling only 1.5 acres, a change that marked Lal with a different tattoo, just as permanent but invisible. “It taught me that the land is very precious,” Lal says. “You cannot let it waste. Your life depends on it. Our land was so small, but it was not a unique situation. There are right now in the world about 600 million farm families that have less than 2 acres. In a way, what I do and what I think relates back to those people and my experience.” Lal helped grow rice, wheat, cotton, and sugarcane on his family farm. But unlike his siblings, he also was sent to school by his father. The child felt chosen, obligated to make good on a privileged opportunity. In 1959, his Lal holds his undergraduate diploma diligence and excellent grades met from Punjab Agricultural University.

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Ohio State in serendipity: he enrolled at the Government Agricultural College and Research Institute (which became Punjab Agricultural University his senior year). Ohio State had helped establish the institute only four years earlier. “One of the professors, Dr. [Dev Raj] Bhumbla, had just returned with a PhD from Ohio State, and he started teaching a soil class,” Lal says. “I was in that class. My best subject was botany, but he told me to go into soil science. In fact, he recommended my name to faculty at Ohio State to be a student there.” In 1965, Lal boarded a plane for the first time and traveled alone 7,300 miles to pursue his doctorate. He brought along an insatiable hunger to succeed. At Punjab Agricultural University, he had run 4 miles —  yes, run them — to school from home every day, studied by the light of a kerosene lamp, sometimes held up by his grandmother. He found an agricultural book in the library so essential that he spent two months hand-copying it to have his own edition. “Nothing can be achieved without the strongest possible desire to achieve it,” Lal says. His desire and degree mixed to fuel a career trek around the globe. Ohio State connections landed him research jobs, first in Sydney, Australia, for a year, and then in Nigeria, where the Rockefeller Foundation asked him to set up a soil science laboratory at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture. Lal and his wife — only a year into their arranged marriage — went in spite of a bloody civil war. They stayed 18 years, even as three Nigerian governments were toppled by coups. “Once, I was at the house of a general,” Lal says. “He had invited me to come talk about suggestions to control soil erosion. Two days later, he was hanged and his family shot. People have said if I was there when they came, I would not be here today.” One moment can make a difference. So can one person. This is why he accepts invitations to speak about soil, whether the audience is filled with heads of power or young burgeoning minds. “The students are ambassadors of Ohio State,” Lal says. “They represent us. They carry on the work that we do.” There are twenty-two students in this day’s class. Lal speaks to them without notes, standing next to a podium, hand in pocket. His tone is

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measured, but his message linking soil management to the nourishment of humankind is urgent. “The story has to be told in a language that farmers and policymakers understand and can relate to. That’s critical,” Lal says. “That’s going to take education. We have to change opinions in a humble way. That falls on your generation.”

Remix 1: A Video Profile Eventually, the writer and photographer of “Rare Earth” collaborated with others to remix the article into a video profile. The remix uses recorded footage to showcase Dr. Lal in action as he and his students assess the results of no-till farming. Below are a few frames from the video; you can view the complete video at digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r.

(gentle music)

and what practices can be shown are not sustainable

And we’re gonna quantify the total fresh weight

If we can do no-till and we can have better yields

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Remix 2: An Explainer Video The original profile piece was remixed into yet another video, this time a motion-graphics video that explains the science behind regenerative agriculture. Below are some frames from the full video, available at digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r.

the carbon stays trapped in the soil.

Off-season crops, such as clover, can also be planted

  For more remixes, see CHAPTER 70.

(upbeat music)

All three texts remix parts of the others, but each has a different purpose, audience, and medium/design. The print article is designed for magazine subscribers and aims to profile Dr. Lal’s personal and professional achievements as an alumnus of the university. The video profile is produced for the web and provides a firsthand look at Dr. Lal’s work in agriculture, while the explainer video helps viewers understand a crucial concept in Dr. Lal’s research. Together the remixes offer a fuller picture of the scientist and his contributions to his field.

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Key Features / Remixes A connection to the original subject.  ​A remix always hearkens back to the original subject in some way. Sometimes the connection is obvious —  Dr. Lal takes center stage in both the video profile and the print profile, though each profile shares a different aspect of his story. Other times, just a fragment of the original subject inspires the remix. For example, the science behind Dr. Lal’s work is mentioned only briefly in the print article but becomes the sole focus of the explainer video. A modification of the earlier work.  ​By definition, a remix involves change. Something in the writing situation changes — like the writer’s purpose or audience — and that change requires other modifications as well. The writer might need to work within a new medium, or adopt a different stance, or write in a new genre to get their message across most effectively. When the creators of the “Rare Earth” article needed to explain the complex concept of regenerative agriculture, they determined that a visual medium would better suit their purpose than a print-based one.

Attention to genre and media / design expectations.  ​Often remixes require a change in genre or a change in medium (or both), and effective remixes meet audience expectations for the new genre or medium. The profile video of Dr. Lal, for example, uses background music, on-screen titles, and clips of recorded footage — all of which are typical features of a profile (genre) delivered through a video (medium).

SOME TYPICAL WAYS OF REMIXING Your writing situation — especially your purpose and audience — will determine the type of remix you might create. Following, though, are some common ways of remixing texts for new genres or media.

Memoirs.  ​With their vivid details and scenes, print memoirs lend themselves to visual remixes as photo montages, graphic memoirs, comic strips, and digital stories. You might also repurpose parts of a memoir into a

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new genre — for example, by sharing an anecdote to support a point in an argument.

Profiles.  ​A print profile that showcases an interesting person, place, or event might get remixed into a mini documentary or a podcast to bring the subject to life even more fully for an audience. You could also incorporate a profile into another genre — like a report — to make an abstract concept more concrete.

Arguments.  ​With their focus on making and supporting claims, arguments are often remixed as newspaper op-eds, public service announcements (PSAs) for radio or television, or print or online petitions. With instructor permission, you might remix an argument you’ve written on gun control for your first-year writing class into a proposal for your public health class.

Proposals.  ​A written proposal might morph into a slide show for a presentation and then into a fund-raising letter to secure financial support for a proposed project. In your college classes, you might repurpose parts of a topic proposal for a report, an argument, or some other genre you’re asked to write — as long as your instructors approve.

Reports.  ​Research findings from reports often get remixed into infographics, poster presentations, timelines, and listicles (articles presented in list form). In college courses, you might remix a report you’ve written into an oral presentation to your class. In creating a remix as part of your college coursework, be sure to follow your school’s academic integrity policies. Most policies forbid students from reusing or resubmitting their previous work without instructor permission. If you plan to remix something you’ve created for one class into a project for another class, get approval from both instructors beforehand.

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A BRIEF GUIDE TO CREATING REMIXES Determining What Will Change in Your Remix When you compose a remix, you’re not starting from scratch — you already have a general topic and a text to work from. Still, you need to determine how your remix will be different from your earlier work. A good place to start is to think about what has changed in your writing situation. Has your instructor asked you to prepare a Prezi version of an academic essay you’ve written for your course? If so, the media/design elements of your rhetorical situation have changed. Or maybe you’ve written a report for a class assignment, and now you want to inspire a particular group of people to take action on your topic. In this case, your purpose and audience have changed. Usually, a change in one element of the rhetorical situation affects the others, so it’s important to carefully consider all those elements as you plan your remix.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Why are you creating the remix? To share the same

59–60

message from your earlier work through a different genre or medium? To make a new point about your topic? To explain a concept from your earlier work? To reach a different audience? To reach the same audience in a new way? To persuade or inform or entertain?

audience Who will read, view, or listen to your remix? Are they

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the same audience as before? a different audience? Why should they care about your message? What will they already know? How can you engage their interest?

genre Will you work within a new genre or the same one as

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earlier? Will you mix multiple genres? Which genres would work best for your purpose and audience? What expectations will your audience have for genre?

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stance Will your stance in the remix be the same as or different from your earlier stance? What is your relationship with your audience? Are you an equal, a student, an interested or concerned outsider, something else? What tone is appropriate — objective, impassioned, respectful, informal, something else?

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media / design Will you work within a new medium or the same one

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as earlier? What medium would be most appropriate for your audience and purpose? Will you use multiple media, combining sounds, visuals, words, movement? What expectations will your audience have for design and format? What steps can you take to make your composition  accessible  to diverse audiences?

Generating Ideas and Text Return to your earlier work.  ​Remember, you’re not starting from a blank

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slate. You can go back to your earlier work to decide what to keep, delete, change, or add as you create your remix. Are there key ideas you want to be sure to include in your remix? Will you need to condense some information from your earlier work? explore a new angle on your topic? reframe an argument? conduct more research? find or create images or sounds? Try  freewriting ,  listing , or  clustering  to figure out what you can use from your earlier work and what you’ll need to reimagine or create anew.

If you’re remixing for a new genre, examine sample texts in your chosen genre.  ​Whether you’re creating a brochure, a business plan, an info-

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graphic, or something else, find samples that you think are effective. Then study the genre features: What do you notice about the use of headings, bullets, photos, and other  design  elements? What do you notice about the formality of the language, the lengths of sentences and paragraphs, the  tone ? How is source information documented? How are  visuals  or sounds acknowledged or cited? Consider how you’ll make use of the genre features in your own remixed composition.

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If you’re remixing for a new medium, consider your capabilities and your options.  ​Maybe you want to create a website, a video, a podcast, or some other digital text, but you don’t have access to the tools you need or you’re not skilled in using them. Your school might have a multimedia support center or other resources to help you get started. Another option: with your instructor’s permission, you could perhaps create a “pre-production” document instead of a full-fledged multimedia piece. For example, you might make a mock-up of a website in a Microsoft Word document. Or you might write a script for a podcast or create a detailed  storyboard  for a video. Remember, too, that online tools and templates can make composing with sound and visuals easier. Some tools you might consider using (with a free trial) include: For brochures, advertisem*nts, posters Adobe Spark, Canva

For comics, storyboards, graphic novels Pixton

For infographics Venngage, Piktochart, Canva

For videos Animoto, Powtoon

For interactive line charts Knight Lab Storyline

For virtual reality stories Knight Lab Scene

For interactive timelines Tiki Toki, Knight Lab Timeline

For websites Adobe Spark, Google Sites, Weebly, Wix

For photo montages Fotor For picture books Storybird, Storyjumper For podcasts Podbean For slide presentations Prezi, Canva

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For free music and sound effects Free Music Archive, Orange Free Sounds For free images Pexels, Pixabay

Ways of Organizing a Remix Your organizational strategy will depend on your genre and medium, and you may be able to consult the relevant genre chapter as a guide. If appropriate, you might also consider creating a simple  storyboard  to plan out a sequence of text and images for your remix.

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Taking Stock of Your Work Take stock of what you’ve created by considering these questions: • What elements of your rhetorical situation changed as you moved from your original work to your remix — your purpose? audience? genre? stance? medium? In what specific ways does your remixed composition respond to those changes? • What part of the composing process was most enjoyable as you worked on your remix? Why? • What technological, logistical, design, or other challenges did you face in creating your remix, and how did you address them? • What previous composing experiences (print-based and multimedia ones), if any, did you draw on in creating your remix? Did those experiences help you or hinder you? • What resources did you use to complete your remix? How did those resources help you, and how might you use them in future composing situations? • What new things did you learn about your topic in the process of remixing your earlier work? • What new things did you learn about composing? about genres, media, and other elements of rhetorical situations? • What are you most proud of in this piece?

If you need more help 659–63 664–72 673–83 684–93

See Chapter 55 for guidelines on  CHOOSING MEDIA , Chapter 56 on  DESIGNING TEXT , Chapter 57 on  USING VISUALS ,  INCORPORATING SOUND , and Chapter 58 on  WRITING AND LEARNING ONLINE . If you’re required to write a formal  REFLECTION  to accompany your remix, see Chapter 35.

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Part 4

Fields When we study at a college or university, we take courses in many academic fields of study, or disciplines, in the humanities, social sciences, the sciences, and various careeroriented fields. Each field of study has its own methods of doing research and communicating, requiring us to learn how to read and write in the ways appropriate to that field. The chapters that follow offer advice on how to adapt your reading and writing to the demands of various fields of study.

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Fields 23 Fields of Study  295 24 Reading across Fields of Study   298 25 Writing in Academic Fields of Study   309

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Most colleges and universities are organized around fields of study, often referred to as disciplines, that share ways of seeing the universe, doing research, and presenting information — each through a different lens. For example, historians and economists differ in the ways they examine human behavior; biologists and physicists differ in the ways they study the natural world. The various majors that colleges and universities offer invite you to learn to see the world in their distinctive ways and join professions that use distinctive skills. Marketing majors, for example, learn ways of influencing human behavior, while education majors learn ways of teaching students and music majors learn the intricacies of playing an instrument or singing. As you immerse yourself in a major, you come to see the world with a particular perspective.

Academic Fields and General Education Your general education courses have a different goal: to prepare you for the demands of living in a complex and changing world — a world in which you’ll need to use your ability to understand a wide range of facts, theories, and concepts to interact with a wide variety of people, work in various jobs, and make important decisions. In other words, these courses are designed to teach you how to learn and think. They are also helpful if you’re not sure what you’d like to major in, because you can sample courses in various disciplines to help you decide. In your first couple of years, you will likely take general education courses in the following subject areas: • the humanities, which include the arts, communications, history, literature, music, philosophy, and religion • the social sciences, which may include anthropology, economics, political science, geography, psychology, and sociology

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• the sciences, which usually include such disciplines as astronomy, biology, chemistry, geology, mathematics, and physics It’s important to note that these lists are far from comprehensive; schools differ in the courses and majors they offer, so some schools may offer courses in fields that aren’t on any of these lists — and some of these courses might not be available at your school. You may also take courses in career-oriented fields such as education, business, engineering, and nursing.

Studying, Reading, and Writing in Academic Fields Each field focuses on the study of particular subjects and issues. In psychology, you study the human mind — what it is and why we behave as we do. In sociology, you study the way society shapes our actions. In biology, you study life itself, from bacteria and fungi to organisms interacting with their environment. In history, you study the past to understand the present. In nursing, you study best ways of providing patient care within the healthcare system. In engineering, you learn how to solve technical problems and design engineering systems. Each field also examines the world through a distinctive lens, using its own methods to study and analyze those subjects. For example, scientists test hypotheses with experiments designed to prove or disprove their accuracy; sociologists study groups by using statistical evidence; and historians examine diaries, speeches, or photographs from the past. In addition, disciplines develop technical terms and ways of using language that allow scholars to understand one another — but that can be hard to understand. For example, consider the word “significant.” When people say that something is significant in day-to-day conversation, they usually mean that it’s important, a big deal; in statistics, though, a significant result is one that is probably true — but it may or may not be important. Disciplines also present information using methods standard in that discipline. In business courses, you’re likely to read case studies of specific companies and write business cases and other communications. In education courses, you’ll read and write lesson plans; in science courses, you’ll read and write laboratory reports; in English courses, you’ll read fiction,

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poetry, and plays and write literary analyses. In each, you’ll present information in ways used in conversations among scholars in the discipline. And that means that you may need to adapt your reading and writing to the genres, concepts, and methods of the various academic fields you encounter.

THINKING ABOUT READING AND WRITING IN THE FIELDS • What reading assignments do you have in your other courses? • What makes them easy or hard to read? What helps you read them? • Do you enjoy reading some genres or subjects more than others? Why? • What writing assignments do you have in your other courses? • Do you alter or adjust your writing processes in different courses? Why or why not? • What makes writing in some courses hard or easy? • Do you enjoy writing in certain genres or on certain topics? Why?

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We read shopping lists differently from graphic novels and operating instructions differently from poems. For that matter, we read novels and poems differently — and go about reading textbooks differently still. Just as we write using various processes — generating ideas and text, drafting, getting responses and revising, editing, and proofreading — we vary our reading processes from task to task. We will likely read a mathematics textbook differently from a case study in nursing, and read a speech by Abraham Lincoln in a history course differently from the way we’d read it in a rhetoric course. This chapter offers advice on how to engage with texts in a variety of fields.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation A good way to approach reading in academic fields is to treat reading as a process that you adapt to the demands of each new situation. Instead of diving in and focusing your reading on the details of the content, it’s often useful to take some time to consider the text’s purpose, your purpose, the audience, the author, the author’s stance, the genre, and the medium and design. This information can help you decide how to get the most out of the text. 59–60

• The text’s  purpose . When was the text written, and why? Is it a textbook? a classic work that lays out concepts that have become fundamental to the field? a work proposing a new way of looking at an issue? • Your purpose as a reader. Why are you reading this text? To study for a test? To find sources for a research project? To learn about something on your own?

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• T he  audience . For whom was the text written? Students like you? Scholars in the field? Interested nonspecialists? Readers who lived at some point in the past or in a particular location? What facts and concepts does the text assume its readers already know and understand?

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• The author. Who wrote what you are reading? Does knowing the author’s identity matter? Is the author reliable and credible? For example, is the author a respected scholar? Is the author known for a particular point of view? • The author’s  stance . What is the author’s stance toward the subject? toward the reader? Approving? Hostile? Critical? Passionate? What elements of the text reveal the author’s stance?

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• T he  genre . What is the text’s genre? How was it meant to be read? Is that how you’re reading it? What are the genre’s key features? Knowing the key features of the genre can help you understand the text’s content as you read and predict the text’s organization.

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• T he  medium  and  design . The medium and design of a text affect how you must read it. You may need to read a textbook differently from an article found on the internet, for example. An online textbook may require different commenting and note-taking strategies from a print text. Understanding the limitations and the advantages of a particular genre, medium, and design will help you get the most out of your reading.

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Advice for Reading across Fields of Study Becoming knowledgeable in a field of study requires learning its specialized ways of thinking, writing, and reading, including the terminology specific to the field and the kinds of texts the field is likely to produce and study. However, there is some general advice that can help you as you begin to read the kinds of texts you’re likely to encounter in college.

Pay attention to vocabulary.   All disciplines require that you learn their vocabulary, which includes not only concepts and facts but also the names of important figures in the field and what they represent. Scholars typically write for other scholars in the same field, so they may assume that readers understand these terms and references and refer to them without

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explanation — and even “popular” writing often makes the same assumption. You’ll find that much of the work in all your courses consists of learning terms and concepts. So it’s important to take good notes in lectures, writing down terms your instructor emphasizes as they are defined, or, if they aren’t, writing them down to look up later. Your textbooks introduce and define key terms and often include a glossary in the back that provides definitions. In addition, be aware that disciplinary vocabularies use different kinds of words. In the sciences, the language is likely very technical, with many terms based on Greek and Latin roots (for example, the Greek prefix gastrforms “gastropod” [snail], “gastric” [stomach], and “gastroscopy” [examination of the abdomen and stomach]). In the humanities, the vocabulary often alludes to complex concepts. Consider, for example, these sentences from The Swerve, a book by literary historian Stephen Greenblatt: The household, the kinship network, the guild, the corporation — these were the building blocks of personhood. Independence and self-­ reliance had no cultural purchase.

Almost every term, from “household” to “guild” to “personhood” to “cultural purchase,” carries a wealth of information that must be understood. While understanding the scientific terms requires a good dictionary, these particular terms require an encyclopedia — or the knowledge gained by much reading.

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Consider the author — or not.   In some disciplines, it’s important to know who wrote a text, while in others the identity or  stance  of the author is considered irrelevant. Historians, for example, need to know who the author of a text is, and the perspective that author brings to the text is central to reading history. Literary scholars may try not to consider the author at all, focusing solely on a close reading of the text itself. Scientists may consider the author’s identity or the school or lab where the author works to decide whether or not to read a text. Mathematicians resolutely ignore the author, focusing solely on the information in the text itself. So to make sense of a text in a discipline, you need to find out how that discipline sees the role of the author.

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Identify key ideas and make comparisons.   Whatever the discipline, look for the main ideas its texts present. Rather than highlight or underline them, write out the key ideas in your own words. As you read texts on the same subject, you may want to develop a matrix to help you  compare and contrast  as well as  synthesize  the main ideas. The following chart, adapted from one developed by two librarians, presents the main ideas in two sources and then synthesizes the two versions. This example synthesizes one main idea found in each of two articles on how social media affect political participation among youths and then, in the third column, synthesizes those ideas: Source #1: Skorik, M. M. “Youth Engagement in Singapore”

Source #2: Ahmad, K. “Social Media and Youth Participatory Politics”

Synthesis: Main Ideas

Summary of 1st main idea: Singapore’s government has consistently applied controls on traditional media outlets but has left social media outlets untouched and unregulated.

Summary of 1st main idea: Online participation in political campaigns and issues was almost five times greater than traditional participation. Researchers concluded that this “could provide the participant with anonymity, in turn less vulnerability to political vengeance.”

Synthesis of 1st main ideas: Government control and censorship of mainstream media has caused protesters to look for alternative communication tools.

Summary of 2nd main idea:

Summary of 2nd main idea:

Synthesis of 2nd main ideas:

Summary of 3rd main idea:

Summary of 3rd main idea:

Synthesis of 3rd main ideas:

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Adapted from Michelle Chiles and Emily Brown, “Literature Review.” Bristol Community College, Fall River, MA, 2015. Unpublished PowerPoint.

More main ideas can be summarized and synthesized in the rows below; add as many as needed. You might also get into the habit of skimming the list of works cited or references at the end of articles and books. As you do so, you’ll begin to see who the most important people are in the discipline and what counts as evidence.

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Build a map of the discipline.  To make sense of a new idea, you need to have some way of fitting it into what you already know. Reading in an unfamiliar discipline can be hard because you likely won’t have a sense of where the information in the text fits into the conversations of the discipline, its history, or your goals — what you’d like to know or do in this field. It’s useful to visualize the discipline so that you can place readings into the appropriate context. Possible ways of organizing a discipline follow.

Draw a word map.   Using your textbook and perhaps some online sources as guides, draw an overview of the field. Here’s one for psychology:

————›

———›

Neuropsychology: Study of the brain’s structure and function in relation to behavior. May work with patients with brain injuries.

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Forensic: Study of psychology in relation to criminal investigations and the law.

————› ——— ——› Medical: Study of the

——› ———

— — — ——›

Social: Study of the social influences on human behavior.

Developmental: Study of psychological changes over a lifetime and interplay of innate characteristics and experience.

—› ———

PSYCHOLOGY

› ————

Evolutionary: Study of human behavior in relation to the evolution of humans.

—— —›

Clinical: Study of maladjustment, disability, and discomfort. See patients, alleviate distress.

Cognitive: Study of internal mental processes, such as memory, learning, language, and problem solving.

Occupational: Assessment of performance and behavior of people at work to increase their effectiveness and job satisfaction.

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relationship between a patient’s behavior and social context and their health or illness. See patients, work with medical professionals.

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Create a timeline.   Sometimes it’s helpful to understand how a discipline developed over time, how its research methods or emphases came to be, so you can place its texts and key developments within that history. Here, for example, is a timeline of the behaviorist approach in psychology:

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1920

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Timeline of the behaviorist approach, 1900–2000 1901 Ivan Pavlov teaches dogs to salivate in response to a bell, demonstrating classical conditioning. 1920 John Watson shows that classical conditioning works with people through Little Albert experiment. 1924 Mary Cover Jones shows how behavioral therapy can cure phobias. 1938 B. F. Skinner publishes The Behavior of Organisms on operant behavior. 1948 B. F. Skinner shows that pigeons can become “superstitious.”

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1961 Albert Bandura shows that aggressive behavior can be learned. 1968 Teodoro Ayllon and Nathan Azrin create a token economy in a psychiatric hospital. 1984 David McCormick and Richard Thompson show the role of the cerebellum in classical conditioning. 1991 Russell Richardson and Mahlon DeLong show the role of neurons in operant conditioning.

Write a conversation among researchers.   To better understand the sim­ilarities and differences among various schools of thought within a discipline, choose some of the most prominent proponents of each school and write a fictional conversation among them, outlining where they agree and disagree and where they published or disseminated their theories and findings. Here, for instance, is a snippet of a dialogue that might have

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taken place between developmental psychologist Jean Piaget and behavioral psychologist B. F. Skinner: Piaget: Children learn by adapting to conflicts between what they already know and challenges to that knowledge. Skinner: Bosh! We can’t know what’s in someone’s mind; we have to focus on their behavior. Piaget: If a child sees something that doesn’t match her preconceptions, she learns from it and through her behavior assimilates the new information into her thinking. Skinner: But if we reinforce a certain behavior by rewarding it, the child will do it more, and if we ignore it, the behavior will stop. It doesn’t matter what, if anything, the child is thinking.

TIPS FOR READING IN VARIOUS FIELDS OF STUDY Though groups of disciplines (the sciences, the arts and humanities, and so on) within each field share many similarities, each discipline has features unique to it. While you should expect to read difficult texts in any field several times, taking notes in your own words rather than highlighting or underlining, you need to be aware that reading, say, a biology text likely requires different reading techniques than a history text would. Here are some tips that can help you read effectively in various disciplines.

The Humanities

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• Much of the scholarship in the humanities is based on texts of one sort or another — the Constitution, the Bible, Toni Morrison’s novels, Mozart’s piano concertos, Georgia O’Keeffe’s paintings. When reading in the humanities, then, be aware of the differences between reading  primary sources  like those and  secondary sources  (commentaries, analyses, evaluations, and interpretations of primary sources). • When reading a primary source, you may need to ask questions like these: What kind of document is this? Who created it? When and

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where was the source produced? Who was it intended for? What is its historical context? Why did the creator of the source create it? How was it received at the time of its creation? Has that reception changed? • Read primary sources carefully and expect to reread them, perhaps several times. The way a text is organized, its sentence structure, its wording, and its imagery can all contribute to its overall message, and that’s true of documents like the Declaration of Independence, the Torah, and Descartes’s Principles of Philosophy. • Similarly, plan to reread secondary sources. The argument of interpretations, analyses, or critical works requires close attention to their logic and use of evidence. • Reading secondary sources requires that you examine them with a critical eye. The questions on pages 532–33 can help you understand the source and evaluate its accuracy, perspective or angle, and usefulness for your own work. • Remember that in the humanities, “criticism” doesn’t necessarily mean looking for flaws and errors. Rather, it’s another term for analyzing or evaluating. • Some key terms you need to know in order to read texts in the humanities include: “analogy,” “allusion,” “argument,” “deductive reasoning,” “inductive reasoning,” “irony,” “metaphor,” “natural law,” “natural rights,” “political rights,” “premise.” If you don’t understand the meaning of any of these terms, be sure to look up their definitions.

The Social Sciences • As you read in the social sciences, you need to pay attention to the hypotheses, claims, reasons, and evidence presented in the texts. Are they persuasive? How do they compare or contrast with other arguments? • Be sure you understand what a theory in the social sciences is: a way of organizing information to help enhance our understanding of behavior, events, phenomena, or issues. For example, in sociology, social exchange theory assumes that we behave according to our sense

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of whether we’ll be rewarded or punished by those with whom we interact. Remember that a theory is not an unsupported opinion but rather a coherent, logical frame for understanding and describing. 209–13

• Many articles include a  literature review  that summarizes and critiques previous work on the topic. Since scholarly work always grows out of the work of others, authors need to connect their work to articles and books previously published on the topic. Many literature reviews discuss limitations and problems in previous studies, ultimately identifying missing elements or gaps in them (often identified with words like “but,” “however,” and “although”), leading to a rationale for why this new work is needed. • The “Discussion” and “Conclusion” sections (which are sometimes combined into a single section) explain and interpret the results of a study in the context of the previous literature, note any limitations in the current study, and recommend future research to address those limitations. In other words, these sections discuss what the author thinks the study means. As you read, consider possible flaws or omissions in the author’s thinking as well as in the research design; for example, the study is too broad, the research question is poorly defined, or the study doesn’t address its significance — the “so what?” question. Your insights could lead you to a better understanding of the topic — or to a research project of your own. • Some key terms you need to know in order to read texts in the social sciences include “adaptation,” “aggregate,” “alienation,” “capital,” “class system,” “deviance,” “interest,” “markets,” “motivation,” “norm,” “power,” “schema,” “supply and demand,” and “value.” If you don’t understand the meaning of any of these terms, be sure to look up their definitions.

The Sciences • Remember that scientific texts are not collections of established facts. They make claims and argue for them, using reasons and evidence to support those arguments. Scientific texts report the results of studies

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and experiments and are written by scientists for an audience of other scientists in the same field. These texts are different from science writing, which is often a form of nonfiction sometimes written by scientists, journalists, or other writers and aimed at general audiences to inform about scientific topics. • If you’re examining potential sources for a research project, read selectively: use articles’  abstracts  to decide whether an article is likely to be useful for your project, and skim the text to find the information relating to your needs. Many scientific articles follow a structure nicknamed IMRaD (Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion), so you may need to read only the sections of the article that discuss what you’re looking for.

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• Pay attention to the sample size — the number of units of whatever is being studied that are included in the study (a larger sample size is generally better than a smaller one) — and error bars in graphs, which show the uncertainty in the findings of the study being described. • Scientists often make their arguments through visuals as much as through words, so read images, graphs, and charts as carefully as you would the words in the text. • For math problems or exercises, read the entire problem. Draw a picture or diagram to help visualize the problem. Read it again, identifying the most important information; be sure you understand what the problem is asking for. Then decide on a method for solving it, and come up with an answer. If you get stuck, think about how you’d deal with this information if it weren’t a math problem. In that case, how would you go about solving it? Finally, reread the problem, and ask yourself if you’ve answered the question that was asked. • Some key terms you need to know in order to read texts in the sciences include “skepticism,” “data,” “evidence/observation,” “hypothesis,” “variables,” “biodiversity,” “falsifiability,” “theory,” “evolution,” “experimentation,” “population,” “qualitative,” “quantitative,” “repeatability,” “empirical,” “paradigm,” “rational/­agnostic,” “cosmos.” If you don’t understand the meaning of any of these terms, be sure to look up their definitions.

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A Note on Career-Focused Fields In general, the advice here for reading texts in general-education courses holds for reading in every major, including career-oriented disciplines, such as business administration, nursing, teaching, and education. At the same time, it’s worth paying attention to the ways of thinking and the priorities of every field as you read in them. Here are a few examples: Both business administration and education focus on processes. In business, much reading discusses how businesspeople do things, manage workers, set up systems, follow best accounting practices, and the like; in education, your reading will likely focus on how to write lesson plans, how to present information appropriately, and so on. Drawing flowcharts and diagrams of processes can help you understand the steps involved and help you remember them. Engineers solve problems. So when reading engineering texts, look for relationships among concepts and ideas, and think about ways those concepts can be used to solve complex problems. Pay close attention to charts, graphs, diagrams, and visuals, as they often pack considerable information into a single image. When reading a graph, for example, consider not only the data as presented but also relationships in the data, and look for inferences and predictions you can make from the data presented. Engineering and nursing texts contain a lot of information, much of which you won’t need right away, so don’t try to master every fact or procedure. Instead, read the chapter introductions, summaries, and questions, and skim, looking for the answers to the questions. You might also review a study guide for the NCLEX nursing licensing exam or the NCEES PE exam in engineering and focus your reading on the subject areas the exam focuses on. In general, work to understand the concepts you need rather than trying to memorize an avalanche of information; look for patterns in the information and how concepts are interrelated.

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25 W riting in Academic Fields of Study

In a literature course, you’re asked to write an analysis of a short story. In a biology course, you must complete several lab reports. In a management course, you may create a detailed business plan. In fact, just about every course you take in college will require writing, and to write successfully, you’ll need to understand the rhetorical situation of your writing in the course — and in the larger field of study. That understanding will come in time, especially as you begin writing in your major. For now, this chapter offers help in determining the general expectations of writing done in various academic fields of study.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation To write in academic fields, you need to use the same processes and strategies you’re asked to use in your writing classes, including analyzing the  rhetorical situation  in which you’re writing. These questions can help:

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purpose Why do people in this discipline write? To share

59–60

scholarship and research findings? persuade? teach or provide guidance? show learning or mastery? track progress? propose solutions or plans of action? explore ideas or the self? earn grants or other rewards? something else?

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audience To whom do people in this discipline write? To colleagues and other scholars? students? managers? employees? customers? clients? granting agencies? the public? others? What do they already know about the discipline and the topic? What specialized terms or concepts do they understand, and which ones need to be defined or explained? How much evidence or support is required, and what kinds (empirical data, research findings, logical analysis, personal testimony, something else) will they accept?

65–71

genre What genres — reports, analyses, arguments, instructions, case studies, résumés, to name only a few — are typically used in this discipline? Are they organized in a certain way, and do they contain specific kinds of information? How much flexibility or room for innovation and creativity is allowed? What counts as evidence or support for assertions, and how is it cited (in citations in the text, in footnotes, in a works-cited page, informally in the text, or in some other way)?

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stance What attitude is considered appropriate in this discipline? Objective? Unemotional? Critical? Passionate? Should you write as a good student showing what you can do? an instructor of others? an advocate for a position? someone exploring an idea? something else? Does the discipline require a certain tone? formal or informal language? Can you include your personal perspective and write using “I”? Should you write only in the third person and use passive voice?

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media / design What media are typically used in this discipline? Print? Spoken? Electronic? A combination? Are certain design elements expected? to be avoided? Are visuals commonly used? What kinds — charts, graphs, photos, drawings, video or audio clips, or something else? In which genres? How much design freedom do you have?

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WRITING IN ACADEMIC FIELDS OF STUDY Generalizing about the requirements of writing in academic disciplines is tricky; what constitutes a discipline is sometimes unclear, and universities group academic fields together in various ways. For example, in some universities psychology is considered a science, while in others it’s a social science. Economics is sometimes part of a college of business administration, sometimes in a college of arts and sciences. In addition, the writing required in, say, history differs from that required in English literature, though both are considered parts of the humanities. Furthermore, certain genres of writing, like case studies and research reports, can share the same name but have very different organizational structures and content, depending on the discipline in which they’re used. For example, research reports in psychology and the natural sciences include a review of relevant scholarly literature in the introduction; in reports in sociology and other social sciences, the literature review is a separate section. A case study in business identifies a problem or issue in an organization; provides background information; includes a section, “Alternatives,” that discusses possible solutions to the problem and why they were rejected; outlines and argues for a proposed solution; and proposes specific strategies for achieving the proposed solution. A case study in nursing, on the other hand, includes three sections: patient status, which gives an overview of the patient’s condition and treatment; the nurse’s assessment of the patient’s symptoms and their possible causes; and a plan for helping the patient improve. The guide below offers general advice on how to write in broad academic disciplines, but as the differences between two disciplines’ expectations for case studies show, it’s always a good idea to ask all your professors for guidance on writing for their particular fields.

WRITING IN THE ARTS AND HUMANITIES The arts and humanities focus on human culture and the expressions of the human mind, and the purpose of writing in these fields is to explore and analyze aspects of the human experience across time and sometimes

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to create original works of literature, music, and art. The methods used in these disciplines include careful reading, critical analysis, historical research, interpretation, questioning, synthesis, and imitation. Courses in the arts and humanities typically include fine arts, architecture, music, dance, theater, film, photography, literature, history, classical and modern languages, linguistics, and philosophy. Writing in the arts and humanities generally serves a broad audience that includes professors and scholars, other students, the general , public, and oneself. Genres may include  annotated bibliographies   analyses ,  arguments , essays,  evaluations ,  journals , personal narratives,  reports ,  presentations ,  proposals ,  reflections , and  literature reviews , as well as fiction and poetry. Support is often based on textual and observational evidence and personal insight, though in some fields empirical evidence and data are also valued. Writers in the arts and humanities tend to use modifiers (such as “arguably” or “perhaps”) to acknowledge that their insights and conclusions are interpretive, not definitive. Documentation is usually done in  mla  or Chicago style. Elements of style favored in writing in the arts and humanities may include the use of “I”; the active voice; an informal vocabulary, if appropriate; and vivid language.

A Sample of Writing in History: A Researched Essay Identifies a problem in current understanding of a historical event.

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Offers a narrative of a past event.

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Demonstrates familiarity with relevant sources.

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The Pueblo Revolt of 1680 was one of the most  significant yet misrepresented  events in the history of American Indians. After three generations of being oppressed by Spanish rule,  the Pueblo Indians throughout the southwest region of North America banded together, organizing a widespread rebellion in the blistering summer heat of 1680  and successfully liberating themselves from their oppressors by springtime.  When examining the causes of the revolt, the lack of authentic Pueblo voices within the written records challenges the validity of the available sources and makes one wonder if we will ever

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know what went on through the eyes of the Pueblo.  Although in the traditional narrative, the Spaniards are regarded as missionaries sent by God to “save” the “barbaric” Pueblos, the event, if seen from the Pueblo perspective, can be understood as a violent retaliation by the Pueblo against the Spanish oppression.  The Pueblo uprisings, from burning down churches to the violent deaths of Catholic friars, reveal spiritual abuse as the major cause of the revolt.  Moreover, without texts written by the Pueblo, their architecture and spatial organization provide valuable insight into the causes of the revolt era and help to overcome the veneer of Spanish colonialism.

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Offers a strong thesis.

Clear, engaging writing style.

Adapted from “Letting the Unspoken Speak: A Reexamination of the Pueblo Revolt of 1680,” by E. McHugh, April 2015, Armstrong Undergraduate­ ­Journal of History 5, no. 1, digitalcommons.georgiasouthern.edu/aujh/vol5 /iss1/5.

Typical Organization of Arts and Humanities Essays Typical essays in the arts and humanities include these elements:

Introduction containing an argumentative thesis that is appropriately qualified or limited

An argument with support: reasons, evidence, examples, comparisons, and sometimes counterarguments

Conclusion that restates or refines thesis and raises questions and implications

List of works cited, usually in MLA or Chicago format

WRITING IN SCIENCE AND MATHEMATICS The sciences include biology, chemistry, geology, earth sciences, and physics. Mathematics may include statistics and logic as well. All these fields aim to increase our knowledge of the physical and natural world and its phenomena through observation, experiment, logic, and computation.

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Scientists and mathematicians typically write  abstracts ,  literature   reviews ,  reports ,  arguments , poster  presentations ,  proposals , and  lab reports  for audiences that may include other researchers, granting agencies, teachers, students, and the general public. Support in the sciences most often consists of repeatable empirical evidence; in mathematics, careful reasoning and the posing and solving of problems; in both, careful attention to the work of previous researchers. The writing in these fields focuses on the subject of the study, not the researcher, so most often the passive voice is used. Source material is paraphrased and summarized and cited in CSE or  apa  style.

A Sample of Scientific Writing: A Scientific Proposal in Biology

Careful reference to previous ­sentence.

Specialized disciplinary vocabulary.

Sources paraphrased and summarized.

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Planarians, flatworms widely known for their incredible regenerative capabilities, are able to restore an entire organism from even a small fragment of tissue.  This ability to regenerate  is attributed solely to neo• blasts,  pluripotent  adult stem cells located throughout the parenchyma • of the animal (Newmark & Sanchez Alvarado, 2002). Neoblasts  are stimulated  to migrate and proliferate in times of injury (Guedelhoefer & Sanchez Alvarado, 2012). Lethally irradiated planarians (devoid of stem cells and therefore unable to regenerate) can restore regenerative • capability through transplantation of a single  neoblast  from a healthy planarian (Wagner et al., 2011). Many studies have concluded that the • population of neoblasts  is not  hom*ogenous (Scimone et al., 2014), and there are different responses to different injury types.  Wenemoser and Reddien (2012) observed a body-wide increase in mitotic activity, such as cell division and migration, with any injury. 

•

Passive voice, third person.

Adapted from “Identifying Genes Involved in Suppression of Tumor Formation in the Planarian Schmidtea mediterranea,” by E. Dorsten, 2015, Best Integrated Writing, 2, https://corescholar.libraries.wright.edu/biw/vol2/iss1/6/.

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Typical Organization of Research Reports in the Sciences Typical reports in the sciences include elements that follow the IMRaD structure: Introduction, Methods, Results, and Discussion. They also include an abstract and a list of references. Abstract: one paragraph summarizing your research

Results: what you found out

Introduction: why this research is important

Discussion: what your findings mean

Methods: what you did, and what materials and equipment were needed

References: the sources you used

WRITING IN THE SOCIAL SCIENCES Anthropology, archaeology, criminal justice, cultural studies, gender studies, geography, psychology, political science, and sociology are considered social sciences because they all explore human behavior and society using observation, experimentation, questionnaires, and interviews. Social scientists typically write for fellow scholars, teachers, students, and the general public. They may write in several genres:  abstracts ,  annotated bibliographies ,  analyses ,  arguments , case studies, ethno­graphies,  literature or research reviews ,  reports ,  summaries , and  presentations . Claims are typically supported by empirical evidence, fieldwork done in natural settings, observation, and interviews. Writers in these fields strive for an objective tone, often using the passive voice. Sources may be cited in  apa  or Chicago style.

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A Sample of Writing in the Social Sciences: A Research Report

Objective tone.

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Research question.

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Specialized language.

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Literature review.

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Empirical method.

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Analysis and evaluation of results.

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Traditional economic theory states that a minimum wage above the marginal product of labor will lead to increased unemployment. . . . This paper aims to look at a different but related question, namely, whether or not a minimum wage makes a population happier.  Since people would arguably be happier if they could make enough money to cover their costs of living and less happy if the unemployment rate rose, the answer to such a question could help determine which  effect is the dominant force  and if an overall increase in the minimum wage is a good policy for society. Although  scant research has been done on a minimum wage’s effect on happiness, one could assume that research done on the size of the positive and negative effects of minimum wages could indicate whether or not it would leave a population happier. Therefore, I begin by  reviewing relevant economic theory and research  on the effects of a minimum wage increase to provide background information and describe what related questions have been approached and answered. I then describe  the data and method  used to answer this question, followed by the  interpretation of such results as well as the implications.

Adapted from “The Effect of Minimum Wages on Happiness,” by J. Nizamoff, Beyond Politics 2014, pp. 85–95, beyondpolitics.nd.edu/wp-content/uploads /2015/03/2013-14-Full-Journal.pdf.

Typical Organization of a Research Report in the Social Sciences Typical research reports in social science courses might include the following elements, though the order and names of the elements may differ from discipline to discipline. For example, in psychology, the literature review is part of the introduction, not a separate section as shown here.

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Abstract: one paragraph summarizing your research

Methodology: how you conducted your research

Introduction: why this research is important

Presentation and analysis of data or research: what you found

Statement of problem and hypothesis or thesis (may also be part of introduction)

Evaluation of research findings: what it means

Conclusions / summary of findings: how you sum up your research

Literature review: discussion of published works that are relevant to your topic

References: the sources you used, usually in APA format

WRITING IN BUSINESS The focus of the academic discipline of business is business-management principles and their application, and the purpose of writing in business is often to motivate readers to make a decision and then act on it. The primary methods used include problem solving, planning, and experiential learning, or learning by doing. Courses typically taught include finance, economics, human resources, marketing, operations management, and accounting. The audiences for writing in business usually include colleagues, employees in other departments, supervisors, managers, clients, customers, and other stakeholders — often several at the same time as a text moves through an organization. Genres may include memos, emails, letters, case studies, executive summaries, résumés, business plans,  reports , and  analyses . Support usually takes the form of facts and figures, examples, narratives, and expert testimony, and documentation is usually done in  apa  or Chicago style. Elements of style favored in business writing include these features: the main point is presented early; the language is simple, direct, and positive; and the active voice is used in most cases.

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A Sample of Writing in Business: A Business Plan Executive Summary

Precise numbers, confidently stated.

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Clear, direct writing, free of jargon and hedging.

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Positive tone.

Financial Projections Based on the size of our market and our defined market area,  our sales projections for the first year are $340,000. We project a growth rate of 10% per year for the first three years. The salary for each of the co-owners will be $40,000. On start up we will have six trained staff to provide pet services and expect to hire four more this year once financing is secured. To begin with, co-owner Pat Simpson will be scheduling appointments and coordinating services, but we plan to hire a full-time receptionist this year as well. Already we have service commitments from over 40 clients and plan to aggressively build our client base through newspaper, website, social media, and direct mail advertising.  The loving on-site professional care that Pet Grandma Inc. will provide is sure to appeal to cat and dog owners throughout the West Vancouver area.

Adapted from “Business Plan Executive Summary Sample,” by S. Ward, March 29, 2017, The Balance, www.thebalancesmb.com/business-plan -executive-summary-example-2948007.

Typical Organization of Business Plans A common assignment in business courses is a business plan. Business plans typically include these sections: Executive summary: outlines your proposal and what makes it likely to succeed

Target market: includes a list of who your customers are

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Company overview: includes a mission ­statement and describes the company’s ownership, structure, and location

Products and services: defines the problem your company will try to solve and how it will do so; the competition and how you can do better; what, specifically, you are selling

Marketing plan: specifies how you will reach your customers

Implementation plan: provides a schedule, a management team, and a financial plan

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WRITING IN EDUCATION The focus of study in education is how people learn and how to teach effectively. Its primary methods include observation, problem solving, and practice teaching. Courses typically center on teaching methods, the philosophy of education, educational measurement and assessment, educational psychology, and instructional technology, among others. Educators typically write for audiences that include their students, ­parents, other teachers, administrators, and the public. Genres may include lesson plans,  summaries ,  reports ,  annotated bibliographies , ­ portfolios , and  reflections . Support for claims may include facts, statistics, test scores, personal narratives, observations, and case studies. Sources are documented in  apa  style. Clarity and correctness are important in writing in education; “I” may be used in reflective writing and informal communication, while in formal writing the third person is preferred.

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A Sample of Writing in Education: A Teaching Philosophy Statement My Image of the Child:

Writing carefully crafted and proofread.

I believe that the student should be at the center of the instructional process.  I have an image of children as strong and capable beings. The classroom is a place where the teacher serves as a facilitator and guide as the students construct their own understanding of the world around them. Although it is the teacher’s role to plan lessons and evaluate students’ progress, it is of the utmost importance to always take the children and their own unique needs into consideration. For my second field experience,  I  was placed at Margaret Manson Elementary. Their • school motto is that “the children come first.” When children are the priority in teaching, an amazing amount of learning can take place. I believe in creating opportunities for students to develop to their fullest potential while developing and expanding their horizons and worldviews. In order to accomplish this, there must be a welcoming, positive environment that is open and honest. When students feel comfortable

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Sections labeled with headings.

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Argument is constructed to show teaching priorities.

As a reflective piece, “I” is appropriate.

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Discusses both teaching and personal qualities.

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at school they will surely be more engaged and responsive to class activities. I also consider it essential to be  passionate and enthusiastic about learning  so that the students can have a most relevant and meaningful experience.

Adapted from “Statement of Teaching Philosophy,” by K. Tams (n.d.), Kelly Tams’ Teaching Portfolio, tams.yolasite.com/my-philosophy-of-education .php.

Typical Organization of Lesson Plans in Education Frequent assignments in education courses are lesson plans, which typically include these elements: Learning objectives: what you want students to learn and how the lesson connects to course goals

Introduction for students: how you will introduce the lesson to your students

Sequence of activities: what you want students to do, in what order, and how you will move them from one activity to the next

Conclusion: how you will wrap up the lesson

Assessment plan: how you will assess both students’ work and the success of the lesson

WRITING IN ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY In the fields of engineering and technology, the focus is how to create and maintain useful structures, systems, processes, and machines. Engineers and technicians define problems as well as solve them, weigh various alternatives, and test possible solutions before presenting them to clients. This is a broad set of disciplines that may include civil, computer, electrical, mechanical, and structural engineering; computer science; and various technology specialties such as HVAC and automotive technology.

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Engineers and technicians typically write for their peers and team members, their clients, and the public. Writing tasks may include  abstracts ,  evaluations , instructions,  literature reviews , memos,  proposals ,  reports , and  summaries . Support usually includes data, examples, mathematical and logical reasoning, and experimental results, and sources are usually cited in  apa  format. Engineers and technicians value writing that includes logical ordering of ideas and precise language. Tables, charts, figures, illustrations, and headings and subheadings within the writing — all ways of quickly and efficiently conveying information —  are also valued.

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A Sample of Writing in Engineering: A Research Report 2. MATERIALS AND METHODS • To begin testing, an ATV test bed was designed (see Figure 1). To secure • the machine, a loose rope was attached to the front of the machine and then to the testing platform. An additional rope was then attached at • a 90° angle to the front of the machine to act as the lifting force. The test bed platform could be raised to a maximum of 60°, which simulated hills or steep terrain. Each test was started at 0° and then increased by increments of 10 (angles were determined by a digital level attached to platform). Once the machine was at the appropriate angle, a lift force • was applied to observe turnover weight. Once the machine’s tires lifted • off of the platform, the scale was read to determine the amount of weight. Each machine was tested from front to rear and side to side.

Headings used. Charts, graphs, and photos included. Precise description of procedure.

Technical language used for precision.

Adapted from “Analysis of All Terrain Vehicle Crash Mechanisms,” by S. Tanner, M. Aitken, and J. N. Warnock, 2008–10, Journal of Undergraduate Research in Bioengineering, docplayer.net/32747021-Analysis -of-all-terrain-vehicle-crash-mechanisms.html.

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Typical Organization of Lab Reports in Engineering Lab reports, a typical assignment in engineering classes, usually include the IMRaD elements, along with an abstract and a list of references. This format may vary depending on the engineering field and the requirements of the experiment or task. Introduction: why this research is important

Methods: what you did and what equipment was needed

Results of the experiment or task: what you found

Discussion of those results: what they mean

References: the sources you used

WRITING IN HEALTH SCIENCES AND NURSING

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Health sciences and nursing is a broad set of fields that may include nursing, anatomy, physiology, nutrition, and pharmacology as well as athletic training, exercise science, physical or occupational therapy, and speech pathology. Consequently, the methods used are also broad and varied, and they may include study of theories and techniques, observation, roleplaying, and experiential learning. Writing in these fields may include  abstracts ,  annotated bibliographies ,  arguments , case studies, instructions, personal narratives,  reports ,  reflections ,  literature or research reviews ,  summaries , and charts  describing  patients’ conditions and care. The audiences for this writing may include other patient care providers, clinic and hospital administrators and staff, insurance companies, and patients or clients. Support for assertions typically includes scholarly research, observation, and description, and high value is placed on accurate information and detail. Other aspects of this writing include a preference for writing in the third person, paraphrased source information, and the use of headings and subheadings. Sources are usually cited in  apa  format.

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A Sample of Writing in Nursing: A Case Study •

Patient status.

Ms. D is a morbidly obese 67 year old female, 240 lbs, 5’2” with type II diabetes mellitus. She was transferred from a nursing home to the hospital for pneumonia, but also suffers from congestive heart disease, sleep apnea, psoriasis, and osteoarthritis. She has a weak but productive cough with tonsil suction, and she was on breathing treatments with albuterol. Her skin is very dry and thin with several lesions and yeast infections, and the deep folds of her lower abdomen bled during the bed bath. She did not want to wear her breathing mask at night and refused to get out of bed. She cried when encouraged to use the bathroom or to move her legs. She expressed great fear of returning to the nursing home. From the outset, we realized that Ms. D needed care beyond physical therapy and treatment for pneumonia; we realized that her obesity and refusal to participate in her health care expressed important patterns of her life. Morbid obesity does not happen overnight; it is a progressive pattern associated with activity levels, diet, and self-care practices, as well as other possible physiological and psychosocial dimensions. Johnson’s (1980) Behavioral System Model, which outlines seven behavioral subsystems, was helpful in providing a perspective of the complexity of Ms. D’s health needs. We also assessed that Ms. D lacked confidence in taking care of herself (reflecting the achievement subsystem) and lacked a sense of family support from her two sons (affiliative subsystem). Her fear of returning to the nursing home coupled with her need for ongoing care challenged her sense of interdependency as addressed in Johnson’s dependency subsystem.

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Careful description of patient’s condition. Detailed observation using precise terms.

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Behavior as well as medical conditions taken into account.

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Patient assessment.

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Use of paraphrased scholarly source to aid assessment.

Adapted from “Esthetic Knowing with a Hospitalized Morbidly Obese Patient,” by R. Brinkley, K. Ricker, and K. Tuomey, Fall 2007, Journal of Undergraduate Nursing Scholarship, 9, no. 1, http://www.juns.nursing .arizona.edu/articles/Fall%202007/Esthetic%20knowing.htm. Accessed July 21, 2010.

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Typical Organization of Case Studies in Health Sciences and Nursing Case studies, typical assignments in these fields, usually include the following elements: Patient status: symptoms, lab findings, ­history, doctor’s orders, how much help the patient needs

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Assessment: why the patient is being cared for; origins of current situation; when symptoms started, how the patient has been treated, the expected outcome

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Care plan: what has been done, how current care is working, how care might be improved

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Part 5

Processes To create anything, we generally break the work down into a series of steps. We follow a recipe (or the directions on a box) to bake a cake; we break a song down into different parts and the music into various chords to arrange a piece of music. So it is when we write. We rely on various processes to get from a blank screen or page to a finished product. The chapters that follow offer advice on some of these processes — from writing as inquiry and generating ideas to drafting to getting response to editing to compiling a portfolio , and more.

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Processes 26 Processes of Writing  327 27 Writing as Inquiry   329 28 Generating Ideas and Text   333 29 Organizing Your Writing, Guiding Your Readers  345 30 Drafting  364 31 Assessing Your Own Writing  367 32 Getting Response and Revising   372 33 Editing and Proofreading   380 34 Compiling a Portfolio   385 35 Reflecting on Your Writing  391

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26 Processes of Writing

Many people think that good writers can just sit down in front of a screen or piece of paper and create a finished piece of writing. After all, in the movies, newspaper reporters pound out stories that then appear on the front page; novelists crank out hundreds of pages without breaking a sweat. That kind of talent for getting it right the first time happens on occasion, or for formulaic writing like business memos. Most of the time, though, most of us write the way we learn to draw, play piano, drive a car, or bake a cake: by working, practicing, making mistakes, and changing what we do as a result. In a way, because we usually need to generate ideas, draft, revise, and edit what we write, we learn to write every time we write. You may have learned in school about a writing process that looks something like this: prewrite, outline, draft, revise, edit — five steps, to be done in order. That’s the way the chapters in this book look, too; but that ordering is somewhat misleading. Sometimes we have to do considerable research before we can begin to figure out what we need to say. Sometimes we have to revise several times, getting responses from others between drafts. Sometimes we reach a certain point in our writing and realize that we need to stop, abandon the work in progress, and start over. And sometimes we can knock out a draft quickly, revising and editing as we go. In other words, the processes writers use can vary from text to text, genre to genre, task to task. What is easy to describe as a set of lockstep activities: research S generate ideas S write a draft S get response S revise S edit

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often looks more like this:

And it will differ from text to text, assignment to assignment. As writer and writing teacher Donald M. Murray once wrote, “Any process is legitimate if it produces an effective text.” Still, it’s good to know the various processes you can use to create an effective text. The chapters that follow can help you understand writing as a way of learning; give you ways to generate ideas and text; offer advice on organizing, drafting, revising, and editing your writing; help you assess your own writing and get response from others; compile your writing into a portfolio; and reflect on your writing and learning.

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27 Writing as Inquiry

Sometimes we write to say what we think. Other times, however, we write in order to figure out what we think. Much of the writing you do in college will be the latter. Even as you learn to write, you will be writing to learn. This chapter is about writing with a spirit of inquiry — approaching writing projects with curiosity, moving beyond the familiar, keeping your eyes open, tackling issues that don’t have easy answers. It’s about starting with questions and going from there — and taking risks. As Mark Twain once said, “Sail away from the safe harbor. . . . Explore. Dream. Discover.” This chapter offers strategies for doing just that with your writing.

Starting with Questions The most important thing is to start with questions — with what you don’t know rather than with what you do know. Your goal is to learn about your subject and then to learn more. If you’re writing about a topic you know well, you want to expand on what you already know. In academic writing, good topics arise from important questions, issues, and problems that are already being discussed. As a writer, you need to find out what’s being said about your topic and then see your writing as a way of entering that larger conversation. So start with questions, and don’t expect to find easy answers. If there were easy answers, there would be no reason for discussion — or for you to write. For purposes of inquiry, the best questions can’t be answered by looking in a reference book or searching online. Instead, they are ones that help you explore what you think — and why. As it happens, many of the strategies in this book can help you ask questions of this kind. Following are some questions to get you started:

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How can it be  defined ?   What is it, and what does it do? Look it up in a dictionary; check Wikipedia. Remember, though, that these are only starting points. How else can it be defined? What more is there to know about it? If your topic is being debated, chances are that its very defini­tion is subject to debate. If, for instance, you’re writing about gay marriage, how you define marriage will affect how you approach the topic.

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How can it be  described ?  What details should you include? From what vantage point should you describe your topic? If, for example, your topic is the physiological effects of running a marathon, what are those effects — on the lungs, heart muscles, nerves, brain, and so on? How will you describe the physical experience of running over twenty-six miles from the runner’s point of view?

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How can it be  explained ?  What does it do? How does it work? If you’re investigating the use of performance-enhancing drugs by athletes, for example, what exactly are the effects of these drugs? What makes them dangerous — and are they always dangerous or only in certain conditions? Why are they illegal — and should they be illegal?

437–44

What can it be  compared  with?   Again using performance-enhancing drugs by athletes as an example, how does taking such supple­ments compare with wearing high-tech footwear or uniforms? Does such a comparison make you see taking steroids or other performance-enhancing drugs in a new light?

405–9

What may have  caused  it? What might be its  effects ?  Who or what does it affect? What causes cerebral palsy in children, for example? What are its symptoms? If children with cerebral palsy are not treated, what might be the consequences?

431–36

How can it be  classified ?  Is it a topic or issue that can be placed into categories of similar topics or issues? What categories can it be placed into? Are there legal and illegal performance-enhancing supplements (human growth hormone and steroids, for instance), and what’s the difference? Are some safe and others less safe? Classifying your topic in this way can help you consider its complexities.

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27 Writing as Inquiry

How can it be  analyzed ?  What parts can the topic be divided into? For

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example, if you’re exploring the health effects of cell phone use, you might ask these questions: What evidence, if any, suggests that cell phone radiation causes cancer? What cancers are associated with cell phone use? What do medical experts and phone manufacturers say? How can cell phone users reduce their risk?

How can it be interpreted?  What does it really mean? How do you i­nterpret it, and how does your interpretation differ from those of other writers? What evidence supports your interpretation, and what argues against it? Imagine you’re exploring the topic of sports injuries among young women. Do these injuries reflect a larger cultural preoccupation with competition? anatomical differences between male and female bodies? something else?

What expectations does it raise?   What will happen next? What makes you think so? If this happens, how will it affect those involved? For instance, will the governing bodies of professional sports require more testing of athletes’ blood, urine, and hair than they do now? Will such tests be unfair to athletes taking drugs for legitimate medical needs? What are the different  positions  on it?  What controversies or disagree­

164–95

ments exist, and what evidence is offered for the various positions? What else might be said? Are there any groups or individuals who seem especially authoritative? If so, you might want to explore what they have said.

What are your own feelings about it?  What interests you about the topic? How much do you already know about it? For example, if you’re an athlete, how do you feel about competing against others who may have taken performance-enhancing supplements? If a friend has problems with drugs, do those problems affect your thinking about drugs in sports? How do you react to what others say about the topic? What else do you want to find out?

Are there other ways to think about it?   Is what seems true in this case also true in others? How can you apply this subject in another situation? Will what works in another situation also work here? What do you have

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to do to adapt it? Imagine you’re writing about traffic fatalities. If replacing stop signs with roundabouts or traffic circles reduced traffic fatalities in England, could doing so also reduce accidents in the United States? You can also start with the journalist’s  questions : Who? What? When? Where? Why? How? Asking questions from these various perspectives can help you deepen your understanding of your topic by leading you to see it from many angles.

Keeping a Journal 343–44

One way to get into the habit of using writing as a tool for inquiry is to keep a  journal . You can use a journal to record your observations, reactions, whatever you wish. Some writers find journals especially useful places to articulate questions or speculations. You may be assigned by teachers to do certain work in a journal, but in general you can use a journal to write for yourself. Note your ideas, speculate, digress — go wherever your thoughts lead you.

Keeping a Blog 687

You may also wish to explore issues or other ideas online in the form of a  blog . Most blogs have a comments section that allows others to read and respond to what you write, leading to potentially fruitful discussions. You can also include links to other websites, helping you connect various strands of thought and research. The blogs of others, along with online discussion forums and groups, may also be useful sources of opinion on your topic, but keep in mind that they probably aren’t authoritative research sources. There are a number of search engines that can help you find blog posts related to specific topics, including blogsearchengine.org and Blogarama. You can create your own blog on sites such as Blogger, Tumblr, Svbtle, or WordPress.

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All good writing revolves around ideas. Whether you’re writing a jobapplication letter, a sonnet, or an essay, you’ll always spend time and effort generating ideas. Some writers can come up with a topic, put their thoughts in order, and flesh out their arguments in their heads; but most of us need to write out our ideas, play with them, tease them out, and examine them from some distance and from multiple perspectives. This chapter offers activities that can help you do just that. Freewriting, looping, listing, clustering, and talking can help you explore what you already know about a subject; cubing, questioning, and using visuals nudge you to consider a subject in new ways; and outlining, letter writing, journal keeping, and discovery drafting offer ways to generate a text.

Freewriting An informal method of exploring a subject by writing about it, freewriting (“writing freely”) can help you generate ideas and come up with materials for your draft. Here’s how to do it: 1. Write as quickly as you can without stopping for 5 to 10 minutes (or until you fill a screen or page). 2. If you have a subject to explore, write it at the top and then start writing about it; but if you stray, don’t worry — just keep writing. If you don’t have a subject yet, just start writing and don’t stop until the time is up. If you can’t think of anything to say, write that (“I can’t think of anything to say”) again and again until you do — and you will! 3. Once the time is up, read over what you’ve written, and underline or highlight passages that interest you.

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4. Write some more, starting with one of those underlined or highlighted passages as your new topic. Repeat the process until you’ve come up with a usable topic.

Looping Looping is a more focused version of freewriting; it can help you explore what you already know about a subject. You stop, reflect on what you’ve written, and then write again, developing your understanding in the process. It’s good for clarifying your knowledge and understanding of a subject and finding a focus. Here’s what to do: 1. Write for 5 to 10 minutes on whatever you know about your subject. This is your first loop. 2. Read over what you wrote, and then write a single sentence summarizing the most important or interesting idea. You might try completing one of these sentences: “I guess what I was trying to say was ... ” or “What surprises me most in reading what I wrote is .. .” This will be the start of another loop. 3. Write again for 5 to 10 minutes, using your summary sentence as your beginning and your focus. Again, read what you’ve written, and then write a sentence capturing the most important idea — in a third loop. Keep going until you have enough understanding of your topic to be able to decide on a tentative focus — something you can write about.

Listing Some writers find it useful to keep lists of ideas that occur to them while they’re thinking about a topic. Follow these steps: 1. Write a list of potential ideas about a topic. Don’t try to limit your list — include anything that interests you. 2. Look for relationships among the items on your list: What patterns do you see? If other ideas occur to you, add them to the list.

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3. Arrange the items in an order that makes sense for your purpose and can serve as the beginning of an outline for your writing.

Clustering or Mapping Ideas Clustering (also called “idea mapping,” “mind mapping,” or “concept mapping”) is a way of generating and connecting ideas visually. It’s useful for seeing how various ideas relate to one another and for developing subtopics. You can create a cluster with pencil and paper or use an online mapping tool like Coggle, Bubble.us, or MindMup. Either way, the technique is simple: 1. Write your topic in the middle of a page or computer screen. 2. Write ideas relating to that topic around it, and connect them to the central idea with lines or shapes.

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formulas

caffeine sugar

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ingredients

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low fat low carb

target groups in US & foreign markets

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marketing past & present

artificial sweeteners

Soft Drinks

obesity health effects

diabetes instead of milk, juices

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3. Write down examples, facts, or other details relating to each idea, and join them to connecting topics. 4. Keep going until you can’t think of anything else relating to your topic. You should end up with various ideas about your topic, and the clusters will enable you to see how they relate to one another. In the example cluster on the topic of “soft drinks” on the previous page, note how some ideas link not only to the main topic or related topics but also to other ideas.

Talking Sometimes it’s helpful to generate ideas by talking rather than writing. You might talk about your topic with a classmate, a teacher, a tutor, a friend — or even just talk out loud to yourself. If you do, be sure to take notes during or after talking, or use a voice-recording app to capture the conversation. You can also use free transcription apps, like Otter or Google Voice, to generate a print version of the conversation. Some apps, like Otter, even tag keywords from the transcript, helping you see themes and patterns in your conversation.

Cubing A cube has six sides. You can examine a topic as you might a cube, looking at it in these six ways: 456–63

•   describe  it. What’s its color? shape? age? size? What’s it made of?

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•   compare  it to something else. What is it similar to or different from?

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• Associate it with other things. What does it remind you of? What connections does it have to other things? How would you  classify  it?

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•   analyze  it. How is it made? Where did it come from? Where is it going? How are its parts related? • Apply it. What is it used for? What can be done with it?

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•   argue  for or against it. Choose a position relating to your subject, and defend it.

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Questioning It’s always useful to ask questions. One way is to start with What? Who? When? Where? How? and Why? A particular method of exploring a topic is to ask questions as if the topic were a play. This method is especially useful for exploring literature, history, the arts, and the social sciences. Start with these questions: • What? What happens? How is it similar to or different from other actions? • Who? Who are the actors? Who are the participants, and who are the spectators? How do the actors affect the action, and how are they affected by it? • When? When does the action take place? How often does it happen? What happens before, after, or at the same time? Would it be different at another time? Does the time have historical significance? • Where? What is the setting? What is the situation, and what makes it significant? • How? How does the action occur? What are the steps in the process? What techniques are required? What equipment is needed? • Why? Why did this happen? What are the actors’ motives? What end does the action serve?

Using Visuals Some writers use visuals — photographs, presentation slides, drawings — as tools for sparking or capturing ideas or for thinking about a topic in a new way. Here are some suggestions for doing so: • Search for images related to your topic on a stock photo site like Pixabay or Pexels. Then freewrite about the images you find. What do the images make you think of? Do they help you see your topic in a different light? Do they suggest details you hadn’t considered?

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ere’s an example of how a stock image helped one student generH ate ideas for a memoir about memories of her grandmother raising chickens and selling eggs. Freewrite: This picture is beautiful, the way the eggs are almost glowing in the basket. It makes me think of bounty — of having more than enough. Maybe that’s part of the significance of my story? I didn’t realize it when I was young, but Grandma sold the eggs to make her own money — to afford “extras” and to have some financial freedom apart from Grandpa. And then there was all the bounty she left us in stories and memories and recipes. Maybe I can play on this theme somehow in my writing?

• Make a PowerPoint or Keynote slide about your topic. Choose keywords for headings and subheadings, find images or icons for each, and experiment with different arrangements of the material. Doing so might help you make new connections or associations among your ideas. • Do what filmmakers and animators do when developing a new project: create a storyboard — a scene-by-scene plan of what the final product might look like. You could draw scenes by hand (stick figures are fine!) or use stock images to represent each scene or section of your draft. Search for storyboard templates online to get started. ere’s an example storyboard for the student memoir mentioned earH lier. Created with a template and stock images from the graphic design app Canva, the storyboard helped the student generate memories and details and then organize them before drafting.

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Storyboard: “Egg Money” Memoir

SCENE #1 I feed the chickens while Grandma gathers the eggs, placing them gently in the pockets of her tattered apron.

SCENE #2 Grandma shows me how to separate an egg, whisking out the last drop of egg white with her finger. “No use wasting,” she says. Later, after we make our egg deliveries, we’ll come home to Grandma’s angel food cake.

SCENE #3 Grandma and I place the eggs in cartons and wrap each in newspaper and twine.

SCENE #4 We load up the old wheelbarrow with egg cartons and set out to deliver our goods to Grandma’s customers.

SCENE #5 After the egg deliveries, Grandma records every transaction in her cash ledger. I sit next to her, eating my angel food cake.

SCENE #6 Going through Grandma’s attic as an adult, I find her recipe books, her countyfair ribbons, her cash ledgers documenting forty years’ worth of chicken raising and egg selling.

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Using Genre Features Genres typically include particular kinds of information and organize it in particular ways. One way to generate ideas and text, then, is to identify the key features of the genre in which you’re writing and use them to guide you as you write. Of course, you may alter the genre’s features or combine two or more genres in order to achieve your purpose, but the overall shape and content of the genre can give you a way to develop and organize your ideas and research.

Outlining You may create an informal outline by simply listing your ideas and numbering them in the order in which you want to write about them. You might prefer to make a working outline, to show the hierarchy of relationships among your ideas. While still informal, a working outline distinguishes your main ideas and your support, often through simple indentation: First main idea    Supporting evidence or detail    Supporting evidence or detail Second main idea    Supporting evidence or detail    Supporting evidence or detail A formal outline shows the hierarchy of your ideas through a system of indenting, numbering, and lettering. Remember that when you divide a point into more specific subpoints, you should have at least two of them — you can’t divide something into only one part. Also, try to keep items at each level parallel in structure. Formal outlines work this way: Thesis statement I.  First reason A.  Supporting evidence 1.  Detail of evidence 2.  Detail of evidence B.  Supporting evidence II.  Another reason

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Here is a formal outline of the first part of the  mla  research report by Dylan Borchers, “Against the Odds: Harry S. Truman and the Election of 1948,” that shows how he organized it:

mla

608–14

I.  Introduction: Outcome of 1948 election II.  Bad predictions by pollsters A.  Pollsters stopped polling. B. Dewey supporters became overconfident. C. Truman supporters were either energized or stayed home. III.  Dewey’s campaign overly cautious A.  He was overconfident. B. His message was vague — he avoided taking stands. IV.  Dewey’s public appearances poor A. He was seen as aloof, uncomfortable with crowds. B.  He made blunders. C.  His speeches were dull. Writing out a formal outline can be helpful when you’re dealing with a complex subject; as you revise your drafts, though, be flexible and ready to change your outline as your understanding of your topic develops. Another way to outline is to use an online organizing tool like Trello, Jira, or Wrike. These tools let you create a digital bulletin board to which you post “lists” and “cards.” Below is an example Trello board that outlines Dylan Borchers’s research report. Each color-coded “card” represents a supporting detail for the main point listed at the top of a column of cards. You can drag cards to different lists, depending on where the cards fit

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best. You can expand a card to jot down notes, save website links, and add attachments, as in the following example, which includes notes and links to sources that support one of Borchers’s points.

Letter Writing Sometimes the prospect of writing a report or an essay can be intimidating. You may find that simply explaining your topic to someone will help you get started. In that case, write a letter or an email or a text

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to someone you know — your best friend, a parent or grandparent, a sibling — in which you discuss your subject. Explain it in terms that your reader can understand. Use the unsent letter to rehearse your topic; make it a kind of rough draft that you can then revise and develop to suit your actual audience.

Keeping a Journal Some writers find that writing in a journal helps them generate ideas. Making note of your ideas, thoughts, feelings, or the events of your day can provide a wealth of topics, and a journal can also be a good place to explore what you think and why you think as you do. Journals are private — you are the only audience — so you can feel free to write whatever comes to mind. And you can do more than write. If you choose a paper journal, doodle or draw in it, and keep clippings or scraps of paper between the pages; if you keep your journal on a computer, copy and paste interesting images or text you find online. Whatever form your journal takes, feel free to play with its contents, and don’t worry about errors or grammar. The goal is to generate ideas; let yourself wander without censoring yourself or fretting that your writing is incorrect or incomplete or incoherent. That’s OK. One measure of the success of journaling and other personal writing is length: journal entries,  freewriting ,  listing ,  cubing , and other types of informal writing are like warm-up exercises to limber you up and get you thinking. If you don’t give them enough time and space, they may not do what you want them to. Often, students’ best insights appear at the end of their journal entries. Had they stopped before that point, they would never have had those good ideas. After you’ve written several journal entries, one way to study the ideas in them is to highlight useful patterns in different colors. For example, journal entries usually include some questioning and speculating, as well as summarizing and paraphrasing. Try color-coding each of these, sentence by sentence, phrase by phrase: yellow for summaries or paraphrases, green for questions, blue for speculations. Do any colors dominate? If, for example, your entries are mostly yellow, you may be restating the course

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content or quoting from the textbook too much and perhaps need to ask more questions. If you’re generating ideas for an essay, you might assign colors to ideas or themes to see which ones are the most promising.

Discovery Drafting 364–66

Some writers do best by jumping in and writing. Here are the steps to take if you’re ready to write a preliminary  draft : 1. Write your draft quickly, in one sitting if possible. 2. Assume that you are writing to discover what you want to say and how you need to say it — and that you will make substantial revisions in a later part of the process. 3. Don’t worry about grammatical or factual correctness — if you can’t think of a word, leave a blank space to fill in later. If you’re unsure of a date or spelling, put a question mark in parentheses as a reminder to check it later. Just write.

If you need more help 79

See each of the  GENRE  chapters for specific strategies for generating text in each genre.

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29 O rganizing Your Writing, Guiding Your Readers

Traffic lights, street signs, and lines on the road help drivers find their way. Readers need similar guidance — to know, for example, whether they’re reading a report or an argument, evaluation, or proposal. They also need to know what to expect: What will the report be about? What perspective will it offer? What will this paragraph cover? What about the next one? How do the two paragraphs relate to each other — and to the rest of the essay? When you write, then, you need to organize your ideas and provide cues to help your readers navigate your text and understand the points you’re trying to make. This chapter offers advice on organizing your writing and guiding your readers through it by organizing the text and its paragraphs; creating strong thesis statements, clear topic sentences, and helpful beginnings and titles; ending appropriately; and tying ideas together with transitions. See also the  genre  chapters for advice on organizing texts in specific genres.

79

Outlining At some point as writers develop their ideas and collect their information, they often create an  outline  as a plan for drafting a text. You may create an informal outline by simply listing your ideas and numbering them in the order in which you want to write about them. You might prefer to make a working outline to show the hierarchy of relationships among your ideas. Or you might need to create a formal outline, which shows the hierarchy of your ideas through a system of indenting, numbering, and lettering. And you might use an online organizing tool.

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Beginning

57

Whenever we pick up something to read, we generally start by looking at the first few words or sentences to see if they grab our attention, and based on them, we decide whether to keep reading. Beginnings, then, are important — both for attracting readers and for giving them some information about what’s to come. How you begin depends on your  rhetorical situation , especially your purpose and audience. Academic audiences generally expect a text’s introduction to establish context, explaining how the text fits into some larger conversation, addresses certain questions, or explores an aspect of the subject. Most introductions also offer a brief description of the text’s content, often in the form of a thesis statement. The following opening paragraph of a report on cyberloafing — that is, using an employer’s internet access to do nonwork-related tasks — does all of this: Increased technological advances and widespread internet access have revolutionized the workplace. But all this innovation has come with at least one questionable stowaway: cyberloafing — the act of browsing the internet for personal use while at work. It’s becoming essential for organizations to understand cyberloafing: what it is, which factors lead employees to do it, and how it affects productivity. At its worst, cyberloafing can jeopardize an organization’s information security, so awareness about cyberloafing is essential to both employees and employers in order to prevent its most negative consequences.  — Rocia Celeste Mejia Avila, “Cyberloafing: Distraction or Motivation?”

If you’re writing for a nonacademic audience or genre — for a newspaper or a website, for example — your introduction may need to entice your readers to read on by connecting your text to their interests through shared experiences, anecdotes, or some other attention-getting device. Cynthia Bass, writing a newspaper article about the Gettysburg Address on its 135th anniversary, connects that date — the day her audience would read it — to Lincoln’s address. She then develops the rationale for thinking about the

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speech and introduces her specific topic: debates about the writing and delivery of the Gettysburg Address: November 19 is the 135th anniversary of the Gettysburg Address. On that day in 1863, with the Civil War only half over and the worst yet to come, Abraham Lincoln delivered a speech now universally regarded as both the most important oration in U.S. history and the best explanation — ”government of the people, by the people, for the people” — of why this nation exists. We would expect the history of an event so monumental as the Gettysburg Address to be well established. The truth is just the opposite. The only thing scholars agree on is that the speech is short — only ten sentences — and that it took Lincoln under five minutes to stand up, deliver it, and sit back down. Everything else — when Lincoln wrote it, where he wrote it, how quickly he wrote it, how he was invited, how the audience reacted — has been open to debate since the moment the words left his mouth.  — Cynthia Bass, “Gettysburg Address: Two Versions”

Thesis Statements A thesis identifies the topic of a text along with the claim being made about it. A good thesis helps readers understand an essay. Working to create a sharp thesis can help you focus both your thinking and your writing. Here are four steps for moving from a topic to a thesis statement: 1. State your topic as a question. ​You may have an idea for a topic, such as “gasoline prices,” “analysis of ‘real women’ ad campaigns,” or “famine.” Those may be good topics, but they’re not thesis statements, primarily because none of them actually makes a statement. A good way to begin moving from topic to thesis statement is to turn your topic into a question: What causes fluctuations in gasoline prices? Are ads picturing “real women” who aren’t models effective? What can be done to prevent famine in Somalia?

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2. Then turn your question into a position. ​A thesis statement is an assertion — it takes a stand or makes a claim. Whether you’re writing a report or an argument, you are saying, “This is the way I see . . .” or “My research shows . . .” or “This is what I believe about . . .” Your thesis statement announces your position on the question you’re raising about the topic, so a relatively easy way of establishing a thesis is to answer your own question: Gasoline prices fluctuate for several reasons. Ads picturing “real women” instead of models are effective because most women can easily identify with them. The threat of famine in Somalia could be avoided if certain measures are taken.

3. Narrow your thesis. ​A good thesis is specific, guiding you as you write and showing readers exactly what your essay will cover. The preceding thesis statements need to be qualified and focused — they should be made more specific. For example: Gasoline prices fluctuate because of production procedures, consumer demand, international politics, and oil companies’ policies. Dove’s “Campaign for Self-Esteem” and Aerie’s ads featuring Iskra Lawrence work because consumers can identify with the women’s bodies and admire their confidence in displaying them. The current threat of famine in Somalia could be avoided if the government and humanitarian organizations increase the availability of water, provide shipments of food, and supply medical and nutrition assistance. 337

A good way to narrow a thesis is to ask  questions  about it: Why do gasoline prices fluctuate? How could the Somalia famine have been avoided? The answers will help you craft a narrow, focused thesis. 4. Qualify your thesis. ​Sometimes you want to make a strong argument and state your thesis bluntly. Often, however, you need to acknowledge

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that your assertions may be challenged or may not be unconditionally true. In those cases, consider limiting the scope of your thesis by adding to it such terms as “may,” “probably,” “apparently,” “very likely,” “sometimes,” and “often.” Gasoline prices very likely fluctuate because of production procedures, consumer demand, international politics, and oil companies’ policies. Dove’s and Aerie’s ad campaigns featuring “real women” may work because consumers can identify with the women’s bodies and admire their confidence in displaying them. The current threat of famine in Somalia could probably be avoided if the government and humanitarian organizations increase the availability of water, provide shipments of food, and supply medical and nutrition assistance.

Thesis statements are typically positioned at or near the end of a text’s introduction, to let readers know at the outset what is being claimed and what the text will be aiming to prove. A thesis doesn’t necessarily forecast your organization, which may be more complex than the thesis itself. For example, Notre Dame University student Sarah Dzubay’s essay, “An Outbreak of the Irrational,” contains this thesis statement: The movement to opt out of vaccinations is irrational and dangerous because individuals advocating for their right to exercise their personal freedom are looking in the wrong places for justification and ignoring the threat they present to society as a whole.

The essay that follows this thesis statement includes discussions of herd immunity; a socioeconomic profile of parents who choose not to have their children vaccinated; outlines of the rationales those parents use to justify their choice, which include fear of autism, fear of causing other health problems, and political and ethical values; and a conclusion that parents who refuse to have their children vaccinated are being unreasonable and selfish. The paper delivers what the thesis promises but includes important information not mentioned in the thesis itself.

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More Ways of Beginning Explain the larger context of your topic. ​Most essays are part of an ongoing conversation, so you might begin by outlining the context of the subject to which your writing responds. An essay exploring the “emotional climate” of the United States after Barack Obama became president begins by describing the national moods during some of his predecessors’ administrations: Every president plays a symbolic, almost mythological role that’s hard to talk about, much less quantify  —  it’s like trying to grab a ball of mercury. I’m not referring to using the bully pulpit to shape the national agenda but to the way that the president, as America’s most inescapably powerful figure, colors the emotional climate of the country. John Kennedy and Ronald Reagan did this affirmatively, expressing ideals that shaped the whole culture. Setting a buoyant tone, they didn’t just change movies, music, and television; they changed attitudes. Other presidents did the same, only unpleasantly. Richard Nixon created a mood of angry paranoia, Jimmy Carter one of dreary defeatism, and George W. Bush, especially in that seemingly endless second term, managed to do both at once.  — John Powers, “Dreams from My President”

Forecast your organization. ​You might begin by briefly summarizing the way in which you will organize your text. The following example from a scholarly paper on the role of immigrants in the US labor market offers background on the subject and describes the points that the writer’s analysis will discuss: Debates about illegal immigration, border security, skill levels of workers, unemployment, job growth and competition, and entrepreneurship all rely, to some extent, on perceptions of immigrants’ role in the U.S. labor market. These views are often shaped as much by politics and emotion as by facts. To better frame these debates, this short analysis provides data on immigrants in the labor force at the current time of slowed immigration,

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high unemployment, and low job growth and highlights eight industries where immigrants are especially vital. How large a share of the labor force are they and how does that vary by particular industry? How do immigrants compare to native-born workers in their educational attainment and occupational profiles? The answers matter because our economy is dependent on immigrant labor now and for the future. The U.S. population is aging rapidly as the baby boom cohort enters old age and retirement. As a result, the labor force will increasingly depend upon immigrants and their children to replace current workers and fill new jobs. This analysis puts a spotlight on immigrant workers to examine their basic trends in the labor force and how these workers fit into specific industries and occupations of interest.  — Audrey Singer, “Immigrant Workers in the U.S. Labor Force”

Offer background information. ​If your readers may not know as much as you do about your topic, giving them information to help them understand your position can be important, as journalist David Guterson does in an essay on the Mall of America: Last April, on a visit to the new Mall of America near Minneapolis, I carried with me the public-relations press kit provided for the benefit of reporters. It included an assortment of “fun facts” about the mall: 140,000 hot dogs sold each week, 10,000 permanent jobs, 44 escalators and 17 elevators, 12,750 parking places, 13,300 short tons of steel, $1 million in cash disbursed weekly from 8 automatic-teller machines. Opened in the summer of 1992, the mall was built on the 78-acre site of the former Metropolitan Stadium, a five-minute drive from the ­Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. With 4.2 million square feet of floor space — including twenty-two times the retail footage of the average American shopping center — the Mall of America was “the largest fully enclosed combination retail and family entertainment-complex in the United States.”  — David Guterson, “Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured. One Week at the Mall of America”

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A roller coaster in the Mall of America.

Visuals can also help provide context. For example, Guterson’s essay on the Mall of America might have included a photo like the one above to convey the size of the structure.

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Define key terms or concepts. ​The success of an argument often hinges on how key terms are  defined . You may wish to provide definitions up front — as an advocacy website, Health Care without Harm, does in a report on the hazards of fragrances in health-care facilities: To many people, the word “fragrance” means something that smells nice, such as perfume. We don’t often stop to think that scents are chemicals. Fragrance chemicals are organic compounds that volatilize, or vaporize into the air — that’s why we can smell them. They are added to products to give them a scent or to mask the odor of other ingredients. The volatile organic chemicals (VOCs) emitted by fragrance products can contribute to poor indoor air quality (IAQ) and are associated with a variety of adverse health effects.  — ”Fragrances,” Health Care without Harm

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Connect your subject to your readers’ interests or values. ​You’ll always want to establish  common ground  with your readers, and sometimes

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you may wish to do so immediately, in your introduction, as in this example: We all want to feel safe. Most Americans lock their doors at night, lock their cars in parking lots, try to park near buildings or under lights, and wear seat belts. Many invest in expensive security systems, carry pepper spray or a stun gun, keep guns in their homes, or take selfdefense classes. Obviously, safety and security are important issues in American life.  — Andy McDonie, “Airport Security: What Price Safety?”

Start with something that will provoke readers’ interest. Writer and columnist Anna Quindlen opens an essay on feminism with the following eye-opening assertion: Let’s use the F word here. People say it’s inappropriate, offensive, that it puts people off. But it seems to me it’s the best way to begin, when it’s simultaneously devalued and invaluable. Feminist. Feminist, feminist, feminist.  — Anna Quindlen, “Still Needing the F Word”

Start with an anecdote. ​Sometimes a brief  narrative  helps bring a topic to life for readers. See, for example, how an essay on student loans and their effects on individuals and society begins:

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Rodney Spangler first enrolled at the University of North Texas in 2001. There, he pursued a degree in what the school now calls “integrative studies,” focusing on history, philosophy, and criminal justice. Rodney also worked full time, and so attended UNT off and on until 2007. For every semester of classes, Spangler took out student loans. When he left — without a degree — he estimates that he had about $30,000 in outstanding student debt.  — Charles Fain Lehman, “The Student Loan Trap: When Debt Delays Life”

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Ask a question. ​Instead of opening with a thesis statement, you might open with a question about the topic your text will explore, as this study of the status of women in science does: Are women’s minds different from men’s minds? In spite of the women’s movement, the age-old debate centering around this question continues. We are surrounded by evidence of de facto differences between men’s and women’s intellects — in the problems that interest them, in the ways they try to solve those problems, and in the professions they choose. Even though it has become fashionable to view such differences as environmental in origin, the temptation to seek an explanation in terms of innate differences remains a powerful one.  — Evelyn Fox Keller, “Women in Science: A Social Analysis”

Jump right in. ​Occasionally you may wish to start as close to the key action as possible. See how one writer jumps right in when opening his profile of a blues concert: Long Tongue, the Blues Merchant, strolls onstage. His guitar rides sidesaddle against his hip. The drummer slides onto the tripod seat behind the drums, adjusts the high-hat cymbal, and runs a quick, off-beat tattoo on the tom-tom, then relaxes. The bass player plugs into the amplifier, checks the settings on the control panel, and nods his okay. Three horn players stand off to one side, clustered, lurking like brilliant sorcererwizards waiting to do magic with their musical instruments.  — Jerome Washington, “The Blues Merchant”

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Endings are important because they’re the last words readers read. How you end a text will depend in part on your  rhetorical situation . You may end by wrapping up loose ends, or you may wish to give readers something to think about. Some endings do both, as Nicholas Kristof’s does in arguing that guns should be regulated in the same way cars are. In the first of two paragraphs, Kristof acknowledges that his proposals aren’t a cure-all for gun violence but notes that thousands of lives would be saved. In the second, he sums up his entire argument:

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These steps won’t eliminate gun deaths any more than seatbelts eliminate auto deaths. But if a combination of measures could reduce the toll by one-third, that would be 10,000 lives saved every year. A century ago, we reacted to deaths and injuries from unregulated vehicles by imposing sensible safety measures that have saved hundreds of thousands of lives a year. Why can’t we ask politicians to be just as rational about guns?  — Nicholas Kristof, “Our Blind Spot about Guns”

Kristof’s final question provides readers with food for thought and challenges legislators either to come up with “sensible safety measures” or to provide reasons why they can’t or won’t.

Ways of Ending Restate your main point. ​Sometimes you’ll simply summarize your central idea, as in this example from an essay arguing that people have no “inner” self and that they should be judged by their actions alone: The inner man is a fantasy. If it helps you to identify with one, by all means, do so; preserve it, cherish it, embrace it, but do not present it to others for evaluation or consideration, for excuse or exculpation, or, for that matter, for punishment or disapproval. Like any fantasy, it serves your purposes alone. It has no standing in the real world which we share with each other. Those character traits, those attitudes, that behavior — that strange and alien stuff sticking out all over you — that’s the real you!  — Willard Gaylin, “What You See Is the Real You”

Discuss the implications of your argument. ​The following conclusion of an essay on the development of Post-it notes leads readers to consider how failure sometimes leads to innovation: Post-it notes provide but one example of a technological artifact that has evolved from a perceived failure of existing artifacts to function without frustrating. Again, it is not that form follows function but, rather, that the form of one thing follows from the failure of another thing to function as we would like. Whether it be bookmarks that fail

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to stay in place or taped-on notes that fail to leave a once-nice surface clean and intact, their failure and perceived failure is what leads to the true evolution of artifacts. That the perception of failure may take centuries to develop, as in the case of loose bookmarks, does not reduce the importance of the principle in shaping our world.  — Henry Petroski, “Little Things Can Mean a Lot”

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End with an anecdote. ​If you take this approach, you might finish a  narrative  that was begun earlier in your text or add one that illustrates the point you’re making. See how Sarah Vowell uses a story to end an essay on students’ need to examine news reporting critically: I looked at Joanne McGlynn’s syllabus for her media studies course, the one she handed out at the beginning of the year, stating the goals of the class. By the end of the year, she hoped her students would be better able to challenge everything from novels to newscasts, that they would come to identify just who is telling a story and how that person’s point of view affects the story being told. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that this lesson has been learned. In fact, just recently, a student came up to McGlynn and told her something all teachers dream of hearing. The girl told the teacher that she was listening to the radio, singing along with her favorite song, and halfway through the sing-along she stopped and asked herself, “What am I singing? What do these words mean? What are they trying to tell me?” And then, this young citizen of the republic jokingly complained, “I can’t even turn on the radio without thinking anymore.”  — Sarah Vowell, “Democracy and Things Like That”

Refer to the beginning. ​One way to bring closure to a text is to bring up something discussed in the beginning; often the reference adds to or even changes the original meaning. For example, Amy Tan opens an essay on her Chinese mother’s English by establishing herself as a writer and lover of language who uses many versions of English in her writing: I am not a scholar of English or literature. I cannot give you much more than personal opinions on the English language and its variations in this country or others. I am a writer. And by that definition, I am someone who has always loved language. I am fascinated by language in daily life. I spend a

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great deal of my time thinking about the power of language — the way it can evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth. Language is the tool of my trade. And I use them all — all the Englishes I grew up with.

At the end of her essay, Tan repeats this phrase, but now she describes language not in terms of its power to evoke emotions, images, and ideas but in its power to evoke “the essence” of her mother. When she began to write fiction, she says, [I] decided I should envision a reader for the stories I would write. And the reader I decided upon was my mother, because these were stories about mothers. So with this reader in mind — and in fact she did read my early drafts — I began to write stories using all the Englishes I grew up with: the English I spoke to my mother, which for lack of a better term might be described as “simple”; the English she used with me, which for lack of a better term might be described as “broken”; my translation of her Chinese, which could certainly be described as “watered down”; and what I imagined to be her translation of her Chinese if she could speak in perfect English, her internal language, and for that I sought to preserve the essence, but neither an English nor a Chinese structure. I wanted to capture what language ability tests can never reveal: her intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.  — Amy Tan, “Mother Tongue”

Note how Tan not only repeats “all the Englishes I grew up with” but also provides parallel lists of what those Englishes can do for her: “evoke an emotion, a visual image, a complex idea, or a simple truth” on the one hand, and on the other, capture her mother’s “intent, her passion, her imagery, the rhythms of her speech and the nature of her thoughts.”

Propose some action. ​A good example of this strategy is the following conclusion of a report on the consequences of binge drinking among college students: The scope of the problem makes immediate results of any interventions highly unlikely. Colleges need to be committed to large-scale and

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long-term behavior-change strategies, including referral of alcohol abusers to appropriate treatment. Frequent binge drinkers on college campuses are similar to other alcohol abusers elsewhere in their tendency to deny that they have a problem. Indeed, their youth, the visibility of others who drink the same way, and the shelter of the college community may make them less likely to recognize the problem. In addition to addressing the health problems of alcohol abusers, a major effort should address the large group of students who are not binge drinkers on campus who are adversely affected by the alcohol-related behavior of binge drinkers.  — Henry Wechsler et al., “Health and Behavioral Consequences of Binge Drinking in College: A National Survey of Students at 140 Campuses”

Paragraphs

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Paragraphs are groups of sentences (and sometimes a single sentence) that relate to one main idea. Paragraphs in some of your textbooks may contain several hundred words, while paragraphs in news articles often contain just a single sentence or even, occasionally, a phrase. In English, we show paragraphs by indenting the first word; this is one way that the white space of a text conveys meaning. In fact, we sometimes use white space to create emphasis, especially with very brief paragraphs. This one, for instance. In academic writing, paragraphs usually contain a topic sentence that defines the main idea. Then the paragraph is developed by presenting examples or using defining, narrating, classifying, and other writing  strategies . Following is advice on writing topic sentences and organizing paragraphs.

Topic Sentences Just as a thesis statement announces the topic and position of an essay, a topic sentence states the subject and focus of a paragraph. Good paragraphs focus on a single point, which is summarized in a topic sentence. Usually, but not always, the topic sentence begins the paragraph:

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Graduating from high school or college is an exciting, occasionally even traumatic event. Your identity changes as you move from being a high school teenager to a university student or a worker; your connection to home loosens as you attend school elsewhere, move to a place of your own, or simply exercise your right to stay out later. You suddenly find yourself doing different things, thinking different thoughts, fretting about different matters. As recent high school graduate T. J. Devoe puts it, “I wasn’t really scared, but having this vast range of opportunity made me uneasy. I didn’t know what was gonna happen.” Jenny Petrow, in describing her first year out of college, observes, “It’s a tough year. It was for all my friends.”  — Sydney Lewis, Help Wanted: Tales from the First Job Front

Sometimes the topic sentence may come at the end of the paragraph or even at the end of the preceding paragraph, depending on the way the paragraphs relate to one another. At other times, a topic sentence will summarize or restate a point made in the previous paragraph, helping readers understand what they’ve just read as they move on to the next point. See how linguist Deborah Tannen does this in the first paragraphs of an article on differences in men’s and women’s conversational styles: I was addressing a small gathering in a suburban Virginia living room — a women’s group that had invited men to join them. Throughout the evening, one man had been particularly talkative, frequently offering ideas and anecdotes, while his wife sat silently beside him on the couch. Toward the end of the evening, I commented that women frequently complain that their husbands don’t talk to them. This man quickly concurred. He gestured toward his wife and said, “She’s the talker in our family.” The room burst into laughter; the man looked puzzled and hurt. “It’s true,” he explained. “When I come home from work I have nothing to say. If she didn’t keep the conversation going, we’d spend the whole evening in silence.” This episode crystallizes the irony that although American men tend to talk more than women in public situations, they often talk less at home. And this pattern is wreaking havoc with marriage.  — Deborah Tannen, “Sex, Lies, and Conversation: Why Is It So Hard for Men and Women to Talk to Each Other?”

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Of course, simply stating the topic of a paragraph isn’t enough; you need to support your main point with evidence to prove that your idea or claim is worth considering. Such  evidence  might include reasons, facts, statistics, quotations or citations from authorities, anecdotes, textual evidence, observations, and examples. For example, in the paragraph below, linguist Dennis Baron uses quotations and examples to make his point that “they” as a singular pronoun (“Everyone forgets their passwords,” rather than “his or her” or merely “his”) has been in use for a long time: Faced with the onslaught of coined pronouns in the 1880s, singular they began to seem less and less objectionable, and more observers recognized the old but much-maligned singular they as the people’s choice. For example, a writer in 1884 recommended they as an interim solution to be used while experts pondered thon and lin. According to another writer, C. K. Maddox, there was no need for invented pronouns because they has been singular “for ages” in the writing of standard authors like Dickens. Maddox criticized experts who withheld their approval: “Our grammarians and dictionary makers are very conservative and often positively stupid” for rejecting a term “so natural to the genius of our language that hardly one in a hundred has noticed it as an intrusion.”  — Dennis Baron, What’s Your Pronoun? Beyond He and She

The topic sentence begins the paragraph, and then information from two different sources — a paraphrase of one writer’s solution and a quotation from another — provides support for the assertion made in the topic sentence.

Paragraph Length and Number The simplest answer to the questions “How long should my paragraphs be?” and “How many paragraphs should my essays contain?” is this: “as long as you need” and “as many as you need.” In other words, the length and number of paragraphs in a text depend on your content, on what you need to say. Generally, your paragraphs should signal that groups of sentences are related in meaning and should help readers make those connections. For those reasons, too many brief paragraphs may make a

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text hard to read because each sentence stands alone, unrelated to the surrounding sentences, while long paragraphs or an essay of a single, very long paragraph forces readers to try to group related ideas together themselves. In other words, the number of paragraphs and the number of sentences within a paragraph depend on the message you’re trying to convey — not on some formula or arbitrary number. Here are some reasons to begin a new paragraph: • to introduce a new subject or idea • to emphasize an idea • to give readers a needed pause • to signal a new speaker when writing dialogue

Transitions Transitions help readers move from thought to thought — from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph. You’re likely to use a number of transitions as you draft; when  editing , you should make a point of checking transitions. Here are some common ones: Causes and effects

Comparisons

accordingly

Changes in direction or expectations

as a result

although

in the same way

because

but

like

consequently

even though

likewise

hence

however

similarly

so

in contrast

then

instead

therefore

nevertheless

thus

nonetheless on the contrary on the one hand . . . on the other hand still

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also

Examples for example for instance indeed in fact such as

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Sequences or similarities

Summary or conclusion

Time relations

as a result

after

again

as we have seen

as soon as

also

finally

at first

and

in a word

at the same time

and then

in any event

before

besides

in brief

eventually

finally

in conclusion

finally

first, . . . second, . . . third, etc.

in other words

immediately

furthermore

in short

later

in the end

meanwhile

in the final analysis

next

in the whole

simultaneously

therefore

so far

thus

soon

to summarize

then

last moreover next too

thereafter

Transitions can also help readers move from paragraph to paragraph and, by summing up the previous paragraph’s main point, show how the paragraphs are connected. A common way to summarize is to use phrases like “this ________” and “such ________ .” Here’s an example from an anthropologist’s study of American college students:

“these personal networks” ties the second paragraph to the preceding one.

“Such conversations” sums up the example as a single concept.

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• •

•

When I asked students in interviews whether they felt they had a “community” at AnyU, most said yes. But what they meant by community were these personal networks of friends that some referred to as “my homeys.” It was these small, ego-centered groups that were the backbone of most students’ social experience in the university. On a daily basis these personal networks were easily recognizable within the dorm and on campus. “Where are you now?” says the cell phone caller walking back to the dorm from class. “I’m on my way home, so ask Jeffrey and Mark to come, and I’ll meet you at my room at 8.” Such conversations are everywhere.  — Rebekah Nathan, My Freshman Year

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Titles A title serves various purposes, naming a text and providing clues to the content. It also helps readers decide whether they want to read further, so it’s worth your while to come up with a title that attracts interest. Some titles include subtitles. You generally have considerable freedom in choosing a title, but you’ll always want to consider the  rhetorical situation  to be sure your title serves your purpose and appeals to the audience you want to reach. Some titles simply announce the subject of the text:

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“Black Men and Public Space” The Pencil “Why Colleges Shower Their Students with A’s” “Does Texting Affect Writing?”

Some titles provoke readers or otherwise entice them to read: “Kill ‘Em! Crush ‘Em! Eat ‘Em Raw!” “Thank God for the Atom Bomb” “Just How Dishonest Are Most Students?”

Sometimes writers add a subtitle to explain or illuminate the title: Aria: Memoir of a Bilingual Childhood “It’s in Our Genes: The Biological Basis of Human Mating Behavior” “From Realism to Virtual Reality: Images of America’s Wars”

Sometimes when you’re starting to write, you’ll think of a title that helps you generate ideas and write. More often, though, a title is one of the last things you’ll write, when you know what you’ve written and can craft a suitable name for your text.

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At some point, you need to write out a draft. By the time you begin drafting, you’ve probably written quite a bit — in the form of notes, lists, outlines, and other kinds of informal writing. This chapter offers some hints on how to write a draft — and reminds you that as you draft, you may well need to get more information, rethink some aspect of your work, or follow new ideas that occur to you as you write.

Establishing a Schedule with Deadlines Don’t wait until the last minute to write. Computers crash, printers jam. Life intervenes in unpredictable ways. You increase your chances of success immensely by setting and meeting deadlines: research done by____; rough draft done by ____; revisions done by ____; final draft edited, proofread, and submitted by ____. How much time you need varies with each writing task; but trying to compress everything into twenty-four or fortyeight hours before the deadline is asking for trouble.

Getting Comfortable When are you at your best? When do you have your best ideas? For major writing projects, consider establishing a schedule that lets you write when you stand the best chance of doing good work. Schedule breaks for exercise and snacks. Find a good place to write — a place where there’s a good surface on which to spread out your materials, good lighting, a comfortable chair, and the right tools (computer, pen, paper) for the job. Often, however, we must make do: you may have to do your drafting in a busy computer lab or classroom. The trick is to make yourself as comfortable as you can manage. Sort out what you need from what you prefer.

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Starting to Write All of the above advice notwithstanding, don’t worry so much about the trappings of your writing situation that you don’t get around to writing. Write. Start by  freewriting , start with a first sentence, start with awful writing that you know you’ll discard later — but write. That’s what gets you warmed up and going.

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Write quickly in spurts.   Write quickly with the goal of generating a complete draft, or a complete section of a longer draft, in one sitting. If you need to stop in the middle, make some notes about where you were headed when you stopped so that you can easily pick up your train of thought when you begin again. Break down your writing task into small segments.  Big projects can be intimidating. But you can always write one section or, if need be, one paragraph or even a single sentence — and then another and another. It’s a little like dieting. If I think I need to lose twenty pounds, I get discouraged and head for the doughnuts; but if I decide that I’ll lose one pound and I lose it, well, I’ll lose another — that I can do. Expect surprises.   Writing is a form of thinking; the words you write lead you down certain roads and away from others. You may end up somewhere you didn’t anticipate. Sometimes that can be a good thing — but sometimes you can write yourself into a dead end or out onto a tangent. Just know that this is natural, part of every writer’s experience, and it’s OK to double back or follow a new path that opens up before you. Expect to write more than one draft.  A first sentence, first page, or first draft represents your attempt to organize into words your thoughts, ideas, feelings, research findings, and more. It’s likely that some of that first try will not achieve your goals. That’s OK — having writing onscreen or on paper that you can change, add to, and cut means you’re part of the way there. As you revise, you can fill in gaps and improve your writing and thinking.

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Dealing with Writer’s Block You may sit down to write but find that you can’t — nothing occurs to you; your mind is blank. Don’t panic; here are some ways to get started writing again: • Think of the assignment as a problem to be solved. Try to capture that problem in a single sentence: “How do I explain the context for my topic?” “What is the best way to organize my argument?” “What am I trying to do in the conclusion?” • Start early and break the writing task into small segments drafted over several days. Waiting until the night before an assignment is due can create panic — and writer’s block. • Stop trying: take a walk, take a shower, do something else. Come back in a half hour, refreshed. 333–35

• Open a new document on your computer or get a fresh piece of paper and  freewrite , or try  looping  or  listing . What are you trying to say? Just let whatever comes come — you may write yourself out of your box. • If you usually write on your computer, turn it off, get out paper and pencil, and write by hand.

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• Try a graphic approach: try  clustering , or draw a chart of what you want to say; draw a picture or a comic strip; doodle.

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• Do some  research  on your topic to see what others have said about it.

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•   talk  to someone about what you are trying to do. If there’s a writing center at your school, talk to a tutor:  get response . If there’s no one to talk to, then talk to yourself. It’s the act of talking — using your mouth instead of your hands — that can free you up.

372–74

If you need more help 333–44 367–71 372–79

See Chapter 28 on  GENERATING IDEAS AND TEXT  if you find you need more material. And once you have a draft, see Chapter 31 on  ASSESSING YOUR OWN WRITING  and Chapter 32 on  GETTING RESPONSE AND REVISING  for help evaluating your draft.

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31 A ssessing Your Own Writing

In school and out, our work is continually assessed by others. Teachers judge whether our writing meets their expectations; supervisors decide whether we merit raises or promotions; even friends and relatives size up in various ways the things we do. As writers, we need to assess our own work — to step back and see it with a critical eye. By developing standards of our own and being conscious of the standards others use, we can assess — and shape — our writing, making sure it does what we want it to do. This chapter will help you assess your own written work. What we write for others must stand on its own because we usually aren’t present when it is read — we rarely get to explain to readers why we did what we did and what it means. So we need to make our writing as clear as we can before we submit, post, display, or publish it. It’s a good idea to assess your writing in two stages, first considering how well it meets the needs of your particular rhetorical situation, then studying the text itself to check its focus, argument, organization, and clarity. Sometimes some simple questions can get you started: What works? What still needs work? Where do I need to say more (or less)?

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose What is your purpose for writing? If you have multiple

59–60

purposes, list them, and then note which ones are the most important. How well does your draft achieve your

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purpose(s)? If you’re writing for an assignment, what are its requirements, and does your draft meet those requirements? 61–64

audience To whom are you writing? What do those readers need and expect, as far as you can tell? Does your draft answer their needs? Do you define any terms and explain any concepts they won’t know?

65–71

genre What is the genre, and what are the key features of that genre? Does your draft include each of those features? If not, is there a good reason?

72–74

stance Is your attitude toward your topic and your audience clear? Does your language project the personality and tone that you want?

75–77

media / design What medium (print? spoken? electronic?) or combination of media is your text intended for, and how well does your writing suit it? How well does the design of the text suit your purpose and audience? Does it meet any requirements of the genre or of the assignment, if you’re writing for one?

Examining the Text Itself Look carefully at your text to see how well it says what you want it to say. Start with its focus, and then examine its support, organization, and clarity, in that order. If your writing lacks focus, the revising you’ll do to sharpen the focus is likely to change everything else; if it needs more support, the organization may well change.

Consider your focus.  Your writing should have a clear point, and every part of the writing should support that point. Here are some questions that can help you see if your draft is adequately focused:

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31 Assessing Your Own Writing

• What is your main point? Even if it’s not stated directly, you should be able to summarize it for yourself in a single sentence. • If your genre calls for a thesis, is it narrow or broad enough to suit the needs and expectations of your audience? • How does the  beginning  focus attention on your thesis or main point?

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• Does each paragraph support or develop that point? Do any paragraphs or sentences stray from your focus? • Does the  ending  leave readers thinking about your main point? Is there another way of concluding the essay that would sharpen your focus?

354–58

Consider the support you provide.  Your writing needs to give readers enough information to understand your points and see the logic of your thinking. How much information is enough will vary according to your audience. If they already know a lot about your subject or are likely to agree with your point of view, you may need to give less detail. If, however, they are unfamiliar with your topic or are skeptical about your views, you will probably need to provide much more. • If your text makes an argument, what  reasons  and  evidence  do you give to support your thesis? Where might more information be helpful? If you’re writing online, could you provide links to it?

413–14

• What key terms and concepts do you  define ? Are there any other terms your readers might need to have explained? Could you do so by providing links?

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• Where might you include more  description  or other detail?

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• Do you make any  comparisons ? Especially if your readers won’t be familiar with your topic, it can help to compare it with something more familiar.

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• If you include  narrative , how is it relevant to your point?

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• See Part 6 for other useful  strategies .

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Consider the organization.   As a writer, you need to lead readers through your text, carefully structuring your material so that they will be able to follow your ideas.

mla

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nalyze the structure by  outlining  it. An informal outline will do • A since you mainly need to see the parts, not the details.

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• Is your text complete? Does your genre require an  abstract , a  works-cited list , or any other elements?

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• What  transitions  help readers move from idea to idea and paragraph to paragraph? Do you need to add more?

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• If there are no  headings , would adding them help orient readers?

Check for clarity.   Nothing else matters if readers can’t understand what you write. Following are some questions that can help you see whether your meaning is clear and your text is easy to read: 363

• Does your  title  announce the subject of your text and give some sense of what you have to say? If not, would a more direct title give readers a better sense of your topic? • If your writing requires a thesis, do you state it directly? If not, will readers easily understand your main point? Try stating your thesis outright, and see if it makes your ideas easier to follow.

346–54 354–58

361–62

• Does your  beginning  tell readers what they need to understand your text, and does your  ending  help them make sense of what they’ve just read? • How does each paragraph relate to the ones before and after? Are those relationships clear — or do you need to add  transitions ? • Do you vary your sentences? If all the sentences are roughly the same length or follow the same subject-verb-object pattern, your text probably lacks any clear emphasis and might even be difficult to read.

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• Are  visuals  clearly labeled, positioned near the text they relate to, and referred to clearly in the text?

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31 Assessing Your Own Writing

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• If you introduce materials from other sources, have you clearly distinguished  quoted ,  paraphrased , or  summarized  ideas from your own?

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• Do you  define  all the words that your readers may not know?

445–55

• Does your punctuation make your writing more clear or less? Incorrect punctuation can make writing difficult to follow or, worse, change the meaning from what you intended. As a best-selling punctuation manual reminds us, there’s a considerable difference between “eats, shoots, and leaves” and “eats shoots and leaves.” You may be asked to go into greater detail in an essay-length  reflection  on your writing. If so, these questions may give you a good starting point.

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Assessing a Body of Your Work If you’re required to submit a portfolio of your writing as part of a class, you’ll likely need to write a reflective letter or essay that introduces the portfolio’s contents, describes the processes you used to create them, . See Chapter 35 for and  assesses the writing in your portfolio  detailed advice.

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32 G etting Response and Revising

If we want to learn to play a song on the guitar, we play it over and over again until we get it right. If we play basketball or baseball, we likely spend hours shooting foul shots or practicing a swing. Writing works the same way. Making meaning clear can be tricky, and you should plan on revising and, if need be, rewriting in order to get it right. When we speak with someone face-to-face or on the phone or text a friend, we can get immediate response and restate or adjust our message if we’ve been misunderstood. In most other situations when we write, that immediate response is missing, so we need to seek out responses from readers to help us revise. This chapter includes a list of guidelines for those readers to consider, along with various strategies for subsequent revising and rewriting.

Giving and Getting Peer Response When you meet with other students in pairs or small groups to respond to one another’s work, in class or online, you have the opportunity to get feedback on your work from several readers who can help you plan revisions. At the same time, you learn from reading others’ work how they approached the writing task — you’re not writing in a vacuum. Some students wonder why class time is being taken up by peer response, assuming that their instructor’s opinion is the only one that counts, but seeing the work of others and learning how others see your work can help you improve the clarity and depth of your writing. The key to responding effectively is to be as specific in your response as possible and avoid being either too harsh or too complimentary. These guidelines can help:

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• Read your peer review partner’s draft first from beginning to end as an interested reader, trying to understand the information and ideas. Don’t look for problems. In fact, a good rule of thumb is this: read your partner’s drafts in the same spirit that you want yours to be read. • Before starting a second reading, ask your partner what questions they have about the draft or if you should focus on a particular aspect or part of the draft. • As you read the draft again, take notes on a separate sheet of paper or save your comments to a different file. Your notes might include positive comments (“I like the way you . . . ”), negative comments (“This sentence seems out of place”; “________ doesn’t seem like the best word to use”), and questions (“I’m not sure what you mean by ________”; “Would this paragraph work better on p. 2?”). • When you can, do more than identify issues. Offer suggestions or possible alternatives. • When it’s your draft’s turn to be discussed, read or listen carefully to your partner’s responses, take notes, and ask for clarification if necessary. Do not take issue with your partner’s responses or argue over them; even if you’re sure that what you wrote is perfectly clear, it’s worth taking a second look if your partner has had trouble understanding it.

Getting Effective Response Ask your readers to consider some of the specific elements in the list below, but don’t restrict them to those elements. Caution: if a reader says nothing about any of these elements, don’t be too quick to assume that you needn’t think about them yourself. • What did you think when you first saw the  title ? Is it interesting? informative? appropriate? Will it attract other readers’ attention?

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• Does the  beginning  grab your attention? If so, how does it do so? Does it give enough information about the topic? offer necessary background information? How else might the piece begin?

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• Is there a clear  thesis , if the genre or assignment calls for one? What is it?

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• Is there sufficient  support  for the thesis? Is there anywhere you’d like to have more detail? Is the supporting material sufficiently  documented ?

560–63 345–63

• Does the text have a clear pattern of  organization ? Does each part relate to the thesis or main idea? Does each part follow from the one preceding it? Was the text easy to follow? How might the organization be improved?

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• Is the  ending  satisfying? What did it leave you thinking? How else might the piece end?

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• Can you tell the writer’s  stance  or attitude toward the subject and audience? What words convey that attitude? Is it consistent throughout?

61–64 59–60

65–71

445–55 464–68

676 673–83 361–62

• How well does the text meet the needs and expectations of its  audience ? Where might readers need more information, guidance, or clarification? How well does it achieve its  purpose ? Does every part of the text help achieve the purpose? Could anything be cut? Should anything be added? Does the text meet the requirements of its  genre ? Should anything be added, deleted, or changed to meet those requirements? • Do any terms need  defining ? Would examples, additional detail, explanations,  dialogue , or some other strategies help you understand the draft? • Are  charts ,  graphs , or  tables  clear and readable? If there are no  visuals , should there be? • Are sentences complete and grammatical? Are  transitions  helpful or needed? Is the punctuation correct? • Can any words or phrases be sharpened? Are verbs mostly active? Is language that refers to others appropriate? Are all words spelled correctly?

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32 Getting Response and Revising

Revising Once you have studied your draft with a critical eye and, if possible, gotten responses from other readers, it’s time to revise. Major changes may be necessary, and you may need to generate new material or do some rewriting. But assume that your draft is good raw material that you can revise to achieve your purposes. Revision should take place on several levels, from global (whole-text issues) to particular (the details). Work on your draft in that order, starting with the elements that are global in nature and gradually moving to smaller, more particular aspects. This allows you to use your time most efficiently and take care of bigger issues first. In fact, as you deal with the larger aspects of your writing, many of the smaller ones will be taken care of along the way.

Give yourself time to revise.   When you have a due date, set  deadlines for yourself that will give you time — preferably several days, but as much as your schedule permits — to work on the text before it has to be delivered. Also, get some distance. Often when you’re immersed in a project, you can’t see the big picture because you’re so busy creating it. If you can, get away from your writing for a while and think about something else. When you return to it, you’re more likely to see it with fresh eyes. If there’s not enough time to put a draft away for several days or more, even letting it sit overnight or for a few hours can help. As you revise, assume that nothing is sacred. Bring a critical eye to all parts of a draft, not only to those parts your reviewers point out. Content, organization, sentence patterns, individual words — all are subject to improvement. Be aware that a change in one part of the text may require changes in other parts. At the same time, don’t waste energy struggling with writing that simply doesn’t work; you can always discard it. Look for the parts of your draft that do work — the parts that match your purpose and say what you want to say. Focus your efforts on those bright spots, expanding and developing them.

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368–69 59–60

340–42

346–58

Revise to sharpen your  focus .  If your draft includes a thesis, make sure it matches your  purpose  as you now understand it. Read each paragraph to ensure that it contributes to your main point; you may find it helpful to  outline  your draft to help you see all the parts. One way to do this is to highlight one sentence in each paragraph that expresses the paragraph’s main idea. Then copy and paste the highlighted sentences into a new document. Does one state the thesis of the entire essay? Do the rest relate to the thesis? Are they in the best order? If not, you need to either modify the parts of the draft that don’t advance your main idea or revise your thesis to reflect your draft’s focus and to rearrange your points so they advance your discussion more effectively. Read your  beginning and ending  carefully; make sure that the first paragraphs introduce your topic and provide any needed contextual information and that the final paragraphs provide a satisfying conclusion.

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Revise to strengthen the argument.   If readers find some of your claims unconvincing, you need to provide more information or more  support . You may have to define terms you’ve assumed they will understand, offer additional examples, or provide more detail by describing, explaining processes, adding dialogue, or using some other  strategies . Make sure you show as well as tell — and don’t forget that you might need to do so literally, with visuals like photos, graphs, or charts. You might try freewriting, clustering, or other ways of  generating ideas and text . If you have to provide additional evidence, you might need to do additional  research .

345–63

Revise to improve the  organization .  If you’ve outlined your draft, it

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333–44

361–62 670–72 65–71 370–71 363

helps to number each paragraph and make sure each one follows from the one before. If anything seems out of place, move it — or if necessary, cut it completely. Check to see if you’ve included appropriate  transitions  or  headings  to help readers move through the text, and add them as needed. Check to make sure your text meets readers’ expectations of the  genre  you’re writing in.

Revise for  clarity .  Be sure readers will be able to understand what you’re saying. Look closely at your  title  to be sure it gives a sense of

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what the text is about and at your  thesis , if you state one directly: Will readers recognize your main point? If you don’t state a thesis directly, consider whether you should. Provide any necessary background information, and  define  any key terms. Make sure you’ve integrated any  quotations ,   paraphrases , or  summaries into your text smoothly. Are all  paragraphs  focused around one main point? Do the sentences in each paragraph contribute to that point? Finally, consider whether there are any data that would be more clearly presented in a  chart ,  table , or  graph . One way to test whether your text is clear is to switch audiences: write what you’re trying to express as if you were talking to an eight-year-old. Your final draft probably won’t be written that way, but the act of explaining your ideas to a young audience or readers who know nothing about your topic can help you discover any points that may be unclear.

347–49

Revise  visuals .  Make sure images are located as close as possible to the

673–83

discussion to which they relate and that the information in each visual is explained in your text. Each image should be numbered and have a title or caption that identifies it and explains its significance. Each part of a  chart ,  graph , or  table  should be clearly labeled to show what it represents. If you didn’t create the image yourself, make sure to cite its source, and if you’re posting your work online, obtain permission from the copyright owner.

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445–55 542–54 368–71

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Read and reread — and reread.   Take some advice from writing theorist Donald Murray: Nonwriters confront a writing problem and look away from the text to rules and principles and textbooks and handbooks and models. Writers look at the text, knowing that the text itself will reveal what needs to be done and what should not yet be done or may never be done. Thewriter reads and rereads and rereads, standing far back and reading quickly from a distance, moving in close and reading slowly line by line, reading again and again, knowing that the answers to all writing problems lie within the evolving text. — Donald Murray, A Writer Teaches Writing

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Rewriting Some writers find it useful to try rewriting a draft in various ways or from various perspectives just to explore possibilities. Try it! If you find that your original plan works best for your purpose, fine. But you may find that another way will work better. Especially if you’re not completely satisfied with your draft, consider the following ways of rewriting. Experiment with your rhetorical situation: • Rewrite your draft from different points of view — through the eyes of different people, perhaps, or through the eyes of an animal or even from the perspective of an object. See how the text changes (in the information it presents, its perspective, its voice). 61–64

• Rewrite for a different  audience . How might an email detailing a recent car accident be written to a friend, an insurance agent, a ­parent?

73–74

• Rewrite in a different  tone . If the first draft was written in formal academic prose, rewrite it more informally.

65–71

• Rewrite the draft in a different  genre  or  medium . Rewrite an essay as a letter, story, poem, speech, comic strip, PowerPoint presentation. Which genre and medium work best to reach your intended audience and achieve your purpose?

75–77

Ways of rewriting a narrative 464–68

• Rewrite one scene completely in  dialogue . • Start at the end of the story and work back to the beginning, or start in the middle and fill in the beginning as you work toward the end.

437–44

Ways of rewriting a textual analysis •   compare  the text you’re analyzing with another text (which may be in a completely different genre — film, TV, song lyrics, computer game, poetry, fiction, whatever). • Write a parody of the text you’re analyzing. Be as silly and as funny as you can while maintaining the structure of the original text. Alternatively, write a parody of your analysis, using evidence from the text to support an outrageous analysis.

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Ways of rewriting a report • Rewrite for a different  audience . For example, explain a concept to

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your grandparents; describe the subject of a profile to a visitor from another planet, a different time, or a different culture. • Be silly. Rewrite the draft as if for The Onion or a Dave Chappelle skit, or rewrite it as if it were written by Bart Simpson.

Ways of rewriting an argument • Rewrite taking another  position . Argue as forcefully for that posi-

164–95

tion as you did for your actual one, acknowledging and refuting your original position. Alternatively, write a rebuttal to your first draft from the perspective of someone with different beliefs. • Rewrite your draft as a  story   — make it real in the lives of specific individuals. (For example, if you were writing about abortion rights, you could write a story about a young pregnant woman trying to decide what she believes and what to do.) Or rewrite the argument as a fable or parable.

474–82

• Rewrite the draft as a letter responding to a hostile reader, trying at least to make them understand what you have to say. • Rewrite the draft as an angry letter to someone or as a table-thumping dinner-with-the-relatives discussion. Write from the most extreme position possible. • Write an  analysis  of the topic of your argument in which you identify, as carefully and as neutrally as possible, the various positions people hold on the issue.

104–33

Once you’ve rewritten a draft in any of these ways, see whether there’s anything you can use. Read each draft, considering how it might help you achieve your purpose, reach your audience, and convey your stance. Revise your actual draft to incorporate anything you think will make the text more effective, whether it’s other genres or a different perspective.

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33 Editing and Proofreading

No matter what you write, you need to communicate in ways that are appropriate to your rhetorical situation. When you text your friends, for example, you might use minimal punctuation, incomplete sentences, and mainly lowercase letters — and your friends won’t bat an eye. If you write a job application letter and résumé, on the other hand, your readers may expect clear, error-free writing in the belief that careful attention to editing — to grammar, punctuation, language, and formality — may indicate similar care in the work you do on the job. Most college instructors expect similar attention to editing and proofreading in formal assignments like research papers. This chapter offers strategies for editing and proofreading your writing carefully.

Editing Editing is the stage where you work on the details of your paragraphs, sentences, words, and punctuation to make your writing as clear, precise, and appropriate as possible. Your goal is not to achieve “perfection”­(whatever that may be) so much as to make your writing as effective as possible for your particular purpose and audience. Consult a good writing handbook for detailed advice, but use the following guidelines to help you check the paragraphs, sentences, and words in your draft.

Editing paragraphs 359–60

• Does each paragraph focus on one point? Does it have a  topic sentence  that announces that point, and if so, where is it located? If it’s not the first sentence, should it be? If there’s no clear topic sentence, should there be one? • Does every sentence relate to the main point of the paragraph? If any sentences do not, should they be deleted, moved, or revised?

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• Is there enough detail to develop the paragraph’s main point? How is the point developed — with narrative? definition? some other  strategy ?

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• Where have you placed the most important information — at the beginning? at the end? in the middle? The most emphatic spot is at the end, so in general that’s where to put information you want readers to remember. The second most emphatic spot is at the beginning. • Are any paragraphs especially long or short? Consider breaking long paragraphs if there’s a logical place to do so — maybe an extended example should be in its own paragraph, for instance. If you have paragraphs of only a sentence or two, see if you can add to them or combine them with another paragraph, unless you’re using a brief paragraph to provide emphasis. • Check the way your paragraphs fit together. Does each one follow smoothly from the one before? Do you need to add any  transitions ?

361–62

• Do the  beginning  paragraphs catch readers’ attention? In what other ways might you begin your text?

346–54

• Do the final paragraphs provide a satisfactory  ending ? How else might you conclude your text?

354–58

Editing sentences • Is each sentence complete? Does it have someone or something (the subject) performing some sort of action or expressing a state of being (the verb)? Does each sentence begin with a capital letter and end with a period, question mark, or exclamation point? • Check your use of the passive voice. Although there are some rhetorical situations in which the passive voice (“The prince was killed by a rival”) is more appropriate than the active voice (“A rival killed the prince”) because you want to emphasize an action rather than who performed it, you’ll do well to edit it out unless you have a good reason for using it.

Glossary

• Check for parallelism. Items in a list or series should be parallel in form — all nouns (“lions,” “tigers,” “bears”), all verbs (“hopped,”

Glossary

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“skipped,” “jumped”), all clauses (“he came, he saw, he conquered”), and so on. • Do many of your sentences begin with “it” or “there”? Too often these words make writing wordy and vague or even conceal needed information. Why write “There are reasons we voted for him” when you can say “We had reasons to vote for him”?

361–62

• Are your sentences varied? If they all start with the subject or are the same length, your writing might be dull and maybe even hard to read. Try varying your sentence openings by adding  transitions , introductory phrases, or clauses. Vary sentence lengths by adding detail to some or by combining some sentences. • Make sure you’ve used commas correctly. Is there a comma after each introductory element? (“After the lead singer quit, the group nearly disbanded. However, they then produced a string of hits.”) Do commas set off nonrestrictive elements — parts that aren’t needed to understand the sentence? (“The books I read in middle school, like the Harry Potter series, became longer and more challenging.”) Are compound sentences connected with a comma? (“I’ll eat broccoli steamed, but I prefer it roasted.”)

Editing words • Are you sure of the meaning of every word? Use a dictionary; be sure to look up words whose meanings you’re not sure about. And remember your audience — do you use any terms they’ll need to have defined? • Is any of your language too general or vague? Why write that you competed in a race, for example, if you could say you ran the 4 3 200 relay? 73–74

• What about the  tone ? If your stance is serious (or humorous or critical or something else), make sure that your words all convey that attitude.

Glossary

• Do any pronouns have vague or unclear antecedents? If you use “he” or “they” or “it” or “these,” will readers know whom or what the words refer to?

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• Have you used any clichés — expressions that are used so frequently that they’re no longer fresh? “Live and let live,” avoiding something

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“like the plague,” and similar expressions are so predictable that your writing will almost always be better off without them. • Be careful with language that refers to others. Make sure that your words do not stereotype any individual or group. Mention age, gender, race, religion, sexual orientation, and so on only if they are relevant to your subject. When referring to an ethnic group, make every effort to use the terms members of the group prefer. Also, whenever possible, refer to people by the pronouns they use for themselves. If you don’t know their pronouns and you need to refer to them with pronouns, it’s best to ask. If you can’t ask or don’t think you should, your best alternative is to use the singular “they.”

Glossary

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• Edit out language that might be considered sexist. Have you used words like “manpower” or “policemen” to refer to people who may be female? If so, substitute less gendered words such as “personnel” or “police officers.” Do your words reflect any gender stereotypes — for example, that all engineers are male, or all nurses female? If you mention someone’s gender, is it even necessary? If not, eliminate the unneeded words. • How many of your verbs are forms of “be” and “do”? If you rely too much on these words, try replacing them with more specific verbs. Why write “She did a proposal for” when you could say “She proposed”? • Do you ever confuse “its” and “it’s”? Use “it’s” when you mean “it is” or “it has.” Use “its” when you mean “belonging to it.”

Proofreading Proofreading is the final stage of the writing process, when you check for misspelled words, mixed-up fonts, missing pages, and so on. It’s the time to pay extra attention to detail. Most readers will excuse an occasional error, but by and large, academic readers and many employers are an intolerant bunch: too many errors will lead them to declare your writing — and maybe your thinking — flawed. There goes your credibility. So careful proofreading helps ensure that your message is taken as seriously as you want it to be.

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Up to this point, you’ve been told not to read individual words on the page and instead to read for meaning. Proofreading demands the opposite: you must slow down your reading so that you can see every word, every punctuation mark. • Use your computer’s grammar checker and spelling checker, but only as a first step, and know that they’re not very reliable. Computer programs don’t read writing; instead, they rely on formulas and banks of words, so what they flag (or don’t flag) as mistakes may or may not be accurate. If you were to write, “My brother was diagnosed with a leaning disorder,” “leaning” wouldn’t be flagged as misspelled because it’s a word (and might even be a disorder), even though it’s the wrong word in that sentence. • To keep your eyes from jumping ahead, place a ruler or piece of paper under each line as you read. Use your finger or a pencil as a pointer. • Some writers find it helpful to read the text one sentence at a time, beginning with the last sentence and working backward. • Temporarily change the font or size of your text as you proofread; doing so can help you notice problems you may have overlooked. • Read the text out loud to yourself — or better, to others, who may hear problems you can’t see. Alternatively, have someone else read your text aloud while you follow along on the screen or page. • Ask someone else to read your text. The more important the writing is, the more important this step is. • If you find a mistake after you’ve printed out your text and are unable to print out a corrected version, make the change as neatly as possible in pencil or pen.

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34 Compiling a Portfolio

Artists maintain portfolios of their work to show gallery owners, collectors, and other potential buyers. Money managers work with investment portfolios of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and other products. And often as part of a writing class, student writers compile portfolios of their work. As with a portfolio of paintings or drawings, a portfolio of writing includes a writer’s best work and, sometimes, preliminary and revised drafts of that work, along with a statement by the writer articulating why they consider it good. The why is as important as the work, for it provides you with an occasion for assessing your overall strengths and weaknesses as a writer. This chapter offers guidelines to help you compile both a writing portfolio and a literacy portfolio, a project that writing students are sometimes asked to complete as part of a literacy narrative.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As with the writing you put in a portfolio, the portfolio itself is generally intended for a particular audience but could serve a number of different purposes. It’s a good idea, then, to consider these and the other elements of your rhetorical situation when you begin to compile a portfolio.

purpose Why are you creating this portfolio? To show your

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learning? To create a record of your writing? As the basis for a grade in a course? To organize your research? To explore your literacy? For something else?

audience Who will read your portfolio? What will your readers

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ex­­pect it to contain? How can you help them understand the context or occasion for each piece of writing you include?

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genre What genres of writing should the portfolio contain? Do you want to demonstrate your ability to write one particular type of writing or in a variety of genres? Will your introduction to or assessment of the portfolio be in the form of a letter or an essay?

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stance How do you want to portray yourself in this portfolio? What items should you include to create this impression? What stance do you want to take in your written assessment of its contents? Thoughtful? Enthusiastic? Something else?

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media / design Will your portfolio be in print? Or will it be electronic? Will it include multiple media? Whichever medium you use, how can you help readers navigate its contents? What design elements will be most appropriate to your purpose and medium?

A WRITING PORTFOLIO What to Include A portfolio developed for a writing course typically contains examples of your best work in that course, including any notes, outlines, preliminary drafts, and so on, along with your own assessment of your performance in the course. You might include any of the following items: • freewriting, outlines, and other work you did to generate ideas • drafts, rough and revised • in-class writing assignments • source material — copies of articles and online sources, observation notes, interview transcripts, and other evidence of your research • tests and quizzes • responses to your drafts

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• conference notes, error logs, lecture notes, and other course materials • electronic material, including visuals, blogs, and multimedia texts • reflections on your work What you include will vary depending on what your instructor asks for. You may be asked to include three or four of your best papers or everything you’ve written. You may also be asked to show work in several different genres. In any case, you’ll usually need to choose, and to do that you’ll need to have criteria for making your choices. Don’t base your decision solely on grades (unless grades are one criterion); your portfolio should reflect your assessment of your work, not your instructor’s. What do you think is your best work? your most interesting work? your most ambitious work? Whatever criteria you use, you are the judge.

Organizing a Portfolio If you set up a way to organize your writing at the start of the course, you’ll be able to keep track of it throughout the course, making your job at term’s end much easier. Remember that your portfolio presents you as a writer, presumably at your best. It should be neat, well organized, and easy to navigate. Your instructor may provide explicit guidelines for organizing your portfolio. If not, here are some guidelines:

Paper portfolios.  Choose something in which to gather your work. You might use a two-pocket folder, a three-ring binder, or a file folder, or you may need a box, basket, or some other container to accommodate bulky or odd-shaped items. Label everything. Label each piece at the top of the first page, specifying the assignment, the draft, and the date: “Proposal, Draft 1, 9/12/21”; “Text Analysis, Final Draft, 10/10/21”; “Portfolio Self-Assessment, Final Draft, 11/11/21”; and so on. Write this information neatly on the page, or put it on a Post-it note. For each assignment, arrange your materials chronologically, with your earliest material (freewriting, for example) on the bottom, and each successive item (source materials, say, then your outline, then your first draft, and so on) on top of the last, ending with your final draft on top. That way, readers can see how your writing changed from draft to draft.

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Electronic portfolios.  You might also create an electronic portfolio, or e-portfolio. E-portfolios typically consist of a network of  linked  documents that might include not only your writing and reflections on that writing, but also sources, writing, and art you did for other courses or for your own enjoyment; audio and video clips; and other resources. Tools that can help you create an e-portfolio include: • Courseware. Your school may use a learning platform, such as ­Blackboard, Canvas, or Moodle, that allows you to create an e-portfolio of your work. • Online tools. Several websites, including Weebly and Wix, offer free tools to help you create a preformatted e-portfolio. For example, GoogleSites provides templates you can use to build an e-portfolio, uploading documents, images, and videos from your computer. • Blogging tools. You can create an e-portfolio using a blogging platform, like Tumblr or WordPress, which allows you to upload files and create a network of linked pages. Readers can then comment on your e-portfolio, just as they might on your blog entries.

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It’s also possible to create an electronic portfolio using word processing, spreadsheet, or presentation software. The programs available for your use and the requirements for publishing your portfolio vary from school to school and instructor to instructor; ask your instructor or your school’s help desk for assistance (and see Chapter 58 on  writing and learning online  for general guidance).

Assessing Your Writing Portfolio

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An important part of your portfolio is your written self-assessment of your work. This is an opportunity to assess your work with a critical eye and to think about what you’re most proud of, what you most enjoyed doing, what you want to improve. It’s your chance to think about and say what you’ve learned during the class. Some instructors may ask you to write out your  assessment  in essay form, as an additional sample of your writing; others will want you to put it in letter form, which usually allows for a more relaxed and personal tone. See Chapter 31 for detailed

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advice on assessing your writing and Chapter 35 for advice on composing a formal reflection.

A LITERACY PORTFOLIO As a writing student, you may be asked to think back to the time when you first learned to read and write or to remember significant books or other texts you’ve read, and perhaps to put together a portfolio that chronicles your development as a reader and writer. You may also be asked to put together a literacy portfolio to accompany a  literacy narrative . What you include in such a portfolio will vary depending on what you’ve kept over the years and what your family has kept. You may have all of your favorite books, stories you dictated to a preschool teacher, notebooks in which you practiced writing the alphabet. Or you may have almost nothing. What you have or don’t have is unimportant in the end: what’s important is that you gather what you can and arrange it in a way that shows how you think about your development and growth as a literate person. What have your experiences been with reading and writing? What’s your earliest memory of learning to write? If you love to read, what led you to love it? Who was most responsible for shaping your writing ability? Those are some of the questions you’ll ask if you write a literacy narrative. You might also compile a literacy portfolio as a good way to generate ideas and text for that assignment.

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What to Include in a Literacy Portfolio • school papers • drawings and doodles from preschool • favorite books • photographs you’ve taken • drawings • poems • letters

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• journals and diaries • lists • reading records or logs • electronic texts you’ve created • marriage vows • speeches you’ve given • awards you’ve received • workplace writing

Organizing a Literacy Portfolio You may wish to organize your material chronologically, but there are other methods of organization to consider as well. For example, you might group items according to where they were written (at home, at school, at work), by genre (stories, poems, essays, letters, notes), or even by purpose (pleasure, school, work, church, and so on). Arrange your portfolio in the way that best conveys who you are as a literate person. Label each item you include, perhaps with a Post-it note, to identify what it is, when it was written or read, and why you’ve included it in your portfolio. Or you might create an e-portfolio, scanning print items to include in it along with electronic items.

Reflecting on Your Literacy Portfolio • Why did you choose each item? • Is anything missing? Are there any other important materials that should be here? • Why is the portfolio organized as it is? • What does the portfolio show about your development as a reader and writer? • What patterns do you see? Are there any common themes you’ve read or written about? any techniques you rely on? any notable changes over time? • What are the most significant items, and why?

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35 R eflecting on Your Writing

Reflecting on experiences — looking back on them to understand and learn from them — is an important part of our work, school, and personal lives. Employees reflect on their job performance as they develop goals for the future. Students reflect on their coursework and extracurricular activities as they prepare applications for scholarships or internships. Lots of people reflect on their daily lives in diaries or journals. And writers reflect on their writing — they look back on their work and consider what they’ve learned, what they’ve accomplished, and how they can use their new knowledge and experience in future writing situations. But reflection isn’t just an activity that writers engage in after they’ve finished writing. It’s also a powerful tool for thinking and learning throughout the writing process. This chapter gives advice for making the most of that tool.

REFLECTING WHILE WRITING When teachers ask you to reflect during your writing process, they’re asking you to pause, step back, and pay attention to what you’re doing and thinking as you write. This activity — sometimes called “metacognition” — can help you solve problems in your writing, adjust or adapt your strategies, and make decisions about how to move forward. Following are questions you can ask yourself in order to prompt reflection at several points in your writing process. You might record your reflections in a process log, or talk through them with someone else, or just mull them over in your mind.

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• Reflecting as you approach a new writing assignment or task. Have you encountered a similar assignment or task in the past? If so, what processes or strategies worked for you then, and how might you adapt them for your new writing situation now? What goals can you set for yourself? What problems might you encounter, and what resources can help you solve them? • Reflecting as you generate ideas and compose a draft. What’s the most intriguing idea you’ve generated? the most puzzling or surprising? What connections do you see among ideas? What do you like about your draft so far? • Reflecting as you participate in peer review. Which comments from your peers are most helpful? Which comments do you think you’ll ignore, and why? What did you learn from reviewing your classmates’ drafts, and how can you apply that learning to your own draft? • Reflecting as you revise and edit: What feedback did your teacher provide on your previous work, and can you apply that feedback to your current writing situation? What revision strategies have worked for you in the past, and can you use or adapt them now? What resources can you draw on for help with editing and proofreading?

REFLECTING AFTER WRITING At times, you may be asked to write a formal reflection on your work — perhaps after completing a writing project, after compiling a portfolio, or at the end of a course. Formal reflection assignments go by many names: portfolio cover letters, reflective self-assessments, companion pieces, statements of goals and choices, and others. Regardless of the name, reflection-afterwriting assignments typically ask you to share insights about your work and the process you used to create it — and to support your insights with evidence. Considering your rhetorical situation will help you make decisions about how to approach your particular reflection task.

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Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose Why are you writing your reflection? To examine your

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growth and development as a writer over time? To assess your achievement of course learning goals? To consider how you might use your new knowledge in future writing contexts? Are you reflecting on just one piece of writing or on a body of work?

audience Who will read your reflection, and what’s your rela-

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tionship to your reader? Is your course instructor your primary reader? Does your audience include other instructors or external evaluators whom you may not know? Will you need to introduce or contextualize the writing you’re reflecting on? What examples or evidence of your learning will your readers most want to see?

genre Has a genre been assigned to you? If so, what are the

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key features of the genre, and how can you use them in your reflection? Can you choose a genre? If so, what will you choose — a letter, a literacy narrative, a textual analysis, something else? What expectations will your audience have for your chosen genre?

stance How will you portray yourself in your reflection — as

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introspective? curious? self-critical? What stance will you take toward the work you’re reflecting on — objective? evaluative? analytical? What tone will you use — relaxed and conversational? serious and formal?

media / design What medium will best suit your purpose and audi-

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ence? A print document? An electronic text like a blog post, a video diary, or a podcast? Will visuals be helpful? Does your audience expect, or your instructor require, a certain format or type of documentation?

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Generating Insights for Your Reflection If you’ve responded to the “Taking Stock of Your Work” prompts at the end of Chapters 10 through 22, you can return to those responses as a starting point to generate insights for an essay-length reflection. The following activities might also help you develop ideas and text:

16–19

Take an inventory of your writing. ​ ​List everything you wrote for your course or for a particular project — freewrites, peer reviews, notes, drafts, revisions, and so on. Then gather as much of the material as you can, and read it carefully. Pretend you’re looking at your writing as an outsider, and try  annotating  or  coding  it: notice the strengths and weaknesses of individual pieces of writing; pay attention to the language, organization, and other choices you made; note whether your writing changed over time. In other words, study your own writing — be curious about it! Take notes so you can harness insights from your inventory. Create a map or flowchart of your current writing process. ​ ​Think about a writing project you recently completed, and make a visual representation of the process you engaged in to create the work. Begin by listing the writing tools you used, the spaces where you worked, the types of tasks you completed — anything you remember about your writing process. Then represent those items with stick figures, symbols, or something else. Use arrows to show how you moved from one point in your writing process to another, and perhaps mark the times when you struggled and the times when you felt productive. When you finish your map, ask yourself what it reveals: Which parts of your writing process were most and least enjoyable? What would you change about your process if you could? What insights can you gain about what you do when you write — and what you might do better in the future? The sample map on the next page represents one writer’s process for a research assignment.* * Adapted from Tim Lockridge and Derek Van Ittersum, Writing Workflows: Beyond Word Processing.

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Draft Copy

Drafting Reading, annotating, taking notes

Generating ideas and text I felt positively about and enjoyed this activity

I was neutral about this activity

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Revised Copy

Revising and editing

Peer reviewing and conferencing with my teacher This activity was challenging for me

Think of words, phrases, or images that capture your experiences as a writer. ​ ​Start by listing key activities or concepts that guided your work: maybe  revising  was especially important to your writing process, or  audience awareness  was something you worked hard to develop. Maybe a particular  academic habit of mind  — like openness or curios-

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ity — was a hallmark of your work. Think, too, about other words or phrases that represent your lived experiences as a writer — like the name of the café where you did your best writing, or the tool (blue notebook, Google Docs) that you relied on to get your work done, or the mantra that got you through your course. Freewrite about what those key words or phrases mean to you in the context of your writing and learning.

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You might even use images to help brainstorm ideas for your reflection, as student Jennifer Martinez did for a writing class at Columbus State Community College in the example on the next page.

Providing Support for Your Reflection Once you’ve generated insights about your writing and learning, the next step is to find evidence to support and illustrate those insights. Fortunately, you’ll have a wealth of material to draw on — your own writing, your interactions with classmates, and more. In fact, you can mine your entire course experience for evidence to support your reflective insights. Some types of evidence you might use in your reflection include:

Examples and anecdotes. ​ ​ Recall memories from your course experience — a time when you exhibited a particular habit of mind, for example, or when you solved a problem in your writing, or when you helped a peer resee their work. Describe the specific instance, or narrate the story behind it. Textual evidence. ​ ​Consider all the texts that make up your learning experience: drafts and revisions, peer-review comments, discussion board posts, written feedback from your teacher, and so on. All those texts provide fodder to support the insights you share in your reflection. For example, if you want to illustrate your revising skills, you might quote a passage from an early draft of a writing project and compare it to a revised passage from a later draft. If you want to support a claim about your rhetorical knowledge, you might quote from your writing to highlight particular language choices you made to meet readers’ needs. To illustrate your openness to others’ ideas, you could quote a comment a peer reviewer made, and then explain how you used that comment to rethink something in your own writing. To show your evolving self-awareness as a writer, you could quote from the “Taking Stock” responses you wrote throughout the course.

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Jennifer’s Reflection Brainstorming This whole semester I struggled with SELFDOUBT and overwhelming anxiety at times. Slowly I was able to overcome some of these issues by trusting the writing process and just knowing that I will get through it. I have learned to give myself more time by starting earlier so I am able to work through those moments and to also take breaks when I start to feel the anxiety creep in. Before this class I would have dreaded the thought of writing a JOURNAL entry. Once writing became a normal routine, I started looking forward to our journal entries. I even decided I’m going to buy my mom a daily writing prompt book. You can’t be wrong with a journal; it’s just your thoughts and your feelings. One of the most helpful lessons I received from this class was a more positive attitude toward the things I struggle with. After we watched the video on GROWTH MIND-SET at the beginning of this semester, something clicked and I started looking at all of my struggles a little differently; I understood that the struggles were helping to make me smarter. Once I accepted that my brain was like a muscle and that I should treat it that way, it was easier for me to work through rough times in my writing.

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Statistics. ​ ​Some students enjoy collecting and interpreting data about their writing processes and products. You might use the “Compare” feature in Word to tabulate the number of changes you made from one draft to the next. You might do a search through your process work to see how many times the word “genre” or “audience” or some other key term appeared. You might look for themes in your peer reviewers’ comments and tabulate, for example, the percentage of comments related to focus or organization or editing. You might then use the numerical data as support for a particular insight you want to share or a claim you want to make in your reflection.

Visuals. ​ ​Sometimes visual evidence can help support your reflective

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insights and claims. You might use photographs of notes, drafts, sketches, and storyboards to support an insight about your writing process. You might create a graph or chart to illustrate numerical data you’ve generated about your own writing, if you’re using such data. You might develop a  word cloud  — a visual representation of words in a text — to highlight key themes in your writing. Remember that visuals almost never speak for themselves, so you’ll need to explain them in your reflection. For example, if you include a graph, you might say something like, “The graph in figure 1 depicts how many times my peer reviewers and instructor mentioned key elements  —  like thesis, organization, or editing  —  in response to each of my essays.”

Ways of Organizing a Reflection

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The organization of your reflection will depend on your genre, and you may be able to consult the organizational diagrams in the genre chapters of this book for help. Some common genres used for reflections include letters,  literacy narratives ,  textual analyses ,  explorations , and  reports .

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A Sample Reflection In the letter below, Nathaniel Cooney reflects on the strengths and weaknesses of the writing he produced in his first-year composition class at Wright State University.

2 June 2021 Dear Reader, It is my hope that in reading this letter you will gain an understanding of the projects contained in this portfolio. I enclose three works that I have submitted for an introductory writing class at Wright State University, English 102, Writing in Academic Discourse: an informative report, an argument paper, and a remix project based largely on the content of the argument paper. I selected the topics of these works for two reasons: First, they address issues that I believe to be relevant in terms of both the intended audience (peers and instructors of the course) and the times when they were published. Second, they speak to issues that are important to me personally. Below I present general descriptions of the works, along with my review of their strengths and weaknesses. My purpose in writing the informative report “Higher Standards in Education Are Taking Their Toll on Students” was to present a subject in a factual manner and to support it with well-documented ­ research. My intent was not to argue a point. ­However, because Ichose a narrowly focused topic and chose information to support a thesis, the report tends to favor one side of the issue over the other. Because as a student I have a personal stake in the changing ­standards in the formal education system, I chose to research recent changes in higher education and their effects on students. Specifically, I examine students’ struggles to reach a standard that seems to be moving further and further beyond their grasp. I believe that this paper could be improved in two areas. The first is a bias that I think exists because I am a student presenting

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information from the point of view of a student. It is my hope, however, that my inclusion of unbiased sources lessens this ­problem somewhat and, furthermore, that it presents the reader with a fair and accurate collection of facts and examples that ­supports the thesis. My second area of concern is the overall ­balance in the paper between outside sources supporting my own thoughts and outside sources supporting opposing points of view. Rereading the paper, I notice many places where I may have worked too hard to include sources that support my ideas. The second paper, “Protecting Animals That Serve,” is an argument intended not only to take a clear position on an issue but also to argue for that position and convince the reader that it is a valid one. That issue is the need for legislation guaranteeing that certain rights of service animals be protected. I am blind and use a guide dog. Thus, this issue is especially important to me. During the few months that I have had him, my guide dog has already encountered a number of situations where intentional or negligent treatment by others has put him in danger. At the time I was ­writing the paper, a bill was being written in the Ohio House of Representatives that, if passed, would protect service animals and establish consequences for those who violated the law. The ­purpose of the paper, therefore, was to present the reader with information about service animals, establish the need for the ­legislation in Ohio and nationwide, and argue for passage of such legislation. I think that the best parts of my argument are the introduction and the conclusion. In particular, I think that the conclusion does a good job of not only bringing together the various points but also conveying the significance of the issue for me and for others. In contrast, Ithink that the area most in need of further attention is the body of the paper. While I think the content is strong, I believe the overall organization could be improved. The connections between ideas are unclear in places, particularly in the section that acknowledges opposing ­viewpoints. This may be due in part to the fact that I had difficulty understanding the reasoning behind the opposing argument.

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The argument paper served as a starting point for the remix p ­ roject, for which the assignment was to revise one paper written for this class in a different genre. My remix project consists of a poster and a brochure. As it was for the argument paper, my ­primary goal was to convince my audience of the importance of a particular issue and viewpoint — specifically, to convince my ­audience to support House Bill 369, the bill introduced in the Ohio legislature that would create laws to protect the rights of service animals in the state. Perhaps both the greatest strength and the greatest weakness of the remix project is my use of graphics. Because of my blindness, I was limited in my use of some graphics. Nevertheless, the pictures were carefully selected to capture the attention of readers and, in part, to appeal to their emotions as they viewed and reflected on the material. I put a great deal of time, effort, and personal reflection into each project. While I am hesitant to say that they are finished and while I am dissatisfied with some of the finer points, I am satisfied with the overall outcome of this collection of works. Viewing it as a ­collection, I am also reminded that writing is an evolving process and that even if these works never become exactly what I ­envisioned them to be, they stand as reflections of my thoughts at a particular time in my life. In that respect, they need not be ­anything but what they already are, because what they are is a product of who I was when I wrote them. I hope that you find the papers interesting and informative and that as you read them, you, too, may realize their significance. Respectfully,

Nathaniel J. Cooney Enclosures (3)

Cooney describes each of the works he includes in his portfolio and considers their strengths and weaknesses, citing examples from his texts to support his assessment and reflection.

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Part 6

Strategies Whenever we write, we draw on many different strategies to articulate what we have to say. We may define key terms, describe people or places, and explain how something is done. We may compare

one thing to another. Sometimes we may choose a pertinent story to narrate , and we may even want to include some dialogue . The chapters that follow offer advice on how to use these and other basic strategies for developing and organizing the texts

you write.

403

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Strategies 36 Analyzing Causes and Effects   405 37 Arguing  410 38 Classifying and Dividing   431 39 Comparing and Contrasting   437 40 Defining  445 41 Describing  456 42 Using Dialogue  464 43 Explaining Processes  469 44 Narrating  474 45 Taking Essay Exams   483

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36 A nalyzing Causes and Effects

Analyzing causes helps us think about why something happened, whereas thinking about effects helps us consider what might happen. When we hear a noise in the night, we want to know what caused it. Children poke sticks into holes to see what will happen. Researchers try to understand the causes of diseases. Writers often have occasion to consider causes or effects as part of a larger topic or sometimes as a main focus: in a  proposal , we might consider the effects of reducing tuition or the causes of recent tuition increases; in a  memoir , we might explore why the person we had a date with failed to show up. Usually we can only speculate about probable causes or likely effects. In writing about causes and effects, then, we are generally  arguing  for those we consider plausible, not proven. This chapter will help you analyze causes and effects in writing — and to do so in a way that suits your rhetorical situation.

258–68 236–44

410–30

Determining Plausible Causes and Effects What causes ozone depletion? sleeplessness? obesity? And what are their effects? Those are of course large, complex topics, but whenever you have reason to ask why something happened or what could happen, there will likely be several possible causes and just as many predictable effects. There may be obvious causes, though often they will be less important than others that are harder to recognize. (Eating too much may be an obvious cause of being overweight, but why people eat too much has several less obvious causes: portion size, advertising, lifestyle, and psychological disorders are only a few possibilities.) Similarly, short-term effects are often less important than long-term ones. (A stomachache may be an effect of

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334–35 335–36 340–43 489

59–60 61–64

eating too much candy, but the chemical imbalance that can result from consuming too much sugar is a much more serious effect.)  listing ,  clustering , and  outlining  are useful processes for analyzing causes. And at times you might need to do some  research  to identify possible causes or effects and to find evidence to support your analysis. When you’ve identified potential causes and effects, you need to analyze them. Which causes and effects are primary? Which seem to be secondary? Which are most relevant to your  purpose  and are likely to convince your  audience ? You will probably have to choose from several possible causes and effects for your analysis because you won’t want or need to include all of them.

Arguing for Causes or Effects 410–30

Once you’ve identified several possible causes or predictable effects, you need to  argue  that some are more plausible than others. You must provide convincing support for your argument because you usually cannot prove that x causes y or that y will be caused by z; you can only show, with good reasons and appropriate evidence, that x is likely to cause y or that y will likely follow from z. See, for example, how an essay on the psychological basis for risk taking speculates about two potential causes for the popularity of extreme sports: Studies now indicate that the inclination to take high risks may be hardwired into the brain, intimately linked to arousal and pleasure mechanisms, and may offer such a thrill that it functions like an addiction. The tendency probably affects one in five people, mostly young males, and declines with age. It may ensure our survival, even spur our evolution as individuals and as a species. Risk taking probably bestowed a crucial evolutionary advantage, inciting the fighting and foraging of the hunter-gatherer. ... As psychologist Salvadore Maddi, PhD, of the University of California at Davis warns, “High-risk takers may have a hard time deriving meaning and purpose from everyday life.” Indeed, this peculiar form of dissatisfaction could help explain the explosion of high-risk sports in America and other postindustrial Western nations. In unstable ­cultures, such as those at war or suffering poverty, people rarely seek

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out additional thrills. But in a rich and safety-obsessed country like America, land of guardrails, seat belts, and personal-injury lawsuits, everyday life may have become too safe, predictable, and boring for those programmed for risk taking.  — Paul Roberts, “Risk”

Roberts suggests that genetics is one likely cause of extreme sports and that an American obsession with safety is perhaps a cause of their growing popularity. Notice, however, that he presents these as likely or pos­ sible, not certain, by choosing his words carefully: “studies now i­ndicate”; “the inclination to take high risks may be hardwired”; “[r]isk taking probably bestowed a crucial evolutionary advantage”; “this . . . dissatisfaction could help explain.” Like Roberts, you’ll almost always need to q ­ ualify what you say about causes and effects — to say that something could explain (rather than saying it “explains”) or that it suggests (rather than “shows”). Causes and effects can seldom be proved definitively, so it’s important to acknowledge that your argument is not the last word on the subject.

Ways of Organizing an Analysis of Causes and Effects Your analysis of causes and effects may be part of a proposal or some other genre of writing, or you may write a text whose central purpose is to analyze causes or speculate about effects. While there are many ways to organize an analysis of causes and effects, three common ways are to state a cause and then discuss its effects, to state an effect and then discuss its causes, and to identify a chain of causes and effects.

Identify a cause and then discuss its effects.   If you were writing about climate change, you might first show that many scientists fear it will have several effects, including more violent storms, the extinction of various kinds of plants, and elevated sea levels. effect. Cause

leads to

effect. effect.

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Identify an effect and then trace its causes.   If you were writing about school violence, for example, you might argue that it is a result of sloppy dress, informal teacher-student relationships, low academic standards, and disregard for rules. cause. cause. Effect

results from cause. cause.

Identify a chain of causes and effects.   You may sometimes discuss a chain of causes and effects. If you were writing about the right to privacy, for example, you might consider the case of Megan’s law. A convicted child molester raped and murdered a girl named Megan; the crime caused New Jersey legislators to pass the so-called Megan’s law (an effect), which requires that convicted sex offenders be publicly identified. As more states enacted versions of Megan’s law, concern developed for the rights of those who are identified — the effect became a cause of further effects. First cause

leads to

first effect,

which leads to

next effect.

Continue the chain as need be.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in. 59–60

purpose Your main purpose may be to analyze the causes and effects of something. But sometimes you’ll have another goal that calls for such analysis — a business report, for example, might need to explain what caused a decline in sales.

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audience Who is your intended audience, and how will analyz-

61–64

ing causes help you reach them? Do you need to tell them why some event happened or what effects resulted?

genre Does your genre require you to analyze causes? Pro-

65–71

posals, for example, often need to consider the effects of a proposed solution.

stance

hat is your stance, and could analyzing causes or W effects show that stance? Could it help demonstrate your seriousness or show that your conclusions are reasonable?

72–74

media / design You can rely on words to analyze causes, but some-

75–77

times a drawing will help readers see how causes lead to effects.

If you need more help See also the  PROCESSES  chapters for help with generating ideas, drafting, and so on if you need to write an entire text whose purpose is to analyze causes or speculate about effects.

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37 Arguing

223–35 258–68 245–57

Basketball fans argue about who’s better, LeBron James or Steph Curry. Political candidates argue that they have the most experience or best judgment. A toilet paper ad argues that “you deserve a little luxury in your life, and so does your bottom.” As you likely realize, we are surrounded by arguments, and much of the work you do as a college student requires you to read and write arguments. When you write a  literary analysis , for instance, you argue for a particular interpretation. In a  proposal , you argue for a particular solution to a problem. Even a  profile  argues that a subject should be seen in a certain way. This chapter offers advice on some of the key elements of making an argument, from developing an arguable thesis and identifying good reasons and evidence that supports those reasons to building common ground and dealing with viewpoints other than your own.

Reasons for Arguing We argue for many reasons, and they often overlap: to convince others that our position on a subject is reasonable, to influence the way they think about a subject, to persuade them to change their point of view or take some sort of action. In fact, many composition scholars and teachers believe that all writing makes an argument. As a student, you’ll be called on to make arguments continually: when you participate in class discussions, when you take an essay exam, when you post a comment to an online discussion or a blog. In all these instances, you’re adding your opinions to some larger conversation, arguing for what you believe — and why.

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Arguing Logically: Claims, Reasons, and Evidence The basic building blocks of argument are claims, reasons, and evidence that supports those reasons. Using these building blocks, we can construct a strong logical argument, also known as logos.

Claims.   Good arguments are based on arguable claims — statements that reasonable people may disagree about. Certain kinds of statements cannot be argued: • V erifiable statements of fact. Most of the time, there’s no point in ­arguing about facts like “the earth is round” or “George H. W. Bush was America’s forty-first president.” Such statements contain no controversy, no potential opposition — and so no interest for an audience. However, you might argue about the basis of a fact. For example, until recently it was a fact that our solar system had nine planets; but when further discoveries led to a change in the definition of “planet,” Pluto no longer qualified. • I ssues of faith or belief. By definition, matters of faith cannot be proven or refuted. If you believe in reincarnation or don’t believe there is an afterlife, there’s no way I can convince you otherwise. However, in a philosophy or religion course you may be asked to argue, for example, whether or not the universe must have a cause. • Matters of simple opinion or personal taste. If you think cargo pants are ugly, no amount of arguing will convince you to think otherwise. If you’ve downloaded every Taylor Swift album and think she’s the greatest singer ever, you won’t convince your Nirvana-loving parents to like her, too. If matters of taste are based on identifiable criteria, though, they may be argued in an  evaluation , where “Tom Cruise is a terrible actor” is more than just your opinion — it’s an assertion you can support with evidence.

214–22

You may begin with an opinion: “I think wearing a helmet makes riding a bike more dangerous, not less.” As it stands, that statement can’t be

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considered a claim — it needs to be made more reasonable and informed. To do that, you might reframe it as a question — “Do bike riders who wear helmets get injured more often than those who don’t?” — that may be answered as you do research and start to write. Your opinion or question should lead you to an arguable claim, however, one that could be challenged by another thoughtful person. In this case, for example, your research might lead you to a focused, qualified claim: “Contrary to common sense, wearing a helmet while riding a bicycle increases the chances of injury, at least to adult riders.”

Qualifying a claim.   According to an old saying, there are two sides to every story. Much of the time, though, arguments don’t sort themselves neatly into two sides, pro and con. No matter what your topic, your argument will rarely be a simple matter of being for or against; in most cases, you’ll want to qualify your claim — that it is true in certain circ*mstances, with certain conditions, with these limitations, and so on. Qualifying your claim shows that you’re reasonable and also makes your topic more manageable by limiting it. The following questions can help you qualify your claim: • C an it be true in some circ*mstances or at some times but not others? For example: “Freedom of speech should generally be unrestricted, but individuals can sue for slander or libel.” • C an it be true only with certain conditions? For instance: “Cell phones and computer monitors should be recycled, but only by licensed, domestic recyclers.” • C an it be true for some groups or individuals but not others? For example: “The Keto and Atkins diets can lead to weight loss for many people, but people with kidney or liver conditions should avoid them.” SOME WORDS FOR QUALIFYING A CLAIM

sometimes

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nearly

it seems / seemingly

rarely usually

some

in some cases

more or less

perhaps

often

for the most part

possibly

routinely

in many cases

in most cases

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37 Arguing

Drafting a thesis statement.  Once your claim is focused and appropriately qualified, it can form the core of your essay’s  thesis statement , which announces your position and forecasts the path your argumentwill follow. For example, here is the opening paragraph of an essay by the executive director of the National Congress of American Indians arguing that the remains of Native Americans should be treated with the same respect given to others. The author outlines the context of her argument and then presents her thesis (here, in italics):

413

347–49

What if museums, universities and government agencies could put your dead relatives on display or keep them in boxes to be cut up and otherwise studied? What if you believed that the spirits of the dead could not rest until their human remains were placed in a sacred area? The ordinary American would say there ought to be a law — and there is, for ordinary Americans. The problem for American Indians is that there are too many laws of the kind that make us the archeological property of the United States and too few of the kind that protect us from such insults.  — Suzan Shown Harjo, “Last Rites for Indian Dead: Treating Remains Like Artifacts Is Intolerable”

Reasons.   Your claim must be supported by reasons that your audience will accept. A reason can usually be linked to a claim with the word “because”: CLAIM

1 BECAUSE 1 REASON

College students because should strive to graduate

they will earn far more over their lifetimes than those who do not.

Keep in mind that you likely have a further reason, a rule or principle that underlies the reason you link directly to your claim. In this argument, the underlying reason is that graduating from college leads to a boost in lifetime income because employers value college graduates. If your audience doesn’t accept that principle, you may have to back it up with further reasons or evidence.

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To come up with good reasons, start by stating your position and then answering the question “Why?” CLAIM: College students should strive to graduate. Why? REASON: (Because) They will earn far more over their lifetimes than those who do not. Why? UNDERLYING REASON: The economy values college graduates and pays them more.

As you can see, this exercise can continue indefinitely as the underlying reasons grow more and more general and abstract. You can do the same with other positions: CLAIM: Smoking should be banned. Why? REASON: (Because) It is harmful to smokers and also to nonsmokers. UNDERLYING REASON: People should be protected from harmful substances.

Evidence.  Evidence to support your reasons can come from various sources. In fact, you may need to use several kinds of evidence to persuade your audience that your claim is true. Some of the most common types of evidence include facts, statistics, examples, authorities, anecdotes, scenarios, case studies, textual evidence, and visuals.

Facts are ideas that are proven to be true. Facts can include observations or scholarly research (your own or someone else’s), but they need to be accepted as true. If your audience accepts the facts you present, they can be powerful means of persuasion. For example, an essay on the problems faced by people who lose their senses of smell and taste offers these facts to demonstrate the seriousness of this loss: Smell is intimately tied to both taste and appetite, and anosmia often robs people of the pleasure of eating. But the sudden absence also may have a profound impact on mood and quality of life. Studies have linked anosmia to social isolation and anhedonia, an inability to feel pleasure, as well as a strange sense of detachment and

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isolation. Memories and emotions are intricately tied to smell, and the olfactory system plays an important though largely unrecognized role in emotional well-being, said Dr. Sandeep Robert Datta, an associate professor of neurobiology at Harvard Medical School. — Roni Caryn Rabin, “Some Covid Survivors Haunted by Loss of Smell and Taste”

Rabin quotes a specialist, which gives her facts credibility; citing the studies she refers to would provide even greater credibility.

Statistics are numerical data, usually produced through research, surveys, or polls. Statistics should be relevant to your argument, as current as possible, accurate, and obtained from a reliable source. An argument advocating that Americans should eat less meat presents these data to support the writer’s contention that we eat far too much of it: Americans are downing close to 200 pounds of meat, poultry, and fish per capita per year (dairy and eggs are separate, and hardly insig­ nificant), an increase of 50 pounds per person from 50 years ago. We each consume something like 110 grams of protein a day, about twice the federal government’s recommended allowance; of that, about 75 grams come from animal protein. (The recommended level is itself considered by many dietary experts to be higher than it needs to be.) It’s likely that most of us would do just fine on around 30 grams of protein a day, virtually all of it from plant sources.  — Mark Bittman, “Rethinking the Meat-Guzzler”

Bittman’s statistics demonstrate the extent to which Americans have increased their meat consumption over the last half century, the proportion of our diets that comes from meat, and, by comparison, how much protein our bodies require — and summarize the heart of his argument in stark numeric terms.

Examples are specific instances that illustrate general statements. In a book on life after dark in Europe, a historian offers several examples to demonstrate his point that three hundred years ago, night — without artificial lighting — was treacherous:

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Even sure-footed natives on a dark night could misjudge the lay of the land, stumbling into a ditch or off a precipice. In Aberdeenshire, a fifteen-year-old girl died in 1739 after straying from her customary path through a churchyard and tumbling into a newly dug grave. The Yorkshireman Arthur Jessop, returning from a neighbor’s home on a cold December evening, fell into a stone pit after losing his bearings.  — A. Roger Ekirch, At Day’s Close: Night in Times Past

Ekirch illustrates his point and makes it come alive for readers by citing two specific individuals’ fates.

524–34

551–54

Authorities are experts on your subject. To be useful, authorities must be reputable, trustworthy, and qualified to address the subject. You should carefully  evaluate  any authorities you consult to be sure they have the credentials necessary for readers to take them seriously. When citing experts, you should clearly identify them and the origins of their authority in a  signal phrase , as does the author of an argument that deforested land can be reclaimed: Reed Funk, professor of plant biology at Rutgers University, believes that the vast areas of deforested land can be used to grow millions of genetically improved trees for food, mostly nuts, and for fuel. Funk sees nuts used to supplement meat as a source of high-quality protein in developing-country diets.  — Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

Brown cites Funk, an expert on plant biology, to support his argument that humans need to rethink the global economy in order to create a sustainable world. Without the information on Funk’s credentials, though, readers would have no reason to take his proposal seriously. 474–82

Anecdotes are brief  narratives  that your audience will find believable and that contribute directly to your argument. Anecdotes may come from your personal experience or the experiences of others. In an essay arguing that it’s understandable when athletes give in to the temptation to

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use performance-enhancing drugs, sports blogger William Moller uses an anecdote to show that the need to perform can outweigh the potential negative consequences of using drugs: I spent my high school years at a boarding school hidden among the apple orchards of Massachusetts. Known for a spartan philosophy regarding the adolescent need for sleep, the school worked us to the bone, regularly slamming us with six hours of homework. I pulled a lot more all-nighters (of the scholastic sort) in my years there than I ever did in college. When we weren’t in class, the library, study hall, or formal sit-down meals, we were likely found on a sports field. We also had school on Saturday, beginning at 8 a.m. just like every other non-Sunday morning. Adding kindling to the fire, the students were not your laid-back types; everyone wanted that spot at the top of the class, and social life was rife with competition. The type A’s that fill the investment banking, legal, and political worlds — those are the kids I spent my high school years with. And so it was that midway through my sophom*ore year, I found myself on my third all-nighter in a row, attempting to memorize historically significant pieces of art out of E. H. Gombrich’s The Story of Art. I had finished a calculus exam the day before, and the day before that had been devoted to world history. And on that one cold night in February, I had had enough. I had hit that point where you’ve had so little sleep over such a long time that you start seeing spots, as if you’d been staring at a bright light for too long. The grade I would compete for the next day suddenly slipped in importance, and I began daydreaming about how easy the real world would be compared to the hell I was going through. But there was hope. A friend who I was taking occasional study breaks with read the story in the bags beneath my eyes, in the slump of my shoulders, the nervous drumming of my fingers on the chair as we sipped flat, warm co*ke in the common room. My personal deus ex machina,* he handed me a small white pill. I was very innocent. I matured way after most of my peers, and was probably best known for being the kid who took all the soprano solos * Deus ex machina: In ancient Greek and Roman drama, a god introduced into the plot to resolve complications.

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away from the girls in the choir as a first-year student. I don’t think I had ever been buzzed, much less drunk. I’d certainly never smoked a cigarette. And knowing full well that what I was doing could be nothing better than against the rules (and less importantly, illegal) I did what I felt I needed to do, to accomplish what was demanded of me. And it worked. I woke up and regained focus like nothing I’d ever experienced. Unfortunately, it also came with serious side effects: I was a hypersensitized, stuffed-up, sweaty, wide-eyed mess, but I studied until the birds started chirping. And I aced my test. Later I found out the pill was Ritalin, and it was classified as a class 3 drug.* I did it again, too — only a handful of times, as the side effects were so awful. But every time it was still illegal, still against the rules. And as emphasized above, I was much more worried about the scholastic consequences if I were discovered abusing a prescription drug than the fact that I was breaking the law. Though I was using it in a far different manner than the baseball players who would later get caught with it in their systems, it was still very clearly a “performance-enhancing drug.” Just like every other person on this planet, I was giving in to the incentive scheme that was presented to me. The negative of doing poorly on the test was far greater than the negative of getting caught, discounted by the anesthetic of low probability.  — William Moller, “We, the Public, Place the Best Athletes on Pedestals”

Moller uses this anecdote to demonstrate the truth of his argument — that given the choice between “breaking the rules and breaking my grades” or “getting an edge” in professional sports, just about everyone will choose to break the rules.

Scenarios are hypothetical situations. Like anecdotes, “what if?” scenarios can help you describe the possible effects of particular actions or offer new ways of looking at a particular state of affairs. For example, a mathematician presents this lighthearted scenario about Santa Claus in a tongue-incheek argument that Christmas is (almost) pure magic: * Class 3 drug: Drug that is illegal to possess without a prescription.

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Let’s assume that Santa only visits those who are children in the eyes of the law, that is, those under the age of 18. There are roughly 2 billion such individuals in the world. However, Santa started his annual activities long before diversity and equal opportunity became issues, and as a result he doesn’t handle Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and Buddhist children. That reduces his workload significantly to a mere 15% of the total, namely 378 million. However, the crucial figure is not the number of children but the number of homes Santa has to visit. According to the most recent census data, the average size of a family in the world is 3.5 children per household. Thus, Santa has to visit 108,000,000 individual homes. (Of course, as everyone knows, Santa only visits good children, but we can surely assume that, on an average, at least one child of the 3.5 in each home meets that criterion.) — Keith Devlin, “The Mathematics of Christmas”

Devlin uses this scenario, as part of his mathematical analysis of Santa’s yearly task, to help demonstrate that Christmas is indeed magical — because if you do the math, it’s clear that Santa’s task is physically impossible.

Case studies and observations feature detailed reporting about a subject. Case studies are in-depth, systematic examinations of an occasion, a person, or a group. For example, in arguing that class differences exist in the United States, sociologist Gregory Mantsios presents studies of three “typical” Americans to show “enormous class differences” in their lifestyles. Observations offer detailed descriptions of a subject. Here’s an observation of the emergence of a desert stream that flows only at night: At about 5:30 water came out of the ground. It did not spew up, but slowly escaped into the surrounding sand and small rocks. The wet circle grew until water became visible. Then it bubbled out like a small fountain and the creek began.  — Craig Childs, The Secret Knowledge of Water

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Childs presents this and other observations in a book that argues (among other things) that even in harsh, arid deserts, water exists, and knowing where to find it can mean the difference between life and death. 542–54

Textual evidence includes  quotations ,  paraphrases , and  summaries . Usually, the relevance of textual evidence must be stated directly, as excerpts from a text may carry several potential meanings. For example, here is an excerpt from a student essay analyzing the function of the raft in Huckleberry Finn as “a platform on which the resolution of conflicts is made possible”: [T]he scenes where Jim and Huck are in consensus on the raft contain the moments in which they are most relaxed. For instance, in chapter 12 of the novel, Huck, after escaping capture from Jackson’s Island, calls the rafting life “solemn” and articulates their experience as living “pretty high” (Twain 75–76). Likewise, subsequent to escaping the unresolved feud between the Grangerfords and Shepherdsons in chapter 18, Huck is unquestionably at ease on the raft: “I was ­powerful glad to get away from the feuds. . . . We said there warn’t no home like a raft, after all. Other places do seem so cramped up and smothery, but a raft don’t. You feel mighty free and easy and comfortable on a raft” (134).  — Dave Nichols, “‘Less All Be Friends’: Rafts as Negotiating Platforms in Twain’s Huckleberry Finn”

Huck’s own words support Nichols’s claim that he can relax on a raft. Nichols strengthens his claim by quoting evidence from two separate pages, suggesting that Huck’s opinion of rafts pervades the novel.

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Visuals can be a useful way of presenting evidence. Remember, though, that charts, graphs, photos, drawings, and other  visual texts  seldom speak for themselves and thus must be explained in your text. For­ example, at the top of the facing page, is a photograph of a poster carried by demonstrators at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics, protesting China’s treatment of Tibetans. If you were to use this photo in an essay, you would need to explain that the poster combines the image of a protester standing before a tank during the 1989 Tiananmen Square uprising with the Olympic logo, making clear to your readers that the protesters are likening China’s

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treatment of Tibetans to its brutal actions in the past. Similarly, you could use the image below of an American flag made from license plates in an argument about America’s dependence on the auto industry.

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Choosing appropriate evidence.  The kinds of evidence you provide to ­support your argument depend on your  rhetorical situation . If your ­ urpose is, for example, to convince readers to accept the need for a p proposed s­ olution, you’d be likely to include facts, statistics, and anecdotes. If you’re writing for an academic audience, you’d be less likely to rely on anecdotes, preferring authorities, textual evidence, statistics, and case studies instead. And even within academic communities, different disciplines and genres may focus primarily on different kinds of evidence. If you’re not sure what counts as appropriate evidence, ask your instructor for guidance.

Arguing with a Hostile Audience Academic arguments are often presented to an audience that is presumed to be open-minded and fair, and the goal of such arguments is to demonstrate that your position is plausible and reasonable. Sometimes, though, your goal is to change people’s minds, to try to get them to see some issue differently. That can be more of a challenge, because your audience likely has good reasons for thinking as they do, or their views reflect their basic values, and they may well feel defensive, angry, or threatened when you challenge them. These situations call for different argumentative strategies, such as Rogerian argument.

Rogerian argument.   This method of presenting an argument is based on the work of psychologist Carl Rogers. The method assumes that common ground — areas of shared values or beliefs — exists between people who disagree. If they can find that common ground, they’re more likely to come to some agreement or compromise position. Since the goal of a Rogerian argument is to find compromise, it is organized differently than a traditional argument. First you must show that you understand your opponents’ position, and then you offer your own position. Here’s how a typical Rogerian argument is organized; be aware that each section may require several paragraphs:

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Introduction.  Here you introduce the issue, acknowledging the various sides of the controversy and being as fair as you can. Describe the opposing view.   In this section, you try to capture the opposing view as accurately and as neutrally as you can. There may be circ*mstances when that view might be valid, and you should include them, too. Your goal here is to show that you understand the opposing view, and why your readers hold that view, convincingly enough that they will agree that it’s accurate. By doing so, you establish your credibility and honest desire to understand those whose views differ from yours.

State your  thesis  and support it.   Now it’s time to outline your position and defend it with reasons and evidence. As with a traditional argument, your goal here is to show that you have thought carefully about your position and researched it thoroughly. As with all arguing, your  tone  should show your openness to ideas and avoid sounding as if you and you alone know the truth about the issue or that you are intellectually or morally superior to your opponent.

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Conclude.   In your concluding section, you bring together the two perspectives you’ve just outlined to show how, while your opponent’s views have merit, your position deals with the issue or solves the problem in a better way — or how a compromise position, somewhere in the middle, allows both sides to benefit. You may find value in using Rogerian techniques in traditional arguments, including seeking common ground, describing issues and positions in neutral terms, and addressing those with opposing views respectfully and with goodwill.

Convincing Readers You’re Trustworthy For your argument to be convincing, you have to establish your own credibility with readers (also known as ethos) — to demonstrate your knowledge

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about the topic, to show that you and your readers share some common ground, and to show yourself to be evenhanded in the way you present your argument.

Building common ground.  One important element of gaining readers’ trust involves identifying some common ground, some values you and your audience share. For example, to introduce a book arguing for the compati­ bility of science and religion, author Chet Raymo offers some common memories: Like most children, I was raised on miracles. Cows that jump over the moon; a jolly fat man that visits every house in the world in a single night; mice and ducks that talk; little engines that huff and puff and say, “I think I can”; geese that lay golden eggs. This lively exercise of credulity on the part of children is good practice for what follows — for believing in the miracle stories of traditional religion, yes, but also for the practice of poetry or science.  — Chet Raymo, Skeptics and True Believers: The Exhilarating Connection between Science and Religion

Raymo presents childhood stories and myths that are part of many people’s shared experiences to help his readers find a connection between two realms that are often seen as opposed. To show that you have carefully ­ considered the viewpoints of others, including those who may agree or disagree with you, it’s important to incorporate those viewpoints into your argument by acknowledging, accommodating, or refuting them.

Acknowledging other viewpoints.  One essential part of establishing your credibility is to acknowledge that there are viewpoints different from yours and to ­represent them fairly and accurately. Rather than weakening your argument, acknowledging possible objections to your position shows that you’ve thought about and researched your topic thoroughly.

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For example, in an essay about his experience growing up hom*osexual, writer Andrew Sullivan admits that not every young gay man or woman has the same experience: I should add that many young lesbians and hom*osexuals seem to have had a much easier time of it. For many, the question of sexual identity was not a critical factor in their life choices or vocation, or even a ­factor at all.  — Andrew Sullivan, “What Is a hom*osexual?”

In response to a reasonable objection, Sullivan qualifies his assertions, making his own stance appear to be reasonable.

Accommodating other viewpoints.   You may be tempted to ignore views you don’t agree with, but in fact it’s important to demonstrate that you’re aware of them and have considered them carefully. You may find yourself conceding that opposing views have some merit and qualifying your claim or even making them part of your own argument. See, for example, how a philosopher arguing that torture is sometimes “not merely permissible but morally mandatory” addresses a major objection to his position: The most powerful argument against using torture as a punishment or to secure confessions is that such practices disregard the rights of the individual. Well, if the individual is all that important — and he is —  it is correspondingly important to protect the rights of individuals threatened by terrorists. If life is so valuable that it must never be taken, the lives of the innocents must be saved even at the price of hurting the one who endangers them.  — Michael Levin, “The Case for Torture”

Levin acknowledges his critics’ argument that the individual is indeed important; but he then asserts that if the life of one person is important, the lives of many people must be even more important. In effect, he uses an opposing argument to advance his own.

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Refuting other viewpoints.  Often you may need to refute other arguments and make a case for why you believe they are wrong. Are the values underlying the argument questionable? Is the reasoning flawed? Is the evidence inadequate or faulty? For example, an essay arguing for the elimination of college athletics scholarships includes this refutation: Some argue that eliminating athletics scholarships would deny opportunity and limit access for many students, most notably black athletes. The question is, access to what? The fields of competition or an opportunity to earn a meaningful degree? With the six-year graduation rates of black basketball players hovering in the high 30% range, and black football players in the high 40% range, despite years of “academic reform,” earning an athletics scholarship under the current system is little more than a chance to play sports.  — John R. Gerdy, “For True Reform, Athletics Scholarships Must Go”

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Gerdy bases his refutation on statistics showing that for more than half of African American college athletes, the opportunity to earn a degree by playing a sport is an illusion. When you incorporate differing viewpoints, be careful to avoid the  fallacies  of attacking the person making the argument or refuting a competing position that no one seriously entertains. It’s also important that you not distort or exaggerate opposing viewpoints. If your argument is to be persuasive, other arguments should be represented fairly.

Appealing to Readers’ Emotions Logic and facts, even when presented by someone who seems reasonable and trustworthy, may not be enough to persuade readers. Many successful arguments include an emotional component that appeals to readers’ hearts as well as to their minds. Advertising often works by appealing to its audience’s emotions, as in this paragraph from a Volvo ad: Choosing a car is about the comfort and safety of your passengers, most especially your children. That’s why we ensure Volvo’s safety research

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examines how we can make our cars safer for everyone who travels in them — from adults to teenagers, children to babies. Even those who aren’t even born yet.  — Volvo.com

This ad plays on the fear that children — or a pregnant mother — may be injured or killed in an automobile accident. Keep in mind that emotional appeals, also known as pathos, can make readers feel as though they’re being manipulated and, consequently, less likely to accept an argument. For most kinds of academic writing, use emotional appeals sparingly.

Checking for Fallacies Fallacies are arguments that involve faulty reasoning. It’s important to avoid fallacies in your writing because they often seem plausible but are usually unfair or inaccurate and make reasonable discussion difficult. Here are some of the most common fallacies: • Ad hominem arguments attack someone’s character rather than address the issues. (“Ad hominem” is Latin for “to the man.”) It’s an especially common fallacy in political discourse and elsewhere: “Jack Turner has no business talking about the way we run things in this city. He’s just another liberal snowflake.” Whether or not Turner is a “liberal snowflake” has no bearing on the worth of his argument about “the way we run things in this city”; insulting one’s opponents isn’t an argument against their positions. A variation, the “you too” or “whataboutism” fallacy, results when someone responds to criticism by accusing the attacker of hypocrisy but not answering the criticism itself: “You say I’m lying, but what about your use of a company car to take a family vacation?” • Bandwagon appeals argue that because others think or do something, we should, too. For example, an advertisem*nt for a breakfast cereal claims that it is “America’s favorite cereal.” It assumes that readers want to be part of the group and implies that an opinion that’s popular must be correct.

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• Begging the question is a circular argument. It assumes as a given what is trying to be proved, essentially asserting that A is true because A is true. Consider this statement: “Affirmative action can never be fair or just because you cannot remedy one injustice by committing another.” This statement begs the question because in trying to prove that affirmative action is unjust, it assumes that it is an injustice. • Either-or arguments, also called false dilemmas, are oversimplifications that assert there can be only two possible positions on a complex issue. For example, “Those who oppose our actions in this war are enemies of freedom” inaccurately assumes that if someone opposes the war in question, they oppose freedom. In fact, people might have many other reasons for opposing the war. • False analogies compare things that resemble each other in some ways but not in the most important respects — for example, “Trees pollute the air just as much as cars and trucks do.” Although it’s true that plants emit hydrocarbons, and hydrocarbons are a component of smog, plants also produce oxygen, whereas motor vehicles emit gases that combine with hydrocarbons to form smog. Vehicles pollute the air; trees provide the air that vehicles’ emissions pollute. • Faulty causality, also known as post hoc, ergo propter hoc (Latin for “after this, therefore because of this”), assumes that because one event followed another, the first event caused the second — for example, “Legalizing same-sex marriage in Sweden led to a decline in the marriage rate of opposite-sex couples.” The statement contains no evidence to show that the first event caused the second. • Straw man arguments misrepresent an opposing position to make it sound ridiculous or extreme and thus easy to refute, rather than dealing with the actual position. For example, if someone argues that funding for supplemental nutrition assistance should be cut, a straw man response would be “You want the poor to starve,” transforming a proposal to cut a specific program into an exaggerated argument that the proposer hasn’t made. • Hasty generalizations are conclusions based on insufficient or inappropriately qualified evidence. This summary of a research study is a

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good example: “Twenty randomly chosen residents of Brooklyn, New York, were asked whether they found graffiti tags offensive; fourteen said yes, five said no, and one had no opinion. Therefore, 70 percent of Brooklyn residents find tagging offensive.” In Brooklyn, a part of New York City with a population of over two million, twenty residents is far too small a group from which to draw meaningful conclusions. To be able to generalize, the researcher would have had to survey a much greater percentage of Brooklyn’s population. • Slippery slope arguments assert that one event will inevitably lead to another, often cataclysmic event without presenting evidence that such a chain of causes and effects will in fact take place. Here’s an example: “If the state legislature passes this 2 percent tax increase, it won’t be long before all the corporations in the state move to other states and leave thousands unemployed.” According to this argument, if taxes are raised, the state’s economy will be ruined — not a likely scenario, given the size of the proposed increase.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation To argue effectively, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to persuade, the effect of your stance, and the larger context you are writing in.

purpose What do you want your audience to do? To think a cer-

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tain way? To take a certain action? To change their minds? To consider alternative views to their current ones? To accept your position as plausible? To see that you have thought carefully about an issue and researched it ­appropriately?

audience Who is your intended audience? What do they likely

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know and believe about your topic? How personal is it for them? To what extent are they likely to agree or disagree with you? Why? What common ground can you find with them? How should you incorporate other viewpoints they might have? What kinds of evidence are they likely to accept?

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genre What genre will help you achieve your purpose? A position paper? An evaluation? A review? A proposal? An analysis?

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stance What’s your attitude toward your topic, and why? What strategies will help you to convey that stance? How do you want your audience to perceive you? As an authority on your topic? As someone much like them? As calm? reasonable? impassioned or angry? something else?

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media / design What media will you use, and how will your choice of media affect your argument? If you’re writing on paper, does your argument call for photos or charts? If you’re giving an oral presentation, should you put your reasons and support on slides? If you’re writing online, should you add links to sites representing other positions or containing evidence that supports your position?

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See also Chapter 13 for advice on writing an  ARGUMENT  essay. And see other appropriate GENRE  chapters and all the  PROCESSES  chapters for guidelines on drafting, revising, and so on for help writing an essay that includes arguments.

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38 Classifying and Dividing

Classification and division are ways of organizing information: various items may be classified according to their similarities, or a single topic may be divided into parts. We might classify different kinds of flowers as annuals or perennials, for example, and classify the perennials further as daylilies, irises, roses, and peonies. We might also divide a garden into distinct areas: for herbs, flowers, and vegetables. Writers often use classification and division as ways of developing and organizing material. This book, for instance, classifies comparison, definition, description, and several other common ways of thinking and writing as strategies. It divides the information it provides about writing into eight parts: “Rhetorical Situations,” “Genres,” and so on. Each part further divides its material into various chapters. Even if you never write a book, you will have occasion to classify and divide material in  annotated  bibliographies , essays  analyzing texts , and other kinds of writing. This chapter offers advice for classifying and dividing information for various purposes — and in a way that suits your own rhetorical situation.

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Classifying When we classify something, we group it with similar things. A linguist would classify French, Spanish, and Italian as Romance languages, for example — and Russian, Polish, and Bulgarian as Slavic languages. In a phony news story from the Onion about a church bake sale, the writer classifies the activities observed there as examples of the seven deadly sins:

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GADSDEN, AL — The seven deadly sins — avarice, sloth, envy, lust, gluttony, pride, and wrath — were all committed Sunday during the twiceannual bake sale at St. Mary’s of the Immaculate Conception Church.  — “All Seven Deadly Sins Committed at Church Bake Sale,” Onion

The article goes on to categorize the participants’ behavior in terms of the sins, describing one parishioner who commits the sin of pride by bragging about her cookies and others who commit the sin of envy by resenting the popularity of the prideful parishioner’s baked goods (the eating of which leads to the sin of gluttony). In all, the article humorously notes, “347 individual acts of sin were committed at the bake sale,” and every one of them can be classified as one of the seven deadly sins.

Dividing As a writing strategy, division is a way of breaking something into parts —  and a way of making the information easy for readers to follow and understand. See how this example about children’s ways of nagging divides their tactics into seven categories: James U. McNeal, a professor of marketing at Texas A&M University, is considered America’s leading authority on marketing to children. In his book Kids as Customers (1992), McNeal provides marketers with a thorough analysis of “children’s requesting styles and appeals.” He [divides] juvenile nagging tactics into seven major categories. A pleading nag is one accompanied by repetitions of words like “please” or “mom, mom, mom.” A persistent nag involves constant requests for the coveted product and may include the phrase “I’m gonna ask just one more time.” Forceful nags are extremely pushy and may include subtle threats, like “Well, then, I’ll go and ask Dad.” Demonstrative nags are the most high risk, often characterized by full-blown tantrums in public places, breath holding, tears, a refusal to leave the store. Sugar-coated nags promise

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affection in return for a purchase and may rely on seemingly heartfelt declarations, like “You’re the best dad in the world.” Threatening nags are youthful forms of blackmail, vows of eternal hatred and of running away if something isn’t bought. Pity nags claim the child will be heartbroken, teased, or socially stunted if the parent refuses to buy a certain item. “All of these appeals and styles may be used in combination,” McNeal’s research has discovered, “but kids tend to stick to one or two of each that prove most effective . . . for their own parents.”  — Eric Schlosser, Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal

Here the writer announces the division scheme of “seven major categories.” Then he names each tactic and describes how it works. Notice the italics: each tactic is italicized, making it easy to recognize and follow. Take away the italics, and the divisions would be less visible.

Creating Clear and Distinct Categories When you classify or divide, it’s important to create clear and distinct categories. If you’re writing about music, you might divide it on the basis of the genre (rap, rock, classical, gospel), artist (male or female, group or solo), or instruments (violins, trumpets, bongos, guitars). These categories must be distinct so that no information overlaps or fits into more than one category, and they must include every member of the group you’re discussing. The simpler the criteria for selecting the categories, the better. The nagging categories in the example from Fast Food Nation are based on only one criterion: a child’s verbal behavior. Sometimes you may want to highlight your categories visually to make them easier to follow. Eric Schlosser does that by italicizing each category: the pleading nag, the persistent nag, the forceful nag, and so on. Other  design  elements — bulleted lists, pie charts, tables, images — might also prove useful.

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Sometimes you might show categories visually, as in the following chart. The differences among the six varieties pictured are visible at a glance, and the chart next to the photos shows the best uses for each variety — and its level of tartness. EATING

BAKING

COOKING LESS TART

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

✔

Red Delicious

Honeycrisp

Red Rome

✔

✔

Braeburn

✔

✔

✔ MORE TART

McIntosh All photos © New York Apple Association

The photographs allow us to see the differences among the varieties at a glance. Although the varieties shown here are arranged according to the tartness of their flavor, they could have been arranged in other ways, too — for example, alphabetically or by shape or size.

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For another example, see how The World of Caffeine authors Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer use a two-column list to show what they say are the differing cultural connotations of coffee and tea: Coffee Aspect

Tea Aspect

Male Female Boisterous Decorous Indulgence Temperance Hardheaded Romantic Topology Geometry Heidegger Carnap Beethoven Mozart Libertarian Statist Promiscuous Pure  — Bennett Alan Weinberg and Bonnie K. Bealer, The World of Caffeine

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in.

purpose Your purpose for writing will affect how you classify or

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divide information. Weinberg and Bealer classify coffee as “boisterous” and tea as “decorous” to help readers understand the cultural styles the two beverages represent, whereas J. Crew might divide sweaters into cashmere, wool, and cotton to help shoppers find and buy clothing from its website.

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audience Who do you want to reach, and will classifying or dividing your material help them follow your discussion?

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genre Does your genre call for you to categorize or divide information? A long report might need to be divided into sections, for instance.

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stance Your stance may affect the way you classify information. Weinberg and Bealer’s classification of coffee as “Beethoven” and tea as “Mozart” reflects a stance that focuses on cultural analysis (and assumes an audience familiar with the difference between the two composers). If the authors were botanists, they might categorize the two beverages in terms of their biological origins (“seed based” and “leaf based”).

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media / design You can classify or divide in paragraph form, but sometimes a pie chart or list will show the categories better.

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See also  CLUSTERING ,  CUBING , and  LOOPING , three methods of generating ideas discussed in Chapter 28 that can be especially helpful for classifying material. And see all the  PROCESSES  chapters for guidelines on drafting, revising, and so on if you need to write a classification essay.

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39 C omparing and Contrasting

Comparing things looks at their similarities; contrasting them focuses on their differences. It’s a kind of thinking that comes naturally and that we do constantly — for example, comparing Houston with Dallas, iPhones with Androids, or three paintings by Renoir. And once we start comparing, we generally find ourselves contrasting — Houston and Dallas have differences as well as similarities. As a student, you’ll often be asked to compare and contrast paintings or poems or other things. As a writer, you’ll have cause to compare and contrast in most kinds of writing. In a  proposal , for instance, you’ll need to compare your solution with other possible solutions; or in an  evaluation , such as a movie review, you might contrast the film you’re reviewing with some other film. This chapter offers advice on ways of comparing and contrasting things for various writing purposes and for your own rhetorical situations. Most of the time, we compare obviously similar things: laptops we might purchase, three competing political candidates, two versions of a film. Occasionally, however, we might compare things that are less obvi­ ously similar. See how John McMurtry, a former football player, compares football with war in an essay arguing that the attraction football holds for spectators is based in part on its potential for violence and injury:

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The family resemblance between football and war is, indeed, striking. Their languages are similar: “field general,” “long bomb,” “blitz,” “take a shot,” “front line,” “pursuit,” “good hit,” “the draft,” and so on. Their principles and practices are alike: mass hysteria, the art of intimidation, absolute command and total obedience, territorial aggression, censorship, inflated insignia and propaganda, blackboard maneuvers and strategies, drills, uniforms, marching bands, and training camps.

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And the virtues they celebrate are almost identical: hyper­aggressiveness, coolness under fire, and suicidal bravery.  — John McMurtry, “Kill ’Em! Crush ’Em! Eat ’Em Raw!”

McMurtry’s comparison helps focus readers’ attention on what he’s arguing about football in part because it’s somewhat unexpected. But the more unlikely the comparison, the more you might be accused of compar­ ing apples and oranges. It’s important, therefore, that the things we com­ pare be legitimately compared — as is the case in the following comparison of the health of the world’s richest and poorest people: World Health Organization (WHO) data indicate that roughly 1.2 billion people are undernourished, underweight, and often hungry. At the same time, roughly 1.2 billion people are overnourished and overweight, most of them suffering from excessive caloric intake and exercise deprivation. So while 1 billion people worry whether they will eat, another billion should worry about eating too much. Disease patterns also reflect the widening gap. The billion p ­ oorest suffer mostly from infectious diseases — malaria, tuberculosis, dysentery, and AIDS. Malnutrition leaves infants and small children even more ­vulnerable to such infectious diseases. Unsafe drinking water takes a heavier toll on those with hunger-weakened immune systems, resulting in millions of fatalities each year. In contrast, among the billion at the top of the global economic scale, it is diseases related to aging and lifestyle excesses, including obesity, smoking, diets rich in fat and sugar, and exercise deprivation, that cause most deaths.  — Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

While the two groups of roughly a billion people each undoubtedly have similarities, this selection from a book arguing for global action on the environment focuses on the stark contrasts.

Two Ways of Comparing and Contrasting Comparisons and contrasts may be organized in two basic ways: block and point by point.

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The block method.   One way is to discuss separately each item you’re comparing, giving all the information about one item and then all the infor­ mation about the next item. A report on Seattle and Vancouver, for example, compares the firearm regulations in each city by using a paragraph about Seattle and then a paragraph about Vancouver: Although similar in many ways, Seattle and Vancouver differ markedly in their approaches to the regulation of firearms. In Seattle, handguns may be purchased legally for self-defense in the street or at home. After a thirty-day waiting period, a permit can be obtained to carry a handgun as a concealed weapon. The recreational use of handguns is minimally restricted. In Vancouver, self-defense is not considered a valid or legal reason to purchase a handgun. Concealed weapons are not permitted. Recreational uses of handguns (such as target shooting and collecting) are regulated by the province, and the purchase of a handgun requires a restricted-weapons permit. A permit to carry a weapon must also be obtained in order to transport a handgun, and these weapons can be discharged only at a licensed shooting club. Handguns can be transported by car, but only if they are stored in the trunk in a locked box.  — John Henry Sloan et al., “Handgun Regulations, Crime, Assaults, and Homicide: A Tale of Two Cities”

The point-by-point method.  The other way to compare things is to focus on specific points of comparison. In this paragraph, humorist David Sedaris compares his childhood with his partner’s, discussing correspond­ ing aspects of the childhoods one at a time: Certain events are parallel, but compared with Hugh’s, my childhood was unspeakably dull. When I was seven years old, my family moved to North Carolina. When he was seven years old, Hugh’s family moved to the Congo. We had a collie and a house cat. They had a monkey and two horses named Charlie Brown and Satan. I threw stones at stop signs. Hugh threw stones at crocodiles. The verbs are the same, but he definitely wins the prize when it comes to nouns and objects. An eventful day for my mother might have involved a trip to the dry cleaner or a conversation with the potato-chip deliveryman. Asked one ordinary Congo afternoon what she’d done with her day, Hugh’s mother

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answered that she and a fellow member of the Ladies’ Club had ­visited a leper colony on the outskirts of Kinshasa.  — David Sedaris, “Remembering My Childhood on the Continent of Africa”

Using Graphs and Images to Present Comparisons 674–80

Some comparisons can be easier to understand if they’re presented visu­ ally, as a  chart ,  graph , or  illustration . For example, the following line graph, from Business Insider, compares the incomes of Black and White Americans between 2002 and 2018. It would be possible to write out this information in a paragraph — but it’s much easier to understand it this way:

$45K

Per capita income of Black and White Americans Per capita income in thousands using 2018 US dollars and CPS population

$40K

$42.7K

White Black

$35K

$30K $24.7K

$25K

$20K

$15K

$10K

$5K $0 2002

2004

2006

2008

2010

2012

2014

2016

2018

Source: Census Bureau Current Population Survey, 2002–2018

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Roadway in Houston before the 2017 hurricane (left) and after (right).

Sometimes photographs can make a comparison. The two photos above show a street in Houston before and after Hurricane Harvey in 2017.

Using Figurative Language to Make Comparisons Another way to make comparisons is with figurative language: words and phrases used in a nonliteral way to help readers see a point. Three kinds of figurative language that make comparisons are similes, meta­ phors, and analogies. When Robert Burns wrote that his love was “like a red, red rose,” he was comparing his love with a rose and evoking an image — in this case, a simile — that helps us understand his feelings for her. A simile makes a comparison using “like” or “as.” In the follow­ ing example, from an article in the food section of the New York Times, a restaurant critic uses several similes (underlined) to help us visualize an unusual food dish: Once upon a time, possibly at a lodge in Wyoming, possibly at a butcher shop in Maurice, Louisiana, or maybe even at a plantation in South Carolina, an enterprising cook decided to take a boned chicken, a boned duck, and a boned turkey, stuff them one inside the other like Russian dolls, and roast them. He called his masterpiece turducken. ...

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A well-prepared turducken is a marvelous treat, a free-form poultry terrine layered with flavorful stuffing and moistened with duck fat. When it’s assembled, it looks like a turkey and it roasts like a turkey, but when you go to carve it, you can slice through it like a loaf of bread. In each slice you get a little bit of everything: white meat from the breast, dark meat from the legs, duck, carrots, bits of sausage, bread, herbs, juices, and chicken, too.  — Amanda Hesser, “Turkey Finds Its Inner Duck (and Chicken)”

Metaphors make comparisons without such connecting words as “like” or “as.” See how desert ecologist Craig Childs uses a metaphor to help us understand the nature of water during a flood in the Grand Canyon: Water splashed off the desert and ran all over the surface, looking for the quickest way down. It was too swift for the ground to absorb. When water flows like this, it will not be clean tap water. It will be a gravy of debris, snatching everything it finds.  — Craig Childs, The Secret Knowledge of Water

Calling the water “a gravy of debris” allows us to see the murky liquid as it streams through the canyon. Analogies are extended similes or metaphors that compare some­ thing unfamiliar with something more familiar. Arguing that corporations should not patent parts of DNA whose function isn’t yet clear, a genetics professor uses the familiar image of a library to explain an unfamiliar concept: It’s like having a library of books and randomly tearing pages out. You may know which books the pages came from but that doesn’t tell you much about them.  — Peter Goodfellow, quoted in John Vidal and John Carvel, “Lambs to the Gene Market”

Sometimes analogies are used for humorous effect as well as to make a point, as in this passage from a critique of history textbooks:

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Another history text — this one for fifth grade — begins with the story of how Henry B. Gonzalez, who is a member of Congress from Texas, learned about his own nationality. When he was ten years old, his teacher told him he was an American because he was born in the United States. His grandmother, however, said, “The cat was born in the oven. Does that make him bread?”  — Frances FitzGerald, America Revised: History Schoolbooks in the Twentieth Century

The grandmother’s question shows how an intentionally ridiculous anal­ ogy can be a source of humor — and can make a point memorably.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in.

purpose Sometimes your main purpose for writing will be to

59–60

compare two or more things. Other times, you may want to compare several things for some other pur­ pose — to compare your views with those of others in an argument essay or to compare one text with another as you analyze them.

audience Who is your audience, and will comparing your topic

61–64

with a more familiar one help them to follow your discussion?

genre Does your genre require you to compare something?

65–71

Evaluations often include comparisons — one book to another in a review, or ten different cell phones in ­Consumer Reports.

stance Your stance may affect any comparisons you make.

72–74

How you compare two things — evenhandedly, or clearly favoring one over the other, for example — will reflect your stance.

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75–77

media / design Some things you’ll want to compare with words alone (lines from two poems, for instance), but sometimes you may wish to make comparisons visually (two images juxtaposed on a page, or several numbers plot­ ted on a line graph).

If you need more help 334 336 325

See  LOOPING  and  CUBING , two methods of generating ideas discussed in Chapter 28 that can be especially ­helpful for comparing and contrasting. If you’re writing an essay whose purpose is to compare two or more things, see also the  PROCESSES  chapters for help with drafting, revising, and so on.

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40 Defining

Defining something says what it is — and what it is not. A terrier, for example, is a kind of dog. A fox terrier is a small dog now generally kept as a pet but once used by hunters to dig for foxes. Happiness is a pink frosted doughnut, at least according to Homer Simpson. All of those are definitions. As writers, we need to define any terms our readers may not know. And sometimes you’ll want to stipulate your own definition of a word in order to set the terms of an  argument  — as Homer Simpson does with a definition that’s not found in any dictionary. This chapter details strategies for using definitions in your writing to suit your own rhetorical situations.

410–30

Formal Definitions Sometimes to make sure readers understand you, you’ll need to provide a formal definition. If you are using a technical term that readers are unlikely to know or if you are using a term in a specific way, you should say then and there what the word means. The word mutual, for example, has several meanings: it can mean shared or reciprocal, as when two people have mutual interests or have mutual respect. It can mean having the same relationship toward one another, as when two people are mutual enemies. And it can refer to a type of organization in which profits, losses, and expenses are shared by the organization’s members — a common form of insurance in which policyholders pay into a common fund that is used to pay insurance claims. (Examples might include companies like Mutual of Omaha and Liberty Mutual Insurance.) The first two meanings are commonly understood and probably require no definition. But if you were to use mutual in the third sense, it might need to be defined, depending on your audience. A general audience would probably need the definition; an audience from the insurance industry would not. A website that gives basic financial advice to an audience of non-

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specialists, for instance, offers a specific definition of the term “mutual fund”: Mutual funds are financial intermediaries. They are companies set up to receive your money and then, having received it, to make investments with the money.  — Bill Barker, “A Grand, Comprehensive Overview to Mutual Funds Investing”

But even writers in specialized fields routinely provide formal definitions to make sure their readers understand the way they’re using certain words. See how two writers define the word “stock” as it pertains to their respective (and very different) fields: Stocks are the basis for sauces and soups and important flavoring agents for braises. Admittedly, stock making is time consuming, but the extra effort yields great dividends.  — Tom Colicchio, Think Like a Chef Want to own part of a business without having to show up at its office every day? Or ever? Stock is the vehicle of choice for those who do. Dating back to the Dutch mutual stock corporations of the sixteenth century, the modern stock market exists as a way for entrepreneurs to finance businesses using money collected from investors. In return for ponying up the dough to finance the company, the investor becomes a part owner of the company. That ownership is represented by stock — specialized financial “securities,” or financial instruments, that are “secured” by a claim on the assets and profits of a company.  — “Investing Basics: Stocks,” Motley Fool

To write a formal definition • Use words that readers are likely to be familiar with. • Don’t use the word being defined in the definition. • Begin with the word being defined; include the general category to which the term belongs and the attributes that make it different from the others in that category.

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For example: Term

General Category

Distinguishing Attributes

“Stock“ is

a specialized financial “security”

that is “secured” by a claim.

“Photosynthesis“ is

a process

by which plants use sunlight to create energy.

“Astronomers“ are

scientists

who study celestial objects and phenomena.

“Zach Galifianakis,“

an actor,

has been featured in several films, including The Hangover and Birdman.

Note that the category and distinguishing attributes cannot be stated too broadly; if they were, the definition would be too vague to be useful. It wouldn’t be helpful in most circ*mstances, for example, to say, “Zach Galifianakis is a man who has acted” or “Photosynthesis is something having to do with plants.”

Extended Definitions Sometimes it’s useful to provide a more detailed definition. Extended definitions may be several sentences long or several paragraphs long and may include pictures or diagrams. Sometimes an entire essay is devoted to defining a difficult or important concept. Here is one writer’s extended definition of “soul food”: I’ve been eating soul food all my life and cooking it my whole career. I don’t just know soul food. Soul food is in my soul. . . . By definition, soul food refers to the dishes of the Cotton Belt of Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama that traveled out to the rest of the country during the Great Migration. (The term itself came around the middle of the twentieth century.) You know what travels well? Fried chicken. Mac and cheese. Delicious, but not what anyone’s meant to eat every day. I’m here to redefine soul food, to reclaim it. Soul food is the true food of African-Americans.

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The roots of our cooking are in West Africa. And from there, the American South, from the slave ports along the eastern coast to the southern border. We relied on seasonal vegetables, beans, and grains, with meat on rare occasions. Let’s be clear: those were horrible times of suffering under the most unspeakable evil. I don‘t want to romanticize any of it. Not even the food. Remember, we didn’t get to choose what we ate. But we made the most delicious dishes from what little we had. And what we cooked for the slave owners effectively became what we know as “American” food today.  — Carla Hall, Carla Hall’s Soul Food

That definition includes a description of the basic features of soul food, examples of it, and the origin of the term. We can assume that it’s written for a general audience, one that doesn’t know much about soul food. Abstract concepts often require extended definitions because by nature they are more complicated to define. There are many ways of writing an extended definition, depending in part on the term being defined and on the writer’s audience and purpose. The following examples show some of the methods that can be used for composing extended definitions of “democracy.”

Explore the word’s origins.  Where did the word come from? When did it first come into use? In the following example, from an essay consider­ing what democracy means in the twenty-first century, the writer started by looking at the word’s first known use in English. Though it’s from an essay written for a first-year writing course and thus for a fairly general audience, it’s a definition that might pique any audience’s interest: According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the term democracy first appeared in English in a thirteenth-century translation of Aristotle’s works — specifically, in his Politics, where he stated that the “underly­ing principle of democracy is freedom” and that “it is customary to say that only in democracies do men have a share in freedom, for that is what every democracy makes its aim.” By the sixteenth century, the word was used much as it is now. One writer in 1586, for instance, defined it in this way: “where free and poore men being the greater number, are lords of the estate.”  — Susanna Mejía, “What Does Democracy Mean Now?”

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Norman Rockwell’s 1943 painting Freedom of Speech presents a visual definition of democracy: a citizen stands to speak at a public meeting while his fellow citizens listen attentively.

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Here’s another example, this one written for a scholarly audience, from an essay about women, participation, democracy, and the information age: The very word citizenship carries with it a connotation of place, a “citizen” being, literally, the inhabitant of a city. Over the years the word has, of course, accumulated a number of associated meanings ... and the word has come to stand in for such concepts as participation, equality, and democracy. The fact that the concept of locality is deeply embedded in the word citizen suggests that it is also fundamental to our current understanding of these other, more apparently abstract words. In Western thought, the concepts of citizenship, equality, and democracy are closely interlinked and can be traced back to a common source, in Athens in the fifth century BCE. Perhaps it is no accident that it was the same culture which also gave us, in its theater, the concept of the unity of time and space. The Greek city-state has been represented for centuries as the ideal model of democracy, with free and equal access for all citizens to decision making. Leaving aside, for the moment, the question of who was included, and who excluded from this notion of citizenship, we can see that the sense of place is fundamental to this model. Entitlement to participate in the democratic process is circ*mscribed by geography; it is the inhabitants of the geographical entity of the city-state, precisely defined and bounded, who have the rights to citizenship. Those who are not defined as inhabitants of that specific city-state are explicitly excluded, although, of course, they may have the right to citizenship elsewhere.  — Ursula Huws, “Women, Participation, and Democracy in the Information Society”

Provide details.  What are its characteristics? What is it made of? See how a historian explores the basic characteristics of democracy in a book written for an audience of historians: As a historian I am naturally disposed to be satisfied with the meaning which, in the history of politics, men have commonly attributed to the word — a meaning, needless to say, which derives partly from the experience and partly from the aspirations of mankind. So regarded, the term democracy refers primarily to a form of government, and it

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has always meant government by the many as opposed to government by the one — government by the people as opposed to government by a tyrant, a dictator, or an absolute monarch. ... Since the Greeks first used the term, the essential test of democratic government has always been this: the source of political authority must be and remain in the people and not in the ruler. A democratic government has always meant one in which the citizens, or a sufficient number of them to represent more or less effectively the common will, freely act from time to time, and according to established forms, to appoint or recall the magistrates and to enact or revoke the laws by which the community is governed.  — Carl Becker, Modern Democracy

Compare it with other words.  How is this concept like other similar things? How does it differ? What is it not like?  compare and contrast

437–44

it. See how a political science textbook defines a majoritarian democracy by comparing its characteristics with those of a consensual democracy: A majoritarian democracy is one 1. having only two major political parties, not many 2. having an electoral system that requires a bare majority to elect one clear winner in an election, as opposed to a proportional ­electoral system that distributes seats to political parties according to the rough share of votes received in the election 3. a strong executive (president or prime minister) and cabinet that together are largely independent of the legislature when it comes to exercising the executive’s constitutional duties, in contrast to an executive and cabinet that are politically controlled by the parties in the legislature and therefore unable to exercise much influence when proposing policy initiatives.  — Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, and Margaret Weir, We the People: An Introduction to American Politics

And here’s an example in which democracy is contrasted with various other forms of governments of the past: Caesar’s power derived from a popular mandate, conveyed through established republican forms, but that did not make his government any

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the less a dictatorship. Napoleon called his government a democratic republic, but no one, least of all Napoleon himself, doubted that he had destroyed the last vestiges of the democratic republic.  — Carl Becker, Modern Democracy

Give examples.  See how the essayist E. B. White defines democracy by giving some everyday examples of considerate behavior, humility, and civic participation — all things he suggests constitute democracy: It is the line that forms on the right. It is the don’t in “don’t shove.” It is the hole in the stuffed shirt through which the sawdust slowly trickles; it is the dent in the high hat. Democracy is the recurrent suspicion that more than half of the people are right more than half of the time. ... Democracy is a letter to the editor. — E. B. White, “Democracy”

White’s definition is elegant because he uses examples that his readers will know. His characteristics  —  metaphors, really  —  define democracy not as a conceptual way of governing but as an everyday part of American life. 431–36

Classify it.  Often it’s useful to divide or  classify  a term. The ways in which democracy unfolds are complex enough to warrant entire textbooks, of course; but the following definition, from a political science ­textbook, divides democracy into two kinds, representative and direct: A system of government that gives citizens a regular opportunity to elect the top government officials is usually called a representative democracy or republic. A system that permits citizens to vote directly on laws and policies is often called a direct democracy. At the national level, America is a representative democracy in which citizens select government officials but do not vote on legislation. Some states, ­however, have provisions for direct legislation through popular referendum. For example, California voters in 1995 decided to bar undocumented immigrants from receiving some state services.  — Benjamin Ginsberg, Theodore J. Lowi, and Margaret Weir, We the People: An Introduction to American Politics

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Stipulative Definitions Sometimes a writer will stipulate a certain definition, essentially saying, “This is how I’m defining x.” Such definitions are not usually found in a dictionary — and at the same time are central to the argument the writer is making. Here is one example, from an essay by Toni Morrison. Describing a scene from a film in which a newly arrived Greek immigrant, working as a shoe shiner in Grand Central Terminal, chases away an African ­American competitor, Morrison calls the scene an example of “race talk,” a concept she then goes on to define: This is race talk, the explicit insertion into everyday life of racial signs and symbols that have no meaning other than pressing African ­Americans to the lowest level of the racial hierarchy. Popular culture, shaped by film, theater, advertising, the press, television, and literature, is heavily engaged in race talk. It participates freely in this most enduring and efficient rite of passage into American culture: negative appraisals of the native-born black population. Only when the lesson of racial estrangement is learned is assimilation complete. Whatever the lived experience of immigrants with African Americans — pleasant, beneficial, or bruising — the rhetorical experience renders blacks as noncitizens, already discredited outlaws. All immigrants fight for jobs and space, and who is there to fight but those who have both? As in the fishing ground struggle between Texas and Vietnamese shrimpers, they displace what and whom they can. Although U.S. history is awash in labor battles, political fights and property wars among all religious and ethnic groups, their struggles are persistently framed as struggles between recent arrivals and blacks. In race talk the move into mainstream America always means buying into the notion of American blacks as the real aliens. Whatever the ethnicity or nationality of the immigrant, his nemesis is understood to be African American.  — Toni Morrison, “On the Backs of Blacks”

The following example is from a book review of Nancy L. Rosenblum’s Membership and Morals: The Personal Uses of Pluralism in America, published in the American Prospect, a magazine for readers interested in political analysis. In it a Stanford law professor outlines a definition of “the democracy of everyday life”:

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Democracy, in this understanding of it, means simply treating people as equals, disregarding social standing, avoiding attitudes of either deference or superiority, making allowances for others’ weaknesses, and resisting the temptation to respond to perceived slights. It also means protesting everyday instances of arbitrariness and unfairness — from the rudeness of the bakery clerk to the sexism of the car dealer or the racism of those who vandalize the home of the first black neighbors on the block.  — Kathleen M. Sullivan, “Defining Democracy Down”

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in. 59–60

purpose Your purpose for writing will affect any definitions you include. Would writing an extended definition help you explain something? Would stipulating definitions of key terms help you shape an argument? Could an offbeat definition help you entertain your readers?

61–64

audience What audience do you want to reach, and are there any terms your readers are unlikely to know (and therefore need to be defined)? Are there terms they might understand differently from the way you’re defining them?

65–71

genre Does your genre require you to define terms? Chances are that if you’re reporting information you’ll need to define some terms, and some arguments rest on the way you define key terms.

72–74

stance What is your stance, and do you need to define key terms to show that stance clearly? How you define “fetus,” for example, is likely to reveal your stance on abortion.

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40 Defining

media / design Your medium will affect the form your definitions

75–77

take. In a print text, you’ll need to define terms in your text; if you’re giving a speech or presentation, you might also provide images of important terms and their definitions. In an electronic text, you may be able to define terms by linking to an online dictionary definition.

If you need more help See also the  PROCESSES  chapters for help with generating ideas, drafting, revising, and so on if you are writing a whole essay dedicated to defining a term or concept.

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456

41 Describing

236–44 391–401

When we describe something, we indicate what it looks like — and sometimes how it sounds, feels, smells, and tastes. Descriptive details are a way of showing rather than telling, of helping readers see (or hear, smell, and so on) what we’re writing about — that the sky is blue, that Miss Havisham is wearing an old yellowed wedding gown, that the chemicals in the beaker have reacted and smell like rotten eggs. You’ll have occasion to describe things in most of the writing you do — from describing a favorite hat in a  memoir  or  reflection  to detailing a chemical reaction in a lab report. This chapter will help you work with description — and, in particular, help you think about the use of detail, about objectivity and subjectivity, about vantage point, about creating a clear dominant impression, and about using description to fit your rhetorical situation.

Detail The goal of using details is to be as specific as possible, providing information that will help your audience imagine the subject or make sense of it. See, for example, how Nancy Mairs, an author with multiple sclerosis, describes the disease in clear, specific terms: During its course, which is unpredictable and uncontrollable, one may lose vision, hearing, speech, the ability to walk, control of bladder and / or bowels, strength in any or all extremities, sensitivity to touch, vibration, and / or pain, potency, coordination of movements — the list of possibilities is lengthy and, yes, horrifying. One may also lose one’s sense of humor. That’s the easiest to lose and the hardest to survive without. In the past ten years, I have sustained some of these losses. Characteristic of MS are sudden attacks, called exacerbations, followed by remissions, and these I have not had. Instead, my disease has been slowly progressive. My left leg is now so weak that I walk with the aid of a brace and a cane, and for distances I use an Amigo, a variation on the

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electric wheelchair that looks rather like an electrified kiddie car. I no longer have much use of my left hand. Now my right side is weakening as well. I still have the blurred spot in my right eye. Overall, though, I’ve been lucky so far.  — Nancy Mairs, “On Being a Cripple”

Mairs’s gruesome list demonstrates, through specific details, how the disease affects sufferers generally and her in particular. We know far more after reading this text than we do from the following more general description, from a National Multiple Sclerosis Society brochure: Multiple sclerosis is a chronic, unpredictable disease of the central nervous system (the brain, optic nerves, and spinal cord). It is thought to be an autoimmune disorder. This means the immune system incorrectly attacks the person’s healthy tissue. MS can cause blurred vision, loss of balance, poor coordination, slurred speech, tremors, numbness, extreme fatigue, problems with memory and concentration, paralysis, and blindness. These problems may be permanent, or they may come and go.  — National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Just the Facts

Specific details are also more effective than labels, which give little meaningful information. Instead of saying that someone is a “loser” or “really smart,” it’s better to give details so that readers can understand the reasons behind the label: What does this person do or say that makes them deserve this label? See, for example, how the writer of a memoir focused on his pet snake describes the way his snake, Woohoo, and he interacted: He wound around my wrist, hung in the air, pulled himself up and into the arm of my shirt, through which he slithered until he decided on another opening, the neck, from which his head emerged, and then his forked tongue, darting out, shaking, tasting and retreating into his mouth. I gave his cold blood my heat and flexed hello to his constrictions. My fingers followed the grain of his scales down his undulating length, which grew to four feet from ten inches as the years passed, its colors freshly radiant after every shedding. — Paul McAdory, “Snakes”

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The writer might simply have said, “The snake moved around under my shirt.” Instead, he shows the snake as it moves from place to place (“He wound around my wrist, hung in the air, pulled himself up and into the arm of my shirt”) and describes his own physical reaction (“I . . . flexed hello to his constrictions,” “My fingers followed the grain of his scales”) — all details that create a far more vivid description. Sensory details help readers imagine sounds, odors, tastes, and physical sensations in addition to sights. In the following example, writer Scott Russell Sanders recalls sawing wood as a child. Note how visual details, odors, and even the physical sense of being picked up by his father mingle to form a vivid scene: As the saw teeth bit down, the wood released its smell, each kind with its own fragrance, oak or walnut or cherry or pine — usually pine because it was the softest, easiest for a child to work. No matter how weathered and gray the board, no matter how warped and cracked, inside there was this smell waiting, as of something freshly baked. I gathered every smidgen of sawdust and stored it away in coffee cans, which I kept in a drawer of the workbench. When I did not feel like hammering nails I would dump my sawdust on the concrete floor of the garage and landscape it into highways and farms and towns, running miniature cars and trucks along miniature roads. Looming as huge as a colossus, my father worked over and around me, now and again bending down to inspect my work, careful not to trample my creations. It was a landscape that smelled dizzyingly of wood. Even after a bath my skin would carry the smell, and so would my father’s hair, when he lifted me for a bedtime hug.  — Scott Russell Sanders, The Paradise of Bombs

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236–44

Whenever you describe something, you’ll select from many possible details you might use. Simply put, to exhaust all the details available to describe something is impossible — and would exhaust your readers as well. To focus your description, you’ll need to determine the kinds of details appropriate for your subject. They will vary, depending on your  purpose . See, for example, how the details might differ in three different genres: • For a  memoir  about an event, you might choose details that are significant for you, that evoke the sights, sounds, and other sensations that give personal meaning to the event.

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• For a  profile , you’re likely to select details that will reinforce the dominant impression you want to give, that portray the event from the perspective you want readers to see.

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• For a lab report, you should give certain specifics — what equipment was used, what procedures were followed, what exactly were the results. Deciding on a focus for your description can help you see it better, as you’ll look for details that contribute to that focus.

Objectivity and Subjectivity Descriptions can be written with objectivity, with subjectivity, or with a mixture of both. Objective descriptions attempt to be uncolored by personal opinion or emotion. Police reports and much news writing aim to describe events objectively; scientific writing strives for objectivity in describing laboratory procedures and results. See, for example, the following objective account of what happened at the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001: World Trade Center Disaster — Tuesday, September 11, 2001 On Tuesday, September 11, 2001, at 8:45 a.m. New York local time, One World Trade Center, the north tower, was hit by a hijacked 767 commercial jet airplane loaded with fuel for a transcontinental flight. Two World Trade Center, the south tower, was hit by a similar hijacked jet eighteen minutes later, at 9:03 a.m. (In separate but related attacks, the Pentagon building near Washington, D.C., was hit by a hijacked 757 at 9:43 a.m., and at 10:10 a.m. a fourth hijacked jetliner crashed in Pennsylvania.) The south tower, WTC 2, which had been hit second, was the first to suffer a complete structural collapse, at 10:05 a.m., 62 minutes after being hit itself, 80 minutes after the first impact. The north tower, WTC 1, then also collapsed, at 10:29 a.m., 104 minutes after being hit. WTC 7, a substantial forty-seven-story office building in its own right, built in 1987, was damaged by the collapsing towers, caught fire, and later in the afternoon also totally collapsed.  — “World Trade Center,” GreatBuildings.com

Subjective descriptions, in contrast, allow the writer’s opinions and emotions to come through. A house can be described as comfortable, with a lived-in look, or as run-down and in need of a paint job and a new roof.

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Here’s a subjective description of the planes striking the World Trade Center, as told by a woman watching from a nearby building: Incredulously, while looking out [the] window at the damage and carnage the first plane had inflicted, I saw the second plane abruptly come into my right field of vision and deliberately, with shimmering intention, thunder full-force into the south tower. It was so close, so low, so huge and fast, so intent on its target that I swear to you, I swear to you, I felt the vengeance and rage emanating from the plane.  — Debra Fontaine, “Witnessing”

Vantage Point Sometimes you’ll want or need to describe something from a certain vantage point. Where you locate yourself in relation to what you’re describing will determine what you can perceive (and so describe) and what you can’t. You may describe your subject from a stationary vantage point, from which you (and your readers) see your subject from one angle only, as if you were a camera. This description of one of three photographs that captured a woman’s death records only what the camera saw from one angle at one particular moment: The first showed some people on a fire escape — a fireman, a woman and a child. The fireman had a nice strong jaw and looked very brave. The woman was holding the child. Smoke was pouring from the building behind them. A rescue ladder was approaching, just a few feet away, and the fireman had one arm around the woman and one arm reaching out toward the ladder.  — Nora Ephron, “The Boston Photographs”

By contrast, this description of a drive to an Italian villa uses a moving vantage point; the writer recounts what he saw as he passed through a gate in a city wall, moving from city to country: La Pietra — “the stone” — is situated one mile from the Porta San Gallo, an entry to the Old City of Florence. You drive there along the Via Bolognese, twisting past modern apartment blocks, until you come to a gate, which swings open — and there you are, at the upper end of a long lane of cypresses facing a great ocher palazzo; with olive groves

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spreading out on both sides over an expanse of fifty-seven acres. There’s something almost comically wonderful about the effect: here, the city, with its winding avenue; there, on the other side of a wall, the country, fertile and gray green.  — James Traub, “Italian Hours”

The description of quarries in the following section uses multiple vantage points to capture the quarries from many perspectives.

Dominant Impression With any description, your aim is to create some dominant impression —  the overall feeling that the individual details add up to. The dominant impression may be implied, growing out of the details themselves. For example, Scott Russell Sanders’s memory of the smell of sawdust creates a dominant impression of warmth and comfort: the “fragrance . . . as of something freshly baked,” sawdust “stored ... away in coffee cans,” a young boy “lifted ... for a bedtime hug.” Sometimes, though, a writer will state the dominant impression directly, in addition to creating it with details. In an essay about Indiana limestone quarries, Sanders makes the dominant impression clear from the start: “They are battlefields.” The quarries will not be domesticated. They are not backyard pools; they are battlefields. Each quarry is an arena where violent struggles have taken place between machines and planet, between human ingenuity and brute resisting stone, between mind and matter. Waste rock litters the floor and brim like rubble in a bombed city. The ragged pits might have been the basem*nts of vanished skyscrapers. Stones weighing tens of tons lean against one another at precarious angles, as if they have been thrown there by some gigantic strength and have not yet finished falling. Wrecked machinery hulks in the weeds, grimly rusting, the cogs and wheels, twisted rails, battered engine housings, trackless bulldozers and burst boilers like junk from an armored regiment. Everywhere the ledges are scarred from drills, as if from an artillery barrage or machine-gun strafing. Stumbling onto one of these abandoned quarries and gazing at the ruins, you might be left wondering who had won the battle, men or stone.  — Scott Russell Sanders, The Paradise of Bombs

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The rest of his description, full of more figurative language (“like rubble in a bombed city,” “like junk from an armored regiment,” “as if from an artillery barrage or machine-gun strafing”) reinforces the direct “they are battlefields” statement.

The orange sunset and expanse of sky and water in this Michigan tourism ad create a dominant impression of spaciousness and warmth, while the text invites readers to visit a Michigan beach and enjoy watching the sun set, rather than watching television.

Organizing Descriptions You can organize descriptions in many ways. When your description is primarily visual, you’ll probably organize it spatially: from left to right, top to bottom, outside to inside. One variation on this approach is to begin with the most significant or noteworthy feature and move outward from that center, as Ephron does in describing a photo. Or you may create a chronological description of objects as you move past or through them in space, as Traub does in his description of his drive. You might even pile up details to create a dominant impression, as Sanders and Mairs do, especially if your description draws on senses besides vision.

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Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in.

purpose Your purpose may affect the way you use description.

59–60

If you’re arguing that a government should intervene in another country’s civil war, for example, describing the anguish of refugees from that war could make your argument more persuasive. If you’re analyzing a painting, you will likely need to describe it.

audience Who is your audience, and will they need detailed

61–64

description to understand the points you wish to make?

genre Does your genre require description? A lab report gen-

65–71

erally calls for you to describe materials and results; a ­memoir about Grandma should probably describe her —  her smile, her favorite outfit, her apple pie.

stance The way you describe things can help you convey your

72–74

stance. For example, the details you choose can show you to be objective (or not), careful or casual.

media / design Your medium will affect the form your description can

75–77

take. In a print or spoken text, you’ll likely rely on words, though you may also include visuals. In an electronic text, you can easily provide links to visuals as well as audio clips and so may need fewer words of your own.

If you need more help See also  FREEWRITING ,  CUBING , and  LISTING , three methods of generating ideas that can be especially helpful for developing detailed descriptions. Sometimes you may be assigned to write a whole essay describing something: see the  PROCESSES  chapters for help with drafting, revising, and so on.

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42 Using Dialogue

236–44 245–57 223–35 164–95

Dialogue is a way of including people’s own words in a text, letting readers hear those people’s voices — not just what you say about them.  memoirs  and  profiles  often include dialogue, and many other genres do as well:  literary analyses  often quote dialogue from the texts they analyze, and essays  arguing a position  might quote an authoritative source as ­support for a claim. This chapter provides brief guidelines for the conventions of paragraphing and punctuating dialogue and offers some good examples of how you can use dialogue most effectively to suit your own rhetorical situations.

Why Add Dialogue? Dialogue is a way of bringing in voices other than your own, of showing people and scenes rather than just telling about them. It can add color and texture to your writing, making it memorable. Most important, however, dialogue should be more than just colorful or interesting. It needs to contribute to your rhetorical purpose, to support the point you’re making. See how dialogue is used in the following excerpt from a magazine profile of the Mall of America, how it gives us a sense of the place that the journalist’s own words could not provide: Two pubescent girls in retainers and braces sat beside me sipping ­coffees topped with whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles, their shopping bags gathered tightly around their legs, their eyes fixed on the passing crowds. They came, they said, from Shakopee — “It’s nowhere,” one of them explained. The megamall, she added, was “a buzz at first, but now it seems pretty normal. ’Cept my parents are like Twenty Questions every time I want to come here. ‘Specially since the shooting.” On a Sunday night, she elaborated, three people had been wounded when shots were fired in a dispute over a San Jose Sharks

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jacket. “In the mall,” her friend reminded me. “Right here at megamall. A shooting.” “It’s like nowhere’s safe,” the first added.  — David Guterson, “Enclosed. Encyclopedic. Endured. One Week at the Mall of America”

Of course, it was the writer who decided whom and what to quote, and Guterson deliberately chose words that capture the young shoppers’ speech patterns, quoting fragments (“In the mall. . . . Right here at megamall. A shooting”), slang (“a buzz at first,” “my parents are like Twenty Questions”), even contractions (“’Cept,” “’Specially”).

Integrating Dialogue into Your Writing There are certain conventions for punctuating and paragraphing dialogue: • Punctuating. Enclose each speaker’s words in quotation marks, and put any end punctuation — periods, question marks, and exclamation marks — inside the closing quotation mark. Whether you’re transcribing words you heard or making them up, you’ll sometimes need to add punctuation to reflect the rhythm and sound of the speech. In the last sentence of the example below, see how Chang-Rae Lee adds a comma after “Well” and italicizes “practice” to show intonation — and attitude. • Paragraphing. When you’re writing dialogue that includes more than one speaker, start a new paragraph each time the speaker changes. • Signal phrases. Sometimes you’ll need to introduce dialogue with  signal phrases  — “I said,” “she asked,” and so on — to make clear who is speaking. At times, however, the speaker will be clear enough, and you won’t need any signal phrases.

551–54

Here is a conversation between a mother and her son that illustrates each of the conventions for punctuating and paragraphing dialogue: “Whom do I talk to?” she said. She would mostly speak to me in Korean, and I would answer back in English. “The bank manager, who else?” “What do I say?”

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“Whatever you want to say.” “Don’t speak to me like that!” she cried. “It’s just that you should be able to do it yourself,” I said. “You know how I feel about this!” “Well, maybe then you should consider it practice,” I answered lightly, using the Korean word to make sure she understood.  — Chang-Rae Lee, “Coming Home Again”

Interviews Interviews are a kind of dialogue, with different conventions for punctuation. When you’re transcribing an interview, give each speaker’s name each time they speak, starting a new line but not indenting, and do not use quotation marks. Here’s an excerpt from an interview that graduate student Emma Peters conducted with Brenda Ouattara, a recent two-year college graduate, while researching how the COVID-19 pandemic affected college education and online learning. Emma Peters: What school did you go to, and what year were you in when the pandemic started? Brenda Ouattara: I attended LaGuardia Community College in Queens, and it was during my first year there. I was only on campus for a few months before COVID, so I actually finished almost my whole two-year college experience online instead of in person. Peters: Did you take online classes before the pandemic? How were they different? Ouattara: I was in hybrid classes before, where we’d meet once a week in person and the rest was online. The online classes during the pandemic were more challenging — it felt like they had more work. Because, in my opinion, the professors felt like we were going to be missing out on the full experience of their class, so they would give us more work. And we also had to learn how to manage doing online courses, and how to figure out and navigate the websites. Peters: What do you think is lost with an online learning experience that you might have had if you were in person?

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Ouattara: The experience of meeting new students, meeting your actual professors, just being face to face to get the help that you need . . . and having the opportunities to have student fairs or any other events. All of those things were just not happening for us. I feel like it was hard for some students to really be motivated at home. I know a few of my friends actually just decided to take the semesters off. I kept going, but I wasn’t as motivated to after a while because it’s online, so it’s not as exciting as walking in the buildings and meeting people and going straight to your professors for help. Peters: What do you think are the benefits of online classes? Ouattara: It’s a little bit easier to manage with your personal life. You can have a regular work schedule and then come home and do assignments. But when you’re in person you have to be physically in a classroom. It was definitely a benefit being able to set my own schedule. Peters: How did being online affect your relationship with your professors? Ouattara: The communication was different — you had to speak through email and online calls, and sometimes it was harder to get a fast response. Some professors were also struggling to use online resources, and sometimes I would ask them a question and they would ask me a question — and we were helping each other out. [Laughs] Peters: Do you think anything will change permanently going forward after the pandemic? Ouattara: I don’t think it will go back to exactly how it was before, even though many colleges are trying. I feel like I’ve spent two years doing online learning and now it would almost be out of my comfort zone to go back to in-person classes — this is normal for me now, you know? But everyone is different.

In preparing the interview transcript for publication, Peters had to add punctuation, which of course was not part of the oral conversation, and probably deleted pauses and verbal expressions such as “um” and “uh.” At the same time, she kept informal interjections (“you know?”) and included expressions of emotion (“Laughs”) to maintain the oral flavor of the interview and reflect Ouattara’s voice. More tips on interviewing may be found in Chapter 47.

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Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context of your writing. 59–60

purpose Your purpose will affect any use of dialogue. Dialogue can help bring a profile to life and make it memorable. Interviews with experts or firsthand witnesses can add credibility to a report or argument.

61–64

audience Whom do you want to reach, and will dialogue help? Sometimes actual dialogue can help readers hear human voices behind facts or reason.

65–71

genre Does your genre require dialogue? If you’re evaluating or analyzing a literary work, for instance, you may wish to include dialogue from that work. If you’re writing a profile of a person or event, dialogue can help you bring your subject to life. Similarly, an interview with an expert can add credibility to a report or argument.

72–74

stance What is your stance, and can dialogue help you communicate that stance? For example, excerpts of an interview may enable you to challenge someone’s views and make your own views clear.

75–77

media / design Your medium will affect the way you present dialogue. In a print text, you’ll present dialogue through written words. In an oral or electronic text, you might include actual recorded dialogue.

If you need more help 518–20 542–54.

See also the guidelines on  INTERVIEWING EXPERTS  for advice on setting up and recording interviews and those on  QUOTING ,  PARAPHRASING , and  SUMMARIZING  for help with deciding how to integrate dialogue into your text.

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43 Explaining Processes

When you explain a process, you tell how something is (or was) done —  how a bill becomes a law, how an embryo develops; or you tell someone how to do something — how to throw a curve ball, how to write a memoir. This chapter focuses on those two kinds of explanations, offering examples and guidelines for explaining a process in a way that works for your rhetorical situation.

Explaining a Process Clearly Whether the process is simple or complex, you’ll need to identify its key stages or steps and explain them one by one, in order. The sequence matters because it enables readers to follow your explanation; it is especially important when you’re explaining a process that others are going to follow. Most often you’ll explain a process chronologically, from start to finish.  transitions  — words like “first,” “next,” “then,” and so on — are often necessary, therefore, to show readers how the stages of a process relate to one another and to indicate time sequences. Finally, you’ll find that verbs matter; they indicate the actions that take place at each stage of the process.

361–62

Explaining How Something Is Done All processes consist of steps, and when you explain how something is done, you describe each step, generally in order, from first to last. Here, for

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example, is an explanation of how french fries are made, from an essay published in the New Yorker: Fast-food French fries are made from a baking potato like an Idaho russet, or any other variety that is mealy, or starchy, rather than waxy. The potatoes are harvested, cured, washed, peeled, sliced, and then blanched — cooked enough so that the insides have a fluffy texture but not so much that the fry gets soft and breaks. Blanching is followed by drying, and drying by a thirty-second deep fry, to give the potatoes a crisp shell. Then the fries are frozen until the moment of service, when they are deep-fried again, this time for somewhere around three minutes. Depending on the fast-food chain involved, there are other steps interspersed in this process. McDonald’s fries, for example, are briefly dipped in a sugar solution, which gives them their golden-brown color; Burger King fries are dipped in a starch batter, which is what gives those fries their distinctive hard shell and audible crunch. But the result is similar. The potato that is first harvested in the field is roughly 80 percent water. The process of creating a French fry consists, essentially, of removing as much of that water as possible  —  through blanching, drying, and deep-frying  —  and replacing it with fat.  — Malcolm Gladwell, “The Trouble with Fries”

Gladwell clearly explains the process of making french fries, showing us the specific steps — how the potatoes “are harvested, cured, washed, peeled, sliced,” and so on — and using clear transitions — “followed by,” “then,” “until,” “when” — and action verbs to show the sequence. His last sentence makes his stance clear, pointing out that the process of creating a french fry consists of removing as much of a potato’s water as possible “and replacing it with fat.”

Explaining How to Do Something In explaining how to do something, you are giving instruction so that others can follow the process themselves. See how cookbook author Amanda Hesser explains the process of making french fries. She starts by listing the ingredients and then describes the steps:

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4 large long Idaho potatoes Peanut oil Kosher or coarse sea salt 1. Peel the potatoes. Place in a bowl, cover with water, and refrigerate for 8 hours. 2.  Slice the potatoes lengthwise into ¼-inch-thick sticks. Place in a bowl, cover with water, and refrigerate for 8 hours more. 3. Drain the potato sticks and lay out on dish towels to dry. Be sure they are completely dry before frying. 4. Heat 2 inches of oil to 300 degrees in a large deep pot with a frying basket and a deep-frying thermometer clipped to the side. Add just enough potatoes to cover the bottom of the frying basket and cook until slightly limp, 1½ to 2 minutes; do not brown. Lift the basket and drain the fries, then transfer the potatoes to a wire rack set over a baking sheet and separate the sticks. Repeat with the remaining potatoes. 5. Increase the heat to 375 degrees. Again add the potatoes in batches to the oil and fry until chestnut brown on the edges and crisp. Drain and transfer to a bowl lined with paper towels. Immediately season with salt, tossing to coat. — Amanda Hesser, “French Fries”

Hesser’s explanation leaves out no details, giving a clear sequence of steps and descriptive verbs that tell us exactly what to do: “Peel,” “Slice,” “Heat,” and so on. After she gives the recipe, she offers variations, including adding a slice of bacon to the oil “for a light pork flavor” or adding some herb leaves into the oil and then serving the fries “with the crisped herbs.”

Explaining a Process Visually Some processes are best explained  visually , with diagrams or photographs. See, for example, how a blogger explains one process of shaping dough into a bagel — giving the details in words and then showing us in photos how to do it:

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Gently press dough to deflate it a bit and divide into 6 equal portions.

Roll each portion into a rope about 1/2-inch in diameter.

Wrap the dough around your hand like this.

Seal the ends together by rolling back and forth on the counter a few times.

Place bagels on a lined sheet pan. Allow to rise, uncovered.

— Patricia Reitz, ButterYum Photos by Patricia Reitz (butteryum.org).

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43 Explaining Processes

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As always, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in.

purpose Your purpose for writing will affect the way you

59–60

explain a process. If you’re arguing that we should avoid eating fast food, you might explain the process by which chicken nuggets are made. But to give information about how to fry chicken, you would explain the process quite differently.

audience Whom are you trying to reach, and will you need to

61–64

provide any special background information or to interest them in the process before you explain it?

genre Does your genre require you to explain a process? In a

65–71

lab report, for example, you’ll need to explain processes used in the experiment. You might want to explain a process in a profile of an activity or a proposal for a solution.

stance If you’re giving practical directions for doing some-

72–74

thing, you’ll want to take a straightforward “do this, and then do that” perspective. If you’re writing to entertain, try taking a clever or amusing stance.

media / design Your medium will affect the way you explain a pro-

75–77

cess. In a print text, you can use both words and images. On the web, you may have the option of showing a video of the process as well.

If you need more help See also  PROFILES  if you are writing about an activity that needs to be explained. See ­  narrating  for more advice on organizing an explanation chronologically. Sometimes you may be assigned to write a whole essay or report that explains a process; see  PROCESSES  for help with drafting, revising, and so on.

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44 Narrating

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245–57

Narratives are stories. As a writing strategy, a good narrative can lend support to most kinds of writing — in a  position paper  arguing for Title IX compliance, for example, you might include a brief narrative about an Olympic sprinter who might never have had an opportunity to compete on a track-and-field team without Title IX. Or you can bring a  profile  of a favorite coach to life with an anecdote about a pep talk they once gave before a championship track meet. Whatever your larger writing purpose, it’s important to make sure that any narratives you add support that purpose — they should not be inserted simply to tell an interesting story. You’ll also need to compose them carefully — to put them in a clear sequence, include pertinent detail, and make sure they are appropriate to your particular rhetorical situation.

Sequencing When we write a narrative, we arrange events in a particular sequence. Writers typically sequence narratives in chronological order, reverse chronological order, or as a flashback.

Use chronological order.  Often you may tell the story chronologically, starting at the beginning of an event and working through to the end, as Maya Angelou does in this brief narrative from an essay about her high school graduation: The school band struck up a march and all classes filed in as had been rehearsed. We stood in front of our seats, as assigned, and on a signal from the choir director, we sat. No sooner had this been accomplished than the band started to play the national anthem. We rose again and sang the song, after which we recited the pledge of allegiance. We

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remained standing for a brief minute before the choir director and the principal signaled to us, rather desperately I thought, to take our seats.  — Maya Angelou, “Graduation”

Use reverse chronological order.   You may also begin with the final action and work back to the first, as Aldo Leopold does in this narrative about cutting down a tree: Now our saw bites into the 1890s, called gay by those whose eyes turn cityward rather than landward. We cut 1899, when the last passenger pigeon collided with a charge of shot near Babco*ck, two counties to the north; we cut 1898, when a dry fall, followed by a snowless winter, froze the soil seven feet deep and killed the apple trees; 1897, another drouth year, when another forestry commission came into being; 1896, when 25,000 prairie chickens were shipped to market from the village of Spooner alone; 1895, another year of fires; 1894, another drouth year; and 1893, the year of “the Bluebird Storm,” when a March bliz­ zard reduced the migrating bluebirds to near zero.  — Aldo Leopold, A Sand County Almanac

résumés*  are one genre where we generally use reverse chronological

Glossary

order, listing the most recent jobs or degrees first and then working backward. Notice, too, that we usually write these as narratives — telling what we have done rather than just naming positions we have held: Sept. 2020–present Student worker, Department of Information Management, Central State University, Wilberforce, OH. Compile data and format reports using Excel, Word, and university database. June–Sept. 2020

I ntern, QuestPro Corporation, West Louisville, KY. Assisted in development of software.

Sept. 2019–June 2020 Bagger, Ace Groceries, Elba, KY. Bagged customers’ purchases. *See the ebook at digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r for a chapter on Résumés and Job Letters.

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Use a flashback.  You can sometimes put a flashback in the middle of a narrative, to tell about an incident that illuminates the larger narrative. Terry Tempest Williams does this in an essay about the startling incidence of breast cancer in her family: she recalls a dinnertime conversation with her father right after her mother’s death from cancer, when she learned for the first time what caused all of the cancer in her family: Over dessert, I shared a recurring dream of mine. I told my father that for years, as long as I could remember, I saw this flash of light in the night in the desert. That this image had so permeated my being, I could not venture south without seeing it again, on the horizon, illuminating buttes and mesas. “You did see it,” he said. “Saw what?” I asked, a bit tentative. “The bomb. The cloud. We were driving home from Riverside, Cali­ fornia. You were sitting on your mother’s lap. She was pregnant. In fact, I remember the date, September 7, 1957. We had just gotten out of the Service. We were driving north, past Las Vegas. It was an hour or so before dawn, when this explosion went off. We not only heard it, but felt it. I thought the oil tanker in front of us had blown up. We pulled over and suddenly, rising from the desert floor, we saw it, clearly, this golden-stemmed cloud, the mushroom. The sky seemed to vibrate with an eerie pink glow. Within a few minutes, a light ash was raining on the car.” I stared at my father. This was new information to me.  — Terry Tempest Williams, “The Clan of the One-Breasted Women”

Williams could have simply announced this information as a fact — but see how much more powerful it is when told in narrative form.

Use time markers.  Time markers help readers follow a sequence of events. The most obvious time markers are those that simply label the time, as the narrative entries in a diary, journal, or log might. For example, here is the final part of the narrative kept in a diary by a doomed Antarctic explorer:

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44 Narrating

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WEDNESDAY, MARCH 21: Got within eleven miles of depot. Monday night; had to lay up all yesterday in severe blizzard. Today forlorn hope, Wilson and Bowers going to depot for fuel. MARCH 22 and 23: Blizzard bad as ever — Wilson and Bowers unable to start — tomorrow last chance — no fuel and only one or two [days] of food left — must be near the end. Have decided it shall be natural —  we shall march for the depot with or without our effects and die in our tracks. THURSDAY, MARCH 29: Since the 21st we have had a continuous gale from W.S.W. and S.W. We had fuel to make two cups of tea apiece and bare food for two days on the 20th. Every day we have been ready to start for our depot eleven miles away, but outside the door of the tent it remains a scene of whirling drift. I do not think we can hope for any better things now. We shall stick it out to the end, but we are getting weaker, of course, and the end cannot be far. It seems a pity, but I do not think I can write more. ... Last Entry: For God’s sake look after our people.  — Robert F. Scott, Scott’s Last Expedition: The Journals

More often you will integrate time markers into the prose itself, as is done in this narrative about a woman preparing and delivering meals to workers at a cotton gin: She made her plans meticulously and in secret. One early evening to see if she was ready, she placed stones in two five-gallon pails and car­ ried them three miles to the cotton gin. She rested a little, and then, discarding some rocks, she walked in the darkness to the sawmill five miles farther along the dirt road. On her way back to her little house and her babies, she dumped the remaining rocks along the path. That same night she worked into the early hours boiling chicken and frying ham. She made dough and filled the rolled-out pastry with meat. At last she went to sleep. The next morning she left her house carrying the meat pies, lard, an iron brazier, and coals for a fire. Just before lunch she appeared in an empty lot behind the cotton gin. As the dinner noon bell rang, she dropped the savors into boiling fat, and the aroma rose and floated

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over to the workers who spilled out of the gin, covered with white lint, looking like specters.  — Maya Angelou, Wouldn’t Take Nothing for My Journey Now

361–62

Use transitions.    Another way to help readers follow a narrative is with  transitions , words like “first,” “then,” “meanwhile,” “at last,” and so on. See how the following paragraphs from Langston Hughes’s classic essay about meeting Jesus use transitions (and time markers) to advance the action: Suddenly the whole room broke into a sea of shouting, as they saw me rise. Waves of rejoicing swept the place. Women leaped in the air. My aunt threw her arms around me. The minister took me by the hand and led me to the platform. When things quieted down, in a hushed silence, punctuated by a few ecstatic “Amens,” all the new young lambs were blessed in the name of God. Then joyous singing filled the room. That night, for the last time in my life but one — for I was a big boy twelve years old — I cried.  — Langston Hughes, “Salvation”

Including Pertinent Detail When you include a narrative in your writing, you must decide which details you need — and which ones you don’t. For example, you don’t want to include so much detail that the narrative distracts the reader from the larger text. You must also decide whether you should include any background, to set the stage for the narrative. The amount of detail you include depends on your audience and purpose: How much detail does your audience need? How much detail do you need to make your meaning clear? In an essay on the suspicion African American men often face when walking at night, a journalist deliberately presents a story without setting the stage at all: My first victim was a woman — white, well dressed, probably in her late twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street

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in Hyde Park, a relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet, uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To her, the youngish black man — a broad six feet two inches with a beard and billowing hair, both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket — seemed menacingly close. After a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross street.  — Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space”

Words like “victim” and phrases like “came upon her” lead us to assume the narrator is scary and perhaps dangerous. We don’t know why he is walking on the deserted street because he hasn’t told us: he simply begins with the moment he and the woman encounter each other. For his purposes, that’s all the audience needs to know at first, and details of his physical appearance that explain the woman’s response come later, after he tells us about the encounter. Had he given us those details at the outset, the narrative wouldn’t have been nearly so effective. In a way, Staples lets the story sneak up on us, as the woman apparently felt he had on her. Other times you’ll need to provide more background information, as an MIT professor does when she uses an anecdote to introduce an essay about young children’s experiences with electronic toys. First the writer tells us a little about Merlin, the computer tic-tac-toe game that the children in her anecdote play with. As you’ll see, the anecdote would be hard to follow without the introduction: Among the first generation of computational objects was Merlin, which challenged children to games of tic-tac-toe. For children who had only played games with human opponents, reaction to this object was intense. For example, while Merlin followed an optimal strategy for winning tic-tac-toe most of the time, it was programmed to make a slip every once in a while. So when children discovered strategies that allowed them to win and then tried these strategies a second time, they usually would not work. The machine gave the impression of not being “dumb enough” to let down its defenses twice. Robert, seven, playing

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STRATEGIES

with his friends on the beach, watched his friend Craig perform the “winning trick,” but when he tried it, Merlin did not slip up and the game ended in a draw. Robert, confused and frustrated, threw Merlin into the sand and said, “Cheater. I hope your brains break.” He was overheard by Craig and Greg, aged six and eight, who salvaged the bynow very sandy toy and took it upon themselves to set Robert straight. “Merlin doesn’t know if it cheats,” says Craig. “It doesn’t know if you break it, Robert. It’s not alive.” Greg adds, “It’s smart enough to make the right kinds of noises. But it doesn’t really know if it loses. And when it cheats, it don’t even know it’s cheating.” Jenny, six, interrupts with disdain: “Greg, to cheat you have to know you are cheating. Knowing is part of cheating.”  — Sherry Turkle, “Cuddling Up to Cyborg Babies”

Opening and Closing with Narratives 346–54

Narratives are often useful as  beginnings  to essays and other kinds of writing. Everyone likes a good story, so an interesting or pithy narrative can be a good way to get your audience’s attention. In the following introductory paragraph, a historian tells a gruesome but gripping story to attract our attention to a subject that might not otherwise merit our interest — bubonic plague: In October 1347, two months after the fall of Calais, Genoese trading ships put into the harbor of Messina in Sicily with dead and dying men at the oars. The ships had come from the Black Sea port of Caffa (now Feodosiya) in the Crimea, where the Genoese maintained a trading post. The diseased sailors showed strange black swellings about the size of an egg or an apple in the armpits and groin. The swellings oozed blood and pus and were followed by spreading boils and black blotches on the skin from internal bleeding. The sick suffered severe pain and died quickly, within five days of the first symptoms. As the disease spread, other symptoms of continuous fever and spitting of blood appeared instead of the swellings or buboes. These victims coughed and sweated heavily and died even more quickly, within three days or less, sometimes in twenty-four hours. In both types everything that issued from the body — breath, sweat, blood from the buboes and lungs, bloody urine,

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and blood-blackened excrement — smelled foul. Depression and despair accompanied the physical symptoms, and before the end “death is seen seated on the face.”  — Barbara Tuchman, “This Is the End of the World: The Black Death”

Imagine how different the preceding paragraph would be if it weren’t in the form of a narrative. Imagine, for example, that Tuchman had begun by defining bubonic plague. Would that have gotten your interest? The piece was written for a general audience; how might it have been different if it had been written for scientists? Would they need (or appreciate) the story told here? Narrative can be a good way of  ending  a text, too, by winding up a discussion with an illustration of the main point. Here, for instance, is a concluding paragraph from an essay on American values and Las Vegas weddings:

354–58

I sat next to one ... wedding party in a Strip restaurant the last time I was in Las Vegas. The marriage had just taken place; the bride still wore her dress, the mother her corsage. A bored waiter poured out a few swallows of pink champagne (“on the house”) for everyone but the bride, who was too young to be served. “You’ll need something with more kick than that,” the bride’s father said with heavy jocularity to his new son-in-law; the ritual jokes about the wedding night had a certain Panglossian character, since the bride was clearly several months pregnant. Another round of pink champagne, this time not on the house, and the bride began to cry. “It was just as nice,” she sobbed, “as I hoped and dreamed it would be.”  — Joan Didion, “Marrying Absurd”

No doubt Didion makes her points about American values clearly and cogently in the essay. But concluding with this story lets us see (and hear) what she is saying about Las Vegas wedding chapels, which sell “‘niceness,’ the facsimile of proper ritual, to children who do not know how else to find it, how to make the arrangements, how to do it ‘right.’”

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Considering the Rhetorical Situation As a writer or speaker, it’s important to think about the message you want to articulate, the audience you want to reach, and the larger context you are writing in. 59–60

purpose Your purpose will affect the way you use narrative. For example, in an essay about seat belt laws, you might tell about the painful rehabilitation of a teenager who wasn’t wearing a seat belt and was injured in an accident in order to show readers why seat belt use is mandatory in all but one state.

61–64

audience Whom do you want to reach, and do you have an anecdote or other narrative that will help them understand your topic or persuade them that your argument has merit?

65–71

genre Does your genre require you to include narrative? A memoir about an important event might be primarily narrative, whereas a reflection about an event might focus more on the significance of the event than on what happened.

72–74

stance What is your stance, and do you have any stories that would help you convey that stance? A funny story, for example, can help create a humorous stance.

75–77

media / design In a print or spoken text, you will likely be limited to brief narratives, perhaps illustrated with photos or other images. In an electronic text, you might have the option of linking to full-length narratives or videos available on the web.

If you need more help 325 322 Glossary

See also the  PROCESSES  chapters if you are assigned to write a narrative essay and need help with drafting, revising, and so on. Two special kinds of narratives are  LAB REPORTS  (which use narrative to describe the steps in an experiment from beginning to end) and RÉSUMÉS  (which essentially tell the story of the work we’ve done, at school and on the job).

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45 Taking Essay Exams

Essay exams present writers with special challenges. You must write quickly, on a topic presented to you on the spot, to show your instructor what you know about a specific body of information. This chapter offers advice on how to take essay exams.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation purpose In an essay exam, your purpose is to show that you

59–60

have mastered certain material and that you can analyze and apply it in an essay. You may need to make an argument or simply convey information on a topic.

audience Will your course instructor be reading your exam, or

61–64

will a teaching assistant? Sometimes standardized tests are read by groups of trained readers. What specific criteria will your audience use to evaluate your writing?

genre Does the essay question specify or suggest a certain

65–71

genre? In a literature course, you may need to write a compelling literary analysis of a passage. In a history course, you may need to write an argument for the significance of a key historical event. In an economics course, you may need to contrast the economies of the North and South before the Civil War. If the essay question doesn’t specify a genre, look for keywords such as “argue,” “evaluate,” or “explain,” which point to a certain genre.

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stance In an essay exam, the most appropriate stance is usually unemotional, thoughtful, and critical.

75–77

media / design If you’re taking a test online, write your answers in a word processor, edit there, and then paste them into the exam. If you’re handwriting on lined paper or in an exam booklet, write as legibly as you can.

Analyzing Essay Questions Essay questions usually include key verbs that specify the kind of writing you’ll need to do — argue a position, compare two texts, and so on. Here are some of the most common kinds of writing you’ll be asked to do on an essay exam: 104–39

nalyze. Break an idea, theory, text, or event into its parts and ­examine • A them. For example, a world history exam might ask you to  analyze  European imperialism’s effect on Africa in the late nineteenth century and discuss how Africans responded. pply. Consider how an idea or concept might work out in prac • A tice. For instance, a film studies exam might ask you to apply the concept of auteurism — a theory of film that sees the director as the primary creator, whose body of work reflects a distinct personal style — to two films by Clint Eastwood. An economics exam might ask you to apply the concept of opportunity costs to a certain supplied scenario.

410–30

431–36

rgue / prove / justify. Offer reasons and evidence to support a position. • A A philosophy exam, for example, might ask you to  argue  whether or not all stereotypes contain a “kernel of truth” and whether believing a stereotype is ever justified. • Classify. Group something into categories. For example, a marketing exam might ask you to  classify  shoppers in categories based on their purchasing behavior, motives, attitudes, or lifestyle patterns.

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45 Taking Essay Exams

• C ompare / contrast. Explore the similarities and / or differences between two or more things. An economics exam, for example, might ask you to  compare  the effectiveness of patents and tax incentives in encouraging technological advances. • Critique.  analyze  and  evaluate  a text or argument, considering its strengths and weaknesses. For instance, an evolutionary biology exam might ask you to critique John Maynard Smith’s assertion that “scientific theories say nothing about what is right but only about what is possible” in the context of the theory of evolution. • Define. Explain what a word or phrase means. An art history exam, for example, might ask you to  define  negative space and discuss the way various artists use it in their work. • Describe. Tell about the important characteristics or features of something. For example, a sociology exam might ask you to  describe  Erving Goffman’s theory of the presentation of self in ordinary life, focusing on roles, props, and setting. • Evaluate. Determine something’s significance or value. A drama exam, for example, might ask you to  evaluate  the setting, lighting, and costumes in a filmed production of Macbeth.

485

437–44

104–39 214–22

445–55

456–63

214–22

• Explain. Provide reasons and examples to clarify an idea, argument, or event. For instance, a rhetoric exam might ask you to explain the structure of the African American sermon and discuss its use in writings of Frederick Douglass and Martin Luther King Jr. • Summarize / review. Give the major points of a text or idea. A political science exam, for example, might ask you to  summarize  John Stuart Mill’s concept of utilitarianism and its relation to freedom of speech.

550–51

• Trace. Explain a sequence of ideas or order of events. For instance, a geography exam might ask you to trace the patterns of international migration since 1970 and discuss how these patterns differ from those of the period between 1870 and World War I.

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Some Guidelines for Taking Essay Exams Before the exam 16–19

• R ead over your class notes and course texts strategically,  annotating  them to keep track of details you’ll want to remember. • Collaborate by forming a study group to help one another master the course content.

535–39

• Review key ideas, events, terms, and themes. Look for common themes and  connections  in lecture notes, class discussions, and any readings — they’ll lead you to important ideas. • Ask your instructor about the form the exam will take: how long it will be, what kind of questions will be on it, how it will be evaluated, and so on. Working with a study group, write questions you think your instructor might ask, and then answer the questions together.

333–34

• Warm up just before the exam by  freewriting  for 10 minutes or so to gather your thoughts.

During the exam • Scan the questions to determine how much each part of the test counts and how much time you should spend on it. For example, if one essay is worth 50 points and two others are worth 25 points each, you’ll want to spend half your time on the 50-point question. • Read over the entire test before answering any questions. Start with the question you feel most confident answering, which may or may not be the first question on the test. • Don’t panic. Sometimes when students first read an essay question, their minds go blank, but after a few moments they start to recall the information they need. • Plan. Although you won’t have much time for revising or editing, you still need to plan and allow yourself time to make some last-minute changes before turning in the exam. So apportion your time. For a three-question essay test in a two-hour test period, you might divide your time like this:

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45 Taking Essay Exams

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Total Exam Time —120 minutes Generating ideas — 20 minutes (6–7 minutes per question) Drafting — 85 minutes (45 for the 50-point question, 20 for each 25-point question) Revising, editing, proofreading —15 minutes

nowing that you have built in time at the end of the exam period can K help you remain calm as you write, because you can use that time to fill in gaps or reconsider answers you feel unsure about. • Jot down the main ideas you need to cover in answering the question on scratch paper or on the cover of your exam book, numbering those ideas in the order you think makes sense — and you have an outline for your essay. If you’re worried about time, plan to write the most important parts of your answers early on. If you don’t complete your answer, refer your instructor to your outline to show where you were headed. • Turn the essay question into your introduction, like this: Question: How did the outcomes of World War II differ from those of World War I? Introduction: The outcomes of World War II differed from those of World War I in three major ways: World War II affected more of the world and its people than World War I did, distinctions between citizens and soldiers were eroded, and the war’s brutality made it impossible for Europe to continue to claim cultural superiority over other cultures.

• State your thesis explicitly, provide  reasons  and  evidence  to support your thesis, and use  transitions  to move logically from one idea to the next. Restate your main point in your conclusion. You don’t want to give what one professor calls a “garbage truck answer,” dumping everything you know into your answer and expecting the instructor to sort it all out.

413–14 414–22 361–62

• Write on every other line and only on one side of each page so that you’ll have room to make additions or corrections. If you’re typing on a computer, be sure to double-space.

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• If you have time left, go over your exam, looking for ideas that need elaboration as well as for grammatical and punctuation errors.

After the exam.  Your instructor may not return your exam or may not provide comments on it. So consider asking for a conference to go over your work so you can learn what you did well and where you need to improve — important knowledge to take with you into your next exam.

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Part 7

Doing Research We do research all the time, for many different reasons. We search the web for information about a new computer, ask friends about the best place to get coffee, try on several pairs of jeans before deciding which ones to buy. You have no doubt done your share of library research before now, and you probably have visited a number of schools’ websites before deciding which c­ ollege you wanted to attend. Research, in other words, is something you do every day. The following chapters offer advice on the kind of research you’ll need to do for your academic work and, in particular, for research projects. 489

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Doing Research 46 Getting a Start on Research   491 47 Finding Sources  501 48 Evaluating Sources  524 49 Synthesizing Ideas  535 50 Quoting, Paraphrasing, and Summarizing   542 51 Acknowledging Sources, Avoiding Plagiarism  555 52 Documentation  560 53 MLA Style  564 54 APA Style  615

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46 G etting a Start on Research

When you need to do research, it’s sometimes tempting to jump in and start looking for information right away. However, doing research is complex and time-consuming. Research-based writing projects usually require you to follow several steps. You need to come up with a topic (or to analyze the requirements of an assigned topic) and come up with a research question to guide your research efforts. Once you do some serious, focused research to find the information you need, you’ll be ready to turn your research question into a tentative thesis and sketch out a rough outline. After doing whatever additional research you need to fill in your outline, you’ll write a draft — and get some response to that draft. You may then need to do even more research before revising. Once you revise, you’ll need to edit and proofread. In other words, there’s a lot to do. You need a schedule.

Establishing a Schedule and Getting Started A good way to start a research project is by creating a timeline for getting all this work done, perhaps using the form on the next page. Once you have a schedule, you can get started. The sections that follow offer advice on considering your rhetorical situation, coming up with a topic, and doing preliminary research; developing a research question, a tentative thesis, and a rough outline; and creating a working bibliography and keeping track of your sources. The chapters that follow offer guidelines for  finding sources ,  evaluating sources , and synthesizing ideas .

501–23 524–34 535–41

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DOING RESEARCH

Scheduling a Research Project

Complete by:

Analyze your rhetorical situation.

________________

Choose a possible topic or analyze the assignment.

________________

Plan a research strategy, and do   preliminary research.

________________

Come up with a research question.

________________

Schedule interviews and other field research.

________________

Find and evaluate sources.

________________

Read sources, and take notes.

________________

Do any field research.

________________

Come up with a tentative thesis and outline.

________________

Write a draft.

________________

Get response.

________________

Do any additional research.

________________

Revise.________________ Prepare a list of works cited.

________________

Edit.________________ Proofread the final draft.

________________

Submit the final draft: your deadline.

________________

You may find it useful to start with your deadline — when the final project is due — and work backward from there, so you’ll know how much time you have and can estimate how much time you’ll need to do each task.

Considering the Rhetorical Situation As with any writing task, you need to start by considering your purpose, your audience, and the rest of your rhetorical situation: 59–60

purpose Is this project part of an assignment — and if so, does it specify any one purpose? If not, what is your broad purpose? To inform? argue? analyze? A combination?

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46 Getting a Start on Research

audience To whom are you writing? What does your audience

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likely know about your topic, and is there any background information you’ll need to provide? What opinions or attitudes do your readers likely hold? What kinds of evidence will they find persuasive? How do you want them to respond to your writing?

genre Are you writing to report on something? to compose a

65–71

profile? to make a proposal? an argument? What are the requirements of your genre in terms of the number and kind of sources you must use?

stance What is your attitude toward your topic? What

72–74

accounts for your attitude? How do you want to come across? As curious? Critical? Positive? Something else?

media / design What medium or media will you use? Print? Spoken?

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Electronic? Will you need to create any charts, photographs, video, presentation software slides, or other visuals?

Coming Up with a Topic If you need to choose a topic, consider your interests as they relate to the course for which you’re writing. What do you want to learn about? What do you have questions about? What topics from the course have you found intriguing? What community, national, or global issues do you care about? Once you’ve thought of a potential topic, use the questions in Chapter 27,  writing as inquiry , to explore it and find an angle on it that you can write about — and want to. If your topic is assigned, make sure you understand exactly what it asks you to do. Read the assignment carefully, looking for keywords: Does it ask you to  analyze ,  compare ,  evaluate ,  summarize , or  argue ? If the assignment offers broad guidelines but allows you to choose within them, identify the requirements and the range of possible topics, and define your topic within those constraints. For example, in an American history course, your instructor might ask you to “discuss social effects of the Civil War.” Potential but broad topics

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might include poverty among Confederate soldiers or former slaveholders, the migration of members of those groups to Mexico or Northern cities, the establishment of independent African American churches, or the spread of the Ku Klux Klan — to name only a few of the possibilities.

333–36

Think about what you know about your topic.   Chances are you already know something about your topic, and articulating that knowledge can help you see possible ways to focus the topic or come up with potential sources of information.  freewriting ,  listing ,  clustering , and  looping  are all good ways of tapping your knowledge of your topic. Consider where you might find information about it: Have you read about it in a textbook? heard stories about it on the news? visited websites focused on it? Do you know anyone who knows about this topic? Narrow the topic.   As you consider possible topics, look for ways to narrow your topic’s focus to make it specific enough to discuss in depth. For example: Too general: fracking Still too general: fracking and the environment Better: the potential environmental effects of extracting natural gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking

If you limit your topic, you can address it with specific information that you’ll be more easily able to find and manage. In addition, a limited topic will be more likely to interest your audience than a broad topic that forces you to use abstract, general statements. For example, it’s much harder to write well about “the environment” than it is to address a topic that explores a single environmental issue.

Consulting with Librarians and Doing Preliminary Research Consulting with a reference librarian at your school and doing some preliminary research in the library can save you time in the long run. Reference librarians can direct you to the best scholarly sources for your topic

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46 Getting a Start on Research

and help you focus the topic by determining appropriate search terms and  keywords  — significant words that appear in the title, abstract, or text of potential sources and that you can use to search for information on your topic in library catalogs, in databases, and on the web. These librarians can also help you choose the most appropriate reference works, sources that provide general overviews of the scholarship in a field. General internet searches can be time-consuming, as they often result in thousands of possible sites — too many to weed out efficiently, either by revising your search terms or by going through the sites themselves, many of which are unreliable. Library databases, in contrast, include only sources that already have been selected by experts, and searches in them usually present manageable numbers of results. Reading a Wikipedia entry on your topic can help you understand background information, come up with new keywords to search, and discover related topics. A list of references — often with hyperlinks — at the bottom of each entry can lead to potential sources. Google, Google Scholar, and other free search tools can also be helpful as you begin to explore your topic. See pages 509–11 for advice on using these and other online search tools.

506–9

Coming Up with a Research Question Once you’ve surveyed the territory of your topic, you’ll likely find that your understanding of it has become broader and deeper. You may find that your interests have changed and your research has led to surprises and additional research. That’s okay: as a result of exploring avenues you hadn’t anticipated, you may well come up with a better topic than the one you’d started with. At some point, though, you need to develop a research question — a specific question that you will then work to answer through your research. To write a research question, review your analysis of the  rhetorical ­situation  to remind yourself of any time constraints or length considerations. Generate a list of questions beginning with “what,” “when,” “where,” “who,” “how,” “why,” “would,” “could,” and “should.” Here, for example, are some questions about the tentative topic “the potential environmental

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effects of extracting natural gas through the process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking”: What are the environmental effects of fracking? When was fracking introduced as a way to produce natural gas? Where is fracking done, and how does this affect the surrounding ­people and environment? Who will benefit from increased fracking? How is fracking done, and how much energy does the process use? Why do some environmental groups oppose fracking? Would other methods of extracting natural gas be safer? Could fracking cause earthquakes? Should fracking be expanded, regulated, or banned?

Select one question from your list that you find interesting and that suits your rhetorical situation. Use the question to guide your research.

Drafting a Tentative Thesis 347–49

Once your research has led you to a possible answer to your research question, try formulating that answer as a tentative  thesis . You need not be committed to the thesis; in fact, you shouldn’t be. The object of your research should be to learn about your topic, not to find information that simply supports what you already think you believe. Your tentative thesis may (and probably will) change as you learn more about your subject, consider the many points of view on it, and reconsider your topic and, perhaps, your goal: what you originally planned to be an argument for considering other points of view may become a call to action. However tentative, a thesis allows you to move forward by clarifying your purpose for doing research. Here are some tentative thesis statements on the topic of fracking: Fracking is a likely cause of earthquakes in otherwise seismically stable regions of the country.

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The federal government should strictly regulate the production of natural gas by fracking. Fracking can greatly increase our supplies of natural gas, but other methods of producing energy should still be pursued.

As with a research question, a tentative thesis should guide your research efforts — but you should be ready to revise it as you learn still more about your topic. Research should be a process of  inquiry  in which you approach your topic with an open mind, ready to learn and possibly change. If you hold too tightly to a tentative thesis, you risk focusing only on evidence that supports your own view — a tendency called confirmation bias that can make your writing biased and unconvincing.

329–32

Glossary

Creating a Rough Outline After you’ve created a tentative thesis, write out a rough  outline  for your research project. This outline can be a simple list of topics you want to explore, something that will help you structure your research efforts and organize your notes and other materials. As you read your sources, you can use the outline to keep track of what you need to find and where the information you do find fits into your argument. Then you’ll be able to see if you’ve covered all the ideas you intended to explore — or whether you need to rethink the categories on your outline.

340–42

Keeping a Working Bibliography A working bibliography is a record of all the sources you consult. You should keep such a record so that you can find sources easily when you need them and then cite any that you actually use. Your library likely offers tools to store source information you find in its databases and catalog, and software such as Zotero or EasyBib can also help you save, manage, and cite your sources. You may find it helpful to print out bibliographical data you find useful or to keep your working bibliography on index cards or in a notebook. However you decide to compile your working bibliography, include all the information you’ll need later to document any sources you use; follow the  documentation  style you’ll use when you write so that you won’t need to go back to your sources to find the information. Some

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Information for a Working Bibliography FOR A BOOK

Library call number Author(s) or editor(s) Title and subtitle Publication information: city, publisher, year of publication Other information: edition, volume number, translator, and so on If your source is an essay in a collection, include its author, title, and page numbers. FOR A SOURCE FROM A DATABASE

Publication information for the source, as listed above Name of database DOI (digital object identifier) or URL of original source, such as the ­periodical in which an article was published Stable URL or permalink for database Date you accessed source FOR AN ARTICLE IN A PRINT PERIODICAL

Author(s) Title and subtitle Name of periodical Volume number, issue number, date Page numbers FOR A WEB SOURCE

URL Author(s) or editor(s) if available Name of site Sponsor of site Date site was first posted or last updated Date you accessed site If the source is an article or book reprinted on the web, include its title, the title and publication information of the periodical or book, where it was first published, and any page numbers.

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databases make this step easy by preparing rough-draft citations in several styles that you can copy, paste, and edit. On the previous page is most of the basic information you’ll want to include for each source in your working bibliography. Go to digital.wwnorton.com/fieldguide6r for templates you can use to keep track of this information.

Keeping Track of Your Sources • Staple together photocopies and printouts. It’s easy for individual pages to get shuffled or lost on a desk or in a backpack. Keep a stapler handy, and fasten pages together as soon as you copy them or print them out. • B ookmark web sources, or save them using a free bookmark management tool available through several library databases. For database sources, use the DOI or stable URL, permalink, or document URL (the terms used by databases vary) — not the URL in the “Address” or “Location” box in your browser, which will expire after you end your online session. • Label everything. Label your copies with the source’s author and title. • Highlight sections you plan to use. When you sit down to draft, your goal will be to find what you need quickly, so as soon as you decide you might use a source, highlight the paragraphs or sentences that you think you’ll use. If your instructor wants copies of your sources to see how you used them, you’ve got them ready. If you’re using PDF copies or websites, you can highlight or add notes using an online annotation tool like Hypothesis or Diigo. • U se your rough outline to keep track of what you’ve got. In the margin of each highlighted section, write the number or letter of the outline division to which the section corresponds. (It’s a good idea to write it in the same place consistently so you can flip through a stack of copies and easily see what you’ve got.) Alternatively, attach sticky notes to each copy, using a different color for each main heading in your outline.

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• S tore all your research material in one place. If you prefer to work digitally, create computer folders and subfolders that correspond to your rough outline. Or use web apps like PowerNotes or Scrible to collect, annotate, and organize your sources. If you prefer to work with paper, use an accordion file folder or a box. Having your material in one place will make writing a draft easier — and will serve you well if you’re required to create a portfolio that includes your research notes, copies of sources, and drafts. • U se a reference manager. Web-based reference or citation management software allows you to create and organize a personal database of resources. You can import references from databases to a personal account, organize them, and draft citations in various formats. RefWorks, EndNote, Mendeley, and Zotero are four such systems; check with your librarian to see what system your library supports, or search online, as several of them are available for free. Be aware, though, that the citations generated are often inaccurate and need to be checked carefully for content and format. So treat them as rough drafts, and plan to edit them.

If you need more help 501–23 524–34

See the guidelines on  FINDING SOURCES  once you’re ready to move on to in-depth research and those on  EVALUATING SOURCES  for help thinking critically about the sources you find.

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To analyze media coverage of the 2020 Democratic National Convention, you examine news stories and blogs published at the time. To write an essay interpreting a poem by Maya Angelou, you study the poem and read several critical interpretations in literary journals. To write a report on career opportunities in psychology, you interview a graduate of your university who is working in a counseling center. In each of these cases, you go beyond your own knowledge to consult additional sources of information. Depending on your topic, then, you’ll need to choose from many sources for your research — from reference works, books, periodicals, and websites to surveys, interviews, and other kinds of field research that you yourself conduct. This chapter offers guidelines for locating a range of sources — print and online, general and specialized, published and firsthand. Keep in mind that as you do research, finding and  evaluating sources  are two activities that usually take place simultaneously. So this chapter and the next one go hand in hand.

524–34

Kinds of Sources Primary and secondary sources.    Your research will likely lead you to both primary and secondary sources. Primary sources include historical documents, literary works, eyewitness accounts, field reports, diaries, letters, and lab studies, as well as any original research you do through interviews, observation, experiments, or surveys. Secondary sources include scholarly books and articles, reviews, biographies, textbooks, and other works that interpret or discuss primary sources. Novels and films are primary sources; articles interpreting them are secondary sources. The Declaration of Independence is a primary historical document; a historian’s

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description of the events surrounding the Declaration’s writing is secondary. A published report of scientific findings is primary; a critique of that report is secondary. Whether a work is considered primary or secondary sometimes depends on your topic and purpose. If you’re analyzing a poem, a critic’s article interpreting the poem is a secondary source — but if you’re investigating that critic’s work, the article would be a primary source for your own study and interpretation. Secondary sources are often useful because they can help you understand and evaluate primary source material. Whenever possible, however, you should find and use primary sources, because secondary sources can distort or misrepresent the information in primary sources. For example, a seemingly reputable secondary source describing the 1948 presidential election asserted that the New York Times ran a headline reading, “Thomas E. Dewey’s Election as President Is a Foregone Conclusion.” But the actual article was titled “Talk Is Now Turning to the Dewey Cabinet,” and it began by noting “[the] popular view that Gov. Thomas E. Dewey’s election as President is a foregone conclusion.” Here the secondary source not only got the headline wrong but also distorted the source’s intended meaning by leaving out an important phrase. Your research should be as accurate and reliable as possible; using primary sources whenever you can helps ensure that it is.

Scholarly and popular sources.   Scholarly sources are written by academic experts or scholars in a particular discipline and are peer-reviewed —  evaluated by other experts in the same discipline for their factual accuracy and lack of bias. They are also written largely for experts in a discipline, as a means of sharing research, insights, and in-depth analysis with one another; that’s why they must meet high standards of accuracy and objectivity and adhere to the discipline’s accepted research methods, including its style for documenting sources. Scholarly articles are usually published in academic journals; scholarly books may be published by university presses or by other academically focused publishers. Popular sources include just about all other online and print publications, from websites to magazines to books written for nonspecialists. These sources generally explain or provide opinion on current events or topics of general interest; when they discuss scholarly research, they tend

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to simplify the concepts and facts, providing definitions, narratives, and examples to make them understandable to nonspecialist audiences. They are often written by journalists or other professional writers who may specialize in a particular area but who report or comment on the scholarship of others rather than doing any themselves. Their most important difference from scholarly sources is that popular sources are not reviewed by other experts in the field being discussed, although editors or fact-checkers review the writing before it’s published. That said, the distinction can be blurry: many scholars write books for a general readership that are informed by those authors’ own scholarship, and many writers of popular sources have extensive expertise in the subject. Even if it’s not a requirement, citing scholarly sources often contributes to your own authority as a writer, demonstrating that you are familiar with important research and scholarship and that your own writing is informed by it. In most of your college courses, you’ll be expected to rely primarily on scholarly sources rather than popular ones. However, if you’re writing about a very current topic or need to provide background information on a topic, a mix of scholarly and popular sources may be appropriate. To see how scholarly and popular sources differ in appearance, look at the Documentation Map for scholarly journals (p. 583) and at the illustrations on pages 504–5. Here’s a guide to determining whether or not a potential source is scholarly:

Identifying scholarly sources: what to look for • The author: Look for the author’s credentials, including affiliations with academic or other research-oriented institutions. Make sure the author has expertise on the topic being discussed; an English professor may have academic credentials but not be an expert on the environment, while a journalist may have studied environmental issues for years and know a great deal. • The publisher: Look for academic journals, university presses, and professional organizations such as the Modern Language Association or the American Psychological Association; popular sources are published in general-interest publications such as the Atlantic or Slate or trade publishers such as Penguin Random House or HarperCollins.

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Scholarly Source

Published in an academic journal.

Includes an abstract.

Cites academic research with consistent d­ocumentation style.

Describes research ­methods; includes numerical data.

Lists multiple authors who are academics. Includes ­complete ­references list.

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505

Popular Source

Published in general-­interest ­periodical or website. Catchy, ­provocative title; no abstract.

Author not an academic or other subject-matter expert.

Academic experts cited but not ­documented.

• Peer review. Look for a list of reviewers at the front of the journal or on the journal’s or publisher’s website. If you don’t find one, the source is probably not peer-reviewed. • S ource citations. Look for a detailed list of works cited or references at the end of the source and citations either parenthetically within the text or in footnotes or endnotes. (Popular sources may include a reference list but seldom cite sources within the text, except in signal phrases.) • L anguage and content. Look for abstracts (one-paragraph summaries of the contents) at the beginning of articles and for technical or specialized language and concepts that readers are assumed to be familiar with. • Other clues. Look for little or no advertising on websites or within the journal; for a plain design with few or no illustrations, especially in print sources; and for listing in academic databases when you limit your search to academic, peer-reviewed, or scholarly sources.

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Searching Effectively Using Keywords Whether you’re searching for books, articles in periodicals, or other material available on the web, chances are you’ll conduct most of your search online. Most materials produced since the 1980s and most library catalogs are online, and most periodical articles can be found by searching electronic indexes and databases. In each case, you can search for authors, titles, or subjects. To search online, you’ll need to come up with keywords. Keywords are significant words that stand for an idea or concept. The key to searching efficiently is to use keywords and combinations of them that will focus your searches on the information you need — but not too much of it. Often you’ll start out with one general keyword that will yield far too many results; then you’ll need to switch to more specific terms or combinations (homeopathy instead of medicine, or secondary education Japan instead of education Japan). Other times your keyword search won’t yield enough sources; then you’ll need to use broader terms or combinations (education Japan instead of secondary education Japan) or substitute synonyms (home remedy instead of folk medicine). Sometimes you’ll need to learn terms used in academic disciplines or earlier in history for things you know by other names, such as myocardial infarction rather than heart attack or the Great War instead of World War I. Or look through the sources that turn up in response to other terms to see what keywords you might use in subsequent searches. Searching requires flexibility, in the words you use and the methods you try.

Finding keywords using word clouds.    One way to find keywords to help you narrow and focus your topic is to create a word cloud, a visual representation of words used in a text; the more often a word is used, the larger it looks in the word cloud. Several websites, including Tagxedo, Wordle, and TagCrowd, let you create word clouds. Examining a word cloud created from an article in a reference work may help you see what terms are used to discuss your topic — and may help you see new possible ways

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to narrow it. Above, for example, is a word cloud derived from an article in Scientific American discussing fracking. Many of the terms — “fracking,” “water,” “gas,” “wells,” “drilling” — are just what you’d expect. However, some terms — “USGS,” “DiGiulio,” “coalfired” — may be unfamiliar and lead to additional possibilities for research. For instance, “DiGiulio” is the last name of an expert on fracking whose publications might be worth examining, while “USGS” is an acronym for the United States Geological Survey, a scientific government agency.

Finding keywords using databases.   Once you’ve begun searching for and finding possible sources, you can expand your list of possible keywords by skimming the “detailed record” or “metadata” page for any scholarly articles you find, where full bibliographic information on the source may be found. A search for fracking resulted in this source:

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Note the list of author-supplied keywords, which offers options for narrowing and focusing your topic. Each keyword is a link, so simply clicking on it will produce a new list of sources. Also look for “permalink,” which will allow you to find the source again quickly.

Advanced keyword searching.   Most search sites have “advanced search” options that will help you focus your research. Some allow you to ask questions in conversational language: What did Thomas Jefferson write about slavery? Others allow you to focus your search by using specific words or symbols. Here are some of the most common ones: • Type quotation marks around words to search for an exact phrase — “Thomas Jefferson.” • Type AND to specify that more than one keyword must appear in sources: Jefferson AND Adams. Some search engines require a plus sign instead: 1Jefferson 1Adams.

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• Type OR if you’re looking for sources that include any of several terms: Jefferson OR Adams OR Madison. • Type NOT to find sources without a certain word: Jefferson NOT Adams. Some search engines call for a minus sign (actually, a hyphen) instead: 1Jefferson –Adams. • Type an asterisk to search for words in different form. For example, teach* will yield sources containing “teacher” / “teaching.” In addition, look for features that allow you to filter in order to limit results to a specific date range; only full-text articles (articles that are available in full online); and, in library databases, only scholarly, peer-reviewed sites. If a search turns up too many sources, be more specific (homeopathy instead of medicine). If your original keywords don’t generate good results, try synonyms (home remedy instead of folk medicine). Keep in mind that searching requires flexibility, both in the words you use and in the methods you try. And remember that the first items in a results list are not necessarily the best; scan what appears beyond page 1 of your results. Exercise “click restraint” by scanning through many items in the results and choosing only the ones that look most promising for your needs. Open each potential source in its own separate tab for evaluation.

Searching Using Popular Sites and Search Engines When we need to find something out, most of us begin with Google or Wikipedia. If you aren’t familiar with your research topic, these sites provide general information and a variety of perspectives. However, using general search engines can present challenges: paywalls limit access, it’s easy to be overwhelmed by the number of sources, and determining what’s trustworthy can be difficult. So you’ll want to rely primarily on your library’s resources to find accurate, up-to-date, scholarly sources; but the following sites can still serve as helpful starting points.

Wikipedia   An open, online reference, Wikipedia often serves as a starting point for preliminary research. Reading a Wikipedia entry on a topic can help you understand background information, come up with new  keywords  to search, and discover related topics. A list of references — 

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often hyperlinked — at the bottom of each entry can lead to potential sources. Be sure to check information you find on Wikipedia for accuracy, since entries can be written or edited by anyone.

506–9

Google, Google Scholar, and other free search tools.  To search Google, use simple and specific  keywords . Googling “fracking environmental effects” will turn up more focused results than googling “what is fracking.” Scan the list of results and open sources that look promising in a new tab instead of stopping to read the first result that catches your eye. Be sure to look beyond the first page of results; higher placement doesn’t always mean most relevant to your topic. Google Scholar limits your search results to scholarly literature such as researched articles, theses, books, abstracts, and court opinions. Do a keyword search in Google Scholar, and scan the results to get an initial idea of the scholarly authors, publications, and databases publishing on your topic. You can sort results by publication date — a good way to check if there’s recent research. Some articles and books in Google Scholar are full-text, but many are behind paywalls so must be accessed through your campus library. Here are several more tools for searching online, outside of the library, to get started: • Keyword search engines. Search engines use algorithms to tailor results to you, so search engines — and the results they show you — are not all the same. Compare results from Google, Microsoft Edge, DuckDuckGo, and other search sites to get more varied results. • Nonlibrary, academic searches. In addition to Google Scholar, for peerreviewed academic writing in many disciplines, try Microsoft Academic or BASE. Science.gov offers results from more than 15 US federal agencies, and CORE collects open-access research papers.

Glossary

• Social media searches. Google Social Search, Social Searcher, and Talkwalker let you search various social media platforms. Use hashtags (#) or Tagboard, a hashtag-based search engine, to search the contents of posts.

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Image, video, and audio platforms.  Google Images and TinEye allow you to search for images by keyword or by uploading an image. Google Video Search lets you search for videos by keyword, and YouTube’s search function allows you to find videos by relevance, upload date, view count, or rating. Audioburst Search provides results from podcast and radio segments. News sites.   Sites for newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV stations provide both up-to-the-minute information and also archives of older stories online. Through news-aggregating sites like Google News and Apple News you can sort through worldwide news from a wide range of sources. Google News Archive has news archives extending back to the 1700s. Beware that  misinformation and lies are spread most often as news, so  fact-checking  sources that appear to be news is essential.

Glossary 526–32

Government sites.   Many government agencies and departments maintain websites where you can find government reports, statistics, legislative information, and other resources. USA.gov offers resources from the US government. Digital archives.   You can find primary sources from the past, including drawings, maps, recordings, speeches, and historic documents, at sites maintained by the National Archives, the Library of Congress, the New York Public Library, and others. Although many websites provide authoritative information, content found online varies greatly in stability and reliability: what you see on a site today may be different (or gone) tomorrow, so save copies of all pages you use. In addition, many reference and news sites are behind paywalls, their content unavailable unless you pay a fee or subscribe. If you find that a source you need is behind a paywall, check to see if it’s available through your library or through interlibrary loan.

Searching in Academic Libraries College and university libraries typically offer several ways to search their holdings. Their websites may look very different from one another, but

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most include search boxes like this one, from the Wright State University Libraries:

This box allows you to search through all the library’s holdings at once, an option that may be a good way to get started. You may already know, though, that you need to focus your search on one type of source, such as scholarly articles, or search using a particular method. In that case, it’s best to use a more advanced search box like this one:

This box lets you shape and limit your search in several ways: the drop-down menu on the left lets you choose to search by title, keyword, author, or several other identifiers; the drop-down menu on the right lets you choose to search the library’s entire collection, journals, books, media, or even materials in a specific location, such as course reserves or archives; and “Advanced Search” gives even more options. When in doubt, take advantage of “Ask a Librarian” services, which may include texting, chat, email, and phone conversations with reference librarians, when you need help but aren’t working in the library.

Reference Works The reference section of your school’s library is the place to find encyclopedias, dictionaries, atlases, almanacs, bibliographies, and other reference

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works in print. Many of these sources are also online and can be accessed from any computer that is connected to the internet. Others are available only in the library. Remember, though, that whether in print or online, reference works are only a starting point, a place where you can get an overview of your topic.

General reference works.   Consult encyclopedias for general background information on a subject, dictionaries for definitions of words, atlases for maps and geographic data, and almanacs for statistics and other data on current events. These are some works you might consult: The New Encyclopaedia Britannica The Columbia Encyclopedia Webster’s Third New International Dictionary Oxford English Dictionary National Geographic Atlas of the World Statistical Abstract of the United States The World Almanac and Book of Facts

Specialized reference works.  You can also go to specialized reference works, which provide in-depth information on a single field or topic. These may also include authoritative bibliographies, leading you to more specific works. A reference librarian can refer you to specialized encyclopedias in particular fields, but good places to start are online collections of many topic-specific reference works that offer overviews of a topic, place it in a larger context, and sometimes provide links to potential academic sources. Collections that are available through libraries include the following: CQ Researcher offers in-depth reports on topics in education, health, the environment, criminal justice, international affairs, technology, the economy, and social trends. Each report gives an overview of a particular topic, outlines of the differing positions on it, and a bibliography of resources on it. Gale eBooks offers thousands of full-text specialized encyclopedias, almanacs, articles, and ebooks.

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Oxford Reference contains hundreds of dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other reference works on a wide variety of subjects, as well as timelines with links to each item mentioned on each timeline. SAGE Knowledge includes many encyclopedias and handbooks on topics in the social sciences.

Bibliographies.   Bibliographies provide an overview of what has been published on a topic, listing published works along with the information you’ll need to find each work. Some are annotated with brief summaries of each work’s contents. You’ll find bibliographies at the end of scholarly articles and books, and you can also find book-length bibliographies, both in the reference section of your library and online. Check with a reference librarian for bibliographies on your research topic.

Books / Searching the Library Catalog The library catalog is your primary source for finding books. Almost all library catalogs are computerized and can be accessed through the library’s ­website. You can search by author, title, subject, or keyword. The image below shows the result of a keyword search for material on looted art in Nazi Germany. This search of the library’s catalog revealed six items — print books

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and ebooks — on the topic; to access information on each one, the researcher must simply click on the title or thumbnail image. The image below shows detailed information for one source: bibliographic data about author, title, and publication; related subject headings (which may lead to other useful materials in the library) — and more. Library catalogs also supply a call number, which identifies the book’s location on the library’s shelves.

Ebooks / Finding Books Online Many books in the library catalog are available online. Some may be downloaded to a tablet or mobile device. In addition, thousands of classic works that are in the public domain — no longer protected by copyright — may be read online. Bartleby, Google Books, Open Library, and Project Gutenberg are four collections of public-domain works. Here are some other sources of ebooks: HathiTrust Digital Library offers access to millions of ebooks, about a third of them in the public domain, contributed by university libraries. Internet Archive includes millions of ebooks as well as audio, video, music, software, images, and the Wayback Machine, which archives historical webpages. Gale eBooks, Oxford Reference, and SAGE Knowledge all contain large ebook collections.

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Periodicals / Searching Indexes and Databases To find journal, magazine, and newspaper articles, you will need to search periodical indexes and databases. Indexes provide listings of articles organized by topics; many databases provide the full texts. Some indexes are in print and can be found in the reference section of the library; most are online. Some databases are available for free; most of the more authoritative ones, however, are available only by subscription and so must be accessed through a library. Many databases now include not only scholarly articles but also dissertations, theses, book chapters, book reviews, and conference proceedings. Dissertations and theses are formal works of scholarship done as requirements for graduate degrees; book reviews offer critical evaluations of scholarly and popular books; and conference proceedings are papers presented, usually orally, at scholarly meetings. When you access a source through a database, the URL or link address is different each time you log in, so if you want to return to a source, look for a stable URL, permalink, or DOI option and choose it to copy and paste into your list of sources.

General indexes and databases.   A reference librarian can help you determine which databases will be most helpful for your needs, but here are some useful ones: Academic Search Complete and Academic Search Premier are multidisciplinary indexes and databases containing the full text of articles in thousands of journals and indexing of even more, with abstracts of their articles. InfoTrac offers millions of full-text articles in a broad spectrum of disciplines and on a wide variety of topics from thousands of scholarly and popular periodicals, including the New York Times. JSTOR archives scanned copies of entire publication runs of scholarly journals in many disciplines, but it may not include current issues of the journals. ProQuest Central provides access to full-text articles from thousands of books, scholarly journals, conference papers, magazines, newspapers,

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blogs, podcasts, and websites and a large collection of dissertations and theses.

Single-subject indexes and databases.   The following are just a sample of what’s available; check with a reference librarian for indexes and databases in the subject you’re researching. America: History and Life indexes scholarly literature on the history and culture of the United States and Canada. BIOSIS Previews provides abstracts and indexes for thousands of sources on a wide variety of biological and medical topics. ERIC is the US Department of Education’s Educational Resource Information Center database. It includes hundreds of journal titles as well as conference papers, technical reports, and other resources on education. Historical Abstracts includes abstracts of articles on the history of the world, excluding the United States and Canada, since 1450. Humanities International Index contains bibliographic references to thousands of journals dealing with the humanities. MLA International Bibliography indexes scholarly articles on modern languages, literature, folklore, and linguistics. PsycINFO indexes scholarly literature in a number of disciplines relating to the behavioral and social sciences. PubMed includes millions of citations for biomedical literature, many with links to full-text content.

Print indexes.   You may need to consult print indexes to find articles published before the 1980s. Here are six useful ones: The Readers’ Guide to Periodical Literature (print, 1900–; online, 1983–) InfoTrac Magazine Index (print, 1988–; online, 1973–) The New York Times Index (print and online, 1851–) Humanities Index (print, 1974–; online, 1984–) Social Sciences Index (print, 1974–; online, 1983–) General Science Index (print, 1978–; online, 1984–)

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Images, Sound, and More Your library likely subscribes to various databases that allow you to find and download video, audio, and image files. Here is a sampling: AP Images provides access to photographs taken for the Associated Press, the cooperative agency of thousands of newspapers and radio and television stations worldwide. ArtStor provides images in the arts, architecture, humanities, and ­sciences. Dance Online: Dance in Video offers hundreds of videos of dance productions and documentaries on dance. Bird Sounds from the Borror Laboratory of Bioacoustics includes digitized recordings of the sounds of over 1,000 species of animals. Music Online: Smithsonian Global Sound for Libraries is a “virtual encylopedia of the world’s musical and aural traditions.” Naxos Music Library contains more than 130,000 classical, jazz, and world music recordings, as well as libretti and synopses of hundreds of operas and other background information. Theatre in Video provides videos of hundreds of performances of plays and film documentaries.

Doing Field Research Sometimes you’ll need to do your own research, to go beyond the information you find in published sources and gather data by doing field research. Three kinds of field research you might want to consider are interviews, observations, and questionnaires.

Interviewing experts.   Some kinds of writing — a profile of a living person, for instance — almost require that you conduct an interview. And sometimes you may just need to find information that you haven’t been able to find in published sources. To get firsthand information on the experience of serving as a soldier in Afghanistan, you might interview your cousin who served a tour of duty there; to find current research on

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pesticide residues in food, you might need to interview a toxicologist. Whatever your goal, you can conduct interviews in person, using videocalling software such as Skype or FaceTime, by telephone, through email, or by mail. In general, you will want to use interviews to find information you can’t find elsewhere. Below is some advice on planning and conducting an interview. BEFORE THE INTERVIEW 1. Once you identify someone you want to interview, email or phone to ask the person, stating your  purpose  for the interview and what you

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hope to learn. 2. Once you’ve set up an appointment, send a note or email confirming the time and place. If you wish to record the interview, be sure to ask for permission to do so. If you plan to conduct the interview by mail or email, state when you will send your questions. 3. Write out questions. Plan questions that invite extended response and supporting details: “What accounts for the recent spike in gasoline prices?” forces an explanation, whereas “Is the recent spike in gas prices a direct result of global politics?” is likely to elicit only a yes or a no. AT THE INTERVIEW 4. Record the full name of the person you interview, along with the date,

time, and place of the interview; you’ll need this information to cite and document the interview accurately. 5. Take notes, even if you are recording the interview. 6. Keep track of time: don’t take more than you agreed to beforehand unless both of you agree to keep talking. End by thanking your subject and offering to provide a copy of your final product. AFTER THE INTERVIEW 7. Flesh out your notes with details as soon as possible after the ­interview,

while you still remember them. What did you learn? What surprised you? Summarize both the interviewee’s words and your impressions.

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8. Make sure you’ve reproduced quotations from the interview accurately and fairly. Avoid editing quotations in ways that distort the speaker’s intended meaning. 9. Be sure to send a thank-you note or email.

Observation.   Some writing projects are based on information you get by observing something. For a sociology report, you may observe how students behave in large lectures. For an education course, you may observe one child’s progress as a writer over a period of time. The following advice can help you conduct observations.

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BEFORE OBSERVING 1. Think about your research  purpose : What are you looking for? What

do you expect to find? How will your presence as an observer affect what you observe? What do you plan to do with what you find? 2. If necessary, set up an appointment. You may need to ask permission of the people you wish to observe and of your school as well. (Check with your instructor about your school’s policy in this area.) Be honest and open about your goals and intentions; college students doing research assignments are often welcomed where others may not be. WHILE OBSERVING 3. If you’re taking notes on paper, you may want to divide each page

down the middle vertically and write only on the left side of the page, reserving the right side for information you will fill in later. If you’re using a laptop, you can set up two columns or a split screen. 4. Note descriptive details about the setting. What do you see? What do you hear? Do you smell anything? Get down details about color, shape, size, sound, and so on. Consider photographing or making a sketch of what you see. 456–63

5. Who is there, and what are they doing?  describe  what they look like, and make notes about what they say. Note any significant demographic details — about gender, race, occupation, age, dress, and so on.

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6. What is happening? Who’s doing what? What’s being said? Make note of these kinds of  narrative  details.

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AFTER OBSERVING 7. As soon as possible after you complete your observations, use the

right side of your notes to fill in gaps and include additional details. 8.  analyze  your notes, looking for patterns. Did some things appear or happen more than once? Did anything stand out? surprise or puzzle you? What did you learn?

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Questionnaires and surveys.   Various kinds of questionnaires and surveys can provide information or opinions from a large number of people. For a political science course, you might conduct a survey to ask students who they plan to vote for. Or, for a marketing course, you might distribute a questionnaire asking what they think about an advertising campaign. The advice in this section will help you create useful questionnaires and surveys.

Define your goal.  The goal of a questionnaire or survey should be limited and focused, so that every question will contribute to your research question. Also, people are more likely to respond to a brief, focused survey. Define your sample.   A survey gets responses from a representative sample of the whole group. The answers to these questions will help you define that sample: 1. Who should answer the questions? The people you contact should represent the whole population. For example, if you want to survey undergraduate students at your school, your sample should reflect your school’s enrollment in terms of gender, year, major, age, ethnicity, and so forth as closely as possible. 2. How many people make up a representative sample? In general, the larger your sample, the more the answers will reflect those of the whole group. But if your population is small — 200 students in a history course, for example — your sample must include a large percentage of that group.

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Decide on a medium.  Will you ask the questions face-to-face? over the phone? on a website such as SurveyMonkey? by mail? by email? Face-to-face questions work best for simple surveys or for gathering impersonal information. You’re more likely to get responses to more personal questions with printed or online questionnaires, which should be neat and easy to read. Phone interviews may require well-thought-out scripts that anticipate possible answers and make it easy to record these answers.

Design good questions.   The way you ask questions will determine the usefulness of the answers you get, so take care to write questions that are clear and unambiguous. Here are some typical question types: MULTIPLE-CHOICE What is your current age?

_____ 15–20   _____ 21–25   _____ 26–30   _____ 31–35   _____ Other RATING SCALE How would you rate the service at the campus bookstore?

_____ Excellent   _____ Good   _____ Fair   _____ Poor AGREEMENT SCALE How much do you agree with the following statements?

Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree

The bookstore has sufficient numbers of textbooks available.

❒

❒

❒

❒

Strongly Agree Agree Disagree Strongly Disagree

Staff at the bookstore are knowledgeable.

❒

❒

❒

❒

Staff at the bookstore are courteous.

❒

❒

❒

❒

OPEN-ENDED How often do you visit the campus bookstore?

How can the campus bookstore improve its service?

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Include all potential alternatives when phrasing questions to avoid biasing the answers. And make sure each question addresses only one issue — for example, “Bookstore staff are knowledgeable and courteous” could lead to the response “knowledgeable, agree; courteous, disagree.” When arranging questions, place easier ones at the beginning and harder ones near the end (but if the questions seem to fall into a different natural order, follow it). Make sure each question asks for information you will need — if a question isn’t absolutely necessary, omit it.

Include an introduction.   Start by stating your survey’s purpose and how the results will be used. It’s also a good idea to offer an estimate of the time needed to complete the questions. Remind participants of your deadline.

Test the survey or questionnaire.   Make sure your questions elicit the kinds of answers you need by asking three or four people who are part of your target population to answer them. They can help you find unclear instructions, questions that aren’t clear or that lack sufficient alternatives, or other problems that you should correct to make sure your results are useful. But if you change the questionnaire as a result of their responses, don’t include their answers in your total.

If you need more help See  EVALUATING SOURCES  for help determining their usefulness. See also Chapter 50 for help  TAKING NOTES  on your sources.

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Searching the Health Source database for information on the incidence of meningitis among college students, you find thirty-three articles. A Google search on the same topic produces over 13 million hits. How do you decide which sources to read? This chapter presents advice on evaluating sources — first to determine whether a source might be useful for your purposes and is worth looking at more closely, and then to read with a critical eye the ones you choose.

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As you consider potential sources — sources you’ve found online or from library resources — keep your  purpose  in mind. Are you trying to persuade readers to believe or do something? If so, look for sources representing various positions. Are you reporting on a topic? If so, you’ll likely need sources that are factual or informative. Consider your  audience . What kinds of sources will they find persuasive? If you’re writing for readers in a particular field, what counts as  evidence  in that field? Following are some questions that can help you judge whether a possible source you’ve found deserves your time and attention — but remember to consider most or all of the questions, rather than relying on a single criterion: • Is it relevant? How well does the source relate to your purpose? What would it add to your work? To see what it covers, look at the title and at any introductory material (such as a preface or an abstract). • Is it reliable? Is it scholarly? peer-reviewed? published in a reputable journal or magazine, or by a reputable publisher? Did you find it in a library database? on the web? Evaluating web-based texts may require more work than using results from library databases. Whatever kind of search you do, skim the results quickly to evaluate their reliability —  and use the techniques described below to fact-check them. You might

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also check the Media Bias / Fact Check website, which ranks news organizations on their political slant and factual reporting. • What are the author’s credentials? How is the author qualified to write on the subject? Has the author written other works on this subject? Are they known for a particular position on it? As an expert? A scholar? A journalist? Will your audience find the author credible? If the credentials aren’t stated, do a search to see what reliable sources say about the author. • What is the  stance ? Does the source explain various points of view or advocate only one perspective? Does its title suggest a certain slant? If it’s online, check to see whether it includes links to other sites — and if so, what their perspectives are. You’ll want to consult sources with various viewpoints and understand the bias of each source you use.

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• Who is the publisher or sponsor? If it’s a book, what kind of company published it; if an article, what kind of periodical did it appear in? Books published by university presses and articles in scholarly journals are reviewed by experts before they’re published. Many books and articles written for the general public also undergo careful factchecking, but some do not — and they may lack the kind of in-depth discussion that is useful for research. • At what level is it written? Can you understand the material? Texts written for a general audience might be easier to understand but not authoritative enough for academic work. Scholarly texts will be more authoritative but may be hard to comprehend. • How current is it? Check to see when books and articles were published and when websites were last updated. (If a site lists no date, see if links to other sites still work; if not, the site is probably too dated to use.) A recent publication date or update, however, doesn’t necessarily mean that a potential source is good — some topics require current information; others call for older sources. • Is it cited in other works? If so, you can probably assume that some other writers regard it as trustworthy. • Does it include other useful information? Is there a bibliography that might lead you to other sources? How current or authoritative are the sources it cites?

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• Is it available? If it’s a book and your school’s library doesn’t have it, can you get it through interlibrary loan? If it’s online and there’s a paywall, can your library get you access?

Fact-Checking Popular Sources Online Scholarly books are edited; scholarly articles are reviewed by experts; established news sources employ fact-checkers to verify information. But many websites and social media sites aren’t checked by anyone. As a result, when you’re using Google and other nonlibrary resources online to get started, you may find misleading information, data, images, and videos. Sometimes such misleading information takes the form of satires, such as Jonathan Swift’s “A Modest Proposal,” stories in the Onion, or episodes of The Daily Show. Such satires offer humorous exaggerations to expose and criticize people and governments. Other misleading or false news stories are malicious, created usually for political ends. World War II Nazi propaganda and recent fraudulent stories such as “Pope Francis Endorses Donald Trump,” a false story that went viral on Facebook, are intended to mislead readers. Further complicating things, some politicians and other public figures have taken to calling news reports with which they disagree “fake news” — even though the stories reported are verifiably true and the news outlets are considered trustworthy. Although false news has been around at least since the invention of the printing press, the internet and social media have led to a huge increase in false news stories, seriously challenging and muddying “real” news. Each false story can rapidly multiply over sites such as Facebook and Twitter and through email. As a reader and researcher, you need to be able to determine whether a potential news source is false. As a writer, you risk harming your credibility if you cite a false news story as evidence. To conduct sound research — and to use good information to form our own ideas — we need to be able to determine what is true, what is false, and what is trying to manipulate us when reading popular online sources. Professional fact-checkers, people who investigate the truthfulness of assertions made in published work, use the following methods to evaluate their accuracy. Fact-checkers begin not by immediately reading something they find online that looks relevant, but by first moving outside the source — 

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opening new tabs in the same browser — to search and see what other reliable sites say about it. Only after they’ve done some research to confirm a source’s accuracy do they read the source itself. When you find something online that looks relevant, first stop and ask yourself if you know the website publishing the source and have reason to trust it. If not, take the following steps to assess the source before reading any further: • L ook up the main  claims . Copy and paste the title or a few key words of the article, essay, or post into Google or another browser to see if a reliable fact-checking site — Snopes, FactCheck, Politifact, Allsides, or mediabiasfactcheck — has already evaluated it. If several reputable sources report the same information, it’s probably true. If the information appears in only one source — even if many other people are quoting it — it’s worth taking more steps to check whether it’s reliable and even-handed enough for your academic writing.

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• Investigate the author’s expertise and  stance . Use Wikipedia, Google News, or Google Scholar to see if the author is an expert on the topic they’re weighing in on. Some signs that the author has expertise include: an academic position in a relevant field, other pieces published in reputable sources on the same topic, or considerable experience in the area being written about. If you can’t find any evidence of an author’s expertise on the topic, the source may still be useful to you, but don’t depend on the information as authoritative. Also, the author’s affiliations — the groups they’re members of or the places they’ve published — can help you determine the author’s stance.

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• C heck out who runs the site. Don’t rely on the site’s About page alone. Instead, google the organization’s name in quotation marks and add keywords like “who sponsors” or “funding.” What do other reputable sites say about the publisher or sponsoring organization? Take note of information on controversy or a specific agenda attached to the organization. Do reliable sources say the organization has a good reputation? a lot of members? a long history? Those are all good signs the publication is trustworthy. • C heck the date of the story and dates within the story. Sometimes old stories resurface as “news.” They aren’t any truer now than they were then.

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• T ake stock, and use your judgment. Consider your  purpose  and what you’ve found about the source’s main claims, author, and publisher. Does the source seem accurate and trustworthy, given what you know about the world and how it works? Do the claims seem designed to generate a strong emotional response, especially anger or fear, rather than appealing to logic or sound evidence? If taking these steps shows you that a source has a strong  stance  or bias, that doesn’t automatically mean you should discard it, but it does mean you should keep that stance in mind as you work with the source. If even just one of these steps reveals troubling information, it’s best to move on to find a different, more solidly reliable source. As you use these fact-checking moves, don’t just click on the first item in a list of search results. Instead, scan the results to get a broad sense of what others are saying, and choose the most trustworthy ones to read. The graphics on the following pages show a good example of how fact-checking a popular source found on the web works.

Fact-checking photos and video.  Visual media — especially images and videos posted online — can also be manipulated to present misleading information. Hoax photos are images taken out of context or doctored in order to deceive using Photoshop or another photo manipulation program. For example, this misleading image of presidential candidate John Kerry and antiwar activist and actor Jane Fonda was widely distributed during the 2004 election campaign:

The image was created by combining two photos taken more than a year apart on two different occasions and was used to discredit Kerry’s patriotism despite his service in Vietnam.

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