Writing the Paper : Warm Up Activity

Writing the Paper: Warm Up Activity • With your partner, take a look at the sample research paper, and highlight the following things: • At least 3 topic sentences • The “hook” in the introduction • The thesis statement in the introduction • At least 5 parenthetical citations • At least one direct quotation • One blocked quotation • Any first or second person pronouns (I, you, etc.) • The thesis statement in the conclusion • The heading, title, and page numbers • The works cited page • The first letter of every entry on the works cited page

Preparing to Write the Paper • Extending the Outline • Paraphrasing and Summarizing • Using Direct Quotation • Parenthetical Documentation • Reminders Information from: Teacher’s Discovery- Research Paper Procedure (High School) by Amy M. Kleppner and Cynthia Skelton

Extending the Outline • The first one you made gave shape to your paper. • Before you start writing the paper, go back to the outline and update with the new information that you researched in Google Documents. • Make sure you have a solid introduction, body section for each of the topics within your paper, and conclusion. • Make sure you have a topic sentence for each of your main points.

Paraphrasing and Summarizing • Paraphrasing Rules: • Understand the information • Clarify and simplify • Retain the meaning • Maintain the form • Personalize the style • Provide citations

Paraphrasing and Summarizing • Summarizing Rules • Read the passage, pay attention to keywords, looking up definitions for unfamiliar words. • Restate the main facts and ideas, keeping them in order. • Include essential information, but omit descriptive details, examples, illustrations, analogies, and anecdotes. • Try to shrink the passage to about 1/3 of the length of the original. • Provide a parenthetical citation for the material being summarized.

Using Direct Quotation • General Rules to Follow: • Use direct quotation of secondary source material • To show excellence of ideas and expression. • To explain complex material. • To provide a way of introducing personal observations. • Use direct quotation of primary source material • To provide evidence for judgments about a poem, speech, novel, case study, historical analysis, etc. • To provide specific examples to support interpretations of symbolism, analysis of character, suggestion of theme, etc.

Using Direct Quotation 3. Copy the author’s exact words and enclose them in quotation marks, following the rules for punctuation and capitalization • Place comma and periods INSIDE quotation marks. • Place colons, semi-colons, and dashes outside quotation marks. • Place question marks or exclamation points inside quotation marks when they punctuate the quotation; place them outside when they punctuate the sentence. • Use single quotation marks for a quotation within a quotation. • Ex: Comparing Melville with Dana with regard to albatross, Lawrence describes Melville as “a bit sententious- ‘I remember the first albatross I ever saw. It was during a prolonged gale…’” • Alter initial capitals when a quotation forms a grammatical part of the sentence: • Ex: Lawrence, however, claims that “only counterfeit emotions exist nowadays.”

Using Direct Quotation • For every direct quotation, provide • A lead in-that is, introductory words or phrases. • A follow-up- that is, an explanation of its meaning, relevance, or significance. • A parenthetical citation • Ex: “…to sleep forever” (Mudge 98).

Using Direct Quotation • Avoid monotony and maintain fluency by using a variety of methods to introduce direct quotations. • Examples: • A sharply contrasting attitude is that of Rush Limbaugh: • The distinguished literary critic Helen Vendler maintains… • According to 2008 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman… • Noted economist Kenneth Galbraith presents a different point of view: • In support of this position, Senator John McCain (R-AZ) argues…

Using Direct Quotation • Use ellipses (3 dots) for omissions. Ellipses should be treated as a word for the purposes of punctuation and spacing. If the author being quoted has used ellipses points and it is necessary to omit a portion of the quote, use ellipses in the square brackets […] to distinguish the edit from the author’s edit. • Example: • Original Passage: It was thus that He recovered from being a God. … He had made everything too beautiful. … The devil is simply God’s moment of idleness at the end of that seventh day. • Direct Quotation: Explaining the serpent at the tree of knowledge, Friedrich Nietzsche writes: “It was thus that He recovered from being a God. … […] The devil is simply God’s moment of idleness at the end of that seventh day” (909).

Using Direct Quotation • For quotations longer that four lines, start a new line (enter), indent the entire quotation one inch from the left margin, double space, omit quotation marks, and place the citation outside the closing punctuation. • Example of a blocked quote: • Kafka’s yearning for a future with his lover, Milena, is tempered by his realization that this future is impossible. In a letter to her, he writes: Why, Milena, do you write about our common future which will never be, or is that why you write about it? Even when we were discussing it in Vienna one evening, I had the feeling we were looking for somebody we knew very well and missed very much and whom we consequently kept calling with the most beautiful names, but there was no answer; how could he answer, since he wasn’t there, nor anywhere nearby. (204)

Using Direct Quotation 9. Remember that a research paper should be a personal presentation of thoroughly assimilated material in which direct quotations are used sparingly. Directly quoted material should constitute no more that 10% of your final paper.

Parenthetical Documentation • Should be used when: • Using a direct quotation. • Paraphrasing- restating in a personal way ideas or opinions that are not original thoughts. • Summarizing information or ideas using an individual writing style. • Is not needed for an idea or information that is: • Personal opinion, arrived at independently. • Common knowledge or an undisputed fact.

PD: MLA Format • Examples: • Within the body of your paper: • During the Middle Ages, people thought of the labyrinth in art as something enjoyable, exemplifying both God’s creation and human artistry (Doob 144). • Your Works Cited entry at the end of your paper will look like this: • Doob, Penelope Reed. The Idea of the Labyrinth from Classical Antiquity through the Middle Ages. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1990. Print. • You can use easybib.com you help you formulate your Works cited entry at the end of your paper.

PD: MLA Format • General Guidelines: • The information in the parenthetical citations must math the corresponding information on the works cited page. • The parenthetical citation usually appears at the end of a sentence, as close as possible to the material it documents so that is does not interrupt the flow of the writing. • To cite an entire work, include the author’s name within the paper’s text: • Ex: Abel Bari Atwan gives an overview of the origin, growth and development of the terrorist organization in his book, The Secret History of the al Qaeda.

PD: MLA Format • If the author’s name appears in a sentence of the paper, then do not repeat it in the citation: • Ex: Orwell made this point earlier in “Shooting an Elephant” (65-66). 5. If citing the same author twice in a row, omit the author’s name in the second citation, using the page or paragraph number only. However, when citing a different author in between, include the author’s name again in the second citation.

PD: MLA Format • Make parenthetical citations brief and use as few as clarity and accuracy permit. Give only the essential information, and do not add parenthetical references unnecessarily. • The parenthetical citation normally precedes the punctuation mark that concludes the sentence, clause, or phrase containing the borrowed material. • Ex: In his essay on cannibals, Montaigne mentions the disappearance of the great island of Atlantis (138-140).

PD: MLA Format • If a direct quotation occurs at the end of the sentence, insert the parenthetical citation between the closing quotation mark and the concluding punctuation mark. • Ex: He concludes his review of Anne Tyler’s latest book with the declaration, “This writer is not merely good, she is wickedly good” (Updike 278).

PD: MLA Format • In an extended quotation of more than 4 typed lines, which is indented one inch (or ten spaces), and is typed double-spaced, the citation follows the last line of the quotation and is placed outside the ending punctuation. • Ex: In A Distant Mirror, Barbara Tuchman alludes to the traditional personification of Death: A skeleton with hourglass and scythe, in a white shroud or bare-boned, grinning at the irony of man’s fate reflected in his image: that all men, from beggar to emperor, from harlot to queen, from ragged clerk to Pope, must come to this. No matter what their poverty or power in life, all is vanity, equalized in death. (124)

Steps for Getting Started • Arrange all of your researched note cards into the order in which they should go within the body of your paper. • Number them (1-50) to help you keep them in that order. • Sit down to write your paper, and WEAVE the information you have researched together into your paper with your own words, thoughts, and ideas about the topic. • Do not be surprised or upset if you have to go back to find a few pieces of information after you have written your rough draft.

Reminders • Save your paper as a Google Document and share it with me: mrsebuchanan@gmail.com • Your paper should be typed, double-spaced, Times New Roman size 12 font, 1” margins. • Do not use contractions or VERNACULAR. • Use as many of our SAT words as you can (as long as they make sense). • You may not use any first or second person pronouns or as understood subjects unless they are within a direct quotation: • None of the following: I, me, we, our, us, mine, ours, you, your, you’re, you should, what do you think…

Writing the Paper : Warm Up Activity