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Formatting your Pages. Open a Google Doc Change the font to 12 point Times New Roman Paginate: Insert header, right align, type your last name, space, insert page count Set your margins to 1 inch Double-space your document (next to alignment in toolbar)
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Formatting your Pages • Open a Google Doc • Change the font to 12 point Times New Roman • Paginate: Insert header, right align, type your last name, space, insert page count • Set your margins to 1 inch • Double-space your document (next to alignment in toolbar) • On the upper left hand corner you must have your Name, the teacher, class title, and due date of research paper • No extra spaces between paragraphs. • Indent all paragraphs with tab or five spaces. • Must have MLA citations for any words/ideas/information that does not belong to you. • For more information on MLA format visit: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/747/01/
How to Write your Introduction Paragraph Ms. Kosari will collect your MLA formatted first page including your introduction paragraphs on Tuesday, March 17 at the end of the period in Lab 205.
Example 1: Slavery was one of the greatest tragedies in American history. There were many different aspects of slavery. Each created different kinds of problems for enslaved people.
The place holder introduction. This weaker introduction contains several sentences that are vague and don't really say much. They exist just to take up the "introduction space" in your paper. If you had something more effective to say, you would probably say it, but in the meantime this paragraph is just a place holder.
Example 2: Webster's dictionary defines slavery as "the state of being a slave," as "the practice of owning slaves," and as "a condition of hard work and subjection."
The Webster's Dictionary introduction. This introduction begins by giving the dictionary definition of one or more of the words in the assigned question. Anyone can look a word up in the dictionary and copy down what Webster says—it may be far more interesting for you (and your reader) if you develop your own definition of the term.
Example 3: Since the dawn of man, slavery has been a problem in human history.
The "dawn of man" introduction. This kind of introduction generally makes broad, sweeping statements about the relevance of this topic since the beginning of time. It is usually very general (similar to the place holder introduction) and fails to connect to the thesis. You may write this kind of introduction when you don't have much to say—which is precisely why it is ineffective.
Example 4: Frederick Douglass wrote his autobiography, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, An American Slave, in the 1840s. It was published in 1986 by Penguin Books. In it, he tells the story of his life.
The book report introduction. This introduction is what you had to do for your elementary school book reports. It gives the name and author of the book you are writing about, tells what the book is about, and offers other basic facts about the book.
Use a startling remark or statistic Divorce and out-of-wedlock childbirth are transforming the lives of American children. In the postwar generation more than 80 percent of children grew up in a family with two biological parents who were married to each other. By 1980 only 50 percent could expect to spend their entire childhood in an intact family. If current trends continue, less than half of all children born today will live continuously with their own mother and father throughout childhood. Most American children will spend several years in a single mother family. --Barbara Dafoe Whitehead, “Dan Quayle Was Right”
Describe a scene, use imagery, or tell an anecdote Welcome to French class, where you must learn to juggle irregular verbs, flying chalk, and the constant threat of bodily harm. At the age of forty-one, I am returning to school and having to think of myself as what my French textbook calls “a true debutant.” After paying my tuition, I was issued a student ID, which allows me a discounted entry fee at movie theaters, puppet shows, and Festyland, a far-flung amusement part that advertises with billboards picturing a cartoon stegosaurus sitting in a canoe and eating what appears to be a ham sandwich. --David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day”
Ask a question or present a problem In grave discussions of “the renaissance of the irrational” in our time, superstition does not figure largely as a serious challenge to reason or science. Parapsychology, UFOs, miracle cures, transcendental meditation and all the paths to instant enlightenment are condemned, but superstition is merely deplored. Is it because it has an unacknowledged hold on so many of us? --Robertson Davies, “A Few Kind Words for Superstition”
Use a quotation “A name is a prison, God is free,” once observed the Greek poet Nikos Kazantzakis. He meant, I think, that valuable though language is to man, it is by very necessity limiting, and creates for man an invisible prison. Language implies boundaries. A word spoken creates a dog, a rabbit, a man. It fixes their nature before our eyes; henceforth their shapes are, in a sense, our own creation. They are no longer part of the unnamed shifting architecture of the universe. They have been transfixed as if by sorcery, frozen into a concept, a word. Powerful though the spell of human language has proven itself to be, it has laid boundaries upon the cosmos. --Loren Eiseley, “The Cosmic Prison”
Open with a paradox Human beings are the only animals that experience the same sex drive at times when we can—and cannot—conceive.Just as we developed uniquely human capacities for language, planning, memory, and invention along our evolutionary path, we also developed sexuality as a form of expression, a way of communicating that is separable from our need for sex as a way of perpetuating ourselves. For humans alone, sexuality can be and often is primarily a way of bonding, of giving and receiving pleasure, bridging differentness, discovering sameness, and communicating emotion. --Gloria Steinem, “Erotica and Pornography”
Challenge a widely held assumption or opinion Remember that hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica, the one thought to be caused bychlorofluorocarbons? It may be on the mend, say Japanese researchers. They say the hole could be onits way to recovery more quickly than anticipated. --Jeffrey Winters, “That Ozone Hole? Never Mind”
Step 2: Introduce the topic with some indication of its inherent interest or importance, relevant background information, some historical or cultural context for your issue, and a clear definition of the boundaries of the subject area
Step 3: Indicate the structure and/or methodology of the essay, often with the major sections of the essay clearly stated, in other words, a preview of your main arguments/sub-points. Go ahead and use words like firstly, secondly, next, then, lastly, finally, etc…
Step 4: State the thesis of the essay, preferably in a single, arguable statement with a clear main clause.
