Assignments for 19 and 21 October 2009

Review MLA Style Citation Rules in Hacker

Since you have paid for your handbook, be sure to make your purchase worthwhile. I selected this handbook because it explains MLA Style well, so take advantage of this resource. I recommend reading the entire MLA Style section to familiarize yourself with its contents.

Bring Your Rough Drafts and Works Cited Pages

Monday's peer review will be devoted to assessing your Works Cited Page. After we review some electronic citations, you will be able to apply your knowledge to this task.

You need to provide a copy of the bibliographic page from GALILEO as well as the full text of the article.

Obviously, you need to have conducted research by the 19th in order to have a Works Cited Page ready for review.

Continue researching your topics ... and be selective. Reject at least half of the articles that you think you might use.

Today's Topics

Grade Book Corrected

I reviewed the grade book components in class and answered questions about your semester grades in light of Monday evening's withdrawal deadline.

After several students found their peer review scores to be incorrect, I realized that I had not properly organized the data for the peer review portion of the grade book. I have since corrected the errors and re-posted the scores. You should now be looking at your real scores.

Peer Review Grades

I will update the grades again this weekend, adding the abstract and media critique assignments, along with Peer Reviews #3 and #4.

I will show your initial peer review score after I have collected four peer reviews, and your score will be calculated by adding your top two scores and dividing by ten. At the end of the semester, I will take your five best scores and divide that sum by 25.

Next Week's Peer Reviews

Both Monday and Wednesday are designated peer review days. Please bring your rough drafts to class, along with your Works Cited pages and your annotated research.

If you have not yet submitted your Holiday Origins topic, then please contact me immediately.

Also, most students have not submitted their Best Sources topic request. Please send those to me as soon as you are able. You need to begin reading this ongoing story right now. This is a long-term assignment that asks you to follow a story for two months. Don't shortchange yourself.

Collecting GALILEO Research

Many students have met some dead ends in their research. Let me offer some suggestions if you are getting stuck:

1. Try all the databases you can find. Feel free to also look inside databases other than the history links. Newspapers, news magazines, and specialty publications are also available through GALILEO, so try these databases too.

2. Change your keywords. Try inverting your terms, look for synonyms, and try new keywords as you come across them. Limit your keywords to three; using more terms actually decreases your results.

3. Use the Boolean operators. Remember, you can add the words AND, OR or NOT between your keywords to bundle the search items differently. You may be surprised at the vast difference in the results. Also, try adding plus signs or minus signs to replace AND and NOT. It really works.

Let me know if you really get stuck this weekend.

MLA Style Citations

To explain everything that I addressed in class would take 20 pages, so I can only direct you to the MLA Style section in your handbook.

If you have the newer text that displays the "sticker" that reads "2009 MLA Update," then your book contains the new MLA Style examples. Those students in the older texts will need to annotate your handbooks to add the updates. The differences are minor, but we will address these changes in both class sessions next week, so prepare to mark your books.

Here are some issues that we covered today:

Avoid block quotes and dropped quotes; always synthesize your research into your narrative, and do so in a variety of ways. Always retain your voice in every sentence of your essay. See your handbook on page 364 to learn about using "signal phrases."

Your in-text citation must match the first term in a Works Cited Page entry. In other words, if you quote from Anderson, then I need to see one of your Works Cited entries begin with the name Anderson. See page 370.

The next several pages discuss basic rules for citations and some exceptions as well.

We cited an article in the KSU Sentinel for a hands-on activity. If you were absent today, then please find a peer review partner on Monday who was.

Also, w hen formatting the Works Cited Page, please use the hanging indentation feature rather than tabbing each line manually.

Reminder: Requirements for the Best Sources Essay

Please contact me if you have any questions.

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