Classwork: 2009.12.11

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Today! MLA!

NOTE: THIS ASSIGNMENT WILL BE MORE DIFFICULT TO FINISH IN THE ALLOTTED TIME. GET STARTED IMMEDIATELY AND STAY FOCUSED.

The MLA Style Manual "is an academic style guide widely used in the United States, Canada, and other countries, providing guidelines for writing and documentation of research in the humanities, especially in English studies"¹.

In other words, you'll be using this a lot in school --- high school, college . . . .

And so today we're going to work on two things:

1. What an MLA-formated paper looks like.

2. What your entries on your Works Cited page will look like.

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Go here: http://owl.english.purdue.edu/media/pdf/20090701095636_747.pdf.

This tells you everything you could want to know.

Some questions:

A. What order do name/teacher/etc go in?
B. What side of the paper do they go on?
C. What font are you supposed to use?
D. What does the title look like?
E. What are those things in parentheses like "(Hunt 256)"?
F. How wide are the margins?
G. What sorts of things are italicized?
H. How is the Works Cited page arranged?

EMAIL YOUR ANSWERS TO ME AND TO YOU.

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Take out your list of works that you are using for your bundle, then go here: http://www.easybib.com/.

Click on "Click here to select a source".

Make Works-Cited entries for each part of your bundle. EMAIL THESE TO ME AND TO YOU. These will be part of your final paper.



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Notes



-----1. "The MLA Style Manual." Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. 1 Dec 2009, 01:01 UTC. 4 Dec 2009 .

Classwork: 2009.12.04

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Thesis Statements

1. According to "Man", what is an argument?

According to Gideon Burton, a "good thesis statement":

...is specific
...goes beyond affirming what is already known or accepted
...will divide an educated audience
...gives the reader a clear sense of what is to come in the full argument

In other words, a thesis statement is:

a sentence
that you can prove true
but a reasonable person could disagree with.

In your Big Assignment, you will need to show how one idea threads through every portion of your bundle. This will need to be presented as a thesis statement.

2. Go here and look at the two sample theses they give. Why is one better than the other?

2a. How could you disagree with the better one?

3. Now go here. Explain how the better one is better.

Write all your answers on a piece of paper and hand it in before you go.

Now either log off the computer and read for the bundle assignment or look up the parts of your bundle that are online.