Week 9 -Tuesday Why do we write? Why do grammar and spelling - - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Week 9 -Tuesday

 Why do we write?  Why do grammar and spelling matter?  Why do citations matter?

 Many papers still had comma splices and sentence fragments

• See earlier slides or come talk to me for help on those

 Many papers contained contractions  Many papers contained repetitive statements, either grouped

together or sprinkled throughout

 Once a person has been introduced, a standard practice is to refer

to that person, especially the subject of a paper, by his or her last name:

• "Samuel L. Jackson is an actor famous for playing violent roles. Jackson

graduated from Morehouse College in 1972."

• However, it is also acceptable to use the pronouns "he" or "she" for variety

when the antecedent is clear

 This problem was so common that it deserves its own slide  The pronoun "this" allows writing to be vague and confusing:

• "These assassinations were commissioned by the rich. This left

millions of poor people fearing for their lives."

• What does "this" refer to?
• Better: "These assassinations were commissioned by the rich. This

unequal access to justice left millions of poor people fearing for their lives."

 The pronoun "it" has the same problem:

• Darth Revan forced his apprentice to wait three days in the snow before

granting him an audience. It was a symbolic act.

• What is the symbolic act? Forcing him to wait? The fact that it was in the

snow? The audience itself?

• Better: Darth Revan forced his apprentice to wait three days in the snow

before granting him an audience. This humiliation was a symbolic act.

 Guidelines:

• Always put a noun after "this"
• Never use "it" unless it's crystal clear what "it" refers to
• Never use "it" or "this" as the subject of a sentence

 Students have a terrible temptation to write words that sound

fancy:

• besought
• athwart
• elucidate
• etc.

 Or overly complicated:

• "The differences in banking technology and sophistication in both

countries are miles apart in advancement."

• Better: "England has a more advanced banking system than Bolivia."

 A strong research paper supports every piece of information that isn't

common knowledge with a citation:

• These robots are able to kill hundreds of snakes every minute (citation).

 The support is not necessarily made stronger by using direct quotes:

• "After tabulating data for hours, our lab is able to report that the VX98

tyranobots kill three to five snakes per second" (citation).

 The paraphrase is simpler and likely contains all the information the

reader needs

 Only use direct quotes when there is special value in the exact wording  Never butcher the grammar of your own sentences to shoehorn in a

direct quote

 The two main citation styles are MLA and APA  I don't care which you use, as long as you're consistent  MLA requires author and, if available, page number, using the

smallest amount of information needed to identify the source from your works cited

 APA requires author and year but only requires page numbers

for direct quotes (still encouraging for paraphrases)

 In either case, there is no need to repeat information (like the

name of the author) in the citation if it's already in the sentence

 The period ending your sentence always goes after the citation

• Many students got this wrong

 Paraphrase (MLA):

• Dillon Beresford was interested in the damage Stuxnet could do with PLCs (Zetter 144).

 Paraphrase (APA):

• Dillon Beresford was interested in the damage Stuxnet could do with PLCs (Zetter,

2014).

 Direct quote (MLA):

• "The news in August 2010 that Stuxnet was sabotaging Siemens PLCs caught the

interest of a twenty-five-year-old computer security researcher in Austin, Texas, named Dillon Beresford" (Zetter 144).

 Direct quote (APA):

• "The news in August 2010 that Stuxnet was sabotaging Siemens PLCs caught the

interest of a twenty-five-year-old computer security researcher in Austin, Texas, named Dillon Beresford" (Zetter, 2014, p. 144).

 For both MLA and APA, alphabetize by the last name of the

first author

• Use the title if there is no author

 Put last names first but don't change the ordering of other

items that are not the names of people

 Indent all lines after the first line, a hanging indent

• Word can do this automatically for you

 There are many details: Read MLA or APA references and look

at examples

 There are many online references for APA, but here is one

from my alma mater, Purdue:

• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/apa_style/apa_fo

rmatting_and_style_guide/general_format.html

 And one for MLA:

• https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/mla_style/mla_fo

rmatting_and_style_guide/mla_general_format.html

 And other reference for MLA, maintained by Cornell:

• https://www.library.cornell.edu/sites/default/files/mla_style_revised.

pdf

 I'll meet with each group on Tuesday so that we can plan what

we want to get done by Thursday

 On Thursday, you'll show me what you got done  It's fine if you miss deadlines, but the planning is important  Update your Trello accordingly

 Project 3, the initial implementation and unit testing, is due

Friday, March 22

 Assignment 5, the final draft for your papers, is due Friday,

March 29