Assignment 1:
In a paper a minimum of four pages long exclusive of notes and the
works cited page, typed in strict accordance with MLA standards, and
using MLA parenthetical documentation, compare the rhetorical
approaches of two different essays written on the same subject by
different writers and published, respectively, in the years 1996
(April or after) and 1986. or 1976, or 1966 (and so on by decades).
Each of these essays must be a minimum of one thousand words long and
must qualify as argument (they must not, for instance, be reportorial
in approach. Hence Time, Newsweek, and the like are
only useful if you use the editorials). It is by no means necessary
that the two essays disagree with each other but it may be to your
advantage to use "agreeing" essays on the assumption that the
differences in rhetorical approach will not be obscured by seemingly
antithetical rhetorical goals. It is further required that you submit
photocopies when you have your instructor approve your topic and when
you hand in the research paper itself. These photocopies may carry
highlighting and marginal and interlinear notations. Any portion of
an essay which you directly quote in your paper should be
highlighted. A suggested way to proceed is to find a persuasive essay
on a subject that interests you in a current periodical and then
search for another essay on the same subject written a decade ago (or
two, or three, and so on) through the resources of the library. You
may find a great deal of difference, only subtle differences, or
nearly no difference, but that is part of the assignment--to see what
differences you do find, and if you find few to none, then than is
the result of your research. Some subjects you might want to consider
are morality and popular music, abortion, the affect of computers,
American intervention in foreign wars, taxes, fashion, violence in
movies, teenage pregnancy, police violence, and so on and so on.
Nearly everything you will encounter in current journals will have
its counterpart published a decade ago.
If you want to work with the overtly political in the research paper you could look in such sources as the New York Times, the "Outlook" section of the Houston Chronicle, the Washington Post (the weekly edition in particular), the Christian Science Monitor, the Village Voice, the Wall Street Journal, the National Review, the Progressive, Mother Jones, The New Republic, The Nation, and so on, but all essays must have been published in April or after in 1996 and (any month)1986, etc.
Assignment 2, alternative:
The assignment , should you choose this alternative to the above,
is to indentify a "subject area" acceptable to your section leader
and to me and from a set of 4 articles concerning that subject
identify the range of arguments which are being presented on the
topic. Note here that the "either/or" treatment in RT is extremely
important. There is no "two sides" aspect to the topic. Further,
definition (see RT) should be of central concern. Acceptable topics
at the moment are gay marriage, a "multi" race category. and
physician assisted suicide. Your task is to identify the arguments in
use on these topics, not to rank them or evaluate them.
A. Any paper not written in grammatical standard English will be failed (this is an out-of-class paper, and there are thus no excuses for spelling or grammar errors).
B. Any paper which does not conform to current MLA parenthetical usage will be failed. Do not count on your typist, if you hire one, making corrections. Many, even most, do not know current usage, and we have to give the grade to you, not your typist.
C. If you use a word-processing program, your program is no excuse for improper spacing or any other failure to observe MLA details. In order to insure that ellipsis, for instance, are properly spaced (period, space, period, space, period, space) you must not use right margin justification.
D. Any paper which is in any part plagiarized will be failed as a minimum penalty. Plagiarism is here defined as representing as your own the work of another. Paraphrase without acknowledgment constitutes plagiarism (see the entry for plagiarism in the handbook). Research, by definition, involves using the work of others. The academically acceptable methods of acknowledging such use are defined in the (or a) handbook. Read carefully everything in whatever handbook you use concerning documentation.
E. There is no "model" paper, nor "approved" organization of the assignment. Each set of articles will present different problems.
1. Papers are not bound, stapled, or otherwise attached to anything. They are paper-clipped together. The photo-copies of your articles are to be stapled together, and then paper-clipped to the research paper.
2. Use "notes" only for information not directly relevant to your paper but helpful or interesting to your reader. ALL OTHER DOCUMENTATION MUST BE PARENTHETICAL.
3. Nothing in your paper or on the "Works Cited" page is single spaced. See the (or a) handbook for a spacing model.
4. Quotations of longer than four typed lines are set off from your text only by left margin indentation, are always double-spaced, and carry no quotation marks unless there is a quotation within them.
5. Periods and commas, whether yours or the writer's quoted, go inside the quotation marks unless the sentence ends with a parenthetical bibliographical reference, in which case the period goes after the parenthesis.
6. Ellipsis are always and only three spaced periods (. . . , not...). They are necessary when it may not be clear to the reader that you are quoting only part of a sentence. For the quotation "and all too often we let such things slide," ellipsis are not needed because the initial lower-case "a" makes clear that the quotation is only part of a sentence. Be careful about observing this. The use of ellipsis before an initial lower case letter in a quotation is probably the most frequent error in ellipsis usage. If you, however, want to quote from the sentence "I used to think that I didn't make mistakes," to quote particular parts of it without ellipsis would be to seriously mislead the reader. For instance, "I didn't make mistakes" is misleading because the initial upper-case "I" leads the reader to think that this is the beginning of the sentence. Thus, it is properly quoted as ". . . I didn't make mistakes." Ellipsis are not necessary when it is clear that you are quoting only part of a sentence. Thus: This is what Smith calls "terminally picky," is correct. This is what Smith calls ". . . terminally picky . . . ," is wrong. If your sentence ends with a set of ellipsis you still need a period, and the period is spaced after the last ellipsis mark and inside the quotation marks (unless as in 5 above). However, you do not, in this case space before the first period of the ellipsis
7. Use a writer's full name in your initial reference to them (see 9), and thereafter use only the last name. The writer, Molly Ivins, after your first reference, is called Ivins, not Ms. Ivins, or Mrs., or Miss (thus also for Mr.). The same applies to any title, academic or otherwise--if it is used it is only used in the initial reference. A woman who writes poetry is a poet, not a "poetess," (unless she writes bad verse and you wish to insult her). A woman who directs a film is called the director, not the "directress," and so on. Sexism does survive, however, in the terms "actor" and "actress," and these descriptives are acceptable. (There are some indications that this will change. When the first Oscar for "best actress" is turned down on the grounds that such an award is sexist some interesting consequences may ensue.) Otherwise, use non-sexist terms (police officer, fire fighter, mail carrier, chair or chairperson, garbage handler, etc.) and use them when referring to men as well as to women.
8. Note that the first sentence of number 8 above uses "them" instead of the "proper" "him." It would have been better (had I not been trying to make a point) to have avoided the problem by instead writing "Use writers' full names. . . ," but when converting to the plural is not possible "them" or "they" will be acceptable in this class. The sentence "Lyle Lovett and k. d. lang has each made a significant contribution with his music" is grammatically "correct," but socially silly.
9. Literature, works of art, and criticism are referred to in the present tense unless there is a specific reason not to. For instance, "In the first scene of Hamlet Shakespeare means [not meant] for the viewer to be confused." Because the work exists and acts on us now we write about it and its author in the present tense, regardless of how long the author has been dead or how long ago the work was composed.
10. Journalistic (magazines and newspapers) practice is most often to put book and film titles in quotes. When you quote material with the title of a film (say) contained in it in quotes, change these to italics (represented in typescript by underlining even if your word-processor does italics). Do not note that you have made this change, although you must note any other change (underlining you add for emphasis, changed verb tenses for agreement purposes, corrected spelling, etc.).
11. Because you are preparing typescript for a supposed typesetter and not producing camera-ready copy, (nor are you doing "desk-top-publishing") you may make clear ink corrections on the pages of your typescript. However, any page which becomes difficult to read because of corrections should be re-typed.
12. Strange as it might seem, articles and reviews with no author listed for them appear alphabetically in your "Works Cited" list as if the title of the review were the author's name. If there is no title, you alphabetize by the initial letter of the next piece of information (name of journal).
13. Note how a dashes are typed. Do not space before or after the elements.
14. Note that your last name is placed before each page number in the upper right corner of each page.