Week 2 Discussion Guide: Monday

Reading and the Logical Shape of Academic Papers: We will first discuss note-taking as a way of "reading to write," and we will review the typical logical construction of a college-level paper.  The Product Purchase Recommendation can be constructed on a more streamlined form of the basic academic paper's logic, but note the same logical "moves" are made.   

Source Quality and Source Use: Click here for criteria for evaluating the quality sources that are not peer-reviewed.  Remember, your recommendation can be no more reliable than the quality of the sources upon which you base your findings.  Then we will review how to decide whether to summarize, paraphrase, or quote directly, how to cut-and-paste from online sources without committing "cut-and-paste plagiarism," how to use brackets and ellipses to trim quotes, and how to integrate quotation into your sentences.  These are "English 104" skills, but we dare not move into higher level research skills without reviewing them.  Paraphrase and summary are much easier to do when you can say exactly how your source's thesis fits into the ongoing conversation about the topic which you are studying.  How many ways can you describe what a source is "saying"?  Read this list of verbs to specify how your source is "saying" to help you avoid the not-very-informative "X says" formula for introducing evidence.  Not all "sayings" are the same.  If you are not absolutely certain how to use any of these important verbs, ask for an example in class!

To help us make papers that look like academic prose, we will look at ways to answer the format questions on the diagnostic essay and quiz that you wrote last week. 

Two Review Pages from Last Week:  Finding the balance of topics, audience, and sources for the PPR.  H. P. Grice's maxims for ordinary language communication.