Synthesis Essays--Class Notes

Class,

I was pretty happy overall with the synthesis essays. I think that our work with organizing paragraphs and the sense of an argument's "movement" really helped you all improve your writing. I also think that the out of class peer review had something to do with the overall improvement of the writing. I'd like to believe that you all took a lot from each other's reviews. Yeah getting those out of class peer reviews in were a pain--not to mention, a pain to grade--but I think it ultimately served a purpose.

I hope that the style lecture on Friday helped you think about your writing on a more sophisticated sentence level. Feel free to review it via the embedded Prezi.

A couple of grammar/style/convention things I saw all across the board:

1.) Titles of essays are ALWAYS in "quotations." Italics are for books and full length featured films (among other things). Thus,  "Achievement of Desire," and not Achievement of Desire.


2.) In-text citations always go at the end of sentence right before the period. Thus, 


Rodriguez introduces the concept of the "scholarship boy," a concept culled from Richard Hoggart's Uses of Literacy (Rodriguez 516).


3.) Punctuation and quotation marks: If you are citing part of a text and you use a comma afterwards, the comma goes within the quotations. Thus, 


Wallace writes that education's purpose is to "just a little less arrogant," a little bit less self-certain (Wallace). 

4.) If you cite a passage that is 4 lines of text, use a bloc quotation, indented 1 full inch to the right. Bloc quotation do not have quotation marks around them. 


5.) A semi-colon can only be used when you have two independent clauses (two complete sentences) to join together.  Thus, 


Correct: Rodriguez argues that the scholarship boy is a great mimic; Freire would agree with this. 


Incorrect: Rodriguez argues that the scholarship boy is a great mimic; and Freire may see it the same way. 


With the addition of the "and,' the second clause becomes a sentence fragment. 


6.) In general, Watch out for run-on sentences. Sometimes we get too carried away and forget to PUNCTUATE.