Journal Assignment: The Future of Your Topic

Thus far, you have provided an introduction, a discussion of the debates, and a discussion of the major voices in your subject. Now, with some expertise on this subject, you can confidently say where future attention should be focused. This is not a place for you to argue with the sources. It is a place for you to recognize where they—as a whole—have not covered everything about this topic that there is to discuss. As you write, make sure that you do not enter into debate. Your task is to describe what still needs to be explored.

Instructor Evaluations

Hi Guys,

It's that time of the semester again! Instructor Evaluations are up and ready for you. If you wouldn't mind getting in and giving an evaluation of me. None of this will affect your grade, and your name won't be attached to anything you write.

Follow this link, and sign in with your eWeber to complete the evaluation. Thanks
https://chitester.weber.edu/

Argumentative Essay Helps

As promised, here are a few things to help you as you start to write your argument essay. We will talk through most of these in class tonight. But feel free to ask any questions you might have.

As you can see there are a lot of different ways to go about writing the essay. All of these are good. There is not one right or wrong way. There is only good, better, and more better. (hehe. I wanted to say best, but I don't know that there is a best way.)

And lastly one small table on how to go about writing a thesis statement. I see now that this one might have been helpful for your last paper, but I have only just recently found it. So hopefully it helps for this one. 

Oh and a pdf from another university's writing center. It looks like a good one.
https://depts.washington.edu/owrc/Handouts/Argumentative%20Paper%20Format.pdf

Don't forget you can click on the images to see them larger. Some of the type on these is quite small.

Restaurants and Technology

I came across this today on Facebook. Read it and share your thoughts in the comments.

http://themetapicture.com/people-kept-complaining-this-restaurant-sucked-look-what-they-found-out/

Major Writing 3: Argument Essay

For this assignment, you will be writing an argument essay. You will state a claim or argument and support it with research, personal opinions, stories, and statistics. You may use your research and support from your first two major writing assignments. Your argument essay will have a strong thesis, an introduction, body paragraphs, and a conclusion.

In this essay, I will be grading on the following things:

• An introductory paragraph that gets readers’ attention, clearly indicates the argument of the essay, and makes a point about that argument.
• Multiple body paragraphs which: 1) support the main argument, 2) use supporting information from your research, and 3) fully support and explain how everything in the essay relates to the point you are making.  
• These paragraphs should each contain a topic sentence to guide the reader and hold the paragraph together.
• A concluding paragraph that restates your point about the theme (in a new way), does not bring up any new supporting information, and answers the "So What?" question.
• Clarity, meaning that your sentences should make sense and be clear to read.
• Spelling, meaning that you check for all misspelled words including words that are often confused with others that sound the same (homonyms).
• Accurate grammar and mechanics. You may want to visit the writing center if you need help with grammar.
• Formatting, using the MLA or APA style guidelines.

Your essay should be 5-7 pages, have a works cited or references page, and be formatted correctly with APA or MLA style formatting. Refer to our book, Writing Matters, for help with that. 

This paper is due to me in class on Wednesday, August 6th. You will then post your paper on your blog. You will not get your paper back from me with corrections or a grade, because your paper is due to me on the last day of class. 

Simplifying your Writing

We will discuss simplifying your writing in class. Some of the following are helps for you as you write; some of them are helps for me while we learn about this tonight. But all of them are good.

This link goes to a webpage with an embedded video. It is science writing based, but the information given in the video is useful to everyone writing about anything. And bonus, it's only 3 minutes long.
http://www.acs.org/content/acs/en/careers/college-to-career/video/simplify-sentences.html

This one gives a concise review of wordiness.
http://www.suu.edu/hss/english/writingcenter/pdf/updated/tipsheet_wordiness.pdf

Here is a blog that gives 5 tips for simplifying your writing.
http://gettingpastpr.wordpress.com/2012/07/25/5-ways-to-simplify-your-writing/

Here are the sentences we will use in class to practice wordiness.
https://owl.english.purdue.edu/exercises/6/9/24

This one gives some examples on passive voice and wordiness.
http://writingcenter.unlv.edu/writing/wordiness.html

Word Crimes

I came across this video yesterday, and I must have really needed a good laugh, because this is the funniest thing I have seen in a long time. But maybe it's just an english teacher thing.

What do you guys think?