Researched Essay Reminders & Tips: 1)Your claim must be clearly argumentative and presented with controlled language. Your entire essay is a development of YOUR argument. 2)Your argument must integrate counterclaims and respective refutations. The best counterclaims are presented in the form of counter-evidence. Consider using your additional sources to show opposing viewpoints to your own. 3)Avoid generalizations. Always use qualifiers, unless cited evidence includes generalizations. 4) When in doubt, cite! 5)In the final stages, read your essay backwards to check for correct grammar/mechanics.

Additional In-Text Citation Reminders (Information provided by 5 th Edition Hacker’s Guide on MLA Rules and Writing Center at the University of Portland) 1)Author Unknown: Either use the complete title in a signal phrase or use a short form of the title in parentheses. Titles of books are italicized; titles of articles are put in quotation marks. Example: A popular keystroke logging program operates invisibly on workers’ computers yet provides supervisors with details of the workers’ online activities (“Automatically”). TIP: Before assuming that a Web source has no author, do some detective work. Often the author’s name is available but is not easy to find. For example, it may appear at the end of the page, in tiny print. Or it may appear on another page of the site, such as the home page. NOTE: If a source has no author and is sponsored by a corporation or government agency, name the corporation or agency as the author 2) Page number unknown: Do not include the page number if a work lacks page numbers, as is the case with many Web sources. Even if a printout from a Web site shows page numbers, treat the source as unpaginated in the in-text citation because not all printouts give the same page numbers. (When the pages of a Web source are stable, as in PDF files, supply a page number in your in-text citation.) Example: As a 2005 study by Salary.com and America Online indicates, the Internet ranked as the top choice among employees for ways of wasting time on the job; it beat talking with co-workers— the second most popular method—by a margin of nearly two to one (Frauenheim). If a source has numbered paragraphs or sections, use “par.” (or “pars.”) or “sec.” (or “secs.”) in the parentheses: (Smith, par. 4). Notice that a comma follows the author’s name in this case.

3)Blocked Quotes: Any quote longer than four typed lines must be presented in block format. Do not use quotation marks; instead, indent the entire quote one inch from the left margin to form a “block” of text. Double-space the quote, just like the text of the paper, and place the period at the end of the quote, not after the parentheses. Example: Lynda Boose identifies a conflict within this feminist examination: With a certain irony, it can be said that psychoanalytic theory – which assumes the transhistorical nature of the family unit – had seemed to feminist explorers so strikingly appropriate a compass for remapping Shakespearean drama precisely because the Shakespearean family seemed to resemble our own modern one so closely. Even the Christian marriage ceremony has changed but negligibly from the ritual alluded to in Shakespeare’s plays. (614) Long quotations should be used rarely, however, because frequent use tends to break up your text and make the reader impatient. Also, be especially careful to integrate the quote into your paper. Introduce it, and comment afterwards on why it was important. Additional In-Text Citation Reminders (Information provided by 5 th Edition Hacker’s Guide on MLA Rules and Writing Center at the University of Portland)

Quote-Weaving Option 1: Speaker’s Tag: When _______(background)_________, he says, “___________” (Last Name/Title of Article/Other #). Option 2: Complete Thought: ________(IND)___________: “____________” (Last Name/Title of Article/Other #). Option 3: Incomplete Thought: ___________(DCW) ________ “___________” (Last Name/Title of Article/Other #).

Strengthening Your Argument: Considering Argumentative Appeals Appeal to Logos: -Your interpretations need to show clear progression of ideas or the logic of your argument. -Avoid fallacies such as slippery slope (this is a conclusion based on the premise that if A happens, then eventually through a series of small steps, through B, C,..., X, Y, Z will happen, too, basically equating A and Z. So, if we don't want Z to occur, A must not be allowed to occur either.); ad hominem (this is an attack on the character of a person rather than his or her opinions or arguments); either/or (this is a conclusion that oversimplifies the argument by reducing it to only two sides or choices.) Develop your ethos: -Cite sources correctly. -Provide appropriate background your sources (What is the ethos of these sources? Consider the time context, title of authority for speakers, affiliations to credible institutes.) Final Thought: If you were to do a rhetorical analysis on your own essay, what would that look like?