ENG 102 CI Research Paper Self Check

You are going through this power point on your own. At this point you will get out of this self edit experience what you put into it. Do your best to reflect on each and every element to this review. This will help you for when you bring in your next round of editing. We want to be sure we get all the editing issues taken care of. If at any point you have questions, just ask.

Check for the structural elements required: Do you have headers? Your last name and page number ½ an inch down on each page? Is the full paper double spaced? Do you NOT have any extra spacing? Is your title strong and effective? Not something simplistic like Cyberbullying, but not drippy and sappy? Find that happy medium. Do you have proper heading information and is it in the right order? Do you have our current section number? It is at the top of our ENG 102 page if you need it.

Check for the structural elements required: Do you have your intro and conclusion sitting at 5-7 sentences? Are your body paragraphs 7-10 sentences? Do you have two parenthetical documentations for each source? Do have all your PD highlighted from the beginning to the end of the PD? Are all 20 of your vocab words highlighted? Have you labeled in brackets your sources? Here is how it should look: Author. More info. The rest of the important info. Even more stuff you need to have. Medium. 15 February [Scholarly]

First, go through and ensure you don’t have any of these common mistakes: Be sure you have a minimum of 5 quotes! No Stacking! You need at least two sentences between all quotes/paraphrases! 3 rd person only – no: I, you, we, us, our, me, my, mine, your... No quotes or paraphrases as the topic sentence or the last sentence in the paragraph. No dropped quotes – everything needs a lead-in! Proper PD: Lead in “blah blah blah” (Smith). Match your PD if you don’t have an author: (“My Article”) All numbers are written out if they are under 100 – the only exception would be numbers in a quote. No quotation marks around words for emphasis. Cross out tired words: bad, good, problem.... Go through and choose 10 words that can be strengthened. Highlight them – this way you can change for your next round of editing.

Check for quotes or paraphrases that are too long! Your words should drive this piece. Check your PD for internet sources, do not put any page numbers! (Smith). You can have one blocked/long quote in your paper – although, I don’t recommend having any. Be sure that your end punctuation for short quotes and paraphrases follows the parentheses: “blah blah blah” (Smith). Be sure that the final sentence of your body paragraphs are a summation of your ideas and a transition into the next. Don’t forget about ellipses! Use three evenly spaced periods to show omission, add a fourth period (your end punctuation is added) if you remove a full sentence, don’t use an ellipses at the beginning or end of a quote. Use [sic] if there is an error in the writing and interpolation (words in brackets) if you need to clarify [because something is confusing].

Focus on your Works Cited page now: Must be double-spaced. It too has to have a header. Entries need to be in alphabetical order If you don’t have an author and you have to put the article title in your parentheses for your PD be sure you have the title in quotation marks in your PD! You have to match it to your works cited page! Journals, magazines, newspapers, and web page titles are all in italics. Article titles are in quotation marks. NOTHING is underlined. We don’t put the web address in the works cited entry. List Web or Print. Your access date is the last item. Your access date is written weird: 4 Feb NOT Feb. 4, Place a period at the end of each entry. Be sure if you used the cite now feature that you selected MLA and not APA!

On the next few slides are common feedback statements that I put on this research paper. Some of these may be repetitive of issues I have already had you review, but that is okay. Look through these statements and be sure you are avoiding these issues in your paper. Make me work hard to find any errors in your paper!

Next Steps: Hopefully you have completely marked up your paper and found some errors that you can fix for our next round of editing. So go ahead and make those changes. Bring to class Friday a new, clean final draft. This should be the strongest possible draft that you can prepare. We will do the peer edit then. Be sure that you highlight everything that is required (PD and vocab) and that you label your sources. You do not need to have a key for this paper. It is pretty obvious which are your quotes and which are your paraphrases. If you need help or have questions – please ask! That is what I am here for! This paper is worth a lot of points – we want this to be the best possible paper can submit.

Now that you are finished with the self edit, you need to get the QR code to scan so you can get your points for this activity. Be sure this is submitted to me BEFORE 7:30am on Friday! This is how you get your points for the first round rough draft self edit. You are essentially assigning yourself the points. You will find the QR code on the filing cabinet under the mirror in our room. Right by all my magnets that have the witty quotes on them.