Order Description
This is an essay exam and should not be organized like an academic paper. I suggest answering each question with your word processor then carefully proofreading before copy/pasting into the boxes provided. Quote correctly from the texts when necessary to back up your assertions and show your understanding.
Part of what I?m doing here is checking to see if you know how to introduce and comment on quotations, and if you know how to select appropriate quotations that support the point you?re trying to make. Here is a copy/paste from the Virtual Salt website.
1. Introduce your quotations. A quotation should never suddenly appear out of nowhere. Some kind of information about the quotation is needed. Name the author, give his or her credentials, name the source, give a summary. You won’t do all of these each time, but you should usually name the author. For example:
a. But John Jones disagrees with this point, saying, “Such a product would not sell.”
b. In an article in Time Fred Jackson writes that frogs vary in the degree of shyness they exhibit: “The arboreal tree frogs seem to be especially. . . .”
2. Discuss your quotations. Do not quote someone and then leave the words hanging as if they were self-explanatory. What does the quotation mean and how does it help establish the point you are making? What is your interpretation or opinion of it? Quotations are like examples: discuss them to show how they fit in with your thesis and with the ideas you are presenting. Remember: quotations support or illustrate your own points. They are not substitutes for your ideas and they do not stand by themselves.
It is often useful to apply some interpretive phrasing after a quotation, to show the reader that the you are explaining the quotation and that it supports your argument:
?Here we see that
?This statement shows
?Clearly, then,
?We can conclude from this that
?This tells us that
?From this we can understand that
Below is the rubric I will use in evaluating your paper.
Quality: A good response will have a focus that will interest the reader and will not be totally obvious. It will go beyond class discussion and show evidence of your own thought.
20
Accuracy: You should not distort the works or conveniently leave out evidence that doesn?t fit your purpose. While varying interpretations are possible, you must be correct about the factual details of the works.
20
Clarity: I must be able to understand what you’re saying, and your rationale for your rankings must be developed in enough detail that I can understand you.
20
Quotation: You must refer to the texts by direct quotation and paraphrase in order to back up your assertions. You must incorporate quotations gracefully into your discussion, introducing them and commenting on their significance. Remember that the quotation doesn?t speak for itself ? you are the interpreter. If you are unsure about how to do this, see “Using Quotations Effectively” below.
20
Format and Editing: Your work must be spell-checked and carefully proofread. You must have a reasonable command of the conventions of formal academic writing Name your file Lastname,Assn 3. Include a Works Cited page in MLA format, in which you list all sources referred to in your paper
20
TOTAL POINTS
100
