WEEK 6: PREPARING FOR BA4, PT. 2 Thesis structure & Function

Before we begin…  I’ve been sick and have fallen behind on grading  Around 20 BA3s across five different sections remain to be graded.  I will finish grading by tomorrow morning but a considerable part of you should already have your BA3 grades and comments back  I apologize for the delay.  As soon as you receive your comments/grades, begin revising your BA3 in preparation for BA4(due Tuesday) and next week’s participation assignment (due Thursday)  Visit me during office hours for feedback/help with audience, purpose, and rhetorical choice identifications and BA3 revisions

Goals for Today  Reading Quiz  Brief Review/Clarification – Author’s purpose  Continue Introduction to Theses  Activities  See graded examples of BA4  See examples of Theses at work  Introduction to MLA-style citation, pt. 1

A Brief Review and Clarification Complex Authors’ Purposes

What we have covered  There are different types of writing, each geared towards a particular purpose  The texts we will work with have persuasive purposes  Purpose: What is the author trying to get the audience(s) to do as a result of reading the text?  There is a difference between what an author does, the point he/she tries to make, and the purpose (what he/she tries to convince the audience to do  You will be discussing the author’s purpose as persuading or convincing NOT informing, explaining, showing, etc.

Levels of Persuasion  Persuasion works on three levels 1. The author must first provide information about a topic/subject/issue 2. If the information is provided in an effective manner, it will persuade the audience to see that topic/subject/issue from a new perspective 3. Once an author persuades his/her audience to see thing differently, he/she must then persuade them to do something about the topic/subject/issue  The relationships between these levels of persuasion can be visualized in the following manners:

Levels of Persuasion, cont.  Information Provided  ChangingMind/Perspective  Convincing to take action and  Information provided= What the author does in the text  Changing Mind/Perspective= The point the author makes  Convincing to Take Action= The author’s purpose  Whenever you have to identify and/or provide the author’s purpose for an assignment, you have to focus on the third level. In other words, you have to identify the action the author tries to persuade the audience into taking.

What does this mean?  E.g.  I tell you that studies have shown that those students who visit instructors during office hours to get help get higher grades on average than those that don’t. (Information provided or “What an author does”)  After reading the information/evidence, you consider that it might be beneficial to your GPA for you to visit me during office hours. (Changing mind/perspective or “The point the author makes—which the audience has understood”)  You get out of bed on Monday morning and visit me during office hours with a draft of your assignment (Convincing to take action or “The author’s purpose”)

How to communicate purpose  Sometimes, a student can understand the point and purpose of a text and not be able to phrase it adequately  This can usually be solved with a careful use of verbs and phrasing  There are two types of verbs (and their corresponding phrasings) you will consider Verbs that denote information or awareness or “awareness verbs” (First two levels of purpose) Verbs that denote action or “action verbs” (Third level of purpose)

How to communicate purpose, cont.  “The author…”  Informs  Shows  Explains  Says  Tells  etc.  The author persuades/convinces the audience to…“  Support and fight for civil rights  Educate themselves before approaching experts  Visit their instructor during office hours and ask for help when they need it  etc. Awareness verbsAction Verbs

Brief Review of Structure and Content Analysis Activities Thesis Structure & Function

Thesis Structure  Common components of thesis statements are: Author, Title, Audience, Purpose, Rhetorical Choices  In (Title of Text), (Author’s name) persuades his audience to (purpose-use action verbs) through the use of (list of three choices)  Note: I only provided this sample as a model and starting point for BA4 rough draft. Variations are possible and encouraged.  [Attributive Tag] + [Topic (your argument)] + [Comment (Rhetorical Choices)]  [Title of Text and Author’s Name]+[What is the author’s purpose for his audience?]+ [Which rhetorical choices are used to achieve purpose?]

Activities  As a class 1. Analyze the structure and content of graded BA4 samples What is working? What isn’t? Why? How can it be improved? 2. Locate and analyze the structure, content, and function of thesis in sample rhetorical analysis essays Considering their structure and content, are the theses effective? How do they set up the rest of the essay? How can they be improved?

A very brief introduction to providing in-text citations and Work Cited entries MLA Style, part 1

In-text Citations  Included whenever a direct quote or paraphrase is used  Citations come at the end of the sentence in which they are used, NOT directly after the quote or paraphrase.  E.g. (from page 575 in the textbook)  “At the end of the article, Diamond comes back to this opening story, saying, “The bad service I continue to get is my own fault…I never took the trouble to study a VW manual” (201).  If the author’s name is mentioned in the sentence that includes the quote or paraphrase, you only have to provide the page number between parentheses.  If the name is not included, you must include both the last name and page number between parentheses. E.g. (Diamond 201).

Work Cited  Since we are working with articles reprinted in a textbook/anthology, the Work Cited entry should be formatted like this: Byatt, A. S. “The Thing in the Forest.” New Yorker. 3 June 2002: Rpt. in The O. Henry Prize Stories Ed. Laura Furman. New York: Anchor, Print. So you need to do this: Last Name, First Name. "Title of Text." Name of Original Publication. Date of Original Publication: Original Page Number. Rpt.(Reprinted) in Name of Anthology or Textbook Year. Ed. (In this case, Texas Tech). City of Publication: Publisher, Year. Page Number. Type of publication (Print, Electronic, etc.)