Bell-ringer Activity Please develop two quote sandwiches from the prompts on the blue sheet. Be prepared to share.

My Comments on First Drafts Chew on this for your revisions today

Source Requirement Remember to incorporate all four of your sources—primary, database (secondary), website (secondary), free source. You need a variety of information-don’t rely too much on any one source. Every source listed must be cited in the essay. BALANCE your essay with different voices. Make sure there’s enough (20%).

Incorporating Quotes Do not begin your paragraphs with quotes. Do not end your paragraphs with quotes. Limit the length of your quotes. The reader wants to read what YOU have to say, not your authorities. If you do incorporate a quote four lines or longer, it should be blocked. They should be sandwiched.

Avoid 2 nd Person Do not reference the reader as “you” and “your”. Don’t talk to the reader. Ex: “When you go to the store, you should read the ingredients of packaged food—a list of words you can’t pronounce.” Instead, write: “The list of ingredients found on packaged foods is…”

Avoid 1 st person-unless you need it for a short narrative Mostly, avoid it when speaking to research process (“this has always been an interesting subject to me…”, “I found a great article pertaining to my subject…”, “this leads me to believe…”)

Expand The number one problem I found in most is that the arguments were largely underdeveloped. Write more than 75 lines if you need. If you have nothing else to work on today, challenge yourself to write another 25 lines, expanding on a subargument. Further, take your argument beyond the obvious.

Bridging your Thesis Statement Most—yep, that’s you, and you, and probably Matt ---don’t have an effective bridge to your thesis statement. Your intro is fairly decent, but the thesis sounds as if it were dropped from the heavens into your paper. Plop. There it is. Make sure it flows.

Research in your Intros Consider weaving research in your introduction—even if it’s narrative. All the cool kids are doing it, even Chris.

Avoid preaching / blaming “Not enough people are taking action against this… We need to stop buying plastic products…” Instead, try to temper your words and make suggestions without making the audience feel guilty. (There are several measures we can take to decrease plastic in our landfills…)

Transition. Transition. Transition The key to logic and flow is transition—using transitional words and phrases to connect paragraphs and ideas within.