 Write about something interesting you saw on TV or the Internet, or something you heard on the radio in the last week.

Or, how to make that paper look like your instructor wants it.

 The MLA is the Modern Language Association. It is a group of professionals that meet annually and make decisions for formatting documents, etc, that are used in the Humanities fields.

 APA = American Psychological Association › -ologies  Chicago Style › History

 See MLA tab in Hacker Handbook  1” margins all around  Name, professor, class, date in upper left corner (NOT in the header)  Last name, page number in the upper right (in the header)  Title: centered  Full document should be double spaced  Indent each new paragraph

 I am not that familiar with Mac software. However, what I’m going to show you here should apply to basically any word processing software.  There are two ways to set up MLA: › Template › manually

…a computer …word processing software

 Use the computer labs here on campus

 If you have a computer at home, but don’t have Word (it’s expensive!), try one of these: › Openoffice.org – free downloadable word processing/spreadsheet/presentation software › Google documents – also free (requires a google user account) › Windows live – I don’t use it, but others do. ;)

Last week, we talked about sentence combining to make our writing more interesting. I want to take a little time and work on that this morning. You may work with a partner, and we’ll review after about 10 minutes. If you need more practice, you can do the rest of the packet for homework and I will be happy to correct it for you.

Brainstorming techniques

 Listing  Free writing  Discussion  Mapping/Diagramming  Clustering  Outlining

 Should the national drinking age be lowered to 18? Please develop an argument to support your opinion, and be prepared to supply a counter- argument.

One of the most effective methods of brainstorming is to just talk it out. Sometimes, discussing a topic with fellow students, family members, or an instructor can help you gather ideas.

Listing does exactly what it sounds like; a writer can list all the ideas or responses they have to a general topic. YesNo

Free writing is a stream of consciousness exercise. It’s useful to get the ideas flowing without thinking about organization or mechanics.

Mapping/diagramming and clustering are very similar. Starting with a central idea, branches are added as new ideas, branch off. Related ideas are attached by branches. New ideas start a new branch. NO

Rather than using the more linear format of mapping, clustering uses bubbles and lines to connect ideas based on a main topic or idea. YES

Outlining might not be the most effective way to start brainstorming without doing something beforehand. It may be more effective to outline once the ideas have been generated using another form of brainstorming. This can help more when a writer has an idea of what they want to say without knowing exactly how to organize her thoughts. This may seem very formulaic; it is. It’s a good way to get started and think about the relationships between sentences in terms of organization.  We’re going to talk more about outlines on Wednesday, after we’ve had a little review on paragraph structure.

1. On your own, using any of the methods discussed above, brainstorm some ideas about the topic presented here. 2. After a few minutes, get with a small group and discuss the ideas you came up as individuals, and keep notes of new ideas you came up with. 3. As a group, try to think up supporting statements for your main “yes” or “no” answers.  Should “Superbowl Monday” be a national holiday, like Thanksgiving or Memorial Day?

Chapter 2