Hi Everyone,

I’m glad you all enjoyed listening to the Freakonomics podcast about handwriting today (for those who missed class, click here or here to listen). I’m going to read over your essays promptly and get them back to you by no later than this weekend so  you can immediately get to work planning out/beginning to research your third essay.

For Thursday, please:

1) Research one topic/idea/controversy/pencil store or whatever else that came up in the Freakonomics podcast and write a brief (about one paragraph) summary of what you learned in your research. You’ll informally present your research to a small group on Thursday.

2) Read “What is Academic Writing?” by L. Lennie Irvin (available here) and write short (2-3 sentence) responses to these three questions/prompts: A) According to Irvin, what is the “Academic Writing Situation”? B) Summarize Irvin’s advice about how to “pick and limit” a writing topic. C) Write a one-sentence “translation” (i.e. voice the idea in your own words) of each of Irvin’s “three characteristics of academic writing” (14).