Independent Work (10 min)

If you are still working on your rhetorical analysis, take that out and get to work.

If not, work on your research project.

Also: check your gradebook on Brightspace. You should be able to see everything, including what you are missing.

I can try to answer questions about your rhetorical analysis assignment, research project, or my record of your assignments now. But we only have a little time for this, so feel free to reach out after class if you have more questions.

Research Groups and Work on Finding/Evaluating Sources (30-40 min)

I want to introduce the Research Plan assignment. You can download a Word document here or use this Google Doc to make your own copy (click “File” and then “Make a Copy”).

In your groups, work on finding sources and evaluating those sources for about 30 minutes. By the end of that 30 minutes, you should have ready one popular source and one academic source that you might use for your project–having also evaluated those sources.

To evaluate: Go back to “Finding and Evaluating Sources” in Perusall (what was due for homework last week). Follow the steps for these two items for BOTH sources (see pages 149-152 in the textbook, especially, for this):

• lateral reading
• frame checking

I’m going to come around to your groups to check in. This work today will help you get ready to submit your research plan to me by end of day on Wednesday.

Documentation Style (40 min)

How do your academic sources signal information from other articles, books, etc.? What symbols and formatting moves in the text and at the end of the text do they use? Look back at your academic source now.

Different kinds of academic disciplines have different kinds of values and priorities. And we see this even with how information is cited! That’s why there are several different kinds of documentation styles.

In this activity, we are going to figure out what those values might be based on the requirements in certain documentation styles.

In groups, you will be assigned one of four possible documentation styles (there are more, but here are 4 of the big ones–IEEE is another big one, for instance):

• APA (American Psychological Association)
• Chicago
• CSE (Council of Science Educators)
• MLA (Modern Language Association)

For your group, note the following on this webpage from the UW-Madison Writing Center page on the right menu bar (click on the PDF handouts on those pages, too):

• Tense of verbs introducing source information for in-text citation: past or present? (e.g., “Foucault argues that…” or “Haraway theorized that…” or “Warnock et al. found that…”)
• What information is prioritized in in-text citation? (e.g., year, page number, paraphrase of information, summary, direct quote)
• What is the method for in-text citation (when the source is mentioned when writing)? (e.g., parentheses when source is mentioned in sentence, parentheses at end of sentence, footnote, endnote)
• What information is prioritized in reference list? Think about what comes in the first three to four positions in most reference list entries (e.g., name of author or authors, year, title of work, journal, pages, publisher)
• Think about how the information is formatted in the reference list (e.g., first name included or just initials for author in reference list? how is the reference ordered–alphabetical, order in which source appears in text, chronological, etc.?)
• Is there any flexibility involved in how you can cite things, format the reference list, etc.? If so, what?
• What other formatting is required? (e.g., title page structure and information included, where and how page numbers appear, headings, tables, figures)
• Note any “tips” that stood out to you from the handout you clicked on for in-text citations or for the reference list (or for anything else).

As you hunt for this information as a group, make sure a group member is writing down what you notice about your documentation style and what you think about it in this Google Doc! Take about 15 minutes to work this out. Each group must write what they find in response to what is in the Google Doc and then present on it afterward.

Okay, let’s look at what each group wrote up. After comparing your documentation style to the notes the other three groups took on their documentation style on the Google Doc, take about 3 minutes to do some individual writing to respond to the following questions:

• Why does your documentation style have this verb tense, or this information prioritized, this method of expressing a citation, etc.? What advantages or disadvantages are there to this?
• Which disciplines (e.g., humanities, physical sciences, social sciences, history, English, engineering) do you think would benefit from your documentation style? Why?

Then, as a group, finalize what you want to present on to the rest of the class (make sure you decide on the presenter). You should also update your fourth cell of your table to reflect group consensus in response to these two questions above. This should take about 10 minutes.

After you had some time to work on this about this, we will take 10 minutes to discuss your thoughts.

Think more about your research question, the kinds of scholars you are going to engage, and the right documentation style that would work best for you and your research.

Next Time (5 min)

-Revision AND cover letter for rhetorical analysis is due tonight by 11:59pm

-Finish your research plan

-We will introduce the synthesis paragraph to get started on writing your research essay

-For Wednesday, complete your 10 minutes of private writing for the week in your composition book: What is something you are proud of so far this semester? Something you have created (in school or outside of school)? Risks you have taken (e.g., joined a club about something you don’t know much about, went up to talk to people you ended up making friends with, spoke up for yourself or others about something important to you)? A performance you feel you nailed (e.g., an exam, a speech or presentation)? What makes you proud of it? Also: do you find yourself talking yourself down even when you are proud (e.g., “it wasn’t that big of a deal, but” or “it’s a small thing, but” or “I know lots of people do this well”)? Why are you doing that, if so? By contrast, do you worry that pride can make you too comfortable and not “hungry” enough to get better at things? What’s going on with both under- and over-confidence? (You don’t have to respond to all of these questions but I find them interesting, overall!)

-Nothing is stopping you from getting going on your research project draft due December 4 and some of the grade boost assignments.