BRENDA SPATT taught English at Herbert H. Lehman College of The City University of New York for 13 years before becoming the university's director of academic affairs and then associate dean.

To the Instructor
To the Student
Citations

 

PART I: MAKING SOURCES YOUR OWN

 

1. READING FOR UNDERSTANDING
UNDERLINING
ANNOTATING
     Reading: William Leach, from Land of Desire
     Exercise 1: Annotating a Passage
          *Katherine Ashenberg, from The Dirt on Clean
          *Steven Pinker, The Blank Slate
ASKING QUESTIONS
     Reading: Blanche Blank, A Question of Degree 
     Exercise 2: Understanding What You Read
          *Jill McCorkle, Cuss Time
QUESTIONING THE AUTHOR
     Reading: Rubén Martínez, The Kindness of Strangers
     Exercise 3: Examining Intention
          *Sally Satel, When Altruism Isn't Moral
 USING EVIDENCE AND REASONING
     Exercise 4: Citing Evidence
          *Dan Bilefsky, Children Left Behind Suffer the Strains of Migration
INTERPRETING EVIDENCE   
     Exercise 5: Drawing Inferences
          *Libby Sander, For College Athletes, Recruiting is a Fair (but Flawed) Game
USING LOGICAL REASONING
Exercise 6: Analyzing an Author's Logic
 *Michael Mandelbaum, from Democracy's Good Name
 *Diana West, from The Death of the Grown-Up

 

PART II: PRESENTING SOURCES TO OTHERS

 

2. SUMMARIZING SOURCES
SUMMARIZING A PARAGRAPH
     Exercise 7: Summarizing a Paragraph
          Margaret Mead, from Some Personal Views
          Michael Pollan, from An Animal's Place
          Steve Olsen, from Mapping Human History
          Sara Kershaw, Enough of the Hills and Woods, Can I Send Grandma an E-Card?
          Daniel Boorstin, from Americans: The National Experience
          Steven Pinker, from The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature
          *Lawrence Rosen, What We Got Wrong
SUMMARIZING AN ARTICLE
     Reading: Selwyn Raab, Holdup Man Tells Detectives How to Do It
     Exercise 8: Summarizing an Article
          *Jonathan Malesic, How Dumb Do They Think We Are?
SUMMARIZING A COMPLEX ESSAY
     Reading: Bertrand Russell, The Social Responsibility of Scientists
     Assignment 1: Summarizing an Essay
          *Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?
          *Roger Scruton, from A Carnivore's Credo

 

3. QUOTING SOURCES
REASONS FOR QUOTING
USING QUOTATIONS
     Exercise 9: Quoting Correctly
QUOTING ACCURATELY
TAILORING QUOTATIONS TO FIT YOUR WRITING
     Exercise 10: Using Ellipses and Brackets in Quotations
WRITING CITATIONS
DECIDING WHAT TO QUOTE 
     Reading: Lizabeth Cohen, from A Consumer's Republic
     Exercise 11: Why Quote?
          *John De Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas H. Naylor, from Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic
     Exercise 12: What to Quote  
          *Tom Vanderbilt, Traffic
          *Thomas G. Mortenson, from Where the Boys Were
INTEGRATING QUOTATIONS INTO YOUR PARAGRAPHS
     Exercise 13: Integrating Quotations Into a Paragraph
AVOIDING PLAGIARISM
     Exercise 14: Identifying Plagiarism

 

4. PARAPHRASING SOURCES
USING PARAPHRASE IN YOUR ESSAYS
     Exercise 15: Identifying a Good Paraphrase
          Peter C. Whybrow, from Dangerously Addictive
     Exercise 16: Paraphrasing a Difficult Passage
USING PARAPHRASE WITH QUOTATION AND SUMMARY
     Reading: Conor Cruise O'Brien, Violence-And Two Schools of Thought
     Exercise 17: Distinguishing Between Quotation, Paraphrase, Summary, and Commentary
          *David Leonhardt, Maybe Money Does Buy Happiness After All
WRITING A PARAGRAPH THAT INCORPORATES PARAPHRASE AND QUOTATION: “JARHEAD”
     Reading: Anthony Swofford, Jarhead
     Exercise 18: Paraphrasing Without Plagiarism
     Exercise 19: Writing a Paragraph that Incorporates Paraphrase and Quotation
          *Ursula K. Le Guin, from Staying Awake: Notes on the Alleged Decline of Reading
PRESENTING SOURCES: A SUMMARY OF PRELIMINARY WRITING SKILLS

 

PART III: WRITING FROM SOURCES

 

5. THE SINGLE-SOURCE ESSAY
STRATEGY ONE: ARGUING AGAINST YOUR SOURCE
     Reading: Roger Sipher, So That Nobody Has to Go to School If They Don't Want To
     Assignment 2: Writing an Argument Based on a Single Source
          Carl Singleton, What Our Education System Needs is More Fs
          *Steven M. Wise, Why Animals Deserve Legal Rights
          *Mirko Bagaric and Julie Clarke, from Torture: When the Unthinkable is Morally Permissible     

STRATEGY TWO: DEVELOPING AN ESSAY BASED ON A SOURCE
     Assignment 3: Writing an Essay Based on a Single Source
          *Jenni Russell, The Selfish Generation
          *Christopher Caldwell, What a College Education Buys
          *Bobby Allyn, Among Privileged Classmates, I'm an Outsider

 

6. THE MULTIPLE-SOURCE ESSAY
ANALYZING MULTIPLE SOURCES
     Exercise 20: Analyzing Shades of Meaning in Multiple Sources
     Assignment 4: Writing a Definition Essay from Multiple Sources
SYNTHESIZING MULTIPLE SOURCES: “LOTTERY”
     Exercise 21: Identifying Common Ideas
ORGANIZING MULTIPLE SOURCES: “STUDENT PROMOTION”
     Reading: Gene I. Maeroff, from Rule Tying Pupil Promotion to Reading Skill Stirs Worry
EVALUATING SOURCES
WRITING A SYNTHESIS ESSAY
     Exercise 22: Analyzing a Paragraph Based on a Synthesis of Sources
          Alan Wolfe, Moral Freedom: Till Circumstances Do Us Part
     Assignment 5: Writing an Essay Synthesizing Multiple Sources
          *Laurie Fendrich, The B-Minus Reigns Supreme
     Assignment 6: Writing an Argument from Multiple Sources
          *Jennifer Medina, Can Students Be Paid to Excel?
WHEN NOT TO SYNTHESIZE
SYNTHESIZING SOURCES IN ACADEMIC ESSAYS
     Reading: Jeffrey Rosen, from The Naked Crowd
     Exercise 23: Integrating Three Academic Sources
          *Andrew Keen, from The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture
          *Lee Siegel, from Against the Machine: Being Human in the Age of the Electronic Mob
          *William Deresiewicz, from The End of Solitude
     Assignment 7: Synthesizing Academic Sources
          *Steven Johnson, from Everything Bad is Good for You
          *Christine Rosen, from People of the Screen

 

PART IV: WRITING THE RESEARCH ESSAY

 

7. FINDING SOURCES
TOPIC NARROWING   
     Exercise 24: Narrowing a Topic
     Exercise 25: Proposing a Topic
LOCATING SOURCES
INTERVIEWING AND FIELD RESEARCH
     Assignment 8: Writing an Essay Based on Interviews or Field Research
SAVING AND RECORDING INFORMATION FOR YOUR BIBLIOGRAPHY
     Exercise 26: Compiling a Working Bibliography
     Exercise 27: Finding and Selecting Sources
     Assignment 9: Preparing a Topic Proposal for a Research Essay
 
8. EVALUATING SOURCES
EVALUATING PRINT SOURCES
EVALUATING WEB SOURCES
EVALUATING WEB SOURCES ABOUT ANIMAL RIGHTS
INTEGRATING SOURCES
     Exercise 28: Evaluating Internet Sources
     Exercise 29: Choosing Internet Sources
     Exercise 30: Evaluating Sources
          *Britannica Online, from Wikipedia
          *Andrew Lih, from The Wikipedia Revolution: How a Bunch of Nobodies Created the World's Greatest Encyclopedia
          *Jonathan Zittrain, from The Future of the Internet and How to Stop It
          *Andrew Keen, from The Cult of the Amateur: How Today's Internet is Killing Our Culture
          *Amit Ray and Erhardt Graeff, from Reviewing the Author-Function in the Age of Wikipedia
          *Darren Crovitz and W. Scott Smoot, from Wikipedia: Friend, Not Foe
          *Jakob Voss, from Measuring Wikipedia
          *Roy Rosenzweig, from Can History Be Open Source? Wikipedia and the Future of the Past
          *Noam Cohen, from A History Department Bans Citing Wikipedia As a Research Source
          *Adam Tornes, from Wikipedia: Encyclopedia or Karma Sutra?
      Exercise 31: Comparing Sources
          300 Killed By Fire (The New York Times)
          Catastrophe: Boston's Worst (Time Magazine)
          Bernard Devoto, The Easy Chair

 

9. WRITING THE RESEARCH ESSAY
SAVING INFORMATION
TAKING NOTES
     Exercise 32: Taking Notes on Two Topics
     Exercise 33: Taking Notes on Three Topics
          *Janet M. Davis, from The Circus Age: Culture and Society Under the American Big Top 
DEVELOPING A LIST OF TOPICS
PLANNING A STRATEGY
ARRANGING THE ORDER OF TOPICS: OUTLINING
COMPLETING YOUR OUTLINE
WRITING INTEGRATED PARAGRAPHS
ACCOMMODATING ARGUMENT IN YOUR PARAGRAPHS
PRESENTING ARGUMENTS FAIRLY
INTEGRATING YOUR SOURCES: RECRUITING IN COLLEGE ATHLETICS
WRITING AN INTRODUCTION
USING VISUALS AS SOURCES
     Assignment 10: Organizing and Writing the Research Essay

 

10. ACKNOWLEDGING SOURCES
WHEN TO DOCUMENT INFORMATION
PLAGIARISM: STEALING IDEAS
PLAGIARISM: STEALING WORDS
     Exercise 34: Understanding When to Document Information
     Exercise 35: Understanding Plagiarism
     Exercise 36: Identifying Plagiarism
USING DOCUMENTATION
     Exercise 37: Acknowledging Sources
MANAGING DOCUMENTATION
     Exercise 38: Documenting Sources Correctly
PREPARING THE FINAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
     Exercise 39: Preparing the Bibliography
PRESENTING YOUR ESSAY

 

11. TWO RESEARCH ESSAYS
Readings:
          Bethany Dettmore, Looking at Horror Films
          David Morgan, Explaining the Tunguskan Phenomenon

 

12. SOME BASIC FORMS FOR DOCUMENTATION: MLA, APA, AND ENDNOTES
MLA STYLE
APA STYLE 
NUMBERED BIBLIOGRAPHY
ENDNOTE/FOOTNOTE DOCUMENTATION
NOTES PLUS PAGE NUMBERS IN THE TEXT
 
*new to this edition