Reading Critically Writing Well A Reader and Guide - 2020
Reading Critically Writing Well A Reader and Guide - 2020
Reading Critically Writing Well A Reader and Guide - 2020
Rise B. Axelrod
University of California, Riverside
Charles R. Cooper
University of California, San Diego
Ellen C. Carillo
University of Connecticut
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Acknowledgments
Text acknowledgments and copyrights appear at the back of the book on
pages 655–657, which constitute an extension of the copyright page. Art
acknowledgments and copyrights appear on the same page as the art
selections they cover.
Preface
The new features of the twel h edition mean that it offers more
flexibility for instructors than previous editions. The individual
readings chapters can each be used in any order, supported by the
instruction and strategies included in Chapters 1 and 2. Instructors
who want to build on the focus of a chapter can either move to the
tagged multi-genre material in Chapter 11 or teach Chapter 11 as a
culminating chapter. No matter the instructor’s route through the
textbook, students are prepared to undertake this work because they
have seen it modeled for them and have had many opportunities to
reflect on what they are learning along the way.
With more readings to choose from, instructors have a better variety
of topics, disciplines, and styles to choose from to engage students
and model writing in each genre. Analyze & Write activities, Writing
Assignments, and activities in the Guides to Writing provide
instructors with a range of prompts for homework, classwork, small
group or class discussion, and writing assignments. This edition of
Reading Critically, Writing Well also features alternative tables of
contents, listing readings by theme and discipline to allow
instructors the flexibility to chart a path through the readings to
meet their course goals. Sentence strategies in every chapter, with
a convenient reference index in the Instructor’s Manual
(downloadable from the Macmillan website), support students as
they become more comfortable with academic writing.
Rhetorical Knowledge
Processes
Knowledge of Conventions
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
We first want to thank our students and colleagues at the University
of Connecticut, the University of California, Riverside, and the
University of California, San Diego; California State University, East
Bay, and California State University, San Bernardino; and the
University of Nevada, Reno, who have taught us so much about
reading, writing, and teaching.
Rise dedicates this book to Sophie and Amalia, whose writing she
very much looks forward to reading. She also thanks her husband,
Steven, for his continued support and encouragement.
Ellen dedicates this book to Avi and Harris, who are becoming great
readers and writers, as well as Dave who is showing them the way.
She also thanks her parents, Bev and Joe Gerber, and her sister,
Betsy, for their unwavering support over the years.
Rise B. Axelrod
Charles R. Cooper
Ellen C. Carillo
Choose the format that works best for your course, and ask about
our packaging options that offer savings for students.
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Preface
Contents by Theme
Contents by Discipline
1 ACADEMIC HABITS OF MIND: FROM READING CRITICALLY
TO WRITING WELL
Ben Greenman, Online Curiosity Killer
An author, editor, and father suggests the Internet is stifling our
curiosity.
2 A CATALOG OF READING STRATEGIES
Martin Luther King Jr., An Annotated Sample from “Letter
from Birmingham Jail”
An annotated excerpt from this famous civil rights letter
demonstrates the variety of rhetorical strategies King used to
make the case for his strategy of civil disobedience.
Lewis H. Van Dusen Jr., Legitimate Pressures and
Illegitimate Results
An annotated excerpt from “Civil Disobedience: Destroyer of
Democracy” is used to demonstrate how to compare and contrast
related readings.
3 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY NARRATIVES
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (Annotated Essay)
A celebrated essayist remembers, with strange affection, a
childhood prank and its scary consequences.
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
A best-selling author famed for his insightful satire recalls the
challenges of learning a new language from a demanding and
unorthodox instructor.
Molly Montgomery, In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets
Reflecting on her Chinese-American heritage, an aspiring writer
and blogger ponders the truth behind her Chinese name.
Saira Shah, Longing to Belong
An award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker
recounts how events forced her to recognize the naïveté of her
fairytale vision of her homeland.
Jenée Desmond-Harris, Tupac and My Non-Thug Life
A prominent writer and Harvard Law graduate, Desmond-
Harris reflects on the effect that the death of rapper Tupac
Shakur had on her and the formation of her identity.
Rhea Jameson, Mrs. Maxon (Student Essay)
Focusing on her experiences of learning to write in high school
and college, a journalism student recalls the curious advice of
her high school teacher and its profound impact on her
development as a writer.
4 OBSERVATION
The New Yorker, Soup (Annotated Essay)
A magazine writer profiles a restaurateur — a temperamental
master of the art of soup making — along with his tiny storefront
establishment.
John T. Edge, I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing
Daring himself to eat a food that makes him queasy, an expert
on Southern food observes a factory that processes and bottles pig
lips.
Gabriel Thompson, A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields
A prolific writer and community organizer writes about the skill
and endurance required of fieldwork that he experienced
firsthand.
Amanda Coyne, The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in
Federal Prison
Taking her nephew to visit his mom, in federal prison for aiding
a criminal boyfriend, an aspiring writer reports on and critiques
the penal system.
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrods
A writer and distinguished professor of environmental science
and forestry contemplates the reciprocity of science and beauty,
of asters and goldenrods.
Linda Fine, Bringing Ingenuity Back (Student Essay)
A first-year composition student observes the skill and dexterity
needed to print with an antique press and comes to value the
ingenuity of work.
5 REFLECTION
Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space (Annotated
Essay)
An African American member of the New York Times editorial
board notes how his presence on a city street triggers defensive
reactions in white passersby and addresses the “alienation that
comes of being ever the suspect.”
Dana Jennings, Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives
A newspaper columnist ponders the significance of his scars and
the stories they tell.
Jacqueline Woodson, The Pain of the Watermelon Joke
An award-winning author of young-adult literature explores
how racism still stalks America — even in a most unexpected
setting.
Manuel Muñoz, Leave Your Name at the Border
A contemporary Latino writer reflects on the importance of
names: how they are pronounced, what they mean, and how
they fit into American culture.
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
An award-winning writer and former Policy Advisor for the US
Department of Housing and Urban Development uses Wonder
Woman as a touchstone to explore race, gender, and identity.
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
A first-year composition student reflects on her obsession with
losing weight, as well as the consequences of that obsession.
6 EXPLAINING CONCEPTS
Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? (Annotated
Essay)
A prominent author and journalist explains that shyness, far
from being a debilitating social handicap, actually confers
benefits like introspection and attentiveness.
John Tierney, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?
A reporter and columnist explores the concept of decision fatigue
in order to explain how people’s ability to make effective
decisions is a finite resource.
Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing
A journalist and author explores the ways in which
crowdsourcing impacts work and new technologies.
Melanie Tannenbaum, The Problem When Sexism Just
Sounds So Darn Friendly
A science writer defines “benevolent sexism” and argues that it is
even more “insidious” than ordinary sexism.
Michael Pollan, Altered State: Why “Natural” Doesn’t Mean
Anything
A widely published journalist speculates on the many meanings
of “natural” and how it has come to be simultaneously powerful
and meaningless.
William Tucker, The Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion
(Student Essay)
A first-year composition student explains the intricacies of stop-
motion animation.
7 EVALUATION
Amitai Etzioni, Working at McDonald’s (Annotated Essay)
A respected sociologist argues that a er-school jobs at fast-food
restaurants are bad for teenagers.
Matthew Hertogs, Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An
Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on Student
Learning
In an essay he penned as a college sophomore, Hertogs, now a
so ware engineer, evaluates whether taking notes by hand or
typing is more effective.
Ian Bogost, Brands Are Not Our Friends
An author and award-winning game designer explores why
Comcast sent him pizza and why brands are so friendly on social
media.
Malcolm Gladwell, What College Rankings Really Tell Us
An award-winning author explains why consumers aren’t
getting the full picture when they look to rankings for an
assessment of a complicated institution like a college or a
university.
Christine Rosen, The Myth of Multitasking
A prominent writer and commentator on such subjects as
bioethics, fundamentalism, feminism, and technology warns
that “when people do their work … with crumbs of attention
rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may
gain in information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.”
Christine Romano, Jessica Statsky’s “Children Need to Play,
Not Compete”: An Evaluation (Student Essay)
A first-year college student applies critical reading skills to
another student’s essay and comes up with an assertive but
carefully balanced evaluation.
8 ARGUING FOR A POSITION
Christie Aschwanden, There’s No Such Thing as “Sound
Science” (Annotated Essay)
An award-winning science writer and author debunks “sound
science” and instead advocates for “open science.”
Isiah Holmes, The Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real
A journalist investigates the opioid crisis in Milwaukee and
urges the city to help those addicted to drugs.
Sherry Turkle, The Flight from Conversation
An author and professor at MIT argues that our electronic tools
are robbing us of opportunities for in-person communication,
substituting instead superficial interactions that lack richness
and depth.
Daniel J. Solove, Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have
“Nothing to Hide”
A scholar and legal expert argues that invasions of privacy in the
name of security harm all of us, even when we have “nothing to
hide.”
Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love
An art history professor critiques the idea of doing “what you
love” and argues that this attitude devalues the work that most
people do, actually exploiting those workers.
Jessica Statsky, Children Need to Play, Not Compete
(Student Essay)
Documenting the excesses and dangers of competitive sports for
children under the age of thirteen, a first-year college student
argues for eliminating such programs in favor of programs that
“emphasize fitness, cooperation, sportsmanship, and individual
performance.”
9 SPECULATING ABOUT CAUSES OR EFFECTS
Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies (Annotated
Essay)
America’s best-known writer of horror novels and film scripts
speculates about why we continue “daring the nightmare.”
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South
Still Show the Outlines of Slavery
An award-winning journalist and senior correspondent
examines the reasons for an increased mortality rate in the Black
Belt, focusing primarily on the socioeconomic status of the
region.
C Thi Nguyen, Escape the Echo Chamber
An assistant professor of philosophy and prominent editor
discusses the dangers of echo chambers and epistemic bubbles,
and explains why escaping echo chambers is much harder than it
would seem.
Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?
An author and professional speaker wonders whether technology
is changing our brains and the way we think, impairing our
ability to concentrate, focus, and do research.
Sendhil Mullainathan, The Mental Strain of Making Do
with Less
A professor of economics ponders the effect of scarcity in
“bandwidth,” the resource underlying all higher-order mental
activity, on people’s ability to think clearly and control their
impulses.
Clayton Pangelinan, #socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So
Popular (Student Essay)
A first-year composition student speculates about the reasons for
the sustained popularity of social networking, focusing on our
inherent need to connect and interact with other people.
10 PROPOSAL TO SOLVE A PROBLEM
Alice Wong, The Last Straw (Annotated Essay)
A disability activist questions the ban on plastic straws and
proposes ways for establishments to cultivate accessible and
hospitable environments while still reducing waste.
Harold Meyerson, How to Raise Americans’ Wages
A political columnist proposes a four-part solution to raise
incomes and prioritize the rights of middle-class laborers.
Maryanne Wolf, Skim Reading Is the New Normal
An author and professor warns against skim reading and
suggests we need to cultivate a “reading brain capable of the
deepest forms of thought in either digital or traditional
mediums.”
William F. Shughart II, Why Not a Football Degree?
Impatient with “half-measures” that have been adopted or
proposed to try to reform college sports, an economics professor
recommends a three-pronged solution that treats the issue as a
business proposition.
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, Ounces of
Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared
Beverages
A professor of psychology and a physician argue that taxing
sugared beverages is one effective way to combat the national
obesity epidemic.
James Benge, Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees
(Student Essay)
A first-year composition student describes a potential
agricultural crisis due to the diminishing population of
honeybees and suggests diversity could be the key to saving the
industry.
11 MULTI-GENRE WRITING: PULLING IT ALL TOGETHER
Atul Gawande, The Heroism of Incremental Care
A respected surgeon and professor of public health observes
several internists to better understand the importance of
incremental care on health. He then argues our current
healthcare system devalues incremental care and considers this a
“medical emergency.”
Wesley Morris, Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the
“Canon”?
A critic and columnist describes the evolving use of the word
“canon” and contends that canon formation has the potential to
be just as damaging as it is freeing.
Phil Christman, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of
Normality
An instructor of writing reflects on what it really means to be
Midwestern.
Tajja Isen, How Can We Expand the Way We Write about
Our Identities?
A writer and voice actress argues we need more nuanced ways of
writing identity and that writers of colors should be free to write
about whatever they like.
Jonathan Jones, Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the
Greatest?
A noted art critic and journalist compares the works of Leonardo
da Vinci and Rembrandt.
Aru Terbor, A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior
A senior psychology student explores the complex relationship
among empathy, altruism, and empathy-altruism, and argues
for a more nuanced approach to these concepts.
12 STRATEGIES FOR RESEARCH AND DOCUMENTATION
Index to Methods of Development
Index of Authors, Titles, and Terms
Contents
Preface
Contents by Theme
Contents by Discipline
1 ACADEMIC HABITS OF MIND: FROM READING CRITICALLY
TO WRITINGWELL
Joining the Academic Conversation
ACTIVITY 1: Exploring Your Habits of Mind
Ben Greenman, Online Curiosity Killer
ACTIVITY 2: Honing Ideas through Discussion
ACTIVITY 3: Developing Your Rhetorical Sensitivity
ACTIVITY 4: Pulling It All Together
From Reading Critically to Writing Well
The Writing Process
One Student’s Writing Process
2 A CATALOG OF READING STRATEGIES
Annotating
Martin Luther King Jr., An Annotated Sample from “Letter
from Birmingham Jail”
Taking Inventory
Outlining
Mapping
Summarizing
Paraphrasing
Skimming
Synthesizing
Analyzing Assumptions
Contextualizing
Exploring the Significance of Figurative Language
Analyzing Visuals
Looking for Patterns of Opposition
Reflecting on Challenges to Your Beliefs and Values
Comparing and Contrasting Related Readings
Lewis H. Van Dusen Jr., Legitimate Pressures and
Illegitimate Results
Evaluating the Logic of an Argument
Recognizing Logical Fallacies
Recognizing Emotional Manipulation
Judging the Writer’s Credibility
Reading Like a Writer
3 AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY NARRATIVES
Rhetorical Situations for Autobiographies and Literacy
Narratives
THINKING ABOUT AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY
NARRATIVES
A GUIDE TO READING AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY
NARRATIVES
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (Annotated
Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
READINGS
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Molly Montgomery, In Search of Dumplings and Dead
Poets
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Saira Shah, Longing to Belong
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES:
Contextualizing in Order to Reflect on Challenges to
Your Beliefs and Values
Jenée Desmond-Harris, Tupac and My Non-Thug Life
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Annotating
and Taking Inventory in Order to Compare and
Contrast Related Readings
Rhea Jameson, Mrs. Maxon (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
WRITING TO LEARN AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND
LITERACY NARRATIVES
4 OBSERVATION
Rhetorical Situations for Observations
THINKING ABOUT OBSERVATION
5 REFLECTION
Rhetorical Situations for Reflections
THINKING ABOUT REFLECTION
READINGS
Dana Jennings, Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Annotating
and Taking Inventory to Explore the Significance of
Figurative Language
Jacqueline Woodson, The Pain of the Watermelon Joke
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Manuel Muñoz, Leave Your Name at the Border
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder
Woman
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Comparing
and Contrasting Related Readings to Recognize
Emotional Manipulation
WRITING TO LEARN REFLECTION
6 EXPLAINING CONCEPTS
Rhetorical Situations for Concept Explanations
THINKING ABOUT CONCEPT EXPLANATION
A GUIDE TO READING CONCEPT EXPLANATIONS
Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? (Annotated
Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
READINGS
John Tierney, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Synthesizing
Information from Sources to Support Claims and
Provide Context
Melanie Tannenbaum, The Problem When Sexism Just
Sounds So Darn Friendly
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Michael Pollan, Altered State: Why “Natural” Doesn’t
Mean Anything
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
William Tucker, The Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion
(Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
WRITING TO LEARN CONCEPT EXPLANATION
7 EVALUATION
Rhetorical Situations for Evaluations
THINKING ABOUT EVALUATION
READINGS
Matthew Hertogs, Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An
Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on
Student Learning
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Ian Bogost, Brands Are Not Our Friends
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Malcolm Gladwell, What College Rankings Really Tell
Us
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Christine Rosen, The Myth of Multitasking
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Comparing
and Contrasting Related Readings to Judge a Writer’s
Credibility
Christine Romano, Jessica Statsky’s “Children Need to
Play, Not Compete”: An Evaluation (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
WRITING TO LEARN EVALUATION
READINGS
Isiah Holmes, The Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Sherry Turkle, The Flight from Conversation
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Daniel J. Solove, Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have
“Nothing to Hide”
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Jessica Statsky, Children Need to Play, Not Compete
(Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Comparing
and Contrasting to Analyze Visuals
WRITING TO LEARN POSITION ARGUMENT
READINGS
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South
Still Show the Outlines of Slavery
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
C Thi Nguyen, Escape the Echo Chamber
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES:
Contextualizing in Order to Analyze Visuals
Sendhil Mullainathan, The Mental Strain of Making Do
with Less
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Clayton Pangelinan, #socialnetworking: Why It’s
Really So Popular (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
WRITING TO LEARN SPECULATIONS ABOUT
CAUSES OR EFFECTS
READINGS
Harold Meyerson, How to Raise Americans’ Wages
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Maryanne Wolf, Skim Reading Is the New Normal
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
COMBINING READING STRATEGIES: Looking for
Patterns of Opposition to Analyze Assumptions
William F. Shughart II, Why Not a Football Degree?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, Ounces of
Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on
Sugared Beverages
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
James Benge, Adapting to the Disappearance of
Honeybees (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
WRITING TO LEARN PROPOSALS
READINGS
Wesley Morris, Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the
“Canon”?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Reading Like a Writer: The Rhetorical Situation in
Multi-Genre Writing
Phil Christman, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of
Normality
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Reading Like a Writer: The Rhetorical Situation in
Multi-Genre Writing
Tajja Isen, How Can We Expand the Way We Write about
Our Identities?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Reading Like a Writer: The Rhetorical Situation in
Multi-Genre Writing
Jonathan Jones, Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the
Greatest?
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Reading Like a Writer: The Rhetorical Situation in
Multi-Genre Writing
Aru Terbor, A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior (Student Essay)
Reading for Meaning
Reading Like a Writer
Reading Like a Writer: The Rhetorical Situation in
Multi-Genre Writing
WRITING TO LEARN MULTI-GENRE ESSAYS
CREATIVE WRITING
Annie Dillard, An American Childhood (Annotated Essay)
David Sedaris, Me Talk Pretty One Day
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
Molly Montgomery, In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets
Rhea Jameson, Mrs. Maxon (Student Essay)
CULTURAL STUDIES
Alice Wong, The Last Straw (Annotated Essay)
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South Still
Show the Outlines of Slavery
Aru Terbor, A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior (Student Essay)
Ben Greenman, Online Curiosity Killer
Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space (Annotated Essay)
C Thi Nguyen, Escape the Echo Chamber
Clayton Pangelinan, #socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So
Popular
Gabriel Thompson, A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields
Ian Bogost, Brands Are Not Our Friends
Isiah Holmes, The Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real
Jacqueline Woodson, The Pain of the Watermelon Joke
Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Jenée Desmond-Harris, Tupac and My Non-Thug Life
John T. Edge, I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing
Jonathan Jones, Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the Greatest?
Linda Fine, Bringing Ingenuity Back (Student Essay)
Manuel Muñoz, Leave Your Name at the Border
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
Melanie Tannenbaum, The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds
So Darn Friendly
Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love
Molly Montgomery, In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets
Phil Christman, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of
Normality
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrods
Saira Shah, Longing to Belong
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies
Tajja Isen, How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?
Wesley Morris, Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the
“Canon”?
ECONOMICS
Alice Wong, The Last Straw (Annotated Essay)
Amitai Etzioni, Working at McDonald’s (Annotated Essay)
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South Still
Show the Outlines of Slavery
Christie Aschwanden, There’s No Such Thing as “Sound
Science” (Annotated Essay)
Gabriel Thompson, A Gringo in the Lettuce Fields
Harold Meyerson, How to Raise Americans’ Wages
James Benge, Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees
(Student Essay)
Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, Ounces of
Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared
Beverages
Miya Tokumitsu, In the Name of Love
Phil Christman, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of
Normality
Sendhil Mullainathan, The Mental Strain of Making Do with
Less
William F. Shughart II, Why Not a Football Degree?
EDUCATION
Atul Gawande, The Heroism of Incremental Care
Ben Greenman, Online Curiosity Killer
C Thi Nguyen, Escape the Echo Chamber
Malcolm Gladwell, What College Rankings Really Tell Us
Maryanne Wolf, Skim Reading Is the New Normal
Matthew Hertogs, Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An
Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on Student
Learning
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrods
William F. Shughart II, Why Not a Football Degree?
FOOD STUDIES
Alice Wong, The Last Straw (Annotated Essay)
James Benge, Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees
(Student Essay)
John T. Edge, I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing
Michael Pollan, Altered State: Why “Natural” Doesn’t Mean
Anything
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
FILM STUDIES
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
Stephen King, Why We Crave Horror Movies
The New Yorker, Soup
Wesley Morris, Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the
“Canon”?
William Tucker, The Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion
(Student Essay)
GENDER STUDIES
Amanda Coyne, The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal
Prison
Tajja Isen, How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?
Maya Rupert, I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
Melanie Tannenbaum, The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds
So Darn Friendly
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
JOURNALISM
Ian Bogost, Brands Are Not Our Friends
Isiah Holmes, The Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real
Malcolm Gladwell, What College Rankings Really Tell Us
Manuel Muñoz, Leave Your Name at the Border
The New Yorker, Soup
LAW AND POLITICAL SCIENCE
Amanda Coyne, The Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal
Prison
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South Still
Show the Outlines of Slavery
Atul Gawande, The Heroism of Incremental Care
Christie Aschwanden, There’s No Such Thing as “Sound
Science” (Annotated Essay)
Daniel J. Solove, Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have
“Nothing to Hide”
Harold Meyerson, How to Raise Americans’ Wages
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, Ounces of
Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared
Beverages
Martin Luther King Jr., An Annotated Sample from “Letter
from Birmingham Jail”
NEUROSCIENCE
Aru Terbor, A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior (Student Essay)
John Tierney, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?
Maryanne Wolf, Skim Reading Is the New Normal
Matthew Hertogs, Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An
Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on Student
Learning
Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? (Annotated Essay)
PSYCHOLOGY
Aru Terbor, A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior (Student Essay)
Ben Greenman, Online Curiosity Killer
C Thi Nguyen, Escape the Echo Chamber
Christie Aschwanden, There’s No Such Thing as “Sound
Science” (Annotated Essay)
Christine Rosen, The Myth of Multitasking
Ian Bogost, Brands Are Not Our Friends
Samantha Wright, Starving for Control (Student Essay)
Sendhil Mullainathan, The Mental Strain of Making Do with
Less
Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? (Annotated Essay)
SCIENCES
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South Still
Show the Outlines of Slavery
Atul Gawande, The Heroism of Incremental Care
Christie Aschwanden, There’s No Such Thing as “Sound
Science” (Annotated Essay)
Matthew Hertogs, Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An
Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on Student
Learning
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrods
SOCIOLOGY AND CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY
Amitai Etzioni, Working at McDonald’s (Annotated Essay)
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, Patterns of Death in the South Still
Show the Outlines of Slavery
Brent Staples, Black Men and Public Space (Annotated Essay)
Clayton Pangelinan, #socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So
Popular
Dana Jennings, Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives
James Benge, Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees
(Student Essay)
Jeff Howe, The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Jessica Statsky, Children Need to Play, Not Compete (Student
Essay)
John Tierney, Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?
John T. Edge, I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing
Jonathan Jones, Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the Greatest?
Manuel Muñoz, Leave Your Name at the Border
Nicholas Carr, Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Phil Christman, On Being Midwestern: The Burden of
Normality
Robin Wall Kimmerer, Asters and Goldenrods
Sendhil Mullainathan, The Mental Strain of Making Do with
Less
Sherry Turkle, The Flight from Conversation
Susan Cain, Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic? (Annotated Essay)
Tajja Isen, How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?
CHAPTER 1
Academic Habits of Mind:
From Reading Critically to
Writing Well
This new place is college. Sure, you’ve been through high school,
and you’ve been accepted into college, so you have what it takes to
do well in your courses. But the world of college has its own special
requirements and demands, and knowing what they are and how to
respond to them will help you succeed. Whether you graduated
from high school recently or decades ago, college is an altogether
different place with different expectations.
Your professors will assume you already understand what college
requires. In fact, a recent survey of college professors revealed that
they expect students already to have what are o en called academic
habits of mind — ways of thinking and inquiring that people in
college (and o en in the world of work) use every day. As the word
habit suggests, these skills can be acquired through practice. So what
are these habits of mind?1
As you complete the reading and writing that this text supports, you
will foster the habits of mind discussed above through the practices
of critical analysis, rhetorical sensitivity, and empathy:
ACTIVITY 1
Writing to Learn: Exploring Your Habits of Mind
What habits of mind do you already possess as you approach this course? To determine this,
think about your past study habits or how you mastered a subject, hobby, or technology
inside or outside of school. Then write down your answers to the following questions:
What sparked your interest in the first place?
What questions did you initially have?
How did your questions evolve as you learned more?
How did you go about finding out answers to your questions?
How did the answers you found lead to further questions or additional research?
Having looked back on your experience, which habits of mind did you form as you satisfied
your curiosity and followed through on your interest? As you read on, you may see that you
have a head start on the habits expected of college students.
As you read the excerpts, ask yourself these questions and write
down the answers:
What do you think are the guiding questions the writers asked
themselves as they researched and wrote these texts? What in
the text specifically leads you to identify these guiding
questions?
What questions do you need to ask as a reader to clarify the
meaning of each of these passages?
2 He was proud of the report and brought it to me to read a erward. “There are
three different kinds of anaconda” he said. “Green, yellow and dark-spotted.
They’re not venomous. They’re constrictors. And it’s the largest snake in the
world.”
5 About a month later, we took a family trip down to Miami to see my wife’s
parents, and my wife and I slept in the room where she grew up. Among the
other keepsakes and collectibles (Pee-Wee Herman dolls, old Rolling Stone
magazines), there was an encyclopedia. I had owned the same encyclopedia,
and I paged through it with a mix of nostalgia and boredom.
6 I looked up anacondas and then slid out the S volume to read a bit more about
snakes. Did you know that most snakes only have one functional lung? I did not.
Did you know that snakes are reptiles? Yeah, I did know that. What was most
interesting about the research is what it did not tell me: the second-largest
snake. I read fairly closely, but there was no search function, and I couldn’t just
flip through the S volume to get to the entry for “Second-Largest.” What my son
was able to do in 10 seconds, I was unable to do in 10 minutes.
7 When I was a kid, I did the same reports as my son. (I mean the same kinds of
reports, of course — my body of work in elementary school included
coruscating monographs on raccoons and airplanes and George Washington
Carver.) If I had done an anaconda report, and my teacher had asked a er the
second-largest snake, I would not have simply turned, walked, typed and
learned. I would have returned to the encyclopedia, and if the answer wasn’t
there, I would have ended my investigation abruptly. Or maybe, if I was
especially motivated, I would have gone to the library and checked out a book
about snakes, but even that would not have been a guarantee. And so I would
have most likely gone on with my life in third grade, and then fourth, faintly
feeling the burr of the question in my brain, continually assessing how
important it was to scratch that itch.
10 A few nights ago, my son asked me what the most-common cause of death in
the world is. I shrugged.
11 “Not sure,” I said. I expected him to get up and go to the computer, but he stayed
at the table, and we speculated wildly for a few minutes.
12 “Heart attacks?” he said. “Car crashes? Old age?” He went to bed still musing.
?
?
Note how Shankar and Durrani rely on experts, Voss and Keller (the
names that appear in the parenthetical citation at the end of the first
sentence), for evidence to support their assertions. There are many
additional strategies writers use to add support, such as the
following:
For more information on writers’ strategies for providing evidence, see Chapter 2.
Narrating a story
Providing facts and statistics
Describing
Illustrating (providing examples)
Classifying
Comparing and contrasting
Reporting causes or effects
Summarizing or paraphrasing
?
? ?
? ?
Many have seen curiosity as directly linked to creativity and, in some cases, have
argued that creativity and curiosity are synonymous ( Voss and Keller, 1983 ) … The
ability to seek knowledge in seemingly divergent fields has been thought of as the
first step towards creativity and subsequently innovation .
For more on research, see Chapter 12: Strategies for Research and Documentation.
The source Shankar and Durrani cite — Voss and Keller — is one you
could look up and assess for yourself.3
Here are some additional questions you can ask to bring a writer’s
assumptions to the surface:
You can see that even though the authors of the excerpts above did
not directly ask questions in their texts, each of them was curious
about curiosity. The questions you asked as you read allowed you to
engage with and think critically about the reading selections,
necessary steps to take before you can write productively about a
reading selection.
Analyzing Ideas
In college, you will deepen and extend your critical reading and
thinking skills by reading a variety of texts that may expose you to
wholly new ideas, make you question your own value system, and
help you see different points of view. You will also o en have
opportunities to discuss what you read with your professors and
classmates, and doing so will introduce you to additional critical
reading strategies that can enhance your existing habits of mind. In
order to get the most from texts and discussions, participants in the
academic conversation examine all the ideas — their own and
others’ — critically but also with civility, whether they agree with
them or not.
To see this process in action, read the two excerpts below, which
discuss curiosity. The first is an excerpt from a popular book on
curiosity, and the second is from an academic journal on education.
As you read, make notes about the following:
Any ideas that are new to you, especially those that challenge
what you currently think about curiosity
Any references to assumptions that are contrary to the writers’
beliefs — look especially for values that may be currently
accepted but are open to questioning
How the writers handle assumptions that are contrary to their
own
Mario Livio
“Curious,” from Why: What Makes Us Curious?
1 Before seriously delving into the scientific research on curiosity, I decided (out
of my own personal curiosity) to take a brief detour to closely examine two
individuals who, in my view, represent two of the most curious minds to have
ever existed. I believe that few would disagree with this characterization of
Leonardo da Vinci and the physicist Richard Feynman. Leonardo’s boundless
interests spanned such broad swaths of art, science, and technology that he
remains to this day the quintessential Renaissance man. Art historian Kenneth
Clark appropriately called him “the most relentlessly curious man in history.”
Feynman’s genius and achievements in numerous branches of physics are
legendary, but he also pursued fascinations with biology, painting,
safecracking, bongo playing, attractive women, and studying Mayan
hieroglyphs. … When asked to identify what he thought was the key motivator
for scientific discovery, Feynman replied, “It has to do with curiosity. It has to
do with wondering what makes something do something.” …
2 However, adult influence may also be a factor. When researchers invite children into
a room containing a novel object, they find that children are very attuned to the
feedback of adults. When the experimenter makes encouraging faces or comments,
children are more likely to explore the interesting object. Experiments I’ve done show
that children show much more interest in materials when an adult visibly shows how
curious he or she is about the materials.
Considering the ideas that are new to you, think about what you
expect from the authors a er they have raised these ideas: Do you
want more information about the concept of curiosity? Do you need
more examples of curiosity? Do you need more evidence of the
relevance of curiosity to your own education and life before you can
be convinced of its importance?
Reread these two excerpts to consider where and how the author
responds to the statements and assumptions of people with whom
they disagree. For example, note that Livio acknowledges the idea that
he doesn’t “expect that even a careful inspection of the personalities
of Leonardo and Feynman will necessarily reveal any deep insights
into the nature of curiosity” since “numerous previous attempts to
uncover common features in many historical figures of genius, for
instance, have exposed only a perplexing diversity.” Then notice how
he introduces this concession and then refutes it.
/
This is not to say that all efforts to identify a few shared characteristics are doomed
to fail. … University of Chicago psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has been able
to unearth a few tendencies that appear to be associated with most unusually creative
persons. … I therefore thought it a worthwhile exercise at least to explore whether
there was anything in the fascinating personalities of Leonardo and Feynman that
could provide a clue about the source of their truly insatiable curiosity.
/
I think many adults implicitly believe that children naturally get less curious over
time. This belief isn’t totally unreasonable. Data do suggest that curiosity becomes
less robust over time (Coie, 1974). … However, adult influence may also be a
factor.
The author introduces the refinement with a transition indicating
contrast (however) to indicate that an exception, refinement, or
contradiction is coming.
Look for more examples and sentence strategies in Reading Like a Writer sections following
the readings in Chapters 3–10.
Now consider the tone that Engel uses as she acknowledges these
opposing viewpoints. Notice that Engel’s sentences reflect careful
word choices that will not offend others, including her audience,
who might disagree with her views on the causes of children’s
reduced curiosity. She hedges her statement with a qualifying term,
“may also be,” to avoid making a stronger claim than she can prove
given the evidence. A stronger claim might put off her readers.
Hedging also demonstrates the writer’s willingness to engage in
conversation about this subject.
ACTIVITY 2
Talking to Learn: Honing Ideas through Discussion
Once you have analyzed the ways that Livio and Engel respond to others, try discussing
curiosity with your classmates, friends, or family to develop your own ideas about curiosity.
By discussing your reading and speculating about other ways of looking at curiosity, you
practice openness. As you generate and test your own ideas, improving them as you refine
them, you practice metacognition, the ability to reflect on your own thinking. You also
demonstrate your ability to analyze critically, and you practice presenting your ideas to
others with rhetorical sensitivity, showing civility while responding empathetically to others.
Developing Rhetorical Sensitivity
Rhetoric means the ways writers make their ideas understandable
and seek to influence their readers. When you develop rhetorical
sensitivity, you understand the writer’s purpose, audience, context,
and genre, and you recognize that the decisions the writer makes —
including the types of evidence the writer includes, the kinds of
vocabulary he or she chooses, and the writing strategies he or she
uses — grow out of the rhetorical situation.
Asking these questions while reading will help you develop a writer’s
eye and will help you notice the strategies that writers use to
communicate their ideas.
You may have noticed that the four passages above on curiosity were
written in different styles. The texts that were written for an
academic audience assumed their readers were familiar with the
terminology (vocabulary) and concepts characteristic of the
discipline — what we call the discipline’s discourse — as well as its
genre conventions (typical ways of organizing material and using
sources). For example, readers familiar with scientific discourse
(biology, for example) would expect a scientific report to include
technical descriptions of the methods used and the results obtained
and to be organized with separate sections for methods, results,
discussion, and references. If the same experiment were discussed
in an article for a general audience, however, readers would expect
little, if any, technical detail.
ACTIVITY 3
Writing to Learn: Developing Your Rhetorical Sensitivity
To develop your rhetorical sensitivity for academic writing, look again at the four passages
on curiosity above to identify one that you think was written for a general audience and one
written for an academic audience. What characteristics can you identify for the two types of
writing? List the characteristics of the two excerpts in facing columns:
Now write a paragraph or two explaining the specific features that led you to identify the
different audiences for these two excerpts.
ACTIVITY 4
Writing to Learn: Pulling It All Together
Look back at what you wrote for Activity 1, where you speculated about the academic habits
of mind you already practice. Think now about what you have learned about the habits of
mind that lead to successful thinking, reading, and writing in college and beyond. To solidify
your understanding, write a note to a person — a friend, a colleague, a sibling, your own
child — who is preparing for college. In a page or two, describe the habits of mind you think
this person should start (or continue) practicing to ensure his or her success in college and
career. Feel free to use examples from this chapter, but try as well to draw on your own
experience to support your assertions.
FROM READING CRITICALLY TO
WRITING WELL
As the successful novelist Stephen King says: “If you want to be a
writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write
a lot. There’s no way around these two things that I’m aware of, no
shortcut.” All college students have experience with reading and
writing for school, and many of you have extensive experience with
informal writing as well, especially on technology-based platforms
such as blogs, Twitter, or messaging apps. This kind of online
writing can make you more comfortable with the written word and
help you become more aware of who your audience is, because your
writing is directed to a variety of people other than your teachers.
But for academic writing to be effective, it must grow out of the
habits of mind discussed so far in this chapter: curiosity, openness,
engagement, creativity, persistence, responsibility, flexibility, and
metacognition.
THE WRITING PROCESS
To develop these habits of mind typical of successful college
students — curiosity, openness, engagement, creativity, persistence,
responsibility, flexibility, and metacognition — academic writers can
take advantage of the writing process, which allows them to shape
and hone their writing until it expresses their ideas clearly and
effectively, and satisfies (and perhaps even surpasses) the
expectations of their audience. By enacting these habits of mind
through the practices of critical analysis, rhetorical sensitivity,
civility, and empathy, you can simultaneously become a stronger
reader and writer. In fact, the curiosity that drives your reading
process — represented by the questions, comments, and other
annotations you make while you read — should also characterize
your writing process. Both reading and writing, in other words, offer
opportunities to practice curiosity.
BRAINSTORMING
Questions
Here are some of the questions I have:
Is it worth going to college if it is a financial burden to my
family?
Do a lot of students deal with college debt?
Are degrees from some colleges more valuable than others?
How big of a problem is student debt?
Research
Here is what some experts say:
“The cost of a higher education has more than doubled, when
adjusted for inflation, since 1986 — faster than the cost of
health care, and well ahead of the median family income”
Skibell, Arianna. “Rising Costs Brings New Focus on How Exactly
Colleges Set Their Prices.” The Hechinger Report, 1 Feb. 2016.
https://hechingerreport.org/rising-costs-brings-new-focus-on-
how-exactly-colleges-set-their-prices/
“Decades ago, the small share of students lucky enough to go to
college largely paid their tuition out of pocket. But today, more
and more students are pursuing higher education, and they
increasingly rely on debt to do so. Price alone — and whether
students have the cash on hand to pay it — is no longer an
adequate measure of affordability.”
Akers, Beth, et al. “The Affordability Conundrum: Value, Price,
and Choice in Higher Education.” The Manhattan Institute, April
2017. https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/affordability-
conundrum-value-price-and-choice-higher-education-
10185.html
Audience:
Who is my audience? Am I writing just to my professor or to the
other students in my class? How much does the audience know
about this issue?
Planning a Dra
At this stage of the writing process, the student works to organize her
ideas. Included here are examples of outlining and idea mapping, but
other strategies can be used as well. Creating an outline allows
writers to separate out the main ideas from the details that belong to
each main idea. The outline then guides writers in the composition
of the essay. Creating an idea map — also called a concept map or
mind map — allows writers to visualize the connections among their
ideas. An idea map does not depend on such a linear and rigid
structure as does an outline, but it still provides a guide for
composing an essay.
OUTLINING
IDEA MAPPING
Description
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Writing a Dra
Essays can go through many dra s. Here, the student writes a first
dra on her chosen subject — the cost of college.
The debt crisis has only gotten worse. By May 2018, student debt
surpassed 1.5 trillion dollars, according to the Board of Governors of
the Federal Reserve System. That number seems outrageous in and
of itself, but what is interesting about it is that many of the students
who are in debt are, in fact, what are considered high earners.
Michael Durkheimer, a reporter for Forbes Magazine, points out that
“contrary to what you might believe, most student debt is not held
by the poor or by college dropouts. … If you pursue/purchase an
advanced degree, you are going to have to borrow much more than
you otherwise would for a bachelor’s degree. And, those who attain
an advanced degree o en can command a higher salary.” Even for
these high earning graduates, they continue to ask themselves
whether it was all worth it, and some don’t think so: “Among those
with over $100,000 in law school debt, a staggering less than 1-in-4
strongly agree that their degree was worth the cost” (Durkheimer).
Of course, doctors and lawyers have to go to graduate school, and
their debt is from graduate school and not just college. Still, if even
those in high earning positions like lawyers and doctors have
concerns about how valuable these degrees are then it shows how
many different kinds of people are affected by this issue. A er all,
those degrees are very valuable to doctors and lawyers because
those are what allow them to make so much money. This raises the
issue of how one can calculate value when it comes to an education
— whether that education consists of a college degree or a graduate
degree. How can you measure the value of those degrees?
Works Cited
Baum, Sandy, et al. “An Overview of American Higher Education.” Future of Children, vol. 23,
no. 1, 2013, pp. 17–39.
Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. “Consumer Credit Outstanding (Levels).”
9 July 2018, https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/g19/HIST/cc_hist_memo_levels
.html
Dickler, Jennifer. “College Buyers Remorse Is Real.” CNBC, 7 April 2016, https://www.cnbc
.com/2016/04/07/college-buyers-remorse-is-real.html
Durkheimer, Michael. “Should We Care About Those with the Most Student Debt?” Forbes,
30 Jan. 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeldurkheimer/2018/01/30/should-
we-care-about-those-with-the-most-student-debt/#8ee913f90d8b
Patton, Stacey. “I Fully Expect to Die with This Debt.” Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 59,
no. 32, 19 April 2013.
INSTRUCTOR FEEDBACK
In this essay you tackle a complicated subject, and so I’m very
interested to see what you think, and what specific question or main
idea you would like to pursue related to college affordability.
Currently, you have included a lot of information in this essay, but
it’s all just dumped into the essay without any real focus. In other
words, it reads like an overview or summary of different perspectives
on college affordability without a specific idea, thesis, or question of
your own that guides the essay. To critically analyze an issue like
college affordability, you need to do more than summarize several
sources on the subject. You need to develop a focus and then use
your sources to help you expand your ideas. As you revise deeply,
develop a thesis or question so your specific line of inquiry is clear.
What is it that interests you about this subject? What are you curious
about? Look back at your initial writing when you were generating
ideas. Are there ideas, questions, or sources there that might help
you articulate your specific interest in this subject? Another place to
go is to the question you pose toward the end of the essay: “How can
you measure the value of these degrees?” Maybe you can explore
some version of this question in your essay. If you do so, your essay
will become a more specific exploration rather than a general
overview of the subject. No matter how you revise, you will likely
need different evidence and sources. You may even need to delete a
lot of what you have written so you can move away from a general
summary and toward a specific critical analysis. Remember, too,
that your conclusion should be specific to your main idea or research
question. Currently, you end with a general concession that says
something like “everyone has to make the decision for themselves
about whether college is worth it.” That sentiment could relate to all
issues. Everyone has to make their own decisions about everything.
What specific comments or ideas can you leave your reader with as
you conclude the essay that relate directly to what you have
discovered about the subject through the writing process?
Preparing to Revise
With the feedback from her classmate and her instructor in mind,
the student returns to her outline and rewrites it as she prepares to
deeply revise the essay. She also returns to the generating ideas stage
where she notices she has a useful quote she can include in her
revised outline and the essay.
REVISED OUTLINE
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Having read this chapter, you are now ready to give your attention to
all the strategies available to you to become a critical thinker, reader,
and writer.
King begins his letter by discussing his disappointment with the lack
of support he has received from white moderates, such as the group
of clergy who published criticism of his organization in the local
newspaper.
Checklist: Annotating
1. Mark the text — for example, circling words to be defined in the margin, underlining key
words and phrases, or using arrows to connect related ideas.
2. Write marginal comments — for example, numbering and labeling main ideas, defining
unfamiliar words, and noting your responses and questions.
3. Layer additional markings in the text and comments and questions in the margins as
you reread.
TAKING INVENTORY
Taking inventory helps you analyze your annotations for different
purposes. When you take inventory, you make various kinds of lists
to explore patterns of meaning you find in the text. For instance, in
reading the annotated passage by Martin Luther King Jr., you might
have noticed that certain similes and metaphors are used or that
many famous people are named. By listing the names (Socrates,
Jesus, Luther, Lincoln, and so on) and then grouping them into
categories (people who died for their beliefs, leaders, teachers, and
religious figures), you could better understand why the writer refers
to these particular people. Taking inventory of your annotations can
be helpful if you plan to write about a text you are reading.
Checklist: Outlining
To make a scratch outline of a text:
1. Reread each paragraph, summarizing the main idea or topic of the paragraph. Do not
include examples, quotations, or other supporting material.
2. Your scratch outline can be part of your annotations on the text itself or collected on a
separate piece of paper or in a file for later reference.
To make a formal outline of a text:
Checklist: Mapping
1. Write the subject of the reading in the center of a piece of paper. Circle it.
2. Write down the main parts or ideas of the subject. Circle these, and connect them with
lines to the subject in the center.
3. Write down facts, details, and examples related to these main parts or ideas. Circle
these, and connect them with lines to the relevant main parts or ideas.
4. Don’t be afraid to dra several maps before finding one that fits your needs as a reader.
You may need to discard some maps along the way, too.
SUMMARIZING
A summary is a relatively brief restatement, primarily in the
reader’s own words, of the reading’s main ideas. Summarizing helps
you understand and remember what is most significant in a reading,
and it is one of the main strategies, along with quoting and
paraphrasing (p. 45), used to integrate other writers’ ideas into your
own writing.
For more information on integrating sources responsibly, see Chapter 12, pp. 615–626.
There have always been advocates of extremism in politics. Martin Luther King Jr., in
“Letter from Birmingham Jail,” for instance, defends nonviolent civil disobedience as
an extreme but necessary means of bringing about racial justice.
If, however, you were surveying the important texts of the civil
rights movement, you might write a longer, more detailed summary:
King expresses his disappointment with white moderates who, by opposing his
program of nonviolent direct action, have become a barrier to progress toward racial
justice. He acknowledges that his program has raised tension in the South, but he
explains that tension is necessary to bring about change. Furthermore, he argues that
tension already exists, but because it has been unexpressed, it is unhealthy and
potentially dangerous.
He defends his actions against the clergy’s criticisms, particularly their argument that
he is in too much of a hurry. Responding to charges of extremism, King claims that he
has actually prevented racial violence by channeling the natural frustrations of
oppressed African Americans into nonviolent protest. He asserts that extremism is
precisely what is needed now — but it must be creative, rather than destructive,
extremism. He concludes by again expressing disappointment with white moderates
for not joining his effort as some other whites have.
Checklist: Summarizing
1. Make a scratch outline.
2. Write a paragraph or more that presents the author’s main ideas largely in your own
words. Use the outline as a guide, but reread parts of the original text as necessary.
3. To make the summary coherent, fill in connections between the ideas you present.
PARAPHRASING
Paraphrasing is restating a text by using mostly your own words. It
can help you clarify the meaning of an obscure or ambiguous
passage. It is one of the three ways of integrating other people’s
ideas and information into your own writing, along with quoting
(reproducing exactly the language of the source text) and
summarizing (distilling the main ideas or gist of the source text).
You might choose to paraphrase rather than quote when the source’s
language is not especially arresting or memorable. You might
paraphrase short passages but summarize longer ones.
Original
I had hoped that the white moderate would understand that law and order exist for
the purpose of establishing justice and that when they fail in this purpose they
become the dangerously structured dams that block the flow of social progress. I had
hoped that the white moderate would understand that the present tension in the
South is a necessary phase of the transition from an obnoxious negative peace, in
which the Negro passively accepted his unjust plight, to a substantive and positive
peace, in which all men will respect the dignity and worth of human personality.
Paraphrase
King writes that he had hoped for more understanding from white moderates —
specifically that they would recognize that law and order are not ends in themselves
but means to the greater end of establishing justice. When law and order do not serve
this greater end, they stand in the way of progress. King expected the white moderate
to recognize that the current tense situation in the South is part of a transition
process that is necessary for progress. The current situation is bad because although
there is peace, it is an “obnoxious” and “negative” kind of peace based on African
Americans passively accepting the injustice of the status quo. A better kind of peace
— one that is “substantive,” real and not imaginary, as well as “positive” — requires
that all people, regardless of race, be valued.
When you compare the paraphrase to the original, you can see that
the paraphrase contains all the important information and ideas of
the original. Notice also that the paraphrase is somewhat longer
than the original (which is not always the case), refers to the writer
by name, and encloses King’s original words in quotation marks.
The paraphrase tries to be neutral, to avoid inserting the reader’s
opinions or distorting the original writer’s ideas.
Checklist: Paraphrasing
1. Reread the passage, looking up unfamiliar words.
2. Translate the passage into your own words and sentences, putting quotation marks
around any words or phrases you quote from the original.
3. Revise to ensure coherence.
SKIMMING
For an essay on skim reading, see Chapter 10, pp. 476–478.
Checklist: Skimming
1. Notice the text’s title and author.
2. Read any introductory material such as a table of contents, introduction, or abstract.
3. Read the first sentence, and perhaps last sentence, of each paragraph.
4. Read the final paragraph or conclusion.
5. Take note of any promising sources you come across as you skim to investigate later.
SYNTHESIZING
Synthesizing involves presenting ideas and information gleaned
from different sources. It can help you see how different sources
relate to one another. For example, one reading may provide
information that fills out the information in another reading, or a
reading could present arguments that challenge arguments in
another reading.
Synthesis
When King defends his campaign of nonviolent direct action against the clergymen’s
criticism that “our actions, even though peaceful, must be condemned because they
precipitate violence” (King excerpt, par. 3), he is using what Vinit Haksar calls
Mohandas Gandhi’s “safety-valve argument” (“Civil Disobedience and Non-
Cooperation” 117). According to Haksar, Gandhi gave a “non-threatening warning of
worse things to come” if his demands were not met. King similarly makes clear that
advocates of actions more extreme than those he advocates are waiting in the wings:
“The other force is one of bitterness and hatred, and it comes perilously close to
advocating violence” (King excerpt, par. 5). King identifies this force with Elijah
Muhammad, and although he does not name him, King’s contemporary readers
would have known that he was referring also to his disciple Malcolm X, who,
according to Herbert J. Storing, “urged that Negroes take seriously the idea of
revolution” (“The Case against Civil Disobedience” 90). In fact, Malcolm X accused
King of being a modern-day Uncle Tom, trying “to keep us under control, to keep us
passive and peaceful and nonviolent” (Malcolm X Speaks 12).
Checklist: Synthesizing
1. Find and read a variety of sources on your topic, annotating the passages that give
you ideas about the topic.
2. Look for patterns among your sources, possibly supporting or challenging your ideas
or those of other sources.
3. Write a paragraph or more synthesizing your sources, using quotation, paraphrase,
and summary to present what they say on the topic.
ANALYZING ASSUMPTIONS
Analyzing assumptions involves examining a reading closely to
uncover the ideas, beliefs, and values that are taken for granted and
assumed to be commonly accepted truths. The assumptions in a text
usually reflect the writer’s own attitudes or cultural traditions, but
they may also represent the views of the writer’s sources. Neither
good nor bad in themselves, assumptions are o en used to make
claims and arguments that seem logical, even factual, but may
actually be problematic and need to be looked at with a critical eye.
Reading to analyze assumptions asks you to uncover these
perspectives as well as to probe your own. Sometimes assumptions
in a text are stated explicitly, but o en they are only implied or
hinted at through the writer’s choice of words or examples.
King counters this assumption about time’s curative power with his
own assumptions about time and progress:
“Actually, time itself is neutral.”
What counts is whether time is “used … destructively or
constructively.”
“Human progress never rolls in on wheels of inevitability; it
comes through the tireless efforts of men.”
“Now is the time.”
Checklist: Contextualizing
1. Describe the historical and cultural situation as it is represented in the reading and in
other sources with which you are familiar. Your knowledge may come from other
reading, television or film, school, or research.
2. Compare the historical and cultural situation in which the text was written with your
own historical and cultural situation. Consider how your understanding and judgment
of the reading are affected by your own context.
EXPLORING THE SIGNIFICANCE
OF FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE
Figurative language — metaphor, simile, and symbolism —
enhances literal meaning by implying abstract ideas through vivid
images and by evoking feelings and associations.
Sickness: “like a boil” (par. 2); “the disease of segregation” (par. 10)
Underground: “hidden tension” (par. 2); “injustice must be exposed” (par. 2); “injustice
must be rooted out” (par. 10)
Blockage: “dams,” “block the flow” (par. 2); “Human progress never rolls in on wheels
of inevitability” (par. 4); “pent-up resentments,” “repressed emotions” (par. 8)
The patterns labeled underground and blockage suggest a feeling of frustration. Inertia
is a problem; movement forward toward progress or upward toward the promised
land is stalled.
The simile of injustice being “like a boil” links the two patterns of underground and
sickness, suggesting that a “disease” is inside the people or the society. The cure is to
root out the blocked hatred and injustice as well as to release the tension or emotion
that has long been repressed.
Checklist: Exploring the Significance
of Figurative Language
1. Annotate the figures of speech you find worth examining.
2. Group the figures of speech that appear to express related feelings and attitudes, and
label each group.
3. Write one or two paragraphs exploring the meaning of the patterns you have found.
ANALYZING VISUALS
Visuals invite analysis both of their key components and their
rhetorical context. As we “read” a visual, therefore, we should ask
ourselves a series of questions: What image does the visual portray?
Who created it? What audience is it addressing? What is it trying to get
this audience to think and feel about the subject? How does it attempt
to achieve this purpose?
FIGURE 2.1 “Wedding,” from the WWF’s “Beautiful Day U.S.” Series
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Composition
Of what elements is the visual composed?
What is the focal point — that is, the place your eyes are drawn to?
From what perspective do you view the focal point? Are you looking straight ahead at
it, down at it, or up at it? If the visual is a photograph, what angle was the image shot
from — straight ahead, looking down or up?
What colors are used? Are there obvious special effects employed? Is there a frame, or
are there any additional graphical elements? If so, what do these elements contribute
to your “reading” of the visual?
Scene
If a recognizable scene is depicted, what is its setting? What is in the background and
the foreground?
What has happened just before the image was “shot”? What will happen in the next
scene?
What, if anything, is happening just outside the visual frame?
Words
If text is combined with the visual, what role does the text play? Is it a slogan? A famous
quote? Lyrics from a well-known song?
If the text helps you interpret the visual’s overall meaning, what interpretive clues does
it provide?
Tone
What tone, or mood, does the visual convey? Is it lighthearted, somber, frightening,
shocking, joyful? What elements in the visual (color, composition, words, people,
setting) convey this tone?
What is the tone of the text? Humorous? Serious? Ironic?
Context(s)
Rhetorical Context
What is the visual’s main purpose? Are we being asked to buy a product? Form an
opinion or judgment about something? Support a political party’s candidate? Take
some other kind of action?
Who is its target audience? Children? Men? Women? Some sub- or super-set of these
groups (e.g., African American men, “tweens,” seniors)?
Who is the author? Who sponsored its publication? What background/associations do
the author and the sponsoring publication have? What other works have they
produced?
Where was it published, and in what form? Online? On television? In print? In a
commercial publication (a sales brochure, billboard, ad) or an informational one
(newspaper, magazine)?
If the visual is embedded within a document that is primarily written text, how do
the written text and the visual relate to each other? Do they convey the same
message, or are they at odds in any way? What does the image contribute to the
written text? Is it essential or just eye candy?
Social Context. What is the immediate social and cultural context within which the
visual is operating? If we are being asked to support a certain candidate, for example,
how does the visual reinforce or counter what we already know about this candidate?
What other social/cultural knowledge does the visual assume its audience already has?
Historical Context. What historical knowledge does it assume the audience already
possesses? Does the visual refer to other historical images, figures, events, or stories
that the audience would recognize? How do these historical references relate to the
visual’s audience and purpose?
Intertextuality. How does the visual connect, relate to, or contrast with any other
significant texts, visual or otherwise, that you are aware of? How do such
considerations inform your ideas about this particular visual?
LOOKING FOR PATTERNS OF
OPPOSITION
Looking for patterns of opposition can help the reader understand
the dialogue of opposing voices and values represented in the text.
All texts carry within themselves voices of opposition. These voices
may echo the views and values of sources to which the writer is
responding or those of potential readers the writer anticipates; they
may even reflect the writer’s own conflicting values. The excerpt
from King’s “Letter from Birmingham Jail” (pp. 36–40) is rich in
oppositions: moderate versus extremist, order versus justice. These
oppositions are not accidental; they form a significant pattern that
gives a reader important information about King’s argument.
A careful reading will show that King always values one of the two
terms in an opposition over the other. For example, extremist (par. 9)
is valued over moderate (par. 10). This preference for extremism is
surprising. If King is trying to convince his readers to accept his
point of view, why would he represent himself as an extremist?
Studying the patterns of opposition in the text enables you to answer
this question. You will see that King sets up this opposition to force
his readers to examine their own values. Instead of working toward
justice, he says, those who support law and order maintain the
unjust status quo.
Looking for patterns of opposition involves annotating words or
phrases in the reading that indicate oppositions, listing the opposing
terms in pairs, deciding which term in each pair is preferred by the
writer, and reflecting on the meaning of the patterns. Here is a
partial list of oppositions from the King excerpt:
moderate extremist
order justice
goals methods
For example, here is what one student wrote about the King passage:
Reflections
In paragraph 1, Dr. King criticizes people who are “more devoted to ‘order’ than to
justice.” This criticism upsets me because today I think I would choose order over
justice. When I reflect on my feelings and try to figure out where they come from, I
realize that what I feel most is fear. I am terrified by the violence in society today. I’m
afraid of sociopaths who don’t respect the rule of law, much less the value of human
life.
Checklist: Reflecting on Challenges
to Your Beliefs and Values
1. Identify challenges by marking where in the text you feel your beliefs and values are
being opposed, criticized, or unfairly characterized.
2. Write a paragraph or two reflecting on the differences between the beliefs and values
you and others hold.
COMPARING AND CONTRASTING
RELATED READINGS
When you compare two reading selections, you look for similarities.
When you contrast them, you look for differences. As critical
reading strategies, comparing and contrasting enable you to see
both texts more clearly.
As you read, notice the annotations comparing this essay with the one by King.
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King and Van Dusen present radically different views of legal, nonviolent direct action,
such as parades, demonstrations, boycotts, sit-ins, or pickets. Although Van Dusen
acknowledges that direct action is legal, he nevertheless fears it; and he challenges it
energetically in these paragraphs. He seems most concerned about the ways direct
action disturbs the peace, infringes on others’ rights, and threatens violence. He
worries that, even though some groups make gains through direct action, the end
result is that everyone else begins to doubt the validity of the usual democratic
procedures of relying on legislation and the courts. He condemns advocates of direct
action like King for believing that the end (in this case, racial justice) justifies the
means (direct action). Van Dusen argues that demonstrations o en end violently and
that an organized movement like King’s can in the beginning win concessions through
direct action but then end up extorting demands through threats and illegal uses of
power.
In contrast, King argues that nonviolent direct action preserves the peace by bringing
hidden tensions and prejudices to the surface where they can be acknowledged and
addressed. Direct action enhances democracy by changing its unjust laws and thereby
strengthening it. Since direct action is entirely legal, to forgo it as a strategy for change
would be to turn one’s back on a basic democratic principle. Although it may
inconvenience people, its end (a more just social order) is entirely justified by its
means (direct action). King would no doubt insist that the occasional violence that
follows direct action results always from aggressive, unlawful interference with
demonstrations — interference sometimes led by police officers. He might also argue
that neither anarchy nor extortion followed from his group’s actions.
Notice that these paragraphs address each writer’s argument
separately. An alternative plan would have been to compare and
contrast the two writers’ arguments point by point.
A. Test for appropriateness by checking that the reasons and support are clearly and
directly related to the thesis.
B. Test for believability by deciding whether you can accept the reasons and support as
likely to be true.
C. Test for consistency and completeness by deciding whether the argument has any
contradictions and whether any important objections or opposing views have been
ignored.
RECOGNIZING LOGICAL
FALLACIES
Fallacies are errors in reasoning that seem plausible and o en have
great persuasive power. Fallacies are not necessarily deliberate
efforts to deceive readers. Writers may introduce a fallacy
accidentally by not examining their own reasons or underlying
assumptions, by failing to establish solid support, or by using
unclear or ambiguous words. Here are some of the most common
logical fallacies.
Slippery Slope
A slippery-slope fallacy occurs when someone asserts that if one
thing happens, then a series of bad related consequences will
necessarily follow. The name comes from the idea that if a person
takes one step down a slippery slope, he or she cannot help sliding
all the way to the bottom.
Marijuana should be banned because it inevitably leads to the use of other illegal
drugs.
To avoid the post hoc fallacy, someone making this argument would
have to prove that playing shooter games could actually cause kids
to become violent. The person would also need to consider other
possible causes, such as membership in gangs, alienation at school,
parental abuse, and so on.
Hasty Generalization
When someone makes a hasty generalization, he or she leaps to a
conclusion without providing enough evidence to support the leap.
Crime in this city is getting worse and worse. Just yesterday, two people were held up
at ATMs downtown.
Two crimes, no matter how serious, do not indicate that the overall
rate of crime is rising. This may indeed be the case, but proving it
would require statistics, not just a couple of examples.
My opponent, one of the richest men in the state, wants to cut taxes for himself and
his rich friends.
Certainly the character and credibility (and wealth) of the writer
making the argument affect how persuasive a reader finds it, but
they do not affect the underlying soundness of the argument.
Straw Man
In a straw man fallacy, the writer oversimplifies an opponent’s
position in order to knock it down, like a straw scarecrow.
Climate change is nothing to worry about because the weather changes all the time.
Red Herring
The red herring fallacy distracts readers with irrelevant arguments.
Just think of a dead fish (red herring) being dragged across a trail to
distract dogs from pursuing the scent of their real target. In this
case, writers use irrelevant arguments to distract readers from the
real issue, perhaps because their own argument is weak and they
don’t want the reader to notice.
In your statement you assert that our actions, even though peaceful, must be
condemned because they precipitate violence. But is this a logical assertion? Isn’t this
like condemning a robbed man because his possession of money precipitated the evil
act of robbery? Isn’t this like condemning Socrates because his unswerving
commitment to truth and his philosophical inquiries precipitated the act by the
misguided populace in which they made him drink hemlock? Isn’t this like
condemning Jesus because his unique God-consciousness and never-ceasing
devotion to God’s will precipitated the evil act of crucifixion?
Who was the audience? Consider how communicating to the particular audience
(such as a teacher rather than a friend, a college admissions committee rather than a
favorite aunt) affected the tone (for example, playful, informal, satiric), details, even
the choice of event or person to focus on.
What was the main purpose? For example, was the goal to illustrate an idea, create a
favorable impression, understand why something happened, or arouse sympathy?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the story was presented?
What made it appropriate or inappropriate for its particular audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY
NARRATIVES
This guide introduces you to autobiography by inviting you to
analyze a brief but powerful autobiographical selection by Annie
Dillard:
Before you read, notice that Dillard tells us in the opening paragraph why she
liked learning to play football. Think about what you liked to play as a child and
why.
As you read, consider why Dillard sets the scene in paragraphs 3–8 with so much
specificity.
Some boys taught me to play football. This was fine sport. You
thought up a new strategy for every play and whispered it to the
others. You went out for a pass, fooling everyone. Best, you got to
throw yourself mightily at someone’s running legs. Either you
brought him down or you hit the ground flat out on your chin, with
your arms empty before you. It was all or nothing. If you hesitated in
fear, you would miss and get hurt: you would take a hard fall while
the kid got away, or you would get kicked in the face while the kid got
away. But if you flung yourself wholeheartedly at the back of his
knees — if you gathered and joined body and soul and pointed them
diving fearlessly — then you likely wouldn’t get hurt, and you’d stop
the ball. Your fate, and your team’s score, depended on your
concentration and courage. Nothing girls did could compare with it.
The author prefers how boys play to how girls play. Aren’t these gender stereotypes,
though?
I was seven; the boys were eight, nine, and ten. The oldest two Fahey
boys were there — Mikey and Peter — polite blond boys who lived
near me on Lloyd Street, and who already had four brothers and
sisters. My parents approved Mikey and Peter Fahey. Chickie McBride
was there, a tough kid, and Billy Paul and Mackie Kean too, from
across Reynolds, where the boys grew up dark and furious, grew up
skinny, knowing, and skilled. We had all dri ed from our houses that
morning looking for action, and had found it here on Reynolds
Street.
It was cloudy but cold. The cars’ tires laid behind them on the snowy
street a complex trail of beige chunks like crenellated castle walls.
O en, of course, we hit our target, but this time, the only time in all
of life, the car pulled over and stopped. Its wide black door opened; a
man got out of it, running. He didn’t even close the car door.
He ran a er us, and we ran away from him, up the snowy Reynolds
sidewalk. At the corner, I looked back; incredibly, he was still a er
us. He was in city clothes: a suit and tie, street shoes. Any normal
adult would have quit, having sprung us into flight and made his
point. This man was gaining on us. He was a thin man, all action. All
of a sudden, we were running for our lives.
Mikey and I had nowhere to go, in our own neighborhood or out of it,
but away from this man who was chasing us. He impelled us forward;
we compelled him to follow our route. The air was cold; every breath
tore my throat. We kept running, block a er block; we kept
improvising, backyard a er backyard, running a frantic course and
choosing it simultaneously, failing always to find small places or hard
places to slow him down, and discovering always, exhilarated,
dismayed, that only bare speed could save us — for he would never
give up, this man — and we were losing speed.
But how could the glory have lasted forever? We could have run
through every backyard in North America until we got to Panama.
But when he trapped us at the lip of the Panama Canal, what
precisely could he have done to prolong the drama of the chase and
cap its glory? I brooded about this for the next few years. He could
only have fried Mikey Fahey and me in boiling oil, say, or
dismembered us piecemeal, or staked us to anthills.
None of which I really wanted, and none of which any adult was
likely to do, even in the spirit of fun. He could only chew us out there
in the Panamanian jungle, a er months or years of exalting pursuit.
He could only begin, “You stupid kids,” and continue in his ordinary
Pittsburgh accent with his normal righteous anger and the usual
common sense.
If in that snowy backyard the driver of the black Buick had cut off our
heads, Mikey’s and mine, I would have died happy, for nothing has
required so much of me since as being chased all over Pittsburgh in
the middle of winter — running terrified, exhausted — by this
sainted, skinny, furious redheaded man who wished to have a word
with us. I don’t know how he found his way back to his car.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
You may also try looking for patterns of opposition; see Chapter 2, pp. 55–56.
FIGURE 3.1 DRAMATIC ARC The shape of the arc varies. Not all stories devote the
same amount of space to each element, and some may omit elements.
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/
On one weekday morning a er Christmas … (par. 3)
1. Skim paragraphs 11–13, circling the action verbs, underlining adverbs and
prepositions indicating movement in time and space, and highlighting any other
words or phrases that contribute to the action and help orient readers. Note the
verb tenses and use arrows to identify repetitions.
2. Read some of these sentences aloud to consider the effect these patterns have on
the rhythm of Dillard’s sentences. Also consider whether they help you visualize
the action, as if it were a film.
3. Consider also how Dillard uses her point of view (I and we) in the middle of the
action to dramatize the narrative. For example, think about how Dillard’s story
would be different if we saw the chase from an outsider’s point of view watching
from a distance.
Describing Places
… around the yellow house and up a backyard path we knew by heart; under
a low tree , up a bank , through a hedge , down some snowy steps , and
across the grocery store’s delivery driveway . (par. 12)
The cars traveled Reynolds Street slowly and evenly; they were targets all but wrapped
in red ribbons , cream puffs . (par. 3)
The cars’ tires laid behind them on the snowy street a complex trail of beige chunks
like crenellated castle walls. (par. 5)
1. Find an example where Dillard uses naming and detailing to make her description
especially vivid and informative. Consider whether the names she gives to the
objects in the example you chose are concrete or abstract and what attributes or
sense impressions the details convey. What is the dominant impression you get
from this description of the scene?
2. Choose a simile or metaphor that stands out for you. How does it help you
imagine what the place looked and felt like to Dillard? How does the comparison
reinforce, extend, or complicate the dominant impression?
Presenting People
Writers not only depict what people look like, but they sometimes
also characterize or evaluate their behavior and personality. O en,
just a few well-chosen details about the way a person looks, dresses,
talks, or acts will be sufficient to give readers a vivid impression of
the person:
… Billy Paul and Mackie Kean too, from across Reynolds, where the boys grew up dark
and furious, grew up skinny, knowing, and skilled. (par. 4)
1. Underline the words in paragraphs 10, 16, and 21 that describe the man
physically, and circle those that characterize or evaluate him.
2. Skim paragraph 18 and the last sentence of paragraph 20, where Dillard presents
the man through dialogue. Underline the details Dillard uses to describe how the
man looks and sounds. What does Dillard’s choice of words like “perfunctorily”
(par. 18) and “normal” (par. 20) suggest about her evaluation of him? How does
this evaluation affect the impression you get of the man?
Some boys taught me to play football. This was fine sport. You thought up a new
strategy for every play and whispered it to the others. (par. 1)
I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have seldom been happier since. (par. 2)
Before you read, think about whether you have ever been in a “sink or swim”
situation, as Sedaris is in this class. If you were in a similar situation, how did
you feel at the time?
As you read, notice any places where Sedaris uses humor. How does his use of
humor affect your attitude toward Sedaris and the story he tells?
“If you have not meimslsxp or lgpdmurct by this time, then you should
not be in this room. Has everyone apzkiubjxow? Everyone? Good, we
shall begin.” She spread out her lesson plan and sighed, saying, “All
right, then, who knows the alphabet?”
“Ahh.” The teacher went to the board and sketched the letter a. “Do
we have anyone in the room whose first name commences with an
ahh?”
Two Polish Annas raised their hands, and the teacher instructed
them to present themselves by stating their names, nationalities,
occupations, and a brief list of things they liked and disliked in this
world. The first Anna hailed from an industrial town outside of
Warsaw and had front teeth the size of tombstones. She worked as a
seamstress, enjoyed quiet times with friends, and hated the
mosquito.
“Oh, really,” the teacher said. “How very interesting. I thought that
everyone loved the mosquito, but here, in front of all the world, you
claim to detest him. How is it that we’ve been blessed with someone
as unique and original as you? Tell us, please.”
The seamstress did not understand what was being said but knew
that this was an occasion for shame. Her rabbity mouth huffed for
breath, and she stared down at her lap as though the appropriate
comeback were stitched somewhere alongside the zipper of her
slacks.
The second Anna learned from the first and claimed to love
sunshine and detest lies. It sounded like a translation of one of those
Playmate of the Month data sheets, the answers always written in
the same loopy handwriting. “Turn-ons: Mom’s famous five-alarm
chili! Turnoffs: insecurity and guys who come on too strong!!!!”
The two Polish Annas surely had clear notions of what they loved
and hated, but like the rest of us, they were limited in terms of
vocabulary, and this made them appear less than sophisticated. The
teacher forged on, and we learned that Carlos, the Argentine
bandonion player, loved wine, music, and, in his words, “making sex
with the womens of the world.” Next came a beautiful young
Yugoslav who identified herself as an optimist, saying that she loved
everything that life had to offer.
“I hate you,” she said to me one a ernoon. Her English was flawless.
“I really, really hate you.” Call me sensitive, but I couldn’t help but
take it personally.
My only comfort was the knowledge that I was not alone. Huddled in
the hallways and making the most of our pathetic French, my fellow
students and I engaged in the sort of conversation commonly
overheard in refugee camps.
“That be common for I, also, but be more strong, you. Much work
and someday you talk pretty. People start love you soon. Maybe
tomorrow, okay.”
Unlike the French class I had taken in New York, here there was no
sense of competition. When the teacher poked a shy Korean in the
eyelid with a freshly sharpened pencil, we took no comfort in the
fact that, unlike Hyeyoon Cho, we all knew the irregular past tense
of the verb to defeat. In all fairness, the teacher hadn’t meant to stab
the girl, but neither did she spend much time apologizing, saying
only, “Well, you should have been vkkdyo more kdeynfulh.”
And it struck me that, for the first time since arriving in France, I
could understand every word that someone was saying.
The world opened up, and it was with great joy that I responded, “I
know the thing that you speak exact now. Talk me more, you, plus,
please, plus.”
1. Reread the essay, noting passages where Sedaris is describing his remembered
thoughts and feelings, as well as his current thoughts and feelings as he writes
about his past. Which words or phrasing in these passages allow you to
differentiate between Sedaris’s past and present feelings?
2. Skim the many instances of dialogue in the piece. How does the inclusion of so
much dialogue help convey the significance of the experience for Sedaris?
Molly Montgomery
Literacy Narrative: In Search of Dumplings and
Dead Poets
Molly Montgomery received a B.A. in English and French from UCLA and recently
earned a Master’s Degree in Creative Writing from UC Davis. A writer of both fiction
and nonfiction, she o en writes about her identity, as well as her experiences
traveling around the world. Her work has been published in Entropy and the Blue Lake
Review. She is also a contributor to the MFA Years. “In Search of Dumplings and Dead
Poets” first appeared in Entropy.
Before you read, think about places you have chosen to visit and why. These
need not be far away or exotic places.
As you read, consider how Montgomery describes her various family
members, as well as herself in relation to them. How does this help you
understand her family dynamic?
It’s the off season, so instead of seeing a play we take a tour. The
guide takes us into the yard, where the common people watched
plays for just a penny. I imagine it would have been not so different
from a mosh pit at a popular concert, except there were no
microphones or speakers. I gaze up at the stage, which is bare, and
from this vantage point, it does not look much different from any
other stage where people might perform Shakespeare. If I were
actually standing in the crowd, watching a play, I would be too short
to see anything. When I consider this, I think of all the other
limiting factors I would have faced if I had lived in the seventeenth
century. I wouldn’t have been able to see: I am nearsighted and back
then I would not have access to proper eyeglasses. I would have
probably caught the plague anyway.
Then there’s the undeniable fact that a person like me, with mixed
race ancestry, would be unlikely to exist in Elizabethan England. As
of yet, I’ve never heard of a half-Asian woman living in Britain
during Shakespeare’s time. If there had been one, she probably
would have been displayed as a curiosity, like Pocahontas.
Yet if I could take a time machine back, I doubt anyone would give
me a second glance. With my pale skin and European features, I
look as white as any other Anglo-Saxon. On the other hand, my
darker-skinned Chinese-American mother would not blend in at all.
If we were not traveling together, I wonder if people would be able
to tell we are related.
“If anyone asks, we didn’t get these from the airport,” she tells me. It
will be our little secret when we get back and give these tins as gi s
to our friends and relatives. Does it matter where we bought the tea,
when the tea leaves were probably picked by laborers in India or
China? A er all, tea originated in Ancient China, and only became a
British staple when the British started growing it in India, which was
under colonial rule. Yet when we think of tea, we o en associate it
with British culture, as if it arrived in Britain fully formed, divorced
from the history of colonial oppression. As long as the tea has the
Twinings brand stamped on it, the source of the tea is irrelevant.
The tea is British.
“Saam,” she says, when she, my father, and I walk into a bustling
dim sum restaurant. Three. She gestures at the three of us, to show
we are one party. The waiter answers back in Cantonese. This is
beyond my mother’s level of understanding, so she switches to
English. Still, when we order our food, we let her speak to the
waiter, as if she is our translator. She peppers Cantonese words into
her order, mostly names of food dishes: gai Ian, cheung fan, ha gow,
daan tat, cha siu bao. Here, in restaurants where servers walk by with
carts, trying to entice us with steamed dumplings in bamboo
containers, is where I learn my mother’s culture.
This was not the bed where Keats died, I kept thinking. In this room,
he took his final breath, but that dissipated long ago. There was a
painting of the view from the room’s window, depicting how the
Piazza di Spagna would have looked to Keats. I liked that painting
better than anything else in the room. It seemed to get at the heart
of what I wanted to know: what was it like to be here with Keats,
gazing out the window at the carriages passing by?
The now celebrated poet spent the last few months of his life in
incredible pain, bedridden in that room. The Roman air didn’t cure
him, and I imagine the noises from the square below — the hoof
beats from horses, the cries of the merchants, the peals of laughter,
the screams of children playing in the fountain — disturbed his
sleep. It isn’t fair. He should have had a long life. He should have had
a chance to marry and write more poetry.
I don’t know why I care so much about a dead poet who lived two
hundred years ago. Maybe it’s because I’ve trod the same paths as
him, traveling through Europe. Or maybe it’s because I can step
where Keats stepped, watch the view of the sunset filtering through
Via Condotti from the top of the Spanish steps, and understand what
his experience was like through his words. He le poetry behind and
letters and journals and all sorts of tangible markers of his
existence. The vast majority of dead people don’t have that luxury to
speak so directly to people currently living. I will never know what
life was like for my great-great-grandparents who immigrated from
China to Hawaii in the late 1800’s, and even though my grandparents
told me about their own lives, they are gone now and any untold
stories have vanished with them.
My parents and I hit all the main sights in Rome — the Roman
forum, the Colosseum, Castel Sant’Angelo, the Vatican — but we also
spend an entire day searching for the one street that makes up
Rome’s Chinatown. I’m not sure where my mother even got the idea
that there was a Chinatown in Rome, but she insists that we look for
it. She is craving some authentic Chinese food, and she wants to see
what Italy had to offer. We take the metro to the Esquilino district
which supposedly contains Chinese shops and stores. My dad and I
glance at each other and roll our eyes. We’re both used to my mother
fixating on something ridiculous like this, and we know from
experience that it’s better to just go along with it.
My mother circles the street on the map, but the map is of little use.
Under the heat of the June sun, my parents and I pace the
cobblestones for hours, peeking into alleyways, turning down side
streets, checking the map again and again. By this time, it’s almost 2
PM, when many restaurants take their midday break and close. We
are famished. I grow angrier with my mother by the minute. With
all Rome had to offer, why are we wasting a whole day trying to find
Chinese food? I don’t protest out loud because I know my mother
will snap right back at me, and it will lead to a fight.
At last, they bring out the noodles. From the first bite they taste
strange, wrong. Too firm, not slippery enough. They are not rice
noodles, but pasta, and the sauce is not oyster sauce or fish sauce or
even soy sauce. It’s tomato-based, but it is not like the tomato chow
mein I sometimes eat at home, with cooked tomatoes slices and
onions. This sauce has the consistency and flavor of marinara. It has
oregano, not ginger. I don’t spit it out, and I don’t say anything out
loud, although the waiter would not understand me if I did. My
mother and I look at each other, and I know we are thinking the
same thing. The food tastes like disappointment.
The noodles were made from rice this time, but they were served on
their own without any sort of meat or vegetables mixed in. They did
not have enough soy sauce on them, so they tasted bland. The
dumplings, which on the French menu were called “Chinese
Ravioli,” came out on a platter, still crackling from the pan. The first
bite I took started out promising — the chewy, greasy texture felt
familiar in my mouth. But the meat filling tasted nothing like pot
stickers at home. There were no crunchy chives in it or ginger or
even cabbage to round out the savory flavor of the meat. It was just a
meatball wrapped in dough. And it was all wrong.
My mother never learned her parent’s native language, and for the
most part, rejected her Chinese background, preferring instead the
culture of the Rolling Stones and Lucille Ball. As the first person in
her family to graduate from college and as the owner of a small
business, she’s quite the American success story; a real “self-made”
woman and the ideal assimilated minority. I sometimes joke that my
mother is the whitest Chinese person I know.
My favorite part of Hip Wah was the reading contest. The school had
a library of children’s books by Chinese-American authors, and each
class competed against the other classes to see who could read the
most books by the end of the month-long program. Being the book
nerd that I was, I devoured most of the books in the library. I read all
of Lawrence Yep’s historical novels about Chinese laborers working
on the railroads or mining gold. I read books by Amy Tan and
Lensey Namioka about girls who feet were bound and who came to
the U.S. as picture brides, marrying strangers they had never met. At
the time, I thought these books were good stories, but I didn’t think
they were literature, not like Keats and Shelley and Shakespeare.
Literature in my mind equaled dead white men. It wasn’t until I got
to college that I fully appreciated Hip Wah for exposing me to the
narratives of Chinese-Americans and other people of color whose
stories don’t get told nearly o en enough. I saw my family and
myself in those books, and I realized that I had stories to tell, too.
“But how can I write about my family when I don’t even speak their
language?” I asked her.
A few years ago, I googled what I thought was my Chinese name, Siu
Mai. Spoiler alert: It’s a type of dumpling. My mother used to put
them in my lunches in high school and my white friends made fun
of me for eating them, telling me that they looked like testicles. Why
are you eating pigs’ balls, they taunted me. At some point, the
dumplings started tasting disgusting to me because I couldn’t get
that image out of my head when I saw them packed into a
Tupperware. I began to throw them out without telling my mother.
“The eye is the best part,” he told me, and slurped it down. Then he
winked.
I wonder if he really did tell me that Siu Mai was my Chinese name.
Maybe he got a kick out of it. He used to make me repeat back
Cantonese phrases to him. My favorite one was
(Happy New Year), which I would pronounce “Gong hay fa choy.” My
horrible accent made him laugh.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Its white timbered exterior glows like the page of a glossy picture book .
1. Choose two places that resonate most for you as a reader and explain what it is
about how Montgomery describes those places that leaves you with such a strong
impression. Use specific examples from the text.
2. Also note Montgomery’s use of the describing strategies of naming, detailing, and
comparing. Pick a place or two that she describes. Which aspects of those places
does she name and detail? Which sense(s) does she use to give readers an
impression of these places? What is the dominant impression that you get from
her description?
Saira Shah
Longing to Belong
Saira Shah (b. 1964) is a journalist and documentary filmmaker. The daughter of an
Afghan father and Indian mother, she was born and educated in England. A er
graduating from the School of Oriental and African Studies at London University,
Shah began her career as a freelance journalist and eventually became a war
correspondent, receiving the Courage under Fire and Television Journalist of the Year
awards for her risky reporting on conflicts in some of the world’s most troubled areas.
She is best known in the United States for her undercover documentary films about
the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Beneath the Veil (2001) and Unholy War (2002).
“Longing to Belong,” originally published in the New York Times Magazine in 2003, is
adapted from Shah’s autobiography, The Storyteller’s Daughter (2003), which relates her
search to understand her father’s homeland of Afghanistan.
Before you read, think about any experiences you might have had as an
outsider longing to belong, such as when you moved to a new school or joined a
club.
As you read, think about how Shah conveys her search for her ethnic identity
and the sense of cultural dislocation she experiences.
Over the next few days, the man my family wished me to marry was
introduced into the inner sanctum. He was a distant cousin. His
luxuriant black mustache was generally considered to compensate
for his lack of height. I was told breathlessly that he was a fighter
pilot in the Pakistani Air Force. As an outsider, he wouldn’t have
been permitted to meet an unmarried girl. But as a relative, he had
free run of the house. Whenever I appeared, a female cousin would
fling a child into his arms. He’d pose with it, whiskers twitching,
while the women cooed their admiration.
It gave Amina exactly the opportunity she needed to move in for the
kill. “What? Do you support this lewd conduct? Are we living in an
American movie? Since when have young people of mixed sexes
been permitted to speak to each other on the telephone? Let alone to
talk — as I regret to inform you your nephew did — of love! Since
when has love had anything to do with marriage? What a dangerous
and absurd concept!”
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
For help reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values, see Chapter 2, pp. 57.
Describe the argument between the two aunts in paragraphs 7–10. How do they
compare? What kinds of arguments do the women use? How does their argument
draw on their cultural and religious context?
Describe the historical and cultural context in “Longing to Belong.” Consider how your
response to the reading might differ based on your understanding of the piece’s
context.
Examine the bases of your personal response to this narrative. How is your response
informed by your own beliefs about arranged marriages?
Write a paragraph reflecting on the differences and similarities between your beliefs
and values and those of the author and her family members, as represented in the
narrative.
Jenée Desmond-Harris
Tupac and My Non-Thug Life
Jenée Desmond-Harris is a staff editor at the New York Times op-ed page. Previously she
was a staff writer at Vox.com and at the Root, an online magazine dedicated to African
American news and culture. She writes about the intersection of race, politics, and
culture in a variety of genres. She has also contributed to Time magazine, MSNBC’s
Powerwall, and xoJane on topics ranging from her relationship with her grandmother,
to the political significance of Michelle Obama’s hair, to the stereotypes that hinder
giving to black-teen mentoring programs. She has provided television commentary on
CNN, MSNBC, and Current TV. Desmond-Harris is a graduate of Howard University
and Harvard Law School, and was a recipient of a John S. Knight Journalism
Fellowship at Stanford University, where she investigated “how journalists who cover
stories related to the African American experience can enrich their work with
essential context about race and racial inequality.” The selection below was published
in the Root in 2011. It chronicles Desmond- Harris’s reaction to the murder of rap icon
Tupac Shakur in a Las Vegas drive-by shooting in 1996. She mentions Tupac’s mother,
Afeni, as well as the “East Coast–West Coast war” — the rivalry between Tupac and the
Notorious B.I.G., who was suspected of being involved in Tupac’s murder.
Before you read, recall a public event that affected you. Reflect on why
something that didn’t affect you personally nevertheless had an emotional
impact on you.
As you read, consider how the photograph that appeared in the Root article and
that is reproduced here contributes to readers’ understanding of the young
Desmond-Harris’s reaction to the news of Tupac’s death. How does the photo
influence your understanding of the author’s persona, or self-presentation?
The news was turned on, with coverage of the deadly Vegas shooting.
Phone calls were made. Ultimately my best friend, Thea, and I were
le to our own 15-year-old devices to mourn that weekend. Her
mother and stepfather were out of town. Their expansive, million-
dollar home was perched on a hillside less than an hour from Tupac’s
former stomping grounds in Oakland and Marin City. Of course, her
home was also worlds away from both places.
We couldn’t “pour out” much alcohol undetected for a libation, so we
limited ourselves to doing somber shots of liqueur from a well-
stocked cabinet. One each. Tipsy, in a high-ceilinged kitchen
surrounded by hardwood floors and Zen flower arrangements, we
baked cookies for his mother. We packed them up to ship to Afeni
with a handmade card. (“Did we really do that?” I asked Thea this
week. I wanted to ensure that this story, which people who know me
now find hilarious, hadn’t morphed into some sort of personal urban
legend over the past 15 years. “Yes,” she said. “We put them in a
lovely tin.”)
A snapshot taken that Monday on our high school’s front lawn (seen
here) shows the two of us lying side by side, shirts li ed to display the
tributes in black marker. Despite our best efforts, it’s the innocent,
bubbly lettering of notes passed in class and of poster boards made
for social studies presentations. My hair has recently been
straightened with my first (and last) relaxer and a Gold ’N Hot flatiron
on too high a setting. Hers is slicked back with the mixture of Herbal
Essences and Blue Magic that we formulated in a bathroom
laboratory.
Did we take ourselves seriously? Did we feel a real stake in the life of
this “hard-core” gangsta rapper, and a real loss in his death? We did,
even though we were two mixed-race girls raised by our white moms
in a privileged community where we could easily rattle off the names
of the small handful of other kids in town who also had one black
parent: Sienna. Rashea. Brandon. Aaron. Sudan. Akio. Lauren. Alicia.
Even though the most subversive thing we did was make prank calls.
Even though we hadn’t yet met our first boyfriends, and Shock G’s
proclamations about putting satin on people’s panties sent us into
absolute giggling fits. And even though we’d been so delicately cared
for, nurtured and protected from any of life’s hard edges — with
special efforts made to shield us from those involving race — that we
sometimes felt ready to explode with boredom. Or maybe because of
all that.
For Thea and me, his songs were the musical score to our transition
to high school, where there emerged a vague, lunchtime geography
to race: White kids perched on a sloping green lawn and the benches
above it. Below, black kids sat on a wall outside the gym. The bottom
of the hill beckoned. Thea, more outgoing, with more admirers
among the boys, stepped down boldly, and I followed timidly. Our
formal invitations came in the form of unsolicited hall passes to go to
Black Student Union meetings during free periods. We were assigned
to recite Maya Angelou’s “Phenomenal Woman” at the Black History
Month assembly.
The author (le ) with her friend Thea
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
Tupac was the literal sound track when our school’s basketball team
would come charging onto the court, and our ragtag group of
cheerleaders kicked furiously to “Toss It Up” in a humid gymnasium.
Those were the games when we might breathlessly join the dance
team a er our cheer during time-outs if they did the single “African
step” we’d mastered for BSU performances.
Tupac’s music, while full of social commentary (and now even on the
Vatican’s playlist), probably wasn’t made to be a treatise on racial
identity. Surely it wasn’t created to accompany two girls (little girls,
really) as they embarked on a coming-of-age journey. But it was there
for us when we desperately needed it.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Skim the last two sections (pars. 8–13), noting passages where Desmond-Harris
tells readers her remembered feelings and thoughts at the time and her present
perspective as an adult reflecting on the experience. How does she use this dual
perspective to convey complexity?
2. Look closely at paragraph 8, and highlight the following sentence strategies:
Rhetorical questions (questions writers answer themselves)
Repeated words and phrases
Stylistic sentence fragments (incomplete sentences used for special effect)
What effect do these sentence strategies have on readers? How do they help
convey the significance of the event for Desmond-Harris?
Combining Reading Strategies
For help annotating and taking inventory, see Chapter 2, pp. 35–41.
Reread the autobiographical narratives “Longing to Belong” by Saira Shah (p. 96) and “Tupac
and My Non-Thug Life” by Jenée Desmond-Harris (p. 100).
As you read, annotate or take notes to keep track of how the readings handle their
narrator’s search for identity.
Once you’re done reading, take inventory of what you’ve read. Organize your
annotations or notes in order to prepare to compare and contrast the readings. What
similarities and differences do you see?
For help comparing and contrasting related readings, see Chapter 2, pp. 57–60.
Drawing on your annotations, now compare and contrast the autobiographical narratives by
thinking about the following issues.
Both stories show teenagers in search of their cultural identity. Write a paragraph
about how their searches are similar and different.
Both authors explore what Desmond-Harris calls “the contradictory textures” of the
alternative identity they are trying on (par. 9). Write a paragraph about how they
resolve their contradictory feelings, if at all.
Rhea Jameson
Mrs. Maxon
Rhea Jameson was a senior in college when she wrote the following literacy narrative
for an assignment in her advanced expository writing class. In this literacy narrative,
Jameson focuses on her experiences learning to write throughout high school and
college. She focuses, in particular, on how an early teacher affected her
understanding of writing, as well as on her development as a writer.
Before you read, reflect on your own experience of learning to write in school.
Do you recall specific lessons your teachers taught you? Did your teachers ever
disagree on what constitutes good writing or on the “rules” of writing?
As you read, consider whether Jameson’s ultimate attitude toward Mrs. Maxon
surprises you. What does Jameson appreciate about Mrs. Maxon? Based on how
Jameson opens the essay, did you expect the essay to end as it does?
Her hair always pulled back in a tight bun, her lips pursed even
tighter, Mrs. Maxon’s eyes bore into students as a drill bores into
wood. Mrs. Maxon was my sophomore year high school English
teacher, and she was tyrannical in her enforcement of writing rules.
She expected us to write in a specific regimented way, and if we did
not, we would not pass the class. She taught us that every essay
should have five paragraphs, and each paragraph should have three
sentences — no more, no less. The purpose of the first sentence was
to introduce the quotation that appeared in the second sentence.
The second sentence was comprised of the quote you had chosen to
use from whatever you had been assigned to read. The third
sentence interpreted that quote. These three-sentence paragraphs
had to be framed by an introduction and conclusion, structured, of
course, in a particular way. The conclusion was to be arranged in the
opposite order of the introduction, while making the very same
points. If you deviated from this structure you lost points, in Mrs.
Maxon’s own words, “for each infraction.” The phrase “for each
infraction” echoed in my head throughout my entire sophomore
year. Sometimes if I listen hard enough I can still hear Mrs. Maxon
saying it.
I can also still hear Mrs. Maxon asking, “Why aren’t you better at
this?”
She meant writing. As she asked me that question just a few weeks
into the school year I could feel my lunch turn over in my stomach. I
had told her and the rest of the class on our first day that I wanted to
be a journalist. I guess I wasn’t there yet.
Works Cited
Code, Lorraine. Rhetorical Spaces: Essays on Gendered Locations.
Routledge, 1995.
Moxley, Joe. Writing Commons. “Think Rhetorically,”
https://writingcommons.org/think-rhetorically.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Presenting People
Description and dialogue can help create a vivid portrait and
provide readers with insight into the writer’s attitude toward and
relationship with a person. Effective descriptions name the person
and include a few well-chosen details that allow readers to visualize
him or her. Dialogue can make readers feel as though they were
overhearing what was said and how it was said. It usually includes
speaker tags that identify the speaker (“In Mrs. Maxon’s own words”
[par. 1])and may also indicate the speaker’s tone or attitude (“she
asked with disgust” [par. 5] and “I grumbled” [par. 6]).
I can also still hear Mrs. Maxon asking , “Why aren’t you better at this?”
1. Reread the opening paragraph. Notice how Jameson opens the essay with a
physical description of Mrs. Maxon. How does Jameson’s description of Mrs.
Maxon complement or highlight how Jameson describes Mrs. Maxon’s approach
to teaching writing?
2. Instead of simply explaining that Mrs. Maxon took points off for each mistake,
Jameson quotes Mrs. Maxon as saying “for each infraction” (par. 1). What
difference does this make? How might this approach be more effective than
simply summarizing that aspect of Mrs. Maxon’s way of grading?
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience, given the constraints of the medium
and the autobiography genre?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING
AUTOBIOGRAPHY AND LITERACY
NARRATIVES
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief autobiography or literacy narrative of your own. This Guide
to Writing offers detailed suggestions and resources to help you
meet the special challenges this kind of writing presents.
Choose an event or person that you feel comfortable writing about for this audience
(your instructor and classmates), given your purpose (to present something
meaningful).
Consider how you can tell the story dramatically or describe the person vividly.
Try to convey the meaning and importance in your life — what we call the
autobiographical significance — of the event or person you’ve chosen to write about.
Think about how you can lead readers to understand you better, to reflect on their
own lives, to become aware of social and cultural influences, or to gain some other
insights.
Choosing a Subject
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options and list as many
subjects as you can. Below are some criteria that can help you
choose a promising subject, followed by suggestions for the types of
events and people you might consider writing about.
Use the elements of the dramatic arc in Figure 3.1 (p. 77) to organize
the story:
Sketching Out the Exposition, or Backstory.
Sketch out the conflict that triggers the story. To dramatize it, try
creating action sequences, using action verbs and prepositional
phrases and dialogue, including speaker tags and quotation marks:
A black Buick was moving toward us down the street. We all spread out , banged
together some regular snowballs, took aim , and, when the Buick drew nigh ,
fired . (Dillard, par. 7)
Amina stormed in , scattering servants before her like chaff . “Your relative …”
was Amina’s opening salvo , “ … has been making obscene remarks to my niece.”
Her mouth opened, but before she could find her voice, Amina fired her heaviest
guns : “Over the telephone!” (Shah, para. 7)
/
In winter, in the snow , there was neither baseball nor football, so the boys and I
threw snowballs at passing cars. I got in trouble throwing snowballs, and have
seldom been happier since . (Dillard, par. 2)
If in that snowy backyard the driver of the black Buick had cut off our heads,
Mikey’s and mine, I would have died happy , for nothing has required so much of
me since as being chased all over Pittsburgh in the middle of winter — running
terrified, exhausted — by this sainted, skinny, furious redheaded man who wished to
have a word with us. I don’t know how he found his way back to his car. (Dillard, par.
21)
She did, a er all, in writing scholar Lorraine Code’s words, reduce the “available
discursive possibilities” (x) to a list of arbitrary words and phrases that she deemed
appropriate for use in our essays. (Jameson, par. 9)
“ … ,” explains X.
I learned that the strength of a piece of writing depends on many factors, including
your goals, your audience, and what genre you are writing in. Writing Professor Joe
Moxley explains that students can write “more effective documents and save time by
considering the audience, purpose, context, and media for a document … .For every
writing project, you can best determine what you want to say and how you want to say
it by analyzing the components of your rhetorical situation.” (Jameson, par. 12)
( , )
Her hair always pulled back in a tight bun, her lips pursed even tighter, Mrs.
Maxon’s eyes bore into students as a drill bores into wood. Mrs. Maxon was my
sophomore year high school English teacher , and she was tyrannical in her
enforcement of writing rules.
Using Dialogue.
When called upon, I delivered an effortless list of things that I detest: blood sausage,
intestinal pâtés, brain pudding . […] The teacher’s reaction led me to believe that
these mistakes were capital crimes in the country of France.
“Were you always this palicmkrexis?” she asked. “Even a fiuscrzsa ticiwelmun
knows that a typewriter is feminine.” (Sedaris, pars. 14–15)
… Ultimately my best friend, Thea, and I were le to our own 15-year-old devices to
mourn that weekend. Her mother and stepfather were out of town. Their expansive,
million-dollar home was perched on a hillside less than an hour from Tupac’s
former stomping grounds in Oakland and Marin City. Of course, her home was also
worlds away from both places. (Desmond-Harris, par. 3)
Including Visuals
For more on using and analyzing visuals, see Chapter 2, pp. 52–55.
Including visuals — photographs, postcards, ticket stubs — may
strengthen your presentation of the event or person. If you submit
your essay electronically or post it on a website, consider including
snippets of video with sound as well as photographs or other
memorabilia that might give readers a more vivid sense of the time,
place, and people about which you are writing. If you want to use
any photographs or recordings, though, be sure to request the
permission of those depicted.
The following activities will help you think about the significance of
your subject and formulate a tentative thesis statement, though the
thesis in autobiography tends to be implied rather than stated
explicitly.
Write for a few minutes about the kind of impression your writing
now conveys and what you would like it to convey.
Write for a few minutes, trying to recall your thoughts and feelings
when the event was occurring or when you knew the person:
These sentence strategies may help you put your feelings into
words:
Write for a few minutes, trying to express your present thoughts and
feelings as you look back on the event or person:
How have your feelings changed, and what insights do you now
have?
Try looking at the event or person in broad cultural or social
terms. For example, consider whether you or anyone else upset
gender expectations or felt out of place in some way.
These sentence strategies may help you put your feelings into
words:
Write for several minutes exploring what you want your readers to
understand about the significance of the event or person. Use the
following questions to help clarify your thoughts:
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next section
of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve your
dra .
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
Reflecting on Autobiography
In this chapter, you have read literacy narratives and pieces of autobiography. You have also
written one of your own. To better remember what you have learned, pause now to reflect
on the reading and writing activities you completed in this chapter.
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement. Be specific about this contribution.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from the writing you did in response to prompts in this chapter, point out
the section or sections that helped you most.
2. Reflect more generally on how you tend to interpret autobiographical writing, your
own as well as other writers’. Consider some of the following questions:
In reading for meaning, do you tend to find yourself interpreting the significance of
the event or person in terms of the writer’s personal feelings, sense of self-esteem,
or psychological well-being? Or do you more o en think of significance in terms of
larger social or economic influences — for example, in terms of the writer’s gender,
class, or ethnicity?
Where do you think you learned to interpret the significance of people’s stories
about themselves and their relationships — from your family, friends, television,
school?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about autobiography and literacy narratives,
you have been practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing processes. Can you identify any
habits you practiced?
CHAPTER 4
Observation
Who was the audience? How did reporting observations to this audience affect the
way the writer conveyed his or her perspective? For example, if the audience was
already familiar with the subject, did the report arouse curiosity by taking a
provocative approach, by going behind the scenes, or in some other way?
What was the main purpose? What did the writer want the audience to learn? For
example, was the report primarily intended to teach them something, to show them
what the writer had learned, to entertain them, or for some other reason?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the observations were
presented? What made the essay appropriate or inappropriate for its particular
audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING
OBSERVATIONS
This guide introduces you to the strategies typical of observational
writing by inviting you to analyze a brief but intriguing profile of
Albert Yeganeh and his unique restaurant, Soup Kitchen
International:
Before you read, note the quotations that open the essay: “Soup is my lifeblood”
and “I am extremely hard to please.” The first quote clearly refers to the kind of
food served at the restaurant, but the second quote seems to have a different
purpose. What does it lead you to expect from the essay?
As you read, think about how the writer represented Yeganeh to the original
New Yorker readers. If you have seen the “Soup Nazi” episode, you might
compare the way Yeganeh is portrayed in the sitcom to the way he is portrayed
in the article. Consider also how Yeganeh is portrayed on his franchise website,
The Original Soup Man.
Is he arrogant?
The other day, Mr. Yeganeh was dressed in chef’s whites with orange
smears across his chest, which may have been some of the carrot
soup cooking in a huge pot on a little stove in one corner. A three-
foot-long handheld mixer from France sat on the sink, looking like
an overgrown gardening tool. Mr. Yeganeh spoke to two young
helpers in a twisted Armenian-Spanish barrage, then said to us, “I
have no overhead, no trained waitresses, and I have the cashier
here.” He pointed to himself theatrically. Beside the doorway, a glass
case with fresh green celery, red and yellow peppers, and purple
eggplant was topped by five big gray soup urns. According to a piece
of cardboard taped to the door, you can buy Mr. Yeganeh’s soups in
three sizes, costing from four to fi een dollars. The order of any
well-behaved customer is accompanied by little waxpaper packets of
bread, fresh vegetables (such as scallions and radishes), fresh fruit
(such as cherries or an orange), a chocolate mint, and a plastic
spoon. No coffee, tea, or other drinks are served.
Who knew Swiss chocolate was a soup? Note to self: look up all these soups online!
A lunch line of thirty people stretched down the block from Mr.
Yeganeh’s doorway. Behind a construction worker was a man in
expensive leather, who was in front of a woman in a fur hat.
Few people spoke. Most had their money out and their orders ready.
At the front of the line, a woman in a brown coat couldn’t decide
which soup to get and started to complain about the prices.
Can he really punish customers for talking too much especially when all of the dialogue
included suggests that he talks a lot?
“You talk too much, dear,” Mr. Yeganeh said, and motioned her to
move to the le . “Next!”
Why would people still come to his restaurant if he’s abusive? Does good soup really
make up for that?
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
You may also try reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values; see Chapter 2,
Reflecting on Challenges to Your Beliefs and Values.
The other day, Mr. Yeganeh was dressed in chef’s whites with orange smears
across his chest, which may have been some of the carrot soup cooking in a huge
pot on a little stove in one corner.
( )
A three-foot-long handheld mixer from France sat on the sink , looking like an
overgrown gardening tool. (par. 5)
SPEAKER TAG
“I am psychologically kind of a health freak,” Mr. Yeganeh said the other day, in a
lisping staccato of Armenian origin. (par. 2)
The author of “Soup” uses dialogue extensively to give readers a
vivid impression of the man, his business, and his ideas. Indeed,
most of the information in this selection comes from long chunks of
an extended interview with Yeganeh, and the profile concludes with
a brief overheard exchange between Yeganeh and two people in line.
1. Find a few examples in paragraphs 1–6 where you think the naming and
detailing give an especially vivid description of Yeganeh. What is the dominant
impression you get from this description?
2. Also find an example of comparing, either a simile (a comparison using like or as)
or a metaphor (a comparison that does not use this kind of signaling word). What
ideas and associations does this comparison contribute to the impression you got
from the other describing strategies? How does it reinforce, extend, change, or
complicate the dominant impression?
3. Reflect on what, if anything, you learn from Yeganeh about making soup or
operating a restaurant.
The other day … Mr. Yeganeh spoke to two young helpers in a twisted Armenian-
Spanish barrage, then said to us … (par. 5)
SPATIAL CUE
As you approach Mr. Yeganeh’s Soup Kitchen International from a distance, the first
thing you notice about it is … The second thing you notice is … The third thing you notice,
in front of the kitchen, is … (par. 3)
1. First, make a scratch outline of paragraphs 4, 5, and 6 of “Soup,” listing the topics
or kinds of information presented. (Some paragraphs include more than one
topic. You do not have to list every topic, but try to identify the most important
ones.)
2. Then reread paragraphs 7–11, where the writer presents a brief narrative. What,
if anything, do you learn from the narrative that illuminates or adds to what you
learned from the earlier paragraphs?
3. Finally, scan the essay looking for any other parts that, in addition to the passage
quoted above from paragraph 3, organize the information spatially. What cues
help you recognize the spatial arrangement?
It’s just past 4:00 on a Thursday a ernoon in June at Jesse’s Place … I sit alone at the
bar, one empty bottle of Bud in front of me , a second in my hand . I drain the
beer, order a third, and stare down at the pink juice spreading outward from a
crumpled foil pouch and onto the bar.
Half a mile down the road, behind a fence coiled with razor wire, Lionel Dufour,
proprietor of Farm Fresh Food Supplier, is loading up the last truck of the day,
wheeling case a er case of pickled pork offal out of his cinder-block processing plant
and into a semitrailer bound for Hattiesburg, Mississippi. (pars. 1–3)
1. Find one or two signs indicating the role the writer has taken, such as the use of
the first- or third-person perspective or places where the writer included insider
knowledge derived from taking the role of participant observer.
2. What advantages or disadvantages do you see in the role the writer chose to take?
What would have been gained (or lost) had the writer chosen a different role?
Conveying a Perspective on the Subject
?
?
“ One day, I hope to learn something from the other places, but so far I haven’t. For
example, the other day I went to a very fancy restaurant and had borscht. I had to
send it back. It was junk. … All the big-shot chefs and the kings of the hotels come
here to see what I’m doing.” (par. 2)
When Albert Yeganeh says “Soup is my lifeblood,” he means it. And when he says “I
am extremely hard to please,” he means that, too. (par. 1)
ANALYZE & WRITE
Write a paragraph examining how the writer uses showing and/or telling to convey a
perspective on Yeganeh and his Soup Kitchen International:
1. Skim paragraphs 3–11, looking for examples of showing in the descriptions and
in the choice of quotations. Choose one or two examples and explain what they
suggest about the writer’s perspective on Yeganeh as a human being, cook, and
businessman.
2. Look also for one or two examples of telling. What do they add to your
understanding of the writer’s perspective?
READINGS
John T. Edge
I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing
John T. Edge (b. 1962) earned an MFA in creative nonfiction from Goucher College as
well as an MA in southern studies from the University of Mississippi, where he
currently directs the Southern Foodways Alliance at the Center for the Study of
Southern Culture. A food writer for outlets such as Oxford American, the New York
Times, and Garden & Gun, Edge has also been published in many anthologies. He has
coedited several cookbooks and travel guides, and he has written several books,
including The Potlikker Papers (2017), Truck Food Cookbook (2012), a study of American
street food; Southern Belly (2007), a portrait of southern food told through profiles of
people and places; and a series on iconic American foods, including Hamburgers and
Fries: An American Story (2005) and Donuts: An American Passion (2006). This reading
first appeared in 1999 in Oxford American magazine and was reprinted in the Utne
Reader.
Before you read, look at the photo on p. 133. Why do you think Edge includes a
picture of a live pig in an essay about making and eating pickled pig lips? What
other photos could he have used?
As you read, you will see that Edge moves between two different scenes — notice
that whereas Edge uses a chronological narrative to relate what happened at
Jesse’s Place, he uses a topical organization to present the information he
learned from his observations and interview at Farm Fresh Food Supplier
processing plant. Why do you think he uses different methods for presenting
these two scenes?
Half a mile down the road, behind a fence coiled with razor wire,
Lionel Dufour, proprietor of Farm Fresh Food Supplier, is loading up
the last truck of the day, wheeling case a er case of pickled pork offal
out of his cinder-block processing plant and into a semitrailer bound
for Hattiesburg, Mississippi.
His crew packed lips today. Yesterday, it was pickled sausage; the day
before that, pig feet. Tomorrow, it’s pickled pig lips again. Lionel has
been on the job since 2:45 in the morning, when he came in to light
the boilers. Damon Landry, chief cook and maintenance man, came
in at 4:30. By 7:30, the production line was at full tilt: six women in
white smocks and blue bouffant caps, slicing ragged white fat from
the lips, tossing the good parts in glass jars, the bad parts in barrels
bound for the rendering plant. Across the aisle, filled jars clatter by
on a conveyor belt as a worker tops them off with a Kool-Aid-red
slurry of hot sauce, vinegar, salt, and food coloring. Around the
corner, the jars are capped, affixed with a label, and stored in
pasteboard boxes to await shipping.
“Lips are all meat,” Lionel told me earlier in the day. “No gristle, no
bone, no nothing. They’re bar food, hot and vinegary, great with a
beer. Used to be the lips ended up in sausages, headcheese, those
sorts of things. A lot of them still do.”
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“We do our best to corner the market on lips,” Lionel told me, his
voice tinged with bravado. “Sometimes they’re hard to get from the
packing houses. You gotta kill a lot of pigs to get enough lips to keep
us going. I’ve got new customers calling every day; it’s all I can do to
keep up with demand, but I bust my ass to keep up. I do what I can
for my family — and for my customers.”
“When my customers tell me something,” he continued, “just like
when my daddy told me something, I listen. If my customers wanted
me to dye the lips green, I’d ask, ‘What shade?’ As it is, every few
years we’ll do some red and some blue for the Fourth of July. This
year we did jars full of Mardi Gras lips — half purple, half gold,”
Lionel recalled with a chuckle. “I guess we’d had a few beers when we
came up with that one.”
They may have looked like candy in the plant, but in the barroom
they’re carrion once again. I poke and prod the six-inch arc of pink
flesh, peering up from my reverie just in time to catch the barkeep’s
wife, Audrey, staring straight at me. She fixes me with a look just this
side of pity and asks, “You gonna eat that thing or make love to it?”
With a smash of my hand, the potato chips are reduced to a pulp, and
I feel the cold lump of the lip beneath my fist. I clasp the bag shut and
shake it hard in an effort to ensure chip coverage in all the nooks and
crannies of the lip. The technique that Jerry uses — and I mimic — is
not unlike that employed by home cooks mixing up a mess of Shake
’n Bake chicken.
I pull from the bag a coral crescent of meat now crusted with blond
bits of potato chips. When I chomp down, the so flesh dissolves
between my teeth. It tastes like a flaccid cracklin’, unmistakably
porcine, and not altogether bad. The chips help, providing texture
where there was none. Slowly, my brow unfurrows, my stomach
ceases its fluttering.
Sensing my relief, Jerry leans over and peers into my bag. “Kind of
look like Frosted Flakes, don’t they?” he says, by way of describing
the chips rapidly turning to mush in the pickling juice. I offer the bag
to Jerry, order yet another beer, and turn to eye the pig feet floating
in a murky jar by the cash register, their blunt tips bobbing up
through a pasty white film.
“Lips are all meat,” Lionel told me earlier in the day. “No gristle, no bone, no nothing.”
(par. 7)
By the time the lips arrive in Amite, they are, in essence, pig Popsicles, 50-pound
blocks of offal and ice. (par. 6)
For years a er the demise of that first meatpacking company, the Dufour family sold
someone else’s product. (par. 9)
Writers typically choose to quote language that is especially vivid or
memorable, giving an impression of the speaker as well as providing
important information. Paraphrase tends to be used when the writer
needs to go into detail but can put the information in a more striking
form than the speaker originally used. Summary is o en used to
condense lengthy information.
1. Find at least one other example of each of these strategies in paragraphs 3–12.
2. How effective are these ways of presenting information? For example, is there any
quotation that could have been better presented as paraphrase or even as
summary? What would have been gained or lost?
3. Locate a passage in paragraphs 3–12 where Edge presents his observations. How
do you recognize this part as coming from firsthand observations? How does the
alternation of information from interviews and observations contribute to your
engagement as a reader?
For help comparing and contrasting related readings, see Chapter 2, pp. 57–60.
What are the cultural contexts of these two businesses (and the periodicals in which
these articles appeared)? What seems most significant about the two business
philosophies represented in these essays?
Compare the historical and cultural situation in which these texts were written with
your own historical and cultural situation. Consider how your understanding and
judgment of the reading are affected by your context.
Before you read, consider Thompson’s choice of titles: Working in the Shadows: A
Year of Doing the Jobs (Most) Americans Won’t Do and “A Gringo in the Lettuce
Fields.” What do these titles lead you to expect will be the subject of the
observations and the writer’s perspective on the subject?
As you read, notice how Thompson as an outsider uses participant observation
to get an insider’s view of the daily experience of farm workers. What does his
outsider status enable him to understand — or prevent him from understanding
— about the community he has entered?
I wake up staring into the bluest blue I’ve ever seen. I must have
fallen into a deep sleep because I need several seconds to realize that
I’m looking at the Arizona sky, that the pillow beneath my head is a
large clump of dirt, and that a near-stranger named Manuel is
standing over me, smiling. I pull myself to a sitting position. To my
le , in the distance, a Border Patrol helicopter is hovering. To my
right is Mexico, separated by only a few fields of lettuce. “Buenos
días,” Manuel says.
I stand up gingerly. It’s only my third day in the fields, but already my
30-year-old body is failing me. I feel like someone has dropped a log
on my back. And then piled that log onto a truck with many other
logs, and driven that truck over my thighs. “Let’s go,” I say, trying to
sound energetic as I fall in line behind Manuel, stumbling across
rows of lettuce and thinking about “the five-day rule.” The five-day
rule, according to Manuel, is simple: Survive the first five days and
you’ll be fine. He’s been a farmworker for almost two decades, so he
should know. I’m on day three of five — the goal is within sight. Of
course, another way to look at my situation is that I’m on day three of
what I promised myself would be a two-month immersion in the
work life of the people who do a job that most Americans won’t do.
But thinking about the next seven weeks doesn’t benefit anyone. Day
three of five.
“Manuel! Gabriel! Let’s go! ¡Vámonos!” yells Pedro, our foreman. Our
short break is over. Two dozen crew members standing near the
lettuce machine are already putting on gloves and sharpening knives.
Manuel and I hustle toward the machine, grab our own knives from a
box of chlorinated water, and set up in neighboring rows, just as the
machine starts moving slowly down another endless field.
Since the early 1980s, Yuma, Ariz., has been the “winter lettuce
capital” of America. Each winter, when the weather turns cold in
Salinas, California — the heart of the nation’s lettuce industry —
temperatures in sunny Yuma are still in the 70s and 80s. At the height
of Yuma’s growing season, the fields surrounding the city produce
virtually all of the iceberg lettuce and 90 percent of the leafy green
vegetables consumed in the United States and Canada.
The crew is already working in the field when Pedro walks me out to
them and introduces me to Manuel. Manuel is holding an 18-inch
knife in his hand. “Manuel has been cutting for many years, so watch
him to see how it’s done,” Pedro says. Then he walks away. Manuel
resumes cutting, following a machine that rolls along just ahead of
the crew. Every several seconds Manuel bends down, grabs a head of
iceberg lettuce with his le hand, and makes a quick cut with the
knife in his right hand, separating the lettuce from its roots. Next, he
li s the lettuce to his stomach and makes a second cut, trimming the
trunk. He shakes the lettuce, letting the outer leaves fall to the
ground. With the blade still in his hand, he then brings the lettuce
toward the gancho at his waist, and with a flick of the wrist the head is
bagged and dropped onto one of the machine’s extensions. Manuel
does this over and over again, explaining each movement. “It’s not so
hard,” he says. Five minutes later, Pedro reappears and tells me to
grab a knife. Manuel points to a head of lettuce. “Try this one,” he
says.
I bend over, noticing that most of the crew has turned to watch. I take
my knife and make a tentative sawing motion where I assume the
trunk to be, though I’m really just guessing. Grabbing the head with
my le hand, I straighten up, doing my best to imitate Manuel. Only
my lettuce head doesn’t move; it’s still securely connected to the soil.
Pedro steps in. “When you make the first cut, it is like you are
stabbing the lettuce.” He makes a quick jabbing action. “You want to
aim for the center of the lettuce, where the trunk is,” he says.
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That first week on the job was one thing. By midway into week two, it
isn’t clear to me what more I can do to keep up with the rest of the
crew. I know the techniques by this time and am moving as fast as
my body will permit. Yet I need to somehow double my current output
to hold my own. I’m able to cut only one row at a time while Manuel
is cutting two. Our fastest cutter, Julio, meanwhile can handle three.
But how someone could cut two rows for an hour — much less an
entire day — is beyond me. “Oh, you will get it,” Pedro tells me one
day. “You will most definitely get it.” Maybe he’s trying to be hopeful
or inspiring, but it comes across as a threat.
That feeling aside, what strikes me about our 31-member crew is how
quickly they have welcomed me as one of their own. I encountered
some suspicion at first, but it didn’t last. Simply showing up on the
second day seemed to be proof enough that I was there to work.
When I faltered in the field and fell behind, hands would come
across from adjacent rows to grab a head or two of my lettuce so I
could catch up. People whose names I didn’t yet know would ask me
how I was holding up, reminding me that it would get easier as time
went by. If I took a seat alone during a break, someone would call me
into their group and offer a homemade taco or two.
Two months in, I make the mistake of calling in sick one Thursday.
The day before, I put my le hand too low on a head of lettuce. When
I punched my blade through the stem, the knife struck my middle
finger. Thanks to the gloves, my skin wasn’t even broken, but the
finger instantly turned purple. I took two painkillers to get through
the a ernoon, but when I wake the next morning it is still throbbing.
With one call to an answering machine that morning, and another
the next day, I create my own four-day weekend.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Before you read, notice how Coyne describes the convict-moms in the opening
two paragraphs. What is the dominant impression you get from that
description?
As you read, think about the way Coyne compares and contrasts two convict-
moms and their sons — Jennifer and Toby, and Stephanie and Ellie. What
insights do you get from juxtaposing these two families?
You can spot the convict-moms here in the visiting room by the way
they hold and touch their children and by the single flower that is
perched in front of them — a rose, a tulip, a daffodil. Many of these
mothers have untied the bow that attaches the flower to its silver-
and-red cellophane wrapper and are using one of the many empty
soda cans at hand as a vase. They sit proudly before their flower-in-
a-Coke-can, amid Hershey bar wrappers, half-eaten Ding Dongs, and
empty paper coffee cups. Occasionally, a mother will pick up her
present and bring it to her nose when one of the bearers of the
single flower — her child — asks if she likes it. And the mother will
respond the way that mothers always have and always will respond
when presented with a gi on this day. “Oh, I just love it. It’s perfect.
I’ll put it in the middle of my Bible.” Or, “I’ll put it on my desk, right
next to your school picture.” And always: “It’s the best one here.”
The visitors are allowed to bring in pockets full of coins, and today
that Mother’s Day flower, and I know from previous visits to my
older sister here at the Federal Prison Camp for women in Pekin,
Illinois, that there is always an aberrant urge to gather immediately
around the vending machines. The sandwiches are stale, the coffee
weak, the candy bars the ones we always pass up in a convenience
store. But a er we hand the children over to their mothers, we
gravitate toward those machines. Like milling in the kitchen at a
party. We all do it, and nobody knows why. Polite conversation
ensues around the microwave while the popcorn is popping and the
processed-chicken sandwiches are being heated. We ask one
another where we are from, how long a drive we had. An occasional
whistle through the teeth, a shake of the head. “My, my, long way
from home, huh?” “Staying at the Super 8 right up the road. Not a
bad place.” “Stayed at the Econo Lodge last time. Wasn’t a good place
at all.” Never asking the questions we really want to ask: “What’s she
in for?” “How much time’s she got le ?” You never ask in the waiting
room of a doctor’s office either. Eventually, all of us — fathers,
mothers, sisters, brothers, a few boyfriends, and very few husbands
— return to the queen of the day, sitting at a fold-out table loaded
with snacks, prepared for five or so hours of attempted normal
conversation.
“Pit of fire,” she says, shaking her head. “Like a pit of fire straight
from hell. Never seen anything like it. Like something out of an old
movie about prisons.” Her voice is getting louder and she looks at
each of us with pleading eyes. “My daughter was there. Don’t even
get me started on that place. Women die there.”
“My daughter would come to the visiting room with a black eye and
I’d think, ‘All she did was sit in the car while her boyfriend ran into
the house.’ She didn’t even touch the stuff. Never even handled it.”
She continues to stare at us, each in turn. “Ten years. That boyfriend
talked and he got three years. She didn’t know anything. Had
nothing to tell them. They gave her ten years. They called it
conspiracy. Conspiracy? Aren’t there real criminals out there?” She
asks this with hands outstretched, waiting for an answer that none
of us can give her.
Had it not been for that wait in the car, this scene would be taking
place at home, in a duplex Stephanie would rent while trying to
finish her two-year degree in dental hygiene or respiratory therapy
at the local community college. The duplex would be spotless, with a
blown-up picture of her and her son over the couch and ceramic
unicorns and horses occupying the shelves of the entertainment
center. She would make sure that her son went to school every day
with stylishly floppy pants, scrubbed teeth, and a good breakfast in
his belly. Because of their difference in skin color, there would be
occasional tension — caused by the strange looks from strangers,
teachers, other mothers, and the bullies on the playground, who
would chant a er they knocked him down, “Your Momma’s white,
your Momma’s white.” But if she were home, their weekends and
evenings would be spent together transcending those looks and
healing those bruises. Now, however, their time is spent eating
visiting-room junk food and his school days are spent fighting the
boys in the playground who chant, “Your Momma’s in prison, your
Momma’s in prison.”
Ellie looks older than his age. But his shoulders do not droop like his
grandmother’s. On the contrary, his bitterness li s them and his
chin higher than a child’s should be, and the childlike, wide-eyed
curiosity has been replaced by defiance. You can see his emerging
hostility as he and his mother play together. She tells him to pick up
the toy that he threw, say, or to put the deck of cards away. His face
turns sullen, but she persists. She takes him by the shoulders and
looks him in the eye, and he uses one of his hands to swat at her. She
grabs the hand and he swats with the other. Eventually, she pulls
him toward her and smells the top of his head, and she picks up the
cards or the toy herself. A er all, it is Mother’s Day and she sees him
so rarely. But her acquiescence makes him angrier, and he stalks out
of the playroom with his shoulders thrown back.
Toby, my brother and sister and I assure one another, will not have
these resentments. He is better taken care of than most. He is living
with relatives in Wisconsin. Good, solid, middle-class, churchgoing
relatives. And when he visits us, his aunts and his uncle, we take
him out for adventures where we walk down the alley of a city and
pretend that we are being chased by the “bad guys.” We buy him fast
food, and his uncle, John, keeps him up well past his bedtime
enthralling him with stories of the monkeys he met in India. A
perfect mix, we try to convince one another. Until we take him to see
his mother and on the drive back he asks the question that most
confuses him, and no doubt all the other children who spend much
of their lives in prison visiting rooms: “Is my Mommy a bad guy?” It
is the question that most seriously disorders his five-year-old need to
clearly separate right from wrong. And because our own need is
perhaps just as great, it is the question that haunts us as well.
So for now we simply say, “Toby, your mother isn’t bad, she just did a
bad thing. Like when you put rocks in the lawn mower’s gas tank.
You weren’t bad then, you just did a bad thing.”
We are standing in front of the double glass doors that lead to the
outside world. My older sister holds her son, rocking him gently.
They are both crying. We give her a look and she puts him down.
Charity and I grasp each of his small hands, and the four of us walk
through the doors. As we’re walking out, my brother sings one of his
banana songs to Toby.
“Buy me some — ”
“Bananas!!”
“I don’t care if I ever come back. For it’s root, root, root for the —”
“Monkey team!”
I turn back and see a line of women standing behind the glass wall.
Some of them are crying, but many simply stare with dazed eyes.
Stephanie is holding both of her son’s hands in hers and speaking
urgently to him. He is struggling, and his head is twisting violently
back and forth. He frees one of his hands from her grasp, balls up
his fist, and punches her in the face. Then he walks with purpose
through the glass doors and out the exit. I look back at her. She is
still in a crouched position. She stares, unblinking, through those
doors. Her hands have le her face and are hanging on either side of
her. I look away, but before I do, I see drops of blood drip from her
nose, down her chin, and onto the shiny marble floor.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Assumptions about fairness and the legal system. Near the end
of the essay, Coyne reveals that she wishes her nephew Toby
would grow up to “have absolute faith that he lives in a fair
country” (par. 16).
Why do you think Coyne believes her sister’s punishment is
unfair? Why does Stephanie’s mother think Stephanie’s
punishment is unfair? Do you agree or disagree?
What does Coyne assume about American culture when she
refers to “political mood swings and public hysteria” and
when she uses the slogan “make the punishment fit the
crime” (par. 16)?
For more on comparing and contrasting, see “Comparing and Contrasting Related Readings”
in Chapter 2.
Although the world outside would never accuse these women of making haute-
couture fashion statements, the fathers and the sons and the boyfriends and the very
few husbands think they look beautiful. … (par. 4)
Sometimes writers leave out the transition and simply juxtapose the
things that are being compared or contrasted by placing them side
by side.
He will be ten when his mother is released, the same age my nephew will be when his
mother is let out. (par. 12)
In this example, the word same lets readers know Coyne is pointing
out a similarity between the two families. Note that she follows this
sentence with an explicit transition to stress that although the two
mother-son relationships are comparable, there are significant
differences between them:
But Jennifer, my sister, was able to spend the first five years of Toby’s life with him.
Stephanie had Ellie a er she was incarcerated. They let her hold him for eighteen
hours, then sent her back to prison. (par. 12)
1. Note in the margin which paragraphs focus on Coyne’s sister Jennifer and her
son Toby and which focus on Stephanie and her son Ellie. Mark where Coyne
juxtaposes the two families and where she uses transitions to highlight the
comparisons and contrasts. What differences between the two families does
Coyne emphasize? What do you think she wants readers to understand about the
dilemma of convict-moms and their relationship with their children?
2. Also consider how Coyne sets up a contrast in paragraphs 10–11 between what is
and what could have been. What cues does she use to signal this contrast? How
does this contrast help convey Coyne’s perspective on the plight of women like
her sister and children like her nephew?
Robin Wall Kimmerer
Asters and Goldenrods
Robin Wall Kimmerer is SUNY Distinguished Teaching Professor at the SUNY College
of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York. She serves as the
founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment, and she is
also the cofounder and past president of the Traditional Ecological Knowledge
section of the Ecological Society of America and serves as a Senior Fellow for the
Center for Nature and Humans. She has been a writer in residence at the Andrews
Experimental Forest, the Blue Mountain Center, the Sitka Center, and the Mesa
Refuge. Of European and Anishinaabe ancestry, Kimmerer is an enrolled member of
the Citizen Potawatomi Nation. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom, Scientific
Knowledge and the Teachings of Plants (2013), from which the selection below is taken,
was awarded the Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. Her interests as both a scientist
and writer revolve around humans’ relationships to the land. The essay below
considers how humans interact with the natural world, as well as the role of science
and poetry in those interactions.
Before you read, consider the title of the piece. Do you know what goldenrod
and asters are? Do you expect that the essay will explain this?
As you read, think about the kind of audience Kimmerer expects to be reading
her piece. How much scientific background does she expect? How do her
expectations affect your engagement with the piece?
The girl in the picture holds a slate with her name and “class of‘ 75”
chalked in, a girl the color of deerskin with long dark hair and inky
unreadable eyes that meet yours and won’t look away. I remember
that day. I was wearing the new plaid shirt that my parents had given
me, an outfit I thought to be the hallmark of all foresters. When I
looked back at the photo later in life, it was a puzzle to me. I recall
being elated to be going to college, but there is no trace of that in the
girl’s face.
Even before I arrived at school, I had all of my answers prepared for
the freshman intake interview. I wanted to make a good first
impression. There were hardly any women at the forestry school in
those days and certainly none who looked like me. The adviser
peered at me over his glasses and said, “So, why do you want to
major in botany?” His pencil was poised over the registrar’s form.
How could I answer, how could I tell him that I was born a botanist,
that I had shoeboxes of seeds and piles of pressed leaves under my
bed, that I’d stop my bike along the road to identify a new species,
that plants colored my dreams, that the plants had chosen me? So I
told him the truth. I was proud of my well-planned answer, its
freshman sophistication apparent to anyone, the way it showed that
I already knew some plants and their habitats, that I had thought
deeply about their nature and was clearly well prepared for college
work. I told him that I chose botany because I wanted to learn about
why asters and goldenrod looked so beautiful together. I’m sure I
was smiling then, in my red plaid shirt.
But he was not. He laid down his pencil as if there was no need to
record what I had said. “Miss Wall”, he said, fixing me with a
disappointed smile, “I must tell you that that is not science. That is
not at all the sort of thing with which botanists concern themselves."
But he promised to put me right. “I’ll enroll you in General Botany so
you can learn what it is.” And so it began.
I like to imagine that they were the first flowers I saw, over my
mother’s shoulder, as the pink blanket slipped away from my face
and their colors flooded my consciousness. I’ve heard that early
experience can attune the brain to certain stimuli, so that they are
processed with greater speed and certainty, so that they can be used
again and again, so that we remember. Love at first sight. Through
cloudy newborn eyes their radiance formed the first botanical
synapses in my wide-awake, new-born brain, which until then had
encountered only the blurry gentleness of pink faces. I’m guessing
all eyes were on me, a little round baby all swaddled in bunting, but
mine were on Goldenrod and Asters. I was born to these flowers and
they came back for my birthday every year, weaving me into our
mutual celebration.
People flock to our hills for the fiery suite of October but they o en
miss the sublime prelude of September fields. As if harvest time
were not enough — peaches, grapes, sweet corn, squash — the fields
are also embroidered with dri s of golden yellow and pools of
deepest purple, a masterpiece.
Why do they stand beside each other when they could grow alone ?
Why this particular pair? There are plenty of pinks and whites and
blues dotting the fields, so is it only happenstance that the
magnificence of purple and gold end up side by side? Einstein
himself said that “God doesn’t play dice with the universe.” What is
the source of this pattern? Why is the world so beautiful? It could so
easily be otherwise: flowers could be ugly to us and still fulfill their
own purpose. But they’re not. It seemed like a good question to me.
But my adviser said, “It’s not science,” not what botany was about. I
wanted to know why certain stems bent easily for baskets and some
would break, why the biggest berries grew in the shade and why
they made us medicines, which plants are edible, why those little
pink orchids only grow under pines. “Not science,” he said, and he
ought to know, sitting in his laboratory, a learned professor of
botany. “And if you want to study beauty, you should go to art
school.” He reminded me of my deliberations over choosing a
college, when I had vacillated between training as a botanist or as a
poet. Since everyone told me I couldn’t do both, I’d chosen plants.
He told me that science was not about beauty, not about the
embrace between plants and humans.
To walk the science path I had stepped off the path of indigenous
knowledge. But the world has a way of guiding your steps.
Seemingly out of the blue came an invitation to a small gathering of
Native elders, to talk about traditional knowledge of plants. One I
will never forget––a Navajo woman without a day of university
botany training in her life––spoke for hours and I hung on every
word. One by one, name by name, she told of the plants in her
valley. Where each one ships, who ate it, who lined their nests with
its fibers, what kind of medicine it offered. She also shared the
stories held by those plants, their origin myths, how they got their
names, and what they have to tell us. She spoke of beauty.
Her words were like smelling salts waking me to what I had known
back when I was picking strawberries. I realized how shallow my
understanding was. Her knowledge was so much deeper and wider
and engaged all the human ways of understanding. She could have
explained asters and goldenrod. To a new PhD, this was humbling. It
was the beginning of my reclaiming that other way of knowing that I
had helplessly let science supplant. I felt like a malnourished
refugee invited to a feast, the dishes scented with the herbs of home.
The human eye is superbly equipped to detect these colors and send
a signal pulsing to the brain. This doesn’t explain why I perceive
them as beautiful, but it does explain why that combination gets my
undivided attention. I asked my artist buddies about the power of
purple and gold, and they sent me right to the color wheel: these two
are complementary colors, as different in nature as could be. In
composing a palette, putting them together makes each more vivid;
just a touch of one will bring out the other. In an 1890 treatise on
color perception, Goethe, who was both a scientist and a poet, wrote
that “the colors diametrically opposed to each other … are those
which reciprocally evoke each other in the eye.” Purple and yellow
are a reciprocal pair.
Our eyes are so sensitive to these wavelengths that the cones can get
oversaturated and the stimulus pours over onto the other cells. A
printmaker I know showed me that if you stare for a long time at a
block of Yellow and then shi your gaze to a White sheet of paper,
you will see it, for a moment, as violet. This phenomenon––the
colored a erimage––occurs because there is energetic reciprocity
between purple and yellow pigments, which goldenrod and asters
knew well before we did.
When botanists go walking the forests and fields looking for plants,
we say we are going on a foray. When writers do the same, we should
call it a metaphoray, and the land is rich in both. We need them both;
scientist and poet Jeffrey Burton Russell writes that “as the sign of a
deeper truth, metaphor was close to sacrament. Because the
vastness and richness of reality cannot be expressed by the overt
sense of a statement alone.”
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
You may also try reflecting on challenges to your beliefs and values; see Chapter 2, Reflecting
on Challenges to Your Beliefs and Values.
1. Reread the essay, looking for examples of rhetorical questions. Explain how
Kimmerer’s use of rhetorical questions suggests her perspective on “the threads
that connect the world” (par. 13). What does Kimmerer’s use of both rhetorical
and standard questions — as opposed to statements — suggest about her
perspective?
2. Review the academic habits of mind listed in Chapter 1 of this book (pp. 1–3).
Which academic habits of mind do you see Kimmerer, an academic herself,
practicing and describing in her essay? Where in the text do these academic
habits show up, and what do they help you understand about Kimmerer’s
perspective?
3. Notice how Kimmerer introduces some of the sources she cites.
“In an 1890 treatise on color perception, Goethe, who was both a scientist and a
poet…” (par. 24)
How does her choice of these sources and the way she introduces them help convey
her perspective?
Linda Fine
Bringing Ingenuity Back
Linda Fine wrote the following observational essay when she was a first-year college
student. This essay is based on her visit to see the recently donated hand-printing
presses at her campus library. She records her own observations about these antique
presses, as well as how they work. Notice that she also quotes and paraphrases
extensively from Sara, the librarian who explains these old-fashioned machines to
her.
The preparation work takes hours, and in some cases, days. Sara’s
difficult task is to carefully align each individual letter by hand. The
letters are made up of very thin rectangular prisms, which make
them difficult to handle. Not only does Sara need manual dexterity,
she also needs skilled eyes to be able to tell the letters apart. If a
wrong letter, font, or size has been used, she has to go back and
tediously correct the frame and setup by hand. Familiarity with what
the letters will look like is essential for the setup of hand printing
because the letters can be confusing. The leaded letters in the
printing process work like a stamp. Instead of arranging them the
way they are read, the operator must position the letters upside
down and backward, like a mirror image. It takes time and effort to
train the eye to recognize letters this way. Letters such as n and u are
easily mixed up, as are p and q, and b and d. Formatting the letters
correctly is a critical step in the printing process because any
careless error the setup leaves a noticeable flaw in the printed
document.
Sara explained that back in the 1800s, printers did not number their
pages when printing a book. In order to keep the pages orderly, they
had to use the same word twice. For example, if a page ended with
the word “boy,” then the following page would have to begin with the
word “boy.” Not numbering the pages can easily cause them to fall
out of order.
At this point in the interview, I had to ask her, “If using hand-
printing presses can cause so many problems, why would anyone
still prefer using them over laser-printing presses?”
A er she said that, I got the point. If I were to send out Christ-mas
cards, each individual card would mean so much more if I had
personally hand-printed it myself rather than buying a box of pre-
printed cards at Walmart. Cra smanship adds value and meaning
that you can’t find in industrialized commodities that you just buy.
I walked around the room and explored the shapes and sizes of the
various printing presses. I saw that each machine had its own
unique maneuvers. Some levers had to be pulled clockwise and
pushed down. Others simply needed to be rolled across the printing
bed and back. The cases and crates stacked around the presses
contained lead-filled letters and hundreds of neatly stored
rectangular pieces. There were keys, metal washers, wooden blocks
called “furniture” to keep the letters in place, ink, and galleys — all
of which, I learned, were required for the printing process.
Squinting, she told me, “The text is not perfectly centered on the
paper. It’s a bit crooked because I slipped in the paper at a slight
angle.”
Whoever would have thought that small errors, like slipping in the
paper slanted, would make such a big difference? This is one of the
many things that make hand printing more difficult than using a
modern printing press.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
As I made my way to a set of elevators in the rear I passed students and librarians
working at monitors. … I also passed students sitting at tables … . I was on my way
into the past to see hand-printing presses. … Entering an unmarked room in the
basement. … I stepped into the room. … (pars. 1–2)
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING
OBSERVATIONAL ESSAYS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief observation of your own. This Guide to Writing offers
detailed suggestions and resources to help you meet the special
challenges observational writing presents.
Choosing a Subject
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options and list as many
subjects as you can. Below are some criteria that can help you
choose a promising subject, followed by suggestions for the types of
places, people, and activities you might consider writing about.
Making a Schedule.
1. Write on a calendar the date the project is due and any other
interim due dates (such as the date that your first dra is due).
2. Move backward through the calendar, writing in due dates for
other tasks you need to do, such as scheduling initial and
follow-up interviews and observations, as well as determining
when write-ups and background research should be done.
For a detailed discussion of planning and conducting interviews and observations, see
Conducting Field Research in Chapter 12.
1. Make a list of people you would like to interview or the places
you would like to observe. Include a number of possibilities in
case your first choice turns you down.
2. Write out your intentions and goals, so you can explain them
clearly to others. If you would like to take on the participant-
observer role, ask permission to take part in a small way for a
limited time.
3. Call or e-mail for an appointment with your interview subject
or to make arrangements to visit the site. Explain who you are
and what you are doing. Student research projects are o en
embraced, but be prepared for your request to be rejected.
4. Make notes about your assumptions and expectations. For
example: Why do I assume the subject will interest me and my
readers? What do I already know and what do I expect to learn
about my subject?
5. Write some interview questions in advance, or consider how
best to conduct the observation.
6. Make an audio or video recording — if allowed — during the
interview or observation, but also take careful notes, including
notes about what you see, hear, and smell, as well as notes
about tone, gestures, mannerisms, or overheard conversations.
How has ………… changed over the years, and where do you think it’s going?
Focus on sensory details that could paint a vivid portrait of the person
or people, place, or activity, and write down any questions or
concerns you might like to consider for a follow-up interview or
observation.
At the front of the line, a woman in a brown coat couldn’t decide which soup to get
and started to complain about the prices . “You talk too much, dear,” Mr. Yeganeh
said, and motioned her to move to the le . Next!” (New Yorker, par. 8)
You may also add a word or phrase to a speaker tag to reveal more
about how, where, when, or why the speaker speaks:
“Pit of fire,” she says, shaking her head. “Like a pit of fire straight from hell. Never
seen anything like it. Like something out of an old movie about prisons.” Her voice is
getting louder and she looks at each of us with pleading eyes. (Coyne, par. 6)
For additional help with quoting sources, see “Using Information From Sources to Support
Your Claims” in Chapter 12.
The cases and crates stacked around the presses contained lead-filled letters and
hundreds of neatly stored rectangular pieces. There were keys, metal washers,
wooden blocks. … (Fine, par. 10)
The greatest difficulty, though, is in the trimming. I had no idea that a head of lettuce
was so humongous. (Thompson, par. 9)
People whose names I didn’t yet know would ask me how I was holding up,
reminding me that it would get easier as time went by. (Thompson, par. 14)
Who are the insiders at this place and why are they there?
How does the place affect how insiders talk, act, think, feel?
What function does the place serve in the wider community?
What tensions are there between insiders and outsiders or
between newcomers and veterans?
► X and Y say …………. because they want to …………. , but
they seem to feel …………. because of the way they do
…………. .
And I can imagine the hours spent preparing for this visit. … The hours of discussing,
dissecting, and bragging about these visitors — especially the men. … and the giggles
that abruptly change into tears without warning — things that define any female-only
world. Even, or especially, if that world is a female federal prison camp. (Coyne, par.
4)
For years a er the demise of that first meatpacking company, the Dufour family sold
someone else’s product. … “But pretty soon, we were selling so many lips that we had
to almost beg Di Salvo’s for product. That’s when we started cooking up our own,” he
told me, gesturing toward the cast-iron kettle that hangs from the ra ers by the front
door of the plant. “My daddy started cooking lips in that very pot.”
Lionel now cooks lips in 11 retrofitted milk tanks, dull stainless-steel cauldrons
shaped like oversized cradles. But little else has changed. (Edge, pars. 9–10)
Define your purpose and audience. Write for five minutes exploring
what you want your readers to learn about the subject and why. Use
sentence strategies like these to help clarify your thinking:
My readers probably think …………. about my subject. I can get
them to think about X’s social and cultural significance by
………….
State your main point. Review what you have written, and summarize in a
sentence or two the main idea you want readers to take away from your profile.
Readers don’t expect a profile to have an explicit thesis statement, but the
descriptive details and other information need to work together to convey the
main idea.
Review what you have written and try out a few working thesis
statements that articulate your insights into, interpretations of, or
ideas about the person, place, or activity that you want readers to
take away from reading the essay. Like autobiography, observational
writing tends not to include an explicit thesis statement, but does
include sentences that reinforce and extend the dominant
impression you have created.
For example, “Soup” opens and ends with these quotations that
capture the writer’s main ideas about the subject:
When Albert Yeganeh says “Soup is my lifeblood,” he means it. And when he says “I
am extremely hard to please,” he means that, too. (par. 11)
“He’s downright rude,” said a blond woman in a blue coat. “Even abusive. But you
can’t deny it, his soup is the best.” (par. 11)
Thompson uses the opening two paragraphs to introduce his ideas
about the arduous labor of farmworkers, but he also intersperses his
insights throughout the essay.
A theory forms in my mind. Early in the season — say, a er the first week — a
farmworker’s body gets thoroughly broken down. Back, legs, and arms grow sore,
hands and feet swell up. A tolerance for the pain is developed. … (par. 11)
It’s simply not possible to do this work for decades. (par. 11)
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next section
of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve your
dra .
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
What’s Working Well: Mark any parts of the essay that seem
notably well-organized — for example, where a narratively
arranged section orients readers with time markers, a topically
arranged section uses topic sentences effectively, or a spatially
arranged section employs prepositional phrases to take the
reader on a tour of the place.
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from your research notes and write-ups, point out the parts that helped
you most.
If you got good advice from a critical reader, explain exactly how the person helped
you — perhaps by helping you recognize a problem in your dra or by helping you
add a new dimension to your writing.
2. Reflect more generally on how you tend to interpret observational writing, your own
as well as other writers’. Consider some of the following questions:
In reading for meaning, do you find yourself paying attention to larger cultural or
social contexts — for example, thinking of the subject in terms of gender, ethnicity,
or class?
How do you think the writer’s perspective influenced how you saw the subject?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about observation, you have been practicing
metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing processes. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 5
Reflection
Who was the audience? How do you think addressing the reflections to this audience
affected the way they were “hooked”?
What was the main purpose? How did the writer or speaker want the audience to
react? Was the goal to make the audience feel or think in a particular way, or to make
an experience seem strange so that audience members could see it differently?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity of the reflection? Did the piece engage
the reader or listener? How? Was the insight surprising or motivating?
A GUIDE TO READING REFLECTIVE
ESSAYS
This guide introduces you to the basic features and strategies typical
of reflective writing by inviting you to analyze a powerful reflective
essay by Brent Staples:
Before you read, think about a time that you frightened others by your
presence or that you have been frightened by others.
As you read, think about why Staples changed the title of the essay from “Just
Walk on By” to “Black Men and Public Space.”
That was more than a decade ago, I was twenty-two years old, a
graduate student newly arrived at the University of Chicago. It was
in the echo of that terrified woman’s footfalls that I first began to
know the unwieldy inheritance I’d come into — the ability to alter
public space in ugly ways. It was clear that she thought herself the
quarry of a mugger, a rapist, or worse. Suffering a bout of insomnia,
however, I was stalking sleep, not defenseless wayfarers. As a so y
who is scarcely able to take a knife to a raw chicken — let alone hold
one to a person’s throat — I was surprised, embarrassed, and
dismayed all at once. Her flight made me feel like an accomplice in
tyranny. It also made it clear that I was indistinguishable from the
muggers who occasionally seeped into the area from the
surrounding ghetto. That first encounter, and those that followed,
signified that a vast, unnerving gulf lay between nighttime
pedestrians — particularly women — and me. And I soon gathered
that being perceived as dangerous is a hazard in itself. I only needed
to turn a corner into a dicey situation, or crowd some frightened,
armed person in a foyer somewhere, or make an errant move a er
being pulled over by a policeman. Where fear and weapons meet —
and they o en do in urban America — there is always the possibility
of death.
How does the author feel about being indistinguishable from muggers?
I moved to New York nearly two years ago and I have remained an
avid night walker. In central Manhattan, the near-constant crowd
cover minimizes tense one-on-one street encounters. Elsewhere —
in SoHo, for example, where sidewalks are narrow and tightly
spaced buildings shut out the sky — things can get very taut indeed.
How do the author’s previous experiences as “scarcely noticeable” affect his reaction to how
he is perceived now that he is no longer in his childhood neighborhood?
Another time I was on assignment for a local paper and killing time
before an interview. I entered a jewelry store on the city’s affluent
Near North Side. The proprietor excused herself and returned with
an enormous red Doberman pinscher straining at the end of a leash.
She stood, the dog extended toward me, silent to my questions, her
eyes bulging nearly out of her head. I took a cursory look around,
nodded, and bade her good night.
Is this one story really also the story of so many other black men? Do men of other races and
ethnicities also experience this?
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread the opening sentence of paragraph 3, where Staples introduces the idea
that there is a “language of fear.” Then skim the rest of paragraphs 3, 5–6, and 8–
10. What examples does Staples use to help readers understand how this fear is
expressed?
2. What have you learned from Staples’s essay about how examples can help
readers understand or accept a writer’s reflections? Choose one or two examples
and explain why you think they work especially well to help readers understand
what Staples means.
My first victim was a woman — white, well dressed, probably in her early
twenties. I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park , a
relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of
Chicago . (par. 1)
1. Reread paragraphs 1–2. Underline the names Staples uses to identify himself,
and circle the details he uses to describe himself and his actions.
2. Put brackets around words and phrases in these paragraphs that suggest the
larger meanings Staples will develop in subsequent paragraphs.
3. Consider Staples’s tone. How do the words Staples chooses help you identify (or
hinder you from identifying) with him and his “victims”? Use concrete details
from the paragraphs to support your claims.
Maintaining Coherence
/
I only needed to turn a corner into a dicey situation , or crowd some frightened,
armed person in a foyer somewhere , or make an errant move a er being pulled
over by a policeman . Where fear and weapons meet — and they o en do in urban
America — there is always the possibility of death.
In that first year, my first away from my hometown, I was to become thoroughly
familiar with the language of fear. … Elsewhere — in SoHo , for example, where
sidewalks are narrow and tightly spaced buildings shut out the sky — things can get
very taut indeed. (Pars. 2–3)
ANALYZE & WRITE
Write a paragraph or two analyzing how Staples uses these strategies of repetition and
transitions to maintain coherence throughout the essay:
1. Skim paragraphs 3–12, highlighting the word fear each time Staples uses it and
circling synonyms or near synonyms for it each time they appear.
2. Now go back through the essay underlining transitions of time and place.
3. Analyze how effectively these strategies work to maintain coherence, supporting
your analysis with examples from the reading.
Engaging Readers
1. Skim the essay, circling or highlighting words, phrases, or passages that give you
a sense of Staples as a person.
2. Consider the impression you have: What engages you or draws you into the
essay? Do you feel empathy for Staples? What would you add or change to make
the essay more effective for you?
READINGS
Dana Jennings
Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives
Dana Jennings (b. 1957), a journalist and editor at the New York Times is best known
for his novel, Lonesome Standard Time (1996); his nonfiction, Sing Me Back Home: Love,
Death and Country Music (2008); and his blog for the New York Times Well section in
which he wrote about prostate cancer. In the following essay, which appeared in the
New York Times on July 21, 2009, Jennings ponders how scars tell stories. He develops
his reflection by relating some of the stories prompted by his scars, and speculates
about their larger meaning.
Before you read, think about your own scars, what they mean to you, and
whether you have memories associated with each scar.
As you read, think about the differences between the scars Jennings first
describes and the “heavy hitters, the stitched whips and serpents” (par. 7) to
which he devotes the second half of his essay.
The ones that intrigue me most are those from childhood that I can’t
account for. The one on my right eyebrow, for example, and a couple
of ancient pockmarks and starbursts on my knees. I’m not shocked
by them. To be honest, I wonder why there aren’t more.
I had a full and active boyhood, one that raged with scabs and
scrapes, mashed and bloody knees, bumps and lumps, gashes and
slashes, cats’ claws and dogs’ teeth, jagged glass, ragged steel, knots,
knobs and shiners. Which raises this question: How do any of us get
out of childhood alive?
My stubborn chin has sustained a fair bit of damage over the years.
On close examination, there’s a faint delta of scars that brings back
memories of my teenage war on acne. Those frustrating days of
tetracycline and gritty soaps le my face not clean and glowing but
red and raw. The acne also ravaged my back, scoring the skin there
so that it still looks scorched and lunar.
Scanning down from the jut of my chin to the tips of my toes, I’ve
even managed to brand my feet. In high school and college I worked
at Kingston Steel Drum, a factory in my New Hampshire hometown
that scoured some of the 55-gallon steel drums it cleaned with acid
and scalding water. The factory was eventually shut down by the
federal government and became a Superfund hazardous waste site,
but not before a spigot malfunctioned one day and soaked my feet in
acid.
Then there are the heavy hitters, the stitched whips and serpents
that make my other scars seem like dimples on a golf ball.
There’s that mighty scar on my right knee from when I was 12 years
old and had a benign tumor cut out. Then there are the scars on my
abdomen from when my colon (devoured by ulcerative colitis) was
removed in 1984, and from my radical open prostatectomy last
summer to take out my cancerous prostate. (If I ever front a heavy
metal band, I think I’ll call it Radical Open Prostatectomy.)
But for all the potential tales of woe that they suggest, scars are also
signposts of optimism. If your body is game enough to knit itself
back together a er a hard physical lesson, to make scar tissue, that
means you’re still alive, means you’re on the path toward healing.
The scars remind me, too, that in this vain culture our vanity
sometimes needs to be punctured and deflated — and that’s not such
a bad thing. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes, better to be a scarred and
living dog than to be a dead lion.
It’s not that I’m proud of my scars — they are what they are, born of
accident and necessity — but I’m not embarrassed by them, either.
More than anything, I relish the stories they tell. Then again, I’ve
always believed in the power of stories, and I certainly believe in the
power of scars.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Engaging Readers
Our scars tell stories. Sometimes they’re stark tales of life-threatening catastrophes,
but more o en they’re just footnotes to the ordinary but bloody detours that befall
us on the roadways of life.
1. Skim the essay, circling or highlighting words, phrases, or passages that give you
a sense of being part of Jennings’s essay.
2. Beyond these words, phrases, and passages, what engages you or draws you in as
a reader?
For help with annotating and taking inventory, see Chapter 2, pp. 35–41.
For help with exploring the significance of figurative language, see Chapter 2, pp. 51–
52.
Reread Jennings’s essay, marking all the figurative language — metaphors, similes,
and symbols — that you find in this essay.
Take inventory by organizing the figures of speech you found.
Write a paragraph exploring the meanings that emerge from the patterns in the
essay’s language. How did the process of tracking the figures of speech help you
notice their contribution to what Jennings is trying to convey?
Jacqueline Woodson
The Pain of the Watermelon Joke
Jacqueline Woodson (b. 1963) is an American writer and poet. She won the Coretta
Scott King Award in 2001 for Miracle’s Boys (2000), and Newbery awards for Show Way
(2005), Feathers (2007), A er Tupac & D Foster (2008), and Brown Girl Dreaming (2014) —
a book in verse for which she also won the 2014 National Book Award for Young
People’s Literature. Her first adult novel, Brooklyn Dreaming (2016) was a finalist for
the 2016 National Book Award. Woodson has served as the Young People’s Poet
Laureate and the Library of Congress Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The
essay below was published in the New York Times in 2014.
Before you read, think about a joke you have heard that is made at the expense
of someone or something that you care about. How did the joke make you feel?
As you read, consider how Woodson approaches the contentious topic of
racism with personal stories and references to her family. How do her
rhetorical choices affect your response to her experience?
It was the late ’60s and early ’70s, and even though Jim Crow was
supposed to be far behind us, we spent our days in the all-black
community called Nicholtown in a still segregated South.
But by the time I was 11 years old, even the smell of watermelon was
enough to send me running to the bathroom with my most recent
meal returning to my throat. It seemed I had grown violently
allergic to the fruit.
In a few short words, the audience and I were asked to take a step
back from everything I’ve ever written, a step back from the power
and meaning of the National Book Award, lest we forget, lest I
forget, where I came from. By making light of that deep and
troubled history, he showed that he believed we were at a point
where we could laugh about it all. His historical context, unlike my
own, came from a place of ignorance.
I would have written Brown Girl Dreaming if no one had ever wanted
to buy it, if it went nowhere but inside a desk drawer that my own
children pulled out one day to find a tool for survival, a symbol of
how strong we are and how much we’ve come through. Their great-
great-great-grandfather fought in the Civil War. Their great-
grandfather, Hope, and great-grandmother, Grace, raised one of the
few black families in Nelsonville, Ohio, and saw five children
through college. Their grandmother’s school in Greenville, Sterling
High, was set on fire and burned to the ground.
How could I come from such a past and not know that I am on a
mission, too?
This mission is what’s been passed down to me — to write stories
that have been historically absent in this country’s body of
literature, to create mirrors for the people who so rarely see
themselves inside contemporary fiction, and windows for those who
think we are no more than the stereotypes they’re so afraid of. To
give young people — and all people — a sense of this country’s
brilliant and brutal history, so that no one ever thinks they can walk
onto a stage one evening and laugh at another’s too o en painful
past.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Engaging Readers
In reflective essays, writers o en tell anecdotes — brief,
entertaining stories — to help engage readers, as Woodson does with
the story of taking a picture with an oversized watermelon (par. 3).
Woodson believes stories have been used to portray African
Americans in various unflattering ways, and as she was becoming a
writer, she “wanted to put on the page … the stories of people who
looked like” her (par. 8) and to change public perception of them.
1. Reread the opening anecdote (pars. 1–3) to identify how Woodson engages the
reader in the “history” of the watermelon joke.
2. Annotate the paragraph to show how Woodson intends to undermine the joke
and change the history of the stories and of the joke. Does she succeed in
drawing the reader into her purpose?
Manuel Muñoz
Leave Your Name at the Border
Manuel Muñoz (b. 1972) is Associate Professor of Creative Writing at the University of
Arizona. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard in 1994 and his MFA from
Cornell in 1998. He is best known for his short stories, collected in Zigzagger (2003)
and The Faith Healer of Olive Avenue (2008), and his novel What You See in the Dark
(2011). His stories have won the PEN/O. Henry Award twice for “Tell Him about
Brother John” (2009) and “The Happiest Girl in the Whole USA” (2015). His writing
appears in the New York Times, Glimmer Train, Epoch, Eleven Eleven, and Boston Review
and has aired on National Public Radio’s Selected Shorts. The essay below appeared in
the New York Times in 2007.
Before you read, think about your own name. What does it tell people about
you? Do you have an opinion about whether names should be standardized in
the United States?
As you read, pay attention to how Muñoz sets up a contrast between English
and Spanish. How does this contrast help convey his ideas?
You can probably guess how she said it. Her Anglicized
pronunciation wouldn’t be unusual in a place like California’s
Central Valley. I didn’t have a Mexican name there either: I was an
instruction guide.
When people ask me where I’m from, I say Fresno because I don’t
expect them to know little Dinuba. Fresno is a booming city of
nearly 500,000 these days, with a diversity — white, Mexican,
African-American, Armenian, Hmong and Middle Eastern people
are all well represented — that shouldn’t surprise anyone. It’s in the
small towns like Dinuba that surround Fresno that the awareness of
cultural difference is stripped down to the interactions between the
only two groups that tend to live there: whites and Mexicans. When
you hear a Mexican name spoken in these towns, regardless of the
speaker’s background, it’s no wonder that there’s an “English way of
pronouncing it.”
Spanish was and still is viewed with suspicion: Always the language
of the vilified illegal immigrant, it segregated schoolchildren into
English-only and bilingual programs; it defined you, above all else,
as part of a lower class. Learning English, though, brought its own
complications. It was simultaneously the language of the white
population and a path toward the richer, expansive identity of
“American.” But it took getting out of the Valley for me to
understand that “white” and “American” were two very different
things.
This isn’t to say that my stepfather welcomed the change, only that
he could not put up much resistance. Not changing put him at risk of
being passed over for work. English was a world of power and
decisions, of smooth, uninterrupted negotiation. Clear
communication meant you could go unsupervised. Every gesture
made toward convincing an employer that English was on its way to
being mastered had the potential to make a season of fieldwork
profitable.
When I went to college on the East Coast, I was confronted for the
first time by people who said my name correctly without prompting;
if they stumbled, there was a quick apology and an honest plea to
help with the pronunciation. But introducing myself was painful:
already shy, I avoided meeting people because I didn’t want to say
my name, felt burdened by my own history. I knew that my small-
town upbringing and its limitations on Spanish would not have been
tolerated by any of the students of color who had grown up in large
cities, in places where the sheer force of their native languages
made them dominant in their neighborhoods.
But who was I to imagine this man being from anywhere, based on
his name alone? At a place of arrivals and departures, it sank into
me that the currency of our names is a stroke of luck: because mine
was not an easy name, it forced me to consider how language would
rule me if I allowed it. Yet I discovered that only by leaving. My
stepfather must live in the Valley, a place that does not allow that
choice, every day. And Eugenio Reyes — I do not know if he was
coming or going.
READING FOR MEANING
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Skim the essay, underlining or highlighting the word name whenever it appears.
2. Examine the different contexts in which the word appears, and analyze the
meanings of its varied uses. What do you conclude about why Muñoz repeats the
word so o en and what this repetition means to the reader?
Maya Rupert
I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman
Maya Rupert (b. 1981) is the senior policy director at the Center for Reproductive
Rights. Prior to joining the Center, she served the United States Department of
Housing and Urban Development as Senior Policy Advisor. She has also been a
contributing writer to O Magazine, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and the
Huffington Post, where she frequently addresses the intersection of politics, race, and
gender. She has been recognized by the National Association of Black Journalists for
her writing and by national outlets like Ebony Magazine and The Root for her
leadership in the black community.
Before you read, think of a superhero or other fictional character that has had
significance in your life. How would you describe that significance?
As you read, pay attention to how Wonder Woman “grew” with Rupert. How
does the relationship Rupert describes between herself and Wonder Woman
help convey her ideas?
Wonder Woman and I were both outsiders on two levels. Her powers
set her apart from other humans, but among the other members of
the Justice League, she was relegated to secretary. My race set me
apart from my white classmates, but I learned at a young age that
within the black community, my gender marked me as inferior. I
remember as a child being told by my hairdresser that feminism
wasn’t for black women. “For us,” she explained, “the man is here,
and we’re here,” she said gesturing with her hands to illustrate that
to be a black woman meant that a man I had never met would
always be stationed above me. As I got older, I became better able to
name my double displacement. I was frustrated with the racism I
saw in feminist circles and with the misogyny I saw among racial-
justice advocates. My awareness of this dynamic grew, and Wonder
Woman’s state of constant otherness only grew more meaningful.
Wonder Woman didn’t get to act on anger, and neither did I. I was
terrified of how I’d be seen if I ever did, in part because Wonder
Woman once showed me exactly what could happen. In one famous
storyline, Sacrifice part IV, Wonder Woman was forced to kill a
villain, Maxwell Lord, to save Superman’s and Batman’s lives. Lord
had tricked the Justice League members into thinking he was an
ally, when in fact he planned to destroy all superheroes, whom he
viewed as a global threat. Lord convinced Superman that both
Batman and Wonder Woman were his enemies and forced him to
attack. A er subduing Batman, Superman came a er Wonder
Woman. Instead of fighting her friend, Wonder Woman captured
Lord and used her Lasso of Truth. Lord told her the only way to stop
him was to kill him. Which she did.
Wonder Woman’s fate was one I had tried to avoid for years with a
painful balancing act. Black women have long had to navigate
stereotypes that create a similar sort of bind: our reputed
preternatural strength is used as a weapon to force us to withstand
greater physical, emotional, and spiritual burdens. The stereotype
of the “strong black woman” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, and
the identity of black women becomes indistinguishable from our
struggle. This is evident in the archetype of the Mammy, the black
maternal figure who acts as a cipher for the burdens of the white
people around her and takes them on with an ever-present smile. In
the ‘80s, she was Nell Carter, the happy maid to a white family on
Gimme A Break!, and Florida Evans, the put-upon matriarch from
Good Times. These women sublimated their own needs for those of
others, and always did it with a smile.
Since I found out the Wonder Woman movie was finally in the works,
I’ve been excited but also a little nervous. Yes, a white actress, Gal
Gadot, had been cast as the lead. But, I wondered, would the
creators see in her what I had all these years? Would she still chafe
at the forced dichotomy between her strength and her womanhood,
her peaceful demeanor and her righteous anger? Would we still
walk the same tightrope of dual identities and the resulting isolation
from each? While all heroes won’t be men, will all the Amazons be
white? Would they infuse her story with enough of mine that a little
black girl who sees the movie might get to wonder, maybe?
I have now seen Wonder Woman several times. I’ll likely see it
multiple times. And I’m sure I’ll love it for many of the same reasons
that I’ve been loving her since I was eight. But I’m also sure I’ll keep
challenging her to love me a little more. I’ve been doing that since I
was eight, too.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Rupert opens her essay with an occasion from her childhood when
she asks her mother if Wonder Woman is black (para. 2). The
description of this event leads to her discussion of and reflection on
a series of other occasions that allow her to explore serious issues
surrounding race, gender, and identity.
1. Reread the essay marking all of the occasions that help shape Rupert’s ideas
about race, gender, and identity.
2. Choose two of the occasions you have found and explain how they help Rupert
develop her ideas.
Samantha Wright
Starving for Control
Samantha Wright wrote this essay for an assignment in her first-year college
composition course. She reflects on a single event that would change her life by
changing how she thinks about her body. Looking back on this event allows the
author to consider what led to her obsession with losing weight, as well as the
consequences of that obsession.
Before you read, think about your own attitude toward the female body as it is
portrayed in the media. Do you find anything disturbing about it?
As you read, consider Wright’s rhetorical situation; she is writing about a
sensitive topic for many people. What strategies does she use to develop her
reflection, support her opinions, and remain sensitive to her audience?
When the teacher saw the numbers on the scale, she would say
them out loud to her student aid, who’d promptly scribble them
down. As the line shortened and I grew closer and closer, it was
obvious that there wasn’t much of a range.
“98, 84, 108, 112.” The numbers seemed so fluid, so congruent. There
was a uniform beauty to it. They were lo y ballerinas side-by-side,
none more distinct than the other.
Approaching.
“135.”
“Hey, Kendall, who do you think is the fattest girl in the class?” I was
noticeably anxious. She furrowed her brows and thought for a
minute, and a er looking between me and our peers told me that
the fattest girl was Summer Stanley, a loner with a solid build, who I
would find out weighed four pounds less than me. I checked out and
went through the motions of the day with a vacant headspace. Well,
vacant besides the inadequacy, self-doubt, and need for validation
molesting my mind. When it came time to head home, I felt this
urgency to address what was making me feel so ironically empty. I
got online.
The first diet plan that attracted me was the military diet. It lasted
three days and allowed for the consumption of hot dogs and vanilla
ice cream, both of which I loved. I quickly reminded myself that this
wasn’t a good thing, though, and that it was necessary to avoid
anything I was already eating. The game plan was this: renovate
everything I thought was right. It wasn’t up to me at that point, and I
had an urge for someone, something, to push me in the right
direction, whatever that was. Then I found it. A er skimming
through Adkins, the Master Cleanse, and Raw Till 4, I found just
what I needed. For the next two weeks, I would follow the almighty
guide of the grapefruit diet.
Looking back on the whole ordeal, it really shouldn’t have gone the
way it did. There was nothing I had done before that point that
would’ve suggested I had the willpower to cut out one of my only
comfort sources. At the time, I was a mostly social kid who looked
forward to cheap cookies, candy, junk food, and television. I’d never
given any activity all of my energy and was content with the
situational outcomes that I’d receive. It was hard for me to finish
projects before jumping aboard new ones, but when it came to my
diet, I used all of my strength, energy, and will to reach my goal,
which, looking back, was dangerously unclear. Even though I hated
the taste of grapefruit and my stomach would constantly growl, I
didn’t give in to my cravings. Strangely, it wasn’t that hard to do. It
felt like there was something inside of me. Something strong,
something that could take control and tell me what to do and what
not to do. I liked this new feeling, even though it told me not to trust
anything I organically did, said, or thought.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Read to Summarize. Write a sentence or two explaining what
you think Wright wants readers to understand about the
occasion she describes.
2. Read to Respond. Write a paragraph analyzing anything that
resonates with your experience or interests you, such as the
effect of television shows like America’s Next Top Model on
peoples’ feelings about their bodies (par. 21) or feelings of
loneliness because of an obsession you may have (par. 21).
3. Read to Analyze Assumptions. Write a paragraph or two
analyzing an assumption you find intriguing in Wright’s essay.
For example:
For guidelines on comparing and contrasting related readings, see Chapter 2, pp. 57–
60.
Notice how both essays open. Wright begins her essay with the pronouncement: “Like
a lot of American girls, I developed an eating disorder when I was thirteen years old.
To be honest, I’m surprised it took that long” (par. 1). Woodson’s essay opens with a
reference to Jim Crow: “Even though Jim Crow was supposed to be far behind us, we
spent our days in the all-black community called Nicholtown in a still segregated
South” (par. 2). To what extent do you think that these openings are meant to affect or
manipulate you emotionally? Were they successful in doing so?
Reread both essays, paying close attention to your emotional reactions as you read.
Are there moments where you think the author is trying to appeal to your emotions? If
yes, how so? If no, how does the author avoid making these appeals, especially when
dealing with such an emotionally charged subject?
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING REFLECTIVE
ESSAYS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief reflection of your own. This Guide to Writing offers detailed
suggestions and resources to help you meet the special challenges
reflective writing presents.
Choose an occasion or event that you feel comfortable writing about for this audience
(your instructor and classmates). You may want to select the general subject that you
want to reflect on first, and then choose an event or occasion that effectively
particularizes this subject.
Consider how you can depict the occasion or event vividly so that readers can imagine
what you experienced. Try to create a voice or persona that will appeal to your
audience.
Develop your reflections, including insights that interest, surprise, or enlighten your
readers.
Organize your reflection so that readers will be able to follow your train of thought.
To get started, use a chart like the one below to list several possible
occasions and the general subjects they suggest (or start with the
“General Subjects” column and then list the occasions they suggest).
My first victim was a woman — white, well dressed , probably in her early
twenties . I came upon her late one evening on a deserted street in Hyde Park, a
relatively affluent neighborhood in an otherwise mean, impoverished section of
Chicago. As I swung onto the avenue behind her, there seemed to be a discreet,
uninflammatory distance between us. Not so. She cast back a worried glance. To
her, the youngish black man — a broad six feet two inches with a beard and
billowing hair , both hands shoved into the pockets of a bulky military jacket —
seemed menacingly close . A er a few more quick glimpses, she picked up her
pace and was soon running in earnest. Within seconds she disappeared into a cross
street. (Staples, par. 1)
Developing Your Reflection
The following activities will help you recall details about the
occasion for your reflection.
Write for five to ten minutes narrating what happened during the
event. Try to make your story vivid so that readers can imagine what
it was like. Describe the people involved in the event — what they
looked like, how they acted, what they said — and the place where it
occurred.
Cubing.
Exploring How You Felt at the Time and What the Occasion Made You
Realize Later.
Write for a few minutes, recalling your thoughts and feelings when
the occasion was occurring.
What did you feel at the moment the occasion was occurring —
in control or powerless, proud or embarrassed, vulnerable,
detached, judgmental? For example, Staples uses phrases like
“swung onto the avenue” to indicate a light mood (par. 1).
Sentence strategies like these might help you describe your
initial experience of the occasion:
► As soon as I [saw/did/imagined] ………… , I felt ………… ,
………… , and ………….
► ………… [describe occasion] made me feel as if ………… .
What larger reflection was prompted by your occasion? Muñoz,
for example, suggests “[m]y stepfather’s experience with the
Anglicization of his name — Antonio to Tony — ties into
something bigger than learning English. For him, the erasure of
his name was about deference and subservience” (par. 14).
These sentence strategies may help you put your reflection into
words:
► Since then, I realize ………… , but also ………… .
► Now that I have seen ………… , I know that ………… and
………… .
Write for several minutes exploring what you want your readers to
think about your reflection a er reading your essay. Your answer
may change as you write, but thinking about your goals may help
you decide which of your ideas to include in the essay. Answering
the following questions may help you clarify your purpose:
Review what you wrote for Considering Your Purpose and Audience
and add another two or three sentences to bring your reflection into
focus. Write sentences that indicate what is most important or
interesting about the subject. Readers may not expect reflective
essays to begin with an explicit thesis statement — but stating the
main point of your reflective essay now may lead you to a deeper
understanding of your occasion and the reflection it inspired, and it
may guide your selection of ideas to develop.
Considering Visuals.
For additional help with deciding whether to quote, paragraph, or summarize, see Chapter
12, pp. 618–619.
The scars remind me, too, that in this vain culture our vanity sometimes needs to be
punctured and deflated — and that’s not such a bad thing. To paraphrase Ecclesiastes,
better to be a scarred and living dog than to be a dead lion. (Jennings, par. 13)
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next section
of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve it.
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
Reflecting on Reflection
In this chapter, you have read several reflective essays and have written one of your own. To
better remember what you have learned, pause now to reflect on the reading and writing
activities you completed in this chapter.
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement. Be specific about this contribution.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from the writing you did in response to prompts in this chapter, point out
the section or sections that helped you most.
2. Reflect more generally on how you tend to interpret reflective writing, your own as
well as other writers’. Consider some of the following questions:
Did you find rich enough material from your own personal ideas on a subject, or did
you conduct research or interview people to collect their ideas?
How might your gender, social class, or ethnic group have influenced the ideas you
came up with for your essay?
What contribution might reflective essays make to our society that other genres
cannot make?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about reflection, you have been practicing
metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing process. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 6
Explaining Concepts
Who was the audience? How educated was the audience in the field of the concept?
How did the writer tailor the explanation to help familiarize the audience with the
concept, given their age, level of expertise, and experience?
What was the main purpose? Why did the writer (or speaker) want the audience to
understand the concept? For example, was the goal for the audience to demonstrate
their understanding on a test, or the importance of the concept in their own lives?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the explanation was
presented? How was it appropriate or inappropriate for its audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING CONCEPT
EXPLANATIONS
This guide introduces you to concept explanations by inviting you to
analyze an intriguing selection by Susan Cain that explains
introversion:
Before you read, notice the title of this reading and the title of Cain’s book
(above). What do these titles lead you to expect?
As you read, think about the rhetorical sensitivity with which Cain is writing.
How effective is the opening paragraph as a hook to catch readers’ attention?
But is she?
Will this essay be about the benefits and drawbacks of relying on pharmaceuticals for
social anxiety?
But the ad’s insinuation aside, it’s also possible the young woman is
“just shy,” or introverted — traits our society disfavors. One way we
manifest this bias is by encouraging perfectly healthy shy people to
see themselves as ill.
What other disorders do people suffer from but don’t exist yet in name? Does naming
things matter?
Yet shy and introverted people have been part of our species for a
very long time, o en in leadership positions. We find them in the
Bible (“Who am I, that I should go unto Pharaoh?” asked Moses,
whom the Book of Numbers describes as “very meek, above all the
men which were upon the face of the earth.”) We find them in recent
history, in figures like Charles Darwin, Marcel Proust and Albert
Einstein, and, in contemporary times: think of Google’s Larry Page,
or Harry Potter’s creator, J. K. Rowling.
Next, Professor Wilson used fishing nets to catch both types of fish;
when he carried them back to his lab, he noted that the rovers
quickly acclimated to their new environment and started eating a
full five days earlier than their sitter brethren. In this situation, the
rovers were the likely survivors. “There is no single best … [animal]
personality,” Professor Wilson concludes in his book, Evolution for
Everyone, “but rather a diversity of personalities maintained by
natural selection.”
How are humans classified as shy or introverted? Who decides and based on what? Are
the same characteristics used to classify fish?
Once you know about sitters and rovers, you see them everywhere,
especially among young children. Drop in on your local Mommy and
Me music class: there are the sitters, intently watching the action
from their mothers’ laps, while the rovers march around the room
banging their drums and shaking their maracas.
Relaxed and exploratory, the rovers have fun, make friends and will
take risks, both rewarding and dangerous ones, as they grow.
According to Daniel Nettle, a Newcastle University evolutionary
psychologist, extroverts are more likely than introverts to be
hospitalized as a result of an injury, have affairs (men) and change
relationships (women). One study of bus drivers even found that
accidents are more likely to occur when extroverts are at the wheel.
In contrast, sitter children are careful and astute, and tend to learn
by observing instead of by acting. They notice scary things more
than other children do, but they also notice more things in general.
Studies dating all the way back to the 1960s by the psychologists
Jerome Kagan and Ellen Siegelman found that cautious, solitary
children playing matching games spent more time considering all
the alternatives than impulsive children did, actually using more eye
movements to make decisions. Recent studies by a group of
scientists at Stony Brook University and at Chinese universities using
functional MRI technology echoed this research, finding that adults
with sitter-like temperaments looked longer at pairs of photos with
subtle differences and showed more activity in brain regions that
make associations between the photos and other stored information
in the brain.
Once they reach school age, many sitter children use such traits to
great effect. Introverts, who tend to digest information thoroughly,
stay on task, and work accurately, earn disproportionate numbers of
National Merit Scholarship finalist positions and Phi Beta Kappa
keys, according to the Center for Applications of Psychological Type,
a research arm for the Myers-Briggs personality type indicator —
even though their IQ scores are no higher than those of extroverts.
Another study, by the psychologists Eric Rolfhus and Philip
Ackerman, tested 141 college students’ knowledge of 20 different
subjects, from art to astronomy to statistics, and found that the
introverts knew more than the extroverts about 19 subjects —
presumably, the researchers concluded, because the more time
people spend socializing, the less time they have for learning.
The psychologist Gregory Feist found that many of the most creative
people in a range of fields are introverts who are comfortable
working in solitary conditions in which they can focus attention
inward. Steve Wozniak, the engineer who founded Apple with Steve
Jobs, is a prime example: Mr. Wozniak describes his creative process
as an exercise in solitude. “Most inventors and engineers I’ve met
are like me,” he writes in iWoz, his autobiography. “They’re shy and
they live in their heads. They’re almost like artists. In fact, the very
best of them are artists. And artists work best alone . … Not on a
committee. Not on a team.”
What would the world look like if all our sitters chose to medicate
themselves? The day may come when we have pills that “cure”
shyness and turn introverts into social butterflies — without the side
effects and other drawbacks of today’s medications. (A recent study
suggests that today’s SSRI’s not only relieve social anxiety but also
induce extroverted behavior.) The day may come — and might be
here already — when people are as comfortable changing their
psyches as the color of their hair. If we continue to confuse shyness
with sickness, we may find ourselves in a world of all rovers and no
sitters, of all yang and no yin.
But aren’t there people who are truly sick and could benefit from medicine?
This seems like a productive route, but what would it look like practically?
It’s time for the young woman in the Zolo ad to rediscover her
allure.
READING FOR MEANING
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
It is possible that the lovely young woman has a life-wrecking form of social anxiety
….
TRANSITION
But the ad’s insinuation aside, it’s also possible the young woman is “just shy ,” or
introverted . … (pars. 3–4)
1. Find and highlight two or three of the sentence patterns she uses for cueing
contrast in paragraphs 9, 10, 13, 18, and 19.
2. Analyze what is being contrasted and how each contrast works.
But the ad’s insinuation aside, it’s also possible the young woman is “just shy ,” or
introverted — traits our society disfavors. One way we manifest this bias is by
encouraging perfectly healthy shy people to see themselves as ill.
FORECASTING STATEMENT
This does us all a grave disservice, because shyness and introversion — or more
precisely, the careful, sensitive temperament from which both o en spring — are
not just normal. They are valuable. And they may be essential to the survival of our species.
(pars. 4–5)
1. Skim the rest of the essay (pars. 6–28), underlining other places Cain forecasts
and summarizes main ideas or provides topic sentences, transitions, and
pronoun referents. How do the strategies she uses make her concept explanation
easier to follow?
2. Examine any places in the essay that you found hard to follow. How might Cain
have used one or more of these strategies to make her concept explanation
clearer?
CAIN’S IDEA ’
’
1. Review paragraphs 19, 20, or 21 to see how Cain uses a similar pattern. Mark the
following elements: Cain’s idea; the name(s) and credentials of the source or
sources; what the source found; text linking the source’s findings to the original
idea or extending the idea in some way.
2. Explain why writers, when using information from sources, o en begin by
stating their own idea (even if they got the idea from a source). What would be
the effect on readers if the opening sentence of paragraph 18 or 20 began with
the source instead of with Cain’s topic sentence?
Before you read, think about your own views about willpower. Is yours strong,
weak, or in between? What conditions affect the strength of your willpower?
As you read, think about the assumptions many people have about decisions.
For example, which decisions are more difficult than others? How are these
assumptions borne out or challenged in this essay?
Case 1 (heard at 8:50 a.m.): An Arab Israeli serving a 30-month sentence for fraud.
Case 2 (heard at 3:10 p.m.): A Jewish Israeli serving a 16-month sentence for assault.
Case 3 (heard at 4:25 p.m.): An Arab Israeli serving a 30-month sentence for fraud.
The odds favored the prisoner who appeared at 8:50 a.m. — and he
did in fact receive parole. But even though the other Arab Israeli
prisoner was serving the same sentence for the same crime — fraud
— the odds were against him when he appeared (on a different day)
at 4:25 in the a ernoon. He was denied parole, as was the Jewish
Israeli prisoner at 3:10 p.m, whose sentence was shorter than that of
the man who was released. They were just asking for parole at the
wrong time of day.
“By the end, you could have talked me into anything,” Twenge told
her new colleagues. The symptoms sounded familiar to them too,
and gave them an idea. A nearby department store was holding a
going-out-of-business sale, so researchers from the lab went off to
fill their car trunks with simple products — not exactly wedding-
quality gi s, but sufficiently appealing to interest college students.
When they came to the lab, the students were told they would get to
keep one item at the end of the experiment, but first they had to
make a series of choices. Would they prefer a pen or a candle? A
vanilla-scented candle or an almond-scented one? A candle or a T-
shirt? A black T-shirt or a red T-shirt? A control group, meanwhile —
let’s call them the nondeciders — spent an equally long period
contemplating all these same products without having to make any
choices. They were asked just to give their opinion of each product
and report how o en they had used such a product in the last six
months.
A erward, all the participants were given one of the classic tests of
self-control: holding your hand in ice water for as long as you can.
The impulse is to pull your hand out, so self-discipline is needed to
keep the hand underwater. The deciders gave up much faster; they
lasted 28 seconds, less than half the 67-second average of the
nondeciders. Making all those choices had apparently sapped their
willpower … .
It’s simple enough to imagine reforms for the parole board in Israel
— like, say, restricting each judge’s shi to half a day, preferably in
the morning, interspersed with frequent breaks for food and rest.
But it’s not so obvious what to do with the decision fatigue affecting
the rest of society . … Today we feel overwhelmed because there are
so many choices . … Choosing what to have for breakfast, where to
go on vacation, whom to hire, how much to spend — these all
deplete willpower, and there’s no telltale symptom of when that
willpower is low. It’s not like getting winded or hitting the wall
during a marathon.
Links
1Danziger, Shai, et al. “Extraneous Factors in Judicial Decisions.”
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences for the United States of
America, vol. 108, no. 17, 26 Apr. 2011, pp. 6889–92.
2“Dr. Roy Baumeister.” Faculty Directory, Psychology Dept., Florida
State U, 2013, psy.fsu.edu/faculty/baumeister.dp.html.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
The more choices you make throughout the day, the harder each one becomes for
your brain, and eventually it looks for shortcuts, usually in either two very different
ways. One shortcut is to become reckless: to act impulsively instead of expending the
energy to first think through the consequences (Sure, tweet that photo! What could go
wrong?) The other shortcut is the ultimate energy saver: do nothing (par. 5).
1. List other moments where Tierney uses the comparison/contrast and illustration
strategies to help explain the concept of decision fatigue. How does each of these
moments contribute to readers’ understanding of this concept?
2. Are there other writing strategies that Tierney uses productively? For example,
consider how he shows causes and effects through the illustrations he provides.
Jeff Howe
The Rise of Crowdsourcing
Jeff Howe, a journalist and author, is credited with coining the term “crowdsourcing”
in the essay below, which was published in Wired Magazine in 2006. In 2008, he
published Why the Power of the Crowd Is Driving the Future of Business, a book on the
same subject. Howe is a professor of journalism at Northeastern University in Boston,
Massachusetts, and a former Nieman Fellow at Harvard University. He previously
worked as a contributing editor at Wired Magazine and has written for Time, U.S. News
& World Report, The Washington Post, Mother Jones, and numerous other publications.
Before you read, consider what you may already know about crowdsourcing.
To what extent are you familiar with the concept?
As you read, pay attention to what Howe assumes his readers need to know
about crowdsourcing. How does he use examples to help explain this term that
was being introduced for the first time in this very essay?
1. THE PROFESSIONAL
All these companies grew up in the Internet age and were designed
to take advantage of the networked world. But now the productive
potential of millions of plugged-in enthusiasts is attracting the
attention of old-line businesses, too. For the last decade or so,
companies have been looking overseas, to India or China, for cheap
labor. But now it doesn’t matter where the laborers are—they might
be down the block, they might be in Indonesia — as long as they are
connected to the network.
Harmel isn’t the only photographer feeling the pinch. Last summer,
there was a flurry of complaints on the Stock Artists Alliance online
forum. “People were noticing a significant decline in returns on
their stock portfolios,” Harmel says. “I can’t point to iStockphoto and
say it’s the culprit, but it has definitely put downward pressure on
prices.” As a result, he has decided to shi the focus of his business
to assignment work. “I just don’t see much of a future for
professional stock photography,” he says.
2. THE PACKAGER
“Is that even a real horse? It looks like it doesn’t have any legs,” says
Michael Hirschorn, executive vice president of original
programming and production at VH1 and a creator of the cable
channel’s hit show Web Junk 20. The program features the 20 most
popular videos making the rounds online in any given week.
Hirschorn and the rest of the show’s staff are gathered in the
artificial twilight of a VH1 editing room, reviewing their final show
of the season. The horse in question is named Patches, and it’s
sitting in the passenger seat of a convertible at a McDonald’s drive-
through window. The driver orders a cheeseburger for Patches. “Oh,
he’s definitely real,” a producer replies. “We’ve got footage of him
drinking beer.” The crew breaks into laughter, and Hirschorn asks
why they’re not using that footage. “Standards didn’t like it,” a
producer replies. Standards — aka Standards and Practices, the
people who decide whether a show violates the bounds of taste and
decency — had no such problem with Elvis the Robocat or the
footage of a bicycle racer being attacked by spectators and thrown
violently from a bridge. Web Junk 20 brings viewers all that and
more, several times a week. In the new, democratic age of
entertainment by the masses, for the masses, stupid pet tricks figure
prominently.
The show was the first regular program to repackage the Internet’s
funniest home videos, but it won’t be the last. In February, Bravo
launched a series called Outrageous and Contagious: Viral Videos, and
USA Network has a similar effort in the works. The E! series The Soup
has a segment called “Cybersmack,” and NBC has a pilot in
development hosted by Carson Daly called Carson Daly’s Cyberhood,
which will attempt to bring beer-drinking farm animals to the much
larger audiences of network TV. Al Gore’s Current TV is placing the
most faith in the model: More than 30 percent of its programming
consists of material submitted by viewers.
Viral videos are a perfect fit for VH1, which knows how to repurpose
content to make compelling TV on a budget. The channel reinvented
itself in 1996 as a purveyor of tawdry nostalgia with Pop-Up Video and
perfected the form six years later with I Love the 80s. “That show was
a good model because it got great ratings, and we licensed the clips”
— quick hits from such cultural touchstones as The A-Team and Fatal
Attraction — “on the cheap,” Hirschorn says. (Full disclosure: I once
worked for Hirschorn at lnside.com.) But the C-list celebrity set soon
caught on to VH1’s searing brand of ridicule. “It started to get more
difficult to license the clips,” says Hirschorn, who has the manner of
a laid-back English professor. “And we’re spending more money now
to get them, as our ratings have improved.”
Choosing the winners, in other words, was not so difficult. “We had
about 20 finalists.” But Hirschorn remains confident that as user-
generated TV matures, the users will become more proficient and
the networks better at ferreting out the best of the best. The sheer
force of consumer behavior is on his side. Late last year the Pew
Internet & American Life Project released a study revealing that 57
percent of 12- to 17-year-olds online — 12 million individuals — are
creating content of some sort and posting it to the Web. “Even if the
signal-to-noise ratio never improves — which I think it will, by the
way — that’s an awful lot of good material,” Hirschorn says. “I’m
confident that in the end, individual pieces will fail but the model
will succeed.”
3. THE TINKERER
The future of corporate R&D can be found above Kelly’s Auto Body
on Shanty Bay Road in Barrie, Ontario. This is where Ed Melcarek,
57, keeps his “weekend crash pad,” a one-bedroom apartment
littered with amplifiers, a guitar, electrical transducers, two desktop
computers, a trumpet, half of a pontoon boat, and enough electric
gizmos to stock a RadioShack. On most Saturdays, Melcarek comes
in, pours himself a St. Remy, lights a Player cigarette, and attacks
problems that have stumped some of the best corporate scientists at
Fortune 100 companies.
Not everyone in the crowd wants to make silly videos. Some have the
kind of scientific talent and expertise that corporate America is now
finding a way to tap. In the process, forward-thinking companies are
changing the face of R&D. Exit the white lab coats; enter Melcarek-
one of over 90,000 “solvers” who make up the network of scientists
on InnoCentive, the research world’s version of iStockphoto.
The solvers are not who you might expect. Many are hobbyists
working from their proverbial garage, like the University of Dallas
undergrad who came up with a chemical to use inart restoration, or
the Gary, North Carolina, patent lawyer who devised a novel way to
mix large batches of chemical compounds.
“It was really a very simple solution,” says Melcarek. Why hadn’t
Colgate thought of it? “They’re probably test tube guys without any
training in physics.” Melcarek earned $25,000 for his efforts. Paying
Colgate-Palmolive’s R&D staff to produce the same solution could
have cost several times that amount — if they even solved it at all.
Melcarek says he was elated to win. “These are rocket-science
challenges,” he says. “It really reinforced my confidence in what I
can do.”
Melcarek, who favors thick sweaters and a floppy fishing hat, has
charted an unconventional course through the sciences. He spent
four years earning his master’s degree at the world-class particle
accelerator in Vancouver, British Columbia, but decided against
pursuing a PhD. “I had an offer from the private sector,” he says,
then pauses. “I really needed the money.” A succession of
“unsatisfying” engineering jobs followed, none of which fully
exploited Melcarek’s scientific training or his need to tinker. “I’m not
at my best in a 9-to-5 environment,” he says. Working sporadically,
he has designed products like heating vents and industrial spray-
painting robots. Not every quick and curious intellect can land a
plum research post at a university or privately funded lab. Some
must make HVAC systems.
It’s also not a bad deal for the companies that can turn to the crowd
to help curb the rising cost of corporate research. “Everyone I talk to
is facing a similar issue in regards to R&D,” says Larry Huston,
Procter & Gamble’s vice president of innovation and knowledge.
“Every year research budgets increase at a faster rate than sales. The
current R&D model is broken.”
4. THE MASSES
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Highlight the sources he quotes, paraphrases, or summarizes. Look for signal phrases
(made up of a reference to a speaker or source author and an appropriate verb),
which o en come a er the quotations in his essay, such as in the following example:
“‘If someone’s going to cannibalize your business, better it be one of your other
businesses,’ says Getty CEO Jonathan Klein” (par. 7).
Review the sections you highlighted. Write a paragraph addressing in which cases
Howe uses information from the different sources he cites to support this central idea,
as well as in which cases these sources provide context that helps you understand the
cultural and historical significance of crowdsourcing.
Melanie Tannenbaum
The Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly
Melanie Tannenbaum received her Ph.D. in quantitative psychology from the
University of Illinois at Urbana–Champaign, where she also taught. She is now a
freelance science communications strategist, consultant, science writer, and
psychology blogger who has contributed pieces to The Complete Guide to Science
Blogging (2015), The Open Laboratory Anthology for the Best Science Writing Online (2012,
2013), the British Psychological Society Research Digest, and In-Mind Magazine, as well as
peer-reviewed scientific journals. She founded PsySociety on the Scientific American
blog network, where the following essay was published in 2013. Because she wrote
for a scientific blog, Tannenbaum uses APA-citation style (see “Citing And
Documenting Sources in APA Style” in Chapter 12); accordingly, we have adapted the
original hyperlinks as in-text citations.
Before you read, recall times when you may have been a victim of sexism
(whatever your gender). What were the situations in which you felt you were
being judged merely on the basis of your gender or how others perceived your
gender?
As you read, consider how Tannenbaum’s presentation of the “benevolent
sexism” concept and the key words she uses makes you react. Do you identify
with her word choice and examples, or do they make you feel confused or
offended? Identify ways that Tannenbaum anticipates and acknowledges the
sensitivity of the topic.
In 1996, Peter Glick and Susan Fiske wrote a paper on the concept of
ambivalent sexism, noting that despite common beliefs, there are
actually two different kinds of sexist attitudes and behavior. Hostile
sexism is what most people think of when they picture “sexism” —
angry, explicitly negative attitudes towards women. However, the
authors note, there is also something called benevolent sexism:
We define benevolent sexism as a set of interrelated attitudes toward women that are sexist
in terms of viewing women stereotypically and in restricted roles but that are subjectively
positive in feeling tone (for the perceiver) and also tend to elicit behaviors typically
categorized as prosocial (e.g., helping) or intimacy-seeking (e.g., self-disclosure) (Glick &
Fiske, 1996, p. 491).
Yes, there’s actually an official name for all of those comments and
stereotypes that can somehow feel both nice and wrong at the same
time, like the belief that women are “delicate flowers” who need to
be protected by men, or the notion that women have the special gi
of being “more kind and caring” than their male counterparts. It
might sound like a compliment, but it still counts as sexism.
For a very recent example of how benevolent sexism might play out
in our everyday lives, take a look at Jennie Dusheck’s “Family Man
Who Invented Relativity and Made Great Chili Dies,” a satirical piece
which jokingly re-writes Albert Einstein’s obituary.
To quote:
He made sure he shopped for groceries every night on the way home from work, took the
garbage out, and hand washed the antimacassars. But to his step daughters he was just
Dad. ”He was always there for us,” said his step daughter and first cousin once removed
Margo.
Albert Einstein, who died on Tuesday, had another life at work, where he sometimes slipped
away to peck at projects like showing that atoms really exist. His discovery of something
called the photoelectric effect won him a coveted Nobel Prize.
Looks weird, right? Kind of like something you would never actually
see in print?
She made a mean beef stroganoff, followed her husband from job to job, and took eight years
off from work to raise three children. “The world’s best mom,” her son Matthew said.
But Yvonne Brill, who died on Wednesday at 88 in Princeton, N.J., was also a brilliant
rocket scientist, who in the early 1970s invented a propulsion system to help keep
communications satellites from slipping out of their orbits. (Comparing: Yvonne Brill, 2013)
I want to make one thing perfectly clear. There’s not a problem with
mentioning Brill’s family, friends, and loved ones. It’s not a problem
to note how wonderfully Brill balanced her domestic and
professional lives. Brill was a female scientist during a time when
very few women could occupy that role in society, and that means
something truly important.
But the problem here is really that if “Yvonne” were “Yvan,” the obit
would have looked fundamentally different. If we’re talking up the
importance of work-life balance and familial roles for women but
we’re not also mentioning those things about men, that’s a problem.
If a woman’s accomplishments must be accompanied by a
reassurance that she really was “a good Mom,” but a man’s
accomplishments are allowed to stand on their own, that’s a
problem. And lest you think that I only care about women, let’s not
act like this doesn’t have a real and dangerous impact on men, too. If
a man spends years of his life as a doting father and caring husband,
yet his strong devotion to his family is not considered an important
fact for his obituary because he’s male … then yes, that’s also a big
problem.
A er all, the obituary noted nothing more than how beloved Brill
was as a wife and a mother. Why should anyone be upset by that?
Sure, men wouldn’t be written about in the same way, but who
cares? It’s so nice!
We do not consider benevolent sexism a good thing, for despite the positive feelings it may
indicate for the perceiver, its underpinnings lie in traditional stereotyping and masculine
dominance (e.g., the man as the provider and woman as his dependent), and its
consequences are o en damaging. Benevolent sexism is not necessarily experienced as
benevolent by the recipient. For example, a man’s comment to a female coworker on how
“cute” she looks, however well-intentioned, may undermine her feelings of being taken
seriously as a professional (Glick & Fiske, 1996, pp. 491–492).
How might this play out in a day-to-day context? Imagine that there’s
an anti-female policy being brought to a vote, like a regulation that
would make it easier for local businesses to fire pregnant women
once they find out that they are expecting. If you are collecting
signatures for a petition or trying to gather women to protest this
policy and those women were recently exposed to a group of men
making comments about the policy in question, it would be
significantly easier to gain their support and vote down the policy if
the men were commenting that pregnant women should be fired
because they were dumb for getting pregnant in the first place.
However, if they instead happened to mention that women are much
more compassionate than men and make better stay-at-home
parents as a result, these remarks might actually lead these women
to be less likely to fight an objectively sexist policy.
“I MEAN, IS SEXISM REALLY STILL A
PROBLEM?”
“you mean you’re a girl, AND you’re beautiful? wow, i just liked science a lil bit more today
^^”
“I thought that because of all the ways you were so proud to spout off “I f — king love
science” in a difient swary manner against people who hated sware words being used that
you was a dude.”
“you’re a girl!? I always imagined you as a guy; don’t know why; well, nice to see to how
you look like i guess”
“What?!!? Gurlz don’t like science! LOL Totally thought you were a dude.”
“It’s not just being a girl that’s the surprise, but being a fit girl! (For any non-Brits, fit, in
this context, means hot/bangable/shagtastic/attractive).”
Right. See, that’s the thing. Elise felt uncomfortable with this, as did
many others out there who saw it — and rightfully so. Yet many
people would call her (and others like her) oversensitive for feeling
negatively about statements that appear to be compliments. Many
thought that Elise should have been happy that others were calling
her attractive, or pointing out that it’s idiosyncratic for her to be a
female who loves science. What Elise (and many others) felt was the
benevolently sexist side of things — the side that perpetuates a
stereotype that women (especially attractive women) don’t “do”
science, and that the most noteworthy thing to comment on about a
female scientist is what she looks like.
Unfortunately, it’s very likely that no one walked away from this
experience having learned anything. People who could tell that this
was offensive were obviously willing to recognize it as such, but
people who endorsed those statements just thought they were being
nice. Because they weren’t calling her incompetent or unworthy,
none of them were willing to recognize it as sexism, even when
explicitly told that that’s what it was — even though, based on
research, we know that this sort of behavior has actual, meaningful
consequences for society and for gender equality.
References
Becker, J., & Wright, S. (2011). Yet another dark side of chivalry:
Benevolent sexism undermines and hostile sexism motivates
collective action for social change. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 101(1), 62–77. doi:10.1037/a0022615
Dusheck, J. (2013, April 1). Guest Post: Family Man Who Invented
Relativity and Made Great Chili Dies. The Last Word on Nothing.
Retrieved from www.lastwordonnothing .com/2013/04/01/guest-
post-physicist-dies-made-great-chili/
Glick, P., & Fiske, S. (1996). The Ambivalent Sexism Inventory:
Differentiating hostile and benevolent sexism. Journal of
Personality and Social Psychology, 70(3), 491–512. doi:10.1037/0022-
3514.70.3.491
Glick, P., Fiske, S., Mladinic, A., Saiz, J., Abrams, D., Masser, B., …
López, W. (2000). Beyond prejudice as simple antipathy: Hostile
and benevolent sexism across cultures. Journal of Personality and
Social Psychology, 79(5), 763–775. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.79.5.763
Yvonne Brill, a pioneering rocket scientist, dies at 88. (2013). News
Diffs. Retrieved from
www.newsdiffs.org/diff/192021/192137/www.nytimes.com/2013/0
3/31/science/space/yvonne-brill-rocket-scientist-dies-at-88.html
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
How might this play out in a day-to-day context? Imagine that there’s an anti-female
policy being brought to a vote … (par. 22).
If benevolently sexist comments seem like nothing more than compliments why are
they problematic? … Well, for one thing, benevolent sexist statements aren’t all
sunshine and butterflies (par. 17).
ANALYZE & WRITE
Write a paragraph or two analyzing the strategies that Tannenbaum uses to make her
concept explanation easy to follow.
1. Reread the section titled “I Mean, Is Sexism Really Still a Problem?” and keep
track of how Tannenbaum uses forecasting questions to guide her readers. Did
you find this strategy effective?
2. Skim Tannenbaum’s essay, noting what other cueing devices — beyond section
headings and forecasting questions — she uses to guide readers through her
explanation. Which are most effective and which are least effective? Are there
any moments where you lost track of where you were headed?
Michael Pollan
Altered State: Why “Natural” Doesn’t Mean
Anything
Michael Pollan (b. 1955) is an author, activist, and professor who writes about the
intersection of nature and culture. He is a contributing writer for the New York Times
Magazine and a former executive editor for Harper’s. His essays have appeared in
numerous anthologies, and he is the author of multiple books, including How to
Change Your Mind (2018), Cooked: A Natural History of Transformation (2013, adapted
for Netflix in 2016), The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals (2006) and
In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto (2008). Pollan has won numerous prizes for his
journalism and his books, among them the President’s Citation Award from the
American Institute of Biological Sciences (2009) and the Voices of Nature Award from
the Natural Resources Defense Council (2009). He is the Lewis K. Chan Arts Lecturer
and Professor of the Practice of NonFiction at Harvard University, and he also holds
the position of John S. and James L. Knight Professor of Journalism at the University
of California, Berkeley’s Graduate School of Journalism. The essay below was
published in the New York Times Magazine in 2015.
Before you read, think about how you react when you hear the word natural.
Do you attach it as an adjective to any particular noun, such as natural
childbirth, or do you have a ready definition or association in your mind?
As you read, consider how Pollan engages his readers: Is it the subject matter,
the writing style, or something else?
It isn’t every day that the definition of a common English word that
is ubiquitous in common parlance is challenged in federal court, but
that is precisely what has happened with the word “natural.” During
the past few years, some 200 class-action suits have been filed
against food manufacturers, charging them with misuse of the
adjective in marketing such edible oxymorons as “natural” Cheetos
Puffs, “all-natural” Sun Chips, “all-natural” Naked Juice, “100 percent
all-natural” Tyson chicken nuggets and so forth. The plaintiffs argue
that many of these products contain ingredients — high-fructose
corn syrup, artificial flavors and colorings, chemical preservatives
and genetically modified organisms — that the typical consumer
wouldn’t think of as “natural.”
This last phrase, which I expect will soon be on many doctors’ lips,
indicates the enduring power of the adjective to improve just about
anything you attach it to, from cereal bars all the way on up to dying.
It seems that getting end-of-life patients and their families to
endorse “do not resuscitate” orders has been challenging. To many
ears, “D.N.R.” sounds a little too much like throwing Grandpa under
the bus. But according to a paper in the Journal of Medical Ethics,
when the orders are reworded to say “allow natural death,” patients
and family members and even medical professionals are much
more likely to give their consent to what amounts to exactly the
same protocols.
The American Puritans called nature “God’s Second Book,” and they
read it for moral guidance, just as we do today. Yet in the same way
we can rummage around in the Bible and find textual support for
pretty much whatever we want to do or argue, we can ransack
nature to justify just about anything. Like the maddening whiteness
of Ahab’s whale, nature is an obligingly blank screen on which we
can project what we want to see.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Before you read, consider what you know about animated films. Do you enjoy
watching them? Do you have a sense of what goes into making them?
As you read, pay attention to how Tucker describes the challenges of using
stop-motion animation. Does Tucker make it clear why, despite these
challenges, filmmakers continue to use this early approach to animation?
Stop-motion still plays a key role in the filming world today. It has
inspired new film art forms that are heavily used. For example,
time-lapse photography is a well-known technique used in film to
quickly show the passing of time. Stop-motion helped lead to the
time-lapse technique by stringing together individual photographs
in order to represent movement and time (“Introduction”). The
time-lapse process does take longer than typical stop-motion. In
time-lapse photography, a camera focuses on an object for as long as
a year, taking pictures periodically of the slow changes that occur.
Then the many pictures are played in quick succession to show the
changes. Popular subjects include the growth and blooming of a
flower, a day and night’s worth of city traffic, and the movement of
the sun and moon. These scenes in nature take anywhere from a day
to an entire year to take place, but with time-lapse/stop-motion the
entire process can be viewed in as little as ten seconds, which
creates an interesting illusion for the audience.
WORKS CITED
Delahoyde, Michael. “Stop-Motion Animation.” Dino-Source, Washington
State University, public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/stopmo.html. Accessed
19 Mar. 2018.
“Introduction to Stop Motion Animation.” Dragonframe,
www.dragonframe.com/introduction-stop-motion-animation.
Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.
Johnson, Dave. “Make a Time-Lapse Movie.” Washington Post, 9 Nov.
2005, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/ll/08/
AR2005110800094.html.
“Stop Motion Filming Technique.” Animation 101, ThinkQuest
Library,1999, waybadc.archive-
it.org/3635/20130831143030/http://library.thinkquest.org/25398/Cla
y/tutorials/stopmotion.html. Accessed 20 Mar. 2018.
“Tim Burton Talking about Animation.” Tim Burton Dream Site, Minad-
ream.com. Accessed 6 Nov. 2015.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Read to Summarize. Write a few sentences explaining the
concept of stop-motion animation.
2. Read to Respond. Write a paragraph analyzing anything that
seems surprising, such as how “stop-motion still plays a key role
in the filming world today” (par. 7) or that “some of the most
popular films on the Internet today are stop-motion films” (par.
8).
3. Read to Analyze Assumptions. Write a paragraph or two
analyzing an assumption you find intriguing in Tucker’s essay.
For example:
Assumptions about art. Tucker calls his essay “The Art and
Creativity of Stop-Motion” and throughout his essay refers to
stop-motion animation as a form of art. He notes at the end of
his essay that this “art form will forever captivate viewers and
inspire ingenuity” (par 8).
What assumptions does Tucker make about art? How does he
define art in such a way that includes stop-motion animation?
What assumptions do you have about what counts as art?
Where do these assumptions come from? Do you think that
stop-motion animation is an art form? Why or why not? How
do your ideas and values as they relate to art compare to
those of your classmates?
1. Reread paragraphs 1 and 4 of Tucker’s essay. How does Tucker use titles of films
to engage the readers’ interest in the concept of stop-motion animation?
2. What other strategies does Tucker use to engage the readers’ interest? Are they
effective?
Writing to Learn Concept
Explanation
Write a brief essay analyzing one of the readings in this chapter (or another selection,
perhaps one by a classmate). Explain how (and perhaps, how well) the selection works as a
concept explanation. Consider, for example, how it uses
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING ESSAYS
EXPLAINING CONCEPTS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to
explain a concept of your own. This Guide to Writing offers detailed
suggestions and resources to help you meet the special challenges
this kind of writing presents.
Choose a concept that you know a good deal about or about which you’d like to learn.
Consider what your readers already know about the concept and how your
explanation can add to their knowledge.
Research material that helps clarify or provides examples of your concept.
Consider the most effective writing strategies to convey your concept.
Think about how to engage your readers’ interest in your concept and guide them
through your explanation.
Choosing a Concept
You can determine what you already know about your concept by
explaining it briefly, using one or more of the strategies below as a
starting point:
Try to answer the questions you think your readers will have.
Conducting Background Research.
To learn more about conducting research and assessing credibility, see Chapter 12, pp. 583–
626.
“We do not consider benevolent sexism a good thing, for despite the positive feelings
it may indicate for the perceiver, its underpinnings lie in traditional stereotyping and
masculine dominance (e.g., the man as the provider and woman as his dependent),
and its consequences are o en damaging. Benevolent sexism is not necessarily
experienced as benevolent by the recipient …” (par 18).
“Most inventors and engineers I’ve met are like me,” he writes in iWoz, his
autobiography. (par. 21)
A working thesis will help you begin dra ing your essay
purposefully. Your thesis should announce the concept and focus of
the explanation, and may also forecast the main topics. Here are two
example thesis statements from the readings.
This does us all a grave disservice, because shyness and introversion — or more
precisely, the careful, sensitive temperament from which both o en spring — are
not just normal. They are valuable. And they may be essential to the survival of our
species. (Cain, par. 5)
Including Visuals
For more help with integrating sources, see “Using Sources to Support Your Ideas” in Chapter
12.
Your readers will want you to explain how the ideas from the
sources you cite reinforce the points you are making. Make sure you
comment on your sources, clearly defining the relationship between
your own ideas and the supporting information from sources.
( + )
The psychologist Gregory Feist found that many of the most creative people in a
range of fields are introverts who are comfortable working in solitary conditions in
which they can focus attention inward. (Cain, par. 21)
Notice in the example above that the writer also mentions the
source’s credentials, which is o en an option when introducing
sources with a signal phrase. Sometimes, however, writers choose a
descriptive adjective or verb to introduce a source, such as stresses,
approvingly reports, vividly details, disparagingly writes, emphasizes,
extols, or stays firm. By choosing carefully among a wide variety of
precise verbs, you can convey the attitude or approach of the source
as you integrate supporting information.
For help with outlining, see the model student essay in Chapter 1 and the “outlining”
coverage in Chapter 2.
The forecasting statement from your thesis can act as an informal
outline when writing about simpler concepts, but for more complex
concepts a tentative formal outline may be more useful.
Consider any outline you create tentative before you begin dra ing.
As you dra , you will usually see ways to improve on your original
plan. Be ready to revise your outline, shi parts around, or drop or
add parts as you dra .
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next section
of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve it.
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
To Engage Readers
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement. Be specific about this contribution.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from your research notes and the writing you did in response to prompts
in this chapter, point out the parts that helped you most.
2. Reflect more generally on explaining concepts, a genre of writing important in
education and in society. Consider some of the following questions:
When doing research, did you discover that some of the information on concepts
was challenged by experts? What were the grounds for the challenge? Did you think
your readers might question your information? How did you decide what
information might seem new or surprising to readers?
Did you feel comfortable in your roles as the selector and giver of knowledge?
Describe how you felt in these roles.
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about autobiography and literacy narratives,
you have been practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and responded
to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing process. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 7
Evaluation
Before you buy a computer, phone, or video game, do you take a look
at the reviews? Brief reviews, written by consumers, are easy to find,
but some are more helpful than others. The best reviewers know
what they’re talking about. They don’t just say what they like, but
they also justify why they like it, giving examples or other evidence.
Moreover, their judgment is based not on individual taste alone but
on commonly held standards or criteria. For example, no one would
consider it appropriate to judge an action film by its poetic dialogue
or its subtle characterizations; people judge such films by whether
they deliver an exciting roller-coaster ride. The usefulness of an
evaluation — be it a brief consumer comment or an expert’s detailed
review — depends on readers sharing, or at least respecting, the
writer’s criteria.
RHETORICAL SITUATIONS FOR
EVALUATIONS
Many people — including managers, reviewers, bloggers, and
ordinary consumers — write evaluations, as the following examples
suggest:
Who was the audience? How do you think presenting the evaluation to this audience
affected the writer’s (or speaker’s) judgment or the way the evaluation was
supported? For example, did the audience’s knowledge of the subject, or of subjects
like it, influence the reasons or examples given?
What was the main purpose? What did the writer (or speaker) want the audience to
learn? For example, did he or she want to influence the actions of audience members,
get them to think differently about the criteria or standards they should use when
judging subjects of this kind, get them to look at the subject in a new way, or
accomplish some other purpose?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the evaluation was
presented? What made the essay appropriate or inappropriate for its particular
audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING
EVALUATIONS
This guide introduces you to the basic features and strategies typical
of evaluative writing by inviting you to analyze an intriguing
selection by Amitai Etzioni that evaluates McDonald’s-type fast-food
jobs for high-school students:
Before you read, think about any jobs you have had during high school or
college (voluntary or for pay). Consider what you learned that might have made
you a better student and prepared you for the kind of work you hope to do in
the future.
As you read, think about how the standards or criteria that Etzioni uses to
evaluate jobs at fast-food restaurants would apply to the kinds of jobs you have
held, and whether they are criteria you would apply.
McDonald’s is bad for your kids. I do not mean the flat patties and
the white-flour buns; I refer to the jobs teenagers undertake, mass-
producing these choice items.
Why is it bad for a teenager to work at McDonald’s since jobs teach responsibility and
accountability?
At first, such jobs may seem right out of the Founding Fathers’
educational manual for how to bring up self-reliant, work-ethic-
driven, productive youngsters. But in fact, these jobs undermine
school attendance and involvement, impart few skills that will be
useful in later life, and simultaneously skew the values of teen-agers
— especially their ideas about the worth of a dollar.
True, you still have to have the gumption to get yourself over to the
hamburger stand, but once you don the prescribed uniform, your
task is spelled out in minute detail. The franchise prescribes the
shape of the coffee cups; the weight, size, shape, and color of the
patties; and the texture of the napkins (if any). Fresh coffee is to be
made every eight minutes. And so on. There is no room for
initiative, creativity, or even elementary rearrangements. These are
breeding grounds for robots working for yesterday’s assembly lines,
not tomorrow’s high-tech posts.
But couldn’t this encourage discipline, which is a useful skill for any job?
There are very few studies of the matter. One of the few is a 1984
study by Ivan Charper and Bryan Shore Fraser. The study relies
mainly on what teen-agers write in response to questionnaires
rather than actual observations of fast-food jobs. The authors argue
that the employees develop many skills such as how to operate a
food-preparation machine and a cash register. However, little
attention is paid to how long it takes to acquire such a skill, or what
its significance is.
O en the stores close late, and a er closing one must clean up and
tally up. In affluent Montgomery County, Md., where child labor
would not seem to be a widespread economic necessity, 24 percent
of the seniors at one high school in 1985 worked as much as five to
seven days a week; 27 percent, three to five. There is just no way
such amounts of work will not interfere with school work, especially
homework. In an informal survey published in the most recent
yearbook of the high school, 58 percent of the seniors acknowledged
that their jobs interfere with their school work.
The pay, oddly, is the part of the teen work-world that is most
difficult to evaluate. The lemonade stand or paper route money was
for your allowance. In the old days, apprentices learning a trade
from a master contributed most, if not all, of their income to their
parents’ household. Today, the teen pay may be low by adult
standards, but it is o en, especially in the middle class, spent largely
or wholly by the teens. That is, the youngsters live free at home
(“a er all, they are high school kids”) and are le with very
substantial sums of money.
Where this money goes is not quite clear. Some use it to support
themselves, especially among the poor. More middle-class kids set
some money aside to help pay for college, or save it for a major
purchase — o en a car. But large amounts seem to flow to pay for an
early introduction into the most trite aspects of American
consumerism: flimsy punk clothes, trinkets, and whatever else is the
last fast-moving teen craze.
One may say that this is only fair and square; they are being good
American consumers and spend their money on what turns them
on. At least, a cynic might add, these funds do not go into illicit
drugs and booze. On the other hand, an educator might bemoan that
these young, yet unformed individuals, so early in life driven to buy
objects of no intrinsic educational, cultural, or social merit, learn so
quickly the dubious merit of keeping up with the Joneses in ever-
changing fads, promoted by mass merchandising.
Many teens find the instant reward of money, and the youth status
symbols it buys, much more alluring than credits in calculus
courses, European history, or foreign languages. No wonder quite a
few would rather skip school — and certainly homework — and
instead work longer at a Burger King. Thus, most teen work these
days is not providing early lessons in work ethic; it fosters escape
from school and responsibilities, quick gratification, and a short cut
to the consumeristic aspects of adult life.
Go back to school.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
’
As many as two-thirds of America’s high school juniors and seniors now hold down
part-time paying jobs , according to studies. Many of these are in fast-food chains ,
of which McDonald’s is the pioneer, trend-setter, and symbol. (par. 2)
Writers usually declare their overall judgment early in the essay and
may repeat it in the essay’s conclusion. For example, Etzioni opens
with the straightforward judgment:
They provide very large numbers of teen jobs , provide regular employment , pay
quite well compared to many other teen jobs, and, in the modern equivalent of
toiling over a hot stove, test one’s stamina . (par. 5)
At first, such jobs may seem right out of the Founding Fathers’ educational manual
for how to bring up self-reliant , work-ethic-driven , productive youngsters. But
in fact, these jobs undermine school attendance and involvement, impart few skills
that will be useful in later life, and simultaneously skew the values of teen-agers —
especially their ideas about the worth of a dollar. (par. 3)
1. First, choose one of the reasons Etzioni introduces in paragraph 3 and find the
passage later in the essay where you think he supports that part of the argument.
2. Then analyze Etzioni’s argument. For example, what kinds of evidence does he
provide? Is the evidence appropriate and credible? Why or why not?
3. Would Etzioni’s original Miami Herald readers have found this part of the
argument convincing? Explain why or why not.
For more on evaluating the logic of an argument, see Chapter 2, pp. 60–62.
The authors argue that the employees develop many skills such as how to operate a
food-preparation machine and a cash register. However , little attention is paid to
how long it takes to acquire such a skill, or what its significance is.
What does it matter if you spend 20 minutes to learn to use a cash register, and then
— “operate” it? What skill have you acquired? It is a long way from learning to work
with a lathe or carpenter tools in the olden days or to program computers in the
modern age. (pars. 8–9)
Below are some typical sentence strategies for conceding, with cues
signaling concession highlighted:
True, you still have to have the gumption to get yourself over to the hamburger stand,
but once you don the prescribed uniform, your task is spelled out in minute detail.
(par. 7)
forecast their reasons early in the essay and repeat key terms
(or synonyms) from these reasons later in the evaluation
use topic sentences to announce the subject of each paragraph
or group of paragraphs
use transitions (such as but, however, on the other hand, thus) to
guide readers from one point to another
These strategies are all helpful and are o en expected in college
writing.
… these jobs undermine school attendance and involvement, impart few skills that
will be useful in later life , and simultaneously skew the values of teenagers —
especially their ideas about the worth of a dollar.
It has been a longstanding American tradition that youngsters ought to get paying
jobs . In folklore, few pursuits are more deeply revered than the newspaper route and
the sidewalk lemonade stand. Here the youngsters are to learn how sweet are the
fruits of labor and self-discipline (papers are delivered early in the morning, rain or
shine), and the ways of trade (if you price your lemonade too high or too low …). (par.
4)
Roy Rogers, Baskin Robbins, Kentucky Fried Chicken, et al. may at first seem
nothing but a vast extension of the lemonade stand … .
1. Look at the way Etzioni uses topic sentences in the rest of his essay to announce
the subject of individual paragraphs or groups of paragraphs.
2. Find a couple of examples that you think work well. What makes these topic
sentences effective?
READINGS
Matthew Hertogs
Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of the Effects
of Transcription Method on Student Learning
Matthew Hertogs wrote this essay when he was a sophomore at the University of Washington,
where he was pursuing a degree in computer science with a minor in mathematics. The essay was
published in Xchanges, an interdisciplinary Technical Communication, Writing/Rhetoric, and
Writing Across the Curriculum journal, which publishes two issues annually from its home in the
English Department at the University of New Mexico. This piece was published in an issue
dedicated to undergraduate research. Hertogs is currently a so ware engineering lead at Hiya, a
company that partners with carriers and smartphone makers to offer caller profile solutions and
spam protection for their customers.
Before you read, think about your own notetaking habits. When you are in class, do you tend
to take notes on paper or do you type them on your laptop or another electronic device?
As you read, think about the different kinds of evidence Hertogs uses to evaluate the two
kinds of notetaking he is researching.
INTRODUCTION
Although there are few studies specifically about typed versus handwritten
notes, there are a large number of studies about typed versus handwritten
compositions in general. While these studies may seem inconclusive due to
varying results as shown in the previous paragraph, Reay and Dunn believe
that the inconsistency of these experiments can be attributed to the negligence
of the researchers to the disparate transcription speeds of typing versus
handwriting; they found that the writing of those who were more proficient at
typing benefited from the use of word processing. In a university full of
technologically savvy college students, it makes sense that the inclusion of
word processing would have a beneficial impact on the quality of writing for
college students as certain studies have discovered (Bernhardt, Wojahn, and
Edwards, 1988).
METHODOLOGY
This research project attempts to determine whether handwritten notes versus
typed notes during class lectures are more beneficial for college students. To
address this question, I employed a mixture of qualitative and quantitative
procedures to analyze the notetaking processes and the actual notes of two
undergraduate students at a large, state university.
I asked both students to take notes for two days with each method — typing and
handwriting — and let me collect copies of their notes to analyze them for
differences in style, content, organization, and format. Each student’s notes
were quantitatively scored using a variation of the NOTES evaluation system1
created by Stahl, King, and Henk; the original NOTES model had to be adjusted
so that certain criteria were neutral for both methods of notetaking. For
example, the category “I use my pen for notetaking” would be removed
because it favors handwriting over typing; however, the issue of legibility that
this particular category addresses would still be considered in the qualitative
analysis of the notetaking process. A er collecting each individual’s notes and
scoring them according to the adjusted NOTES evaluation system, the average
score of the handwritten notes versus the typed notes was compared in an
attempt to reveal which method is more beneficial for students. The three
main categories within the NOTES system are format, organization, and
meaning, and the results of the data are displayed in these three categories for
less complicated comparisons. Finally, each student was interviewed at the end
of the process in an attempt to determine which notetaking method they most
commonly used and for what reasons. Through this interview process, the
notetaking strategies and overall benefits of each method of notetaking will
become more apparent, providing explanation and correlation with the
quantitatively assessed notes from each student.
There are limitations within this particular method due to a limited amount of
time and resources — most notably a small sample size and low number of
trials. To ensure statistically significant results, I would need a larger sample
size with randomly selected students, a control group of students that only take
notes with one method to reveal if the notetaking style changes between daily
lectures regardless of method, and a random selection for which method to
utilize first. Furthermore, when assigning scores to the notes using the NOTES
evaluation system, there would have to be multiple raters for each of the notes,
instead of just my singular ratings, to ensure validity. Unfortunately, this
experiment was unable to coordinate such an elaborate study procedure due to
lack of time and resources. Another limitation worth mentioning is that each
student will be taking notes in a different class according to their normal class
schedule, which may prove to be a confounding variable in this experiment.
However, the students all took notes in similarly structured classes that
featured extensive notetaking devoid of numbers or formulas, except for one
student who also took notes in a chemistry class for the purpose of
comparison.2 Finally, the fact that the students are aware that they will be
taking notes that will later be evaluated may alter their natural notetaking
habits. To counteract this response bias from the study, the student
participants were not given any information about the specific evaluation
process for the study so that they did not consciously or subconsciously alter
their notes to fit the specific positive characteristics that the evaluation took
into account.
Despite all these limitations, the method utilized in this research study will
hold merit because of its mixture of quantitative and qualitative analysis; if
both types of research end up with the same results, the shared conclusion
may contain more validity. With the shortage of time and resources for this
research study, this particular method is the most efficient way to identify and
recognize if there are differences between typed and handwritten notes. While
this study may not be able to completely confirm the variations between the
two methods, it will certainly lay the groundwork for future studies to
extensively measure this topic by identifying and introducing certain
discrepancies between typed and handwritten notes.
DATA
There were two students that took notes and participated in interviews about
their various notetaking strategies and perspectives on notetaking for this
study. Student 1 is an undergraduate freshman who is part of the
interdisciplinary honors program; he is planning to major in engineering and
he went to a public high school in California. Student 1 took notes with his
laptop for two days and wrote notes by hand for the next two days in Chemistry
142 and Honors 394.3 Student 2 is also an undergraduate freshman who is part
of the interdisciplinary honors program; however, unlike Student 1, he was
homeschooled. Student 2 took notes in Honors 230.4 for two days with his
laptop and wrote notes by hand for the next two days as well. Both students
used Word 2007 when typing their notes. The notes were scored using a
variation of the NOTES evaluation system (see tables 1-3 below).
FORMAT 11 11 9 9
ORGANIZATION 14 10 12 13
MEANING 10 10 12 12
Total Score 35 31 33 34
FORMAT 11 12 10 9
ORGANIZATION 13 14 12 13
MEANING 14 13 12 11
Total Score 38 39 34 33
Due to the disparities between the “meaning” scores of the Chem 142 and
Honors 394, the only class that revealed a significant difference between the
typed notes and the handwritten notes was Honors 394, in favor of typed notes.
In the Chemistry 142 class, Student 1’s typed notes had better “format” scores,
comparable “organization” scores, and lower “meaning” scores than the
handwritten notes so that the overall averages between the two methods of
transcription were approximately equal. In the Honors 394 class, the typed
notes scored higher in “format,” comparable in “organization,” and higher in
“meaning,” so the typed notes had an overall higher score than the
handwritten notes.
In the end, Student 1 believes that he can take better notes with the laptop for
lectures that are more word intensive rather than number intensive. However,
the typed notes are not so decidedly better to make him want to carry around
his “really heavy” laptop to all of his classes so he plans to continually
handwrite his notes.
FORMAT 10 9 7 11
ORGANIZATION 13 9 7 10
MEANING 10 9 7 10
Total Score 33 27 21 31
Average Score Typing: 30 Writing: 26
Although the quality of Student 2’s notes vacillates more than Student 1’s notes,
there are still evident patterns within the scoring system that can help identify
his beneficial tendencies with each method of notetaking. Student 2 stated that
he was never taught any particular form of notetaking, but he is intuitively able
to structure notes in a coherent, organized manner when the lecture logically
progresses through topics in a manner conducive to notetaking.
In all three of the categories, format, organization, and meaning, Student 2’s
typed notes score higher than his handwritten notes. Again, Student 2 was not
particularly surprised by these results, claiming that “once [he] actually sat
down and looked at the differences between the two, it was really obvious how
much better the typed notes were.” The lowest-scoring handwritten notes were
all squeezed into a tiny space and featured a jumbled diagram filled with
arrows doubling back to certain points and words crossed out. The lowest-
scoring typed notes were not much more sophisticated in an overall sense, just
listing random strings of details with spaces in between, but the utilization of
the word processing made the results more legible, more organized, and more
understandable. When I asked Student 2 about why he thought his typed notes
scored higher, he claimed that “the format helped to organize ideas and put
down relevant information.”
Another positive incentive for Student 2 to type notes would be the differences
in transcription speed for each method; Student 2 answered definitively that he
can type faster than he writes. This benefit was evident when analyzing the
differences between the higher-scoring typed notes and the higher-scoring
handwritten notes. In the typed notes, Student 2 was able to organize his
thoughts more clearly because he spent less time having to type out all the
details; the headings and subtopics were consistently grouped together and he
was able to summarize his thoughts in more detail than the handwritten notes.
Overall, Student 2 decided that the utilization of the laptop to take notes would
be beneficial to his learning in the Honors 394 class, but he also doubts that the
benefits from taking notes on the laptop would outweigh the negative aspects
of having to carry his laptop around such a large campus.
DISCUSSION
Overall, typing notes was found to be more beneficial for students in this study
due to three inherent advantages of the laptop — accessibility/legibility,
transcription speed, and organization. For instance, in all of the word-intensive
classes, the “format” score of the typed notes for both students was
consistently higher, due to the advantage of legibility and accessibility using a
laptop. One of the most significant and overlooked aspects of notetaking is the
ability to review one’s notes, and it was apparent that notes that were typed
were easier to access and to read, making them more beneficial for student
learning. As for transcription speed, both students were able to type faster,
which made it easier to keep up with the professor, record details, and focus on
connecting the main ideas of the lecture with those details. Being able to
transcribe the lecture quicker allowed the students to score higher in the
“meaning” category for the word-intensive classes. In contrast, for the
number-intensive class, the utilization of a laptop actually hindered the
transcription speed of the student because it was more difficult to input
numbers and formulae while typing; therefore, the scores in the “meaning”
category were actually higher for the handwritten notes in Student 1’s
Chemistry 142 class. Finally, the even spacing, bullet points, and indenting
provided by word processing helped the students keep their notes more
organized than they normally would be when handwriting. As a result, both
students used headings, subtopics, and bullet points more o en with their
typed notes and this was revealed through higher scores in the “organization”
category.
Another interesting aspect of the data that requires explanation is that Student
2’s typed notes only score higher than his written notes when averaged, but not
individually — that is to say, one of the handwritten notes scored higher than
one of his typed notes even though typed notes scored higher than the
handwritten notes when averaged. Although it may seem like this example
refutes the idea that typed notes are more beneficial than handwritten notes
for writing-intensive classes, it might just suggest that typed notes are only
comparatively better than handwritten notes for word-intensive classes. Since
the method of transcription is not the only variable affecting the quality of the
notes, the reason that one of Student 2’s typed notes scored lower than another
set of handwritten notes could easily be attributed to a variety of other factors
such as the material covered during that class, the mode of presentation,
and/or the mood of the student. It is possible that if Student 2 had handwritten
his notes on the same day that he typed the lower-quality typed notes, he
would have scored even lower. Therefore, the individual scores of each
transcription method should not be compared because it does not account for
variation due to many other confounding variables; rather, the averaged scores
for each transcription method should be compared, which reveals that typed
notes are more beneficial for students in a word-intensive class.
While this study does suggest that typing notes is more beneficial for students,
there are not enough people sampled to completely assert this idea. One would
need to use a large number of participants to definitively prove that one
method of transcription is more beneficial than another. However, even
though the quantitative results of this study are not necessarily able to be
generalized to the rest of the undergraduate population, they still reveal
valuable pieces of information about the notetaking process that should be
studied in further detail in the future.
While one could potentially argue against the validity of the quantitative data
analysis utilizing the NOTES evaluation system, it is undeniable that there are
quantifiable differences between the two methods of transcription. Even if one
has qualms with the means of assessing what qualifies as a beneficial
notetaking strategy, the differences in format, organization, and meaning
between the notes are quite apparent. This fact holds significance because it
paves the way for future studies to explore which method is more beneficial for
students; if this study had found that the typed and handwritten notes of each
student were mostly similar, that would indicate that there is likely no need to
pursue future research on the efficacy of competing transcription methods.
Most evident in Student 1’s case, typed notetaking was found to be more
beneficial for word-intensive lectures, but not necessarily for number-
intensive classes. Although Student 2 did not quantitatively assert this principle
(since he was unable to take notes in a math/science class), he mimicked this
idea throughout his interview, much like Student 1 did. While not entirely
surprising, this does have important ramifications for further research into
notetaking in the classroom. Different classes require different notetaking
methods and/or skills, and this fact should serve as a call for future researchers
to analyze how notetaking and learning differs between various classes within
the university.
One of the leading arguments against the inclusion of new technology in the
classroom is the supposed distracting nature of these devices. While it may be
true that laptops in the classroom pose distractions for students, it is uncertain
whether these distractions are significantly more disruptive than any other
form of distraction caused by handwritten notes. For both Student 1 and
Student 2, doodling was definitely a distraction during their class lectures;
most of their notes had doodles on them and they confirmed that doodling was
a distraction in their interviews. Even though it is unclear whether doodling or
Facebook is more distracting — Student 1 and Student 2 gave contradictory
answers on the issue — it is at least worth noting that distractions happen with
both methods of transcription. Therefore, instructors who forbid laptops in
their classroom because of their “distracting nature” may want to reconsider
their policies, especially if further studies confirm that typing notes is more
beneficial for students in their particular class.
Due to a small sample size, my findings may not definitively prove that typing
trumps handwriting notes, but they do reveal that there is a way to
quantitatively evaluate the differences between typed and handwritten notes
and that there are differences worth studying. As technology advances and
becomes an increasingly integral part of education, it is crucial for researchers
to continuously study how these technological advances impact students’
notetaking. For instance, my participants were only using laptops, but there
could be new and different results for a technology like the iPad, which has a
touch screen. Technology in the classroom will continue to change, and it is
essential that researchers continuously study the effects on students’
notetaking so that they can implement their findings and hopefully foster
positive notetaking strategies within the classroom.
WORKS CITED
D’Agostino, Susan. “Facebook and Texting vs. Textbooks and Faces.” Math Horizons.
18.1 (2010): 34. JSTOR. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. www.jstor.org/stable/10.4169/1
94762110X525548.
Dunn, Bill, and David Reay. “Word Processing and the Keyboard: Comparative Effects
of Transcription on Achievement.” Journal of Educational Research. 82.4 (1989):
237–45. JSTOR. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. www.jstor.org/stable/27540347.
Eggert, David C., and Robert L. Williams. “Notetaking in College Classes: Student
Patterns and Instructional Strategies.” Journal of General Education. 51.3 (2002):
173–99. JSTOR. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. www.jstor.org/stable/27797918.
Palmatier, Robert A., and J. M. Bennett. “Notetaking Habits of College Students.”
Journal of Reading. 18.3 (1974): 215–18. JSTOR. Web. 23 Oct. 2011.
www.jstor.org/stable/40009958.
Stahl, Norman A., James R. King, and William A. Henk. “Enhancing Students’
Notetaking through Training and Evaluation.” Journal of Reading. 34.8 (1991):
614–22. JSTOR. Web. 19 Oct. 2011. www.jstor.org/stable/40014606.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Assumptions about the value of a single study. Hertogs writes, “In general,
there are inconclusive results regarding the effectiveness of competing
transcription methods for expository compositions and virtually no results
on transcription methods for notetaking. However, by synthesizing what
other researchers have found to be beneficial notetaking strategies —
higher transcription speed, accessible storage, organization, etc. — with
data I collected from two university students, this study will fill the gap in
the research by assessing the effectiveness of each method of
transcription for notetaking” (par. 5)
Hertogs assumes that this study will fill in the gap he describes in
research on this subject. Is this an accurate representation of the
contribution of this study? How else might you characterize its
contribution?
Studies are not always replicated, making the results of a single study
hard to verify. While the results from a single study may not definitively
verify a hypothesis, what can you do with results from a single study?
What are other ways you can use the results?
Before you read, notice that Bogost begins with a narrative about Comcast’s
“pizza delivery stunt.” How does this story prepare you for what follows?
As you read, consider how effectively Bogost establishes his credibility as
someone in a position to comment on the relationships that brands try to
establish with customers. What in his evaluation helps demonstrate his
expertise?
I didn’t realize how seriously companies take social media until last
year, when I opened my front door and saw a delivery guy holding a
stack of pizza boxes up to his chin.
Then the pizzas arrived. Ten of them, from a local place that delivers
gluten-free pies. I was surprised, which is exactly the outcome
Comcast was a er.
Byrd has nearly 50,000 Twitter followers. But not everyone at the
receiving end of an elaborate branding exercise has as wide a reach
— and according to the marketers I spoke with, that’s fine. They
seem to delight in their own endeavors as much as their customers
are supposed to. Allebach sounded wistful when describing late-
night therapy sessions with lonely, down-on-their-luck Steak-umm
fans. Once, he told me, the company sent Walmart gi cards to a
customer whose apartment had burned in a fire. Lingeris expressed
deep pride in her role in Wilt and Byrd’s Kit Kat engagement.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread paragraphs 1–8, noting how Bogost introduces this strategy. What kinds
of examples and information does he share with his audience so they
understand what he will be evaluating?
2. How do the additional examples and details Bogost includes in later paragraphs
help you understand why this is an important subject and one worth evaluating?
3. How fair do you think Bogost’s evaluation of this marketing strategy is,
considering that the goal of marketing is to publicize a company in order to gain
more customers?
Malcolm Gladwell
What College Rankings Really Tell Us
Malcolm Gladwell (b. 1963) has a BA in history from the University of Toronto. He is a
staff writer for the New Yorker magazine and has written a number of best-selling
books, including Outliers: The Story of Success (2008), Blink: The Power of Thinking
without Thinking (2005), and most recently, David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and
the Art of Battling Giants (2013). He also hosts the podcast Revisionist History and has
given several TED talks. He has received the American Sociological Association
Award for Excellence in the Reporting of Social Issues and was named one of the
hundred most influential people by Time magazine. “What College Rankings Really
Tell Us” (2011) evaluates the popular U.S. News “Best Colleges” annual guide. You may
be familiar with this guide and may have even consulted it when selecting a college.
Excerpted from a longer New Yorker article, Gladwell’s evaluation focuses on the U.S.
News ranking system.
Before you read, think about the criteria that are important to you for choosing
a college.
As you read, Gladwell’s review, consider who, besides prospective college
students, would be likely to think the criteria U.S. News uses to rank colleges are
important, and why.
Car and Driver conducted a comparison test of three sports cars, the
Lotus Evora, the Chevrolet Corvette Grand Sport, and the Porsche
Cayman S. … Yet when you inspect the magazine’s tabulations it is
hard to figure out why Car and Driver was so sure that the Cayman is
better than the Corvette and the Evora. The trouble starts with the
fact that the ranking methodology Car and Driver used was
essentially the same one it uses for all the vehicles it tests — from
S.U.V.s to economy sedans. It’s not set up for sports cars. Exterior
styling, for example, counts for four per cent of the total score. Has
anyone buying a sports car ever placed so little value on how it
looks? Similarly, the categories of “fun to drive” and “chassis” —
which cover the subjective experience of driving the car — count for
only eighty-five points out of the total of two hundred and thirty-five.
That may make sense for S.U.V. buyers. But, for people interested in
Porsches and Corvettes and Lotuses, the subjective experience of
driving is surely what matters most. In other words, in trying to
come up with a ranking that is heterogeneous — a methodology that
is broad enough to cover all vehicles — Car and Driver ended up with
a system that is absurdly ill-suited to some vehicles … .
We use six factors from the 2009–10 academic year to assess a school’s commitment to
instruction. Class size has two components, the proportion of classes with fewer than
20 students (30 percent of the faculty resources score) and the proportion with 50 or
more students (10 percent of the score). Faculty salary (35 percent) is the average
faculty pay, plus benefits, during the 2008–09 and 2009–10 academic years, adjusted
for regional differences in the cost of living. … We also weigh the proportion of
professors with the highest degree in their fields (15 percent), the student-faculty
ratio (5 percent), and the proportion of faculty who are full time (5 percent).
This is a puzzling list. Do professors who get paid more money really
take their teaching roles more seriously? And why does it matter
whether a professor has the highest degree in his or her field?
Salaries and degree attainment are known to be predictors of
research productivity. But studies show that being oriented toward
research has very little to do with being good at teaching. Almost
none of the U.S. News variables, in fact, seem to be particularly
effective proxies for engagement. As the educational researchers
Patrick Terenzini and Ernest Pascarella concluded a er analyzing
twenty-six hundred reports on the effects of college on students:
The U.S. News rankings turn out to be full of these kinds of implicit
ideological choices. One common statistic used to evaluate colleges,
for example, is called “graduation rate performance,” which
compares a school’s actual graduation rate with its predicted
graduation rate given the socioeconomic status and the test scores
of its incoming freshman class. It is a measure of the school’s
efficacy: it quantifies the impact of a school’s culture and teachers
and institutional support mechanisms. Tulane, given the
qualifications of the students that it admits, ought to have a
graduation rate of eighty-seven per cent; its actual 2009 graduation
rate was seventy-three per cent. That shortfall suggests that
something is amiss at Tulane. Another common statistic for
measuring college quality is “student selectivity.” This reflects
variables such as how many of a college’s freshmen were in the top
ten per cent of their high-school class, how high their S.A.T. scores
were, and what percentage of applicants a college admits. Selectivity
quantifies how accomplished students are when they first arrive on
campus.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Why? [Director of Data Research Robert] Morse admitted that there was no formal
reason for that position. It was just a feeling. “We’re not saying that we’re measuring
educational outcomes,” he explained. (par. 9)
Not only does he present his reasons for disagreeing with Morse, but
Gladwell also expresses his attitude toward Morse’s explanation
through his choice of words. He continues in this tone when he
comments at the beginning of the next paragraph: “As answers go,
that’s up there with the parental ‘Because I said so’” (par. 10).
A writer’s tone, especially when sarcastic or mocking, can have a
strong effect on readers. Those who agree may appreciate it, but
those who disagree or are uncertain may be put off by it.
Before you read, think about what Rosen might mean by her title, “The Myth of
Multitasking.” What does the word myth lead you to expect her judgment to be?
As you read, think about your own experience with multitasking and what you
think its advantages and disadvantages are. How well does Rosen’s essay
resonate with your experience?
In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s, Lord
Chesterfield offered the following advice: “There is time enough for
everything in the course of the day, if you do but one thing at once,
but there is not time enough in the year, if you will do two things at a
time.” To Chesterfield, singular focus was not merely a practical way
to structure one’s time; it was a mark of intelligence. “This steady
and undissipated attention to one object, is a sure mark of a
superior genius; as hurry, bustle, and agitation, are the never-failing
symptoms of a weak and frivolous mind.”
In modern times, hurry, bustle, and agitation have become a regular
way of life for many people — so much so that we have embraced a
word to describe our efforts to respond to the many pressing
demands on our time: multitasking. Used for decades to describe the
parallel processing abilities of computers, multitasking is now
shorthand for the human attempt to do simultaneously as many
things as possible, as quickly as possible, preferably marshaling the
power of as many technologies as possible.
In the late 1990s and early 2000s, one sensed a kind of exuberance
about the possibilities of multitasking. Advertisements for new
electronic gadgets — particularly the first generation of handheld
digital devices — celebrated the notion of using technology to
accomplish several things at once. The word multitasking began
appearing in the “skills” sections of résumés, as office workers
restyled themselves as high-tech, high-performing team players.
“We have always multitasked — inability to walk and chew gum is a
time-honored cause for derision — but never so intensely or self-
consciously as now,” James Gleick wrote in his 1999 book Faster. “We
are multitasking connoisseurs — experts in crowding, pressing,
packing, and overlapping distinct activities in our all-too-finite
moments.” An article in the New York Times Magazine in 2001 asked,
“Who can remember life before multitasking? These days we all do
it.” The article offered advice on “How to Multitask” with
suggestions about giving your brain’s “multitasking hot spot” an
appropriate workout.
But more recently, challenges to the ethos of multitasking have
begun to emerge. Numerous studies have shown the sometimes-
fatal danger of using cell phones and other electronic devices while
driving, for example, and several states have now made that
particular form of multitasking illegal. In the business world, where
concerns about time-management are perennial, warnings about
workplace distractions spawned by a multitasking culture are on the
rise. In 2005, the BBC reported on a research study, funded by
Hewlett-Packard and conducted by the Institute of Psychiatry at the
University of London, that found, “Workers distracted by e-mail and
phone calls suffer a fall in IQ more than twice that found in
marijuana smokers.” The psychologist who led the study called this
new “infomania” a serious threat to workplace productivity. One of
the Harvard Business Review’s “Breakthrough Ideas” for 2007 was
Linda Stone’s notion of “continuous partial attention,” which might
be understood as a subspecies of multitasking: using mobile
computing power and the Internet, we are “constantly scanning for
opportunities and staying on top of contacts, events, and activities in
an effort to miss nothing.”
The Kaiser report noted several factors that increase the likelihood
of media multitasking, including “having a computer and being able
to see a television from it.” Also, “sensation-seeking” personality
types are more likely to multitask, as are those living in “a highly TV-
oriented household.” The picture that emerges of these pubescent
multitasking mavens is of a generation of great technical facility and
intelligence but of extreme impatience, unsatisfied with slowness
and uncomfortable with silence: “I get bored if it’s not all going at
once, because everything has gaps — waiting for a website to come
up, commercials on TV, etc.,” one participant said. The report
concludes on a very peculiar note, perhaps intended to be
optimistic: “In this media-heavy world, it is likely that brains that
are more adept at media multitasking will be passed along and these
changes will be naturally selected,” the report states. “A er all,
information is power, and if one can process more information all at
once, perhaps one can be more powerful.” This is techno-social
Darwinism, nature red in pixel and claw.
PAYING ATTENTION
Then again, perhaps we will simply adjust and come to accept what
James called “acquired inattention.” E-mails pouring in, cell phones
ringing, televisions blaring, podcasts streaming — all this may
become background noise, like the “din of a foundry or factory” that
James observed workers could scarcely avoid at first, but which
eventually became just another part of their daily routine. For the
younger generation of multitaskers, the great electronic din is an
expected part of everyday life. And given what neuroscience and
anecdotal evidence have shown us, this state of constant intentional
self-distraction could well be of profound detriment to individual
and cultural well-being. When people do their work only in the
“interstices of their mind-wandering,” with crumbs of attention
rationed out among many competing tasks, their culture may gain in
information, but it will surely weaken in wisdom.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
In one of the many letters he wrote to his son in the 1740s , Lord Chesterfield
offered the following advice: “There is time enough for everything … .” (par. 1)
“We have always multitasked … but never so intensely or self-consciously as now,”
James Gleick wrote in his 1999 book Faster . “We are multitasking connoisseurs …
.” (par. 3)
The psychologist who led the study called this new “infomania” a serious threat to
workplace productivity. (par. 4)
1. First, skim paragraphs 4–9 and highlight the names of authorities and the
research studies Rosen cites.
2. Then choose two sources, and determine how Rosen uses them to support her
judgment about the value of multitasking. Also notice how she integrates these
sources into her text.
3. Finally, consider why these sources might or might not be convincing for Rosen’s
readers. How convincing are they for you, and why?
Combining Reading Strategies
For guidelines on comparing and contrasting related readings, see “Comparing and
Contrasting Related Readings“ in Chapter 2.
Compare and contrast Rosen’s “The Myth of Multitasking” and Hertogs’s “Typing vs.
Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on Student
Learning,” thinking about issues such as these:
Both pieces address the role that distractions play in our lives today, including their
potential effect on how we take notes and whether we can multitask. Compare and
contrast how the authors establish their credibility when it comes to evaluating the
effects of distraction on these activities.
Compare how authoritative and knowledgeable Hertogs and Rosen seem. Point to
any places in their essays that either instill confidence in their knowledge or make you
wonder whether they know enough to make a judgment.
Reread both pieces, paying particular attention to the tone of the authors’
evaluations. Write a paragraph comparing the tones of the texts. Are there any
moments in either text where the author’s tone — whether toward the subject or the
reader — undermines the author’s credibility?
Christine Romano
Jessica Statsky’s “Children Need to Play, Not
Compete”: An Evaluation
Christine Romano wrote the following essay when she was a first-year college
student. In it, she evaluates a position paper written by another student, Jessica
Statsky’s “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” which appears in Chapter 8 of this
book. Romano focuses not on the writing strategies Statsky uses but rather on her
logic — that is, on whether Statsky’s argument is likely to convince her intended
readers. She evaluates the logic of the argument according to the criteria or standards
presented “Evaluating the Logic of An Argument” in Chapter 2.
Before you read, Romano’s evaluation, you might want to read Statsky’s essay,
thinking about what seems most and least convincing to you about her
argument that competitive sports can be harmful to young children.
As you read, think about Romano’s criteria. How important is it that the
supporting evidence for an argument be “appropriate, believable, consistent,
and complete” (par. 2)?
Parents of young children have a lot to worry about and to hope for.
In “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” Jessica Statsky appeals to
their worries and hopes in order to convince them that organized
competitive sports may harm their children physically and
psychologically. Statsky states her thesis clearly and fully forecasts
the reasons she will offer to justify her position: Besides causing
physical and psychological harm, competitive sports discourage
young people from becoming players and fans when they are older
and inevitably put parents’ needs and fantasies ahead of children’s
welfare. Statsky also carefully defines her key terms. By sports, for
example, she means to include both contact and noncontact sports
that emphasize competition. The sports may be organized locally at
schools or summer sports camps or nationally, as in the examples of
Peewee Football and Little League Baseball. She is concerned only
with children six to twelve years of age.
Other examples provide support for all the major reasons Statsky
gives for her position:
That competitive sports pose psychological dangers — children
becoming serious and unplayful when the game starts (par. 5)
That adults’ desire to win puts children at risk — parents
fighting each other at a Peewee Football game and a baseball
coach setting fire to an opposing team’s jersey (par. 8)
That organized sports should emphasize cooperation and
individual performance instead of winning — a coach wishing
to ban scoring but finding that parents would not support him
and a New York City basketball league in which all children play
an equal amount of time and scoring is easier (pars. 10–11)
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
… there are good reasons to consider them authoritative. First of all , the
newspaper writers. … Second , Statsky gives. … Third , Statsky quotes. …
(par. 4)
Other examples provide support for all the major reasons Statsky gives for
her position:
To conclude
1. First, find Romano’s thesis and forecasting statement, underlining the reasons
supporting her argument.
2. Then skim the essay, noting where each of her reasons is brought up again,
underlining topic sentences and any cues she uses to help readers follow her
argument.
3. How effectively does Romano use these devices to orient readers? Where, if
anywhere, would you appreciate more cueing?
presents the subject in a way that is appropriate for the purpose and audience;
supports the judgment with reasons and evidence based on shared criteria;
responds sensitively to possible objections and alternative judgments;
organizes the review clearly and logically, helping readers follow the argument.
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the academic habits of
mind through the following practices:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING
EVALUATIONS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief evaluation of your own. This Guide to Writing offers detailed
suggestions and resources to help you meet the special challenges
this kind of writing presents.
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options and list as many
subjects as you can. Below are some guidelines to help you choose a
promising subject, followed by suggestions for the types of subjects
you might consider writing about.
you can view and review (for example, a location you can visit; a
printed text; or a website or digital recording from which you
can capture stills or video clips to use as examples);
is typically evaluated according to criteria or standards of
judgment that you understand and share with your readers;
has strengths and/or weaknesses you could illustrate.
What Do I Think?
Consider what you think about the different qualities of your subject
and how these qualities might factor into your evaluation.
► I expect to be or .
► I dislike it when are .
Who are your readers, and why will they be reading your evaluation?
Is the subject new or familiar to them?
A working thesis will help you begin dra ing your essay
purposefully. Your thesis should announce your subject and make
your overall judgment clear.
As you develop your argument, you may want to rework your thesis
to make it more compelling by sharpening the language and
perhaps also by forecasting your reasons. You may also need to
qualify your judgment with words like generally, may, or in part.
McDonald’s is bad for your kids. … [T]hese jobs undermine school attendance and
involvement, impart few skills that will be useful in later life, and simultaneously
skew the values of teenagers — especially their ideas about the worth of a dollar.
(Etzioni, pars. 1, 3)
While her logic is appropriate, believable, and consistent, her argument also has
weaknesses. It seems incomplete because it neglects to anticipate parents’
predictable questions and objections and because it fails to support certain parts
fully. (Romano, par. 2)
The following activities will help you find reasons and evidence to
support your evaluation. Begin by writing down what you already
know. You can do some focused research later to fill in the details.
List the qualities of the subject. Begin by reviewing the criteria and
the value terms you have already used to describe the subject. These
are the potential reasons for your judgment.
Write steadily for at least five minutes, developing your reasons. Ask
yourself questions like these:
Make notes of the evidence you will use to support your judgment.
Evidence you might use to support each reason may include the
following:
examples
quotations from authorities
textual evidence (quotations, paraphrases, or summaries)
illustrations, such as screenshots, video clips, or photographs
statistics
comparisons or contrasts
You may already have some evidence you could use. If you lack
evidence for any of your reasons, make a Research to Do note for
later.
Researching Your Evaluation
Consult your notes to determine what you need to find out. If you
are evaluating a subject that others have written about, try searching
for articles or books on your topic. Enter keywords or phrases
related to the subject, genre, or category into the search box of
For more about searching a database or catalog, see Chapter 12, pp. 591–595.
To Concede
Note: Be sure to cite the source of visual or audio elements you did
not create, and get permission from the source if your essay is going
to be published on a website that is not password protected.
Romano’s Summary
DESCRIBES STATSKY’S MOVES
For example, in paragraph 3, Statsky offers the reason that competitive sports may
damage children’s bodies and that contact sports may be especially injurious . She
supports this reason by paraphrasing Koppett’s statement that muscle strain or even
permanent injury may result when a twelve-year-old throws curve balls . She
then quotes Tutko on the dangers of tackle football. (Romano, par. 3)
One readily understandable danger of overly competitive sports is that they entice
children into physical actions that are bad for growing bodies. … Although the
official Little League website acknowledges that children do risk injury playing
baseball, it insists that “severe injuries … are infrequent,” the risk “far less than the
risk of riding a skateboard, a bicycle, or even the school bus” (“Little League Parent
Responsibilities”). Nevertheless, Leonard Koppett in Sports Illusion, Sports Reality
claims that a twelve-year-old trying to throw a curve ball, for example, may put
abnormal strain on developing arm and shoulder muscles, sometimes resulting in
lifelong injuries (294). Contact sports like football can be even more hazardous.
Thomas Tutko … writes:
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next two
parts of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve it.
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
Reflecting on Evaluation
In this chapter, you have read critically several evaluative essays and have written one of
your own. To better remember what you have learned, pause now to reflect on the reading
and writing activities you completed in this chapter.
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from your explorations of alternative points of view, point out the
strategies that helped you most.
If you got good advice from a critical reader, explain exactly how the person helped
you — perhaps by identifying a problem in your dra or by helping you add a new
dimension to your writing.
2. Reflect more generally on evaluative essays, a genre of writing important in education
and in society. Consider some of the following questions:
How confident do you feel about asserting a judgment and supporting it?
How comfortable are you playing the role of judge and jury on the subject?
How do your personal preferences and values influence your judgment?
How might your gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, or social class influence
your ideas about the subject?
What contribution might evaluative essays make to our society that other genres
cannot make?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about evaluation, you have been practicing
metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind as you read and responded to the
material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing process. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 8
Arguing for a Position
Who was the audience? Consider how communicating to the particular audience
(such as a friend rather than a teacher, or a group of your peers rather than a
gathering of their parents) shaped the argument. How much did the audience already
know about the topic, and had they already taken their own position? Did you or the
author choose particular details or evidence because you knew it would be
convincing to your audience? How was the tone tailored to appeal to them —
informal, perhaps, for friends, more formal for parents or teachers?
What was the main purpose? Was the goal to convince the audience of the rightness of
the position, to show several points of view, or perhaps simply to shi their
perspective on a controversial topic?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the argument was presented?
What made it appropriate or inappropriate for its particular audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING ESSAYS
ARGUING FOR A POSITION
This guide introduces you to writing that takes a position by inviting
you to analyze a brief but impassioned essay about science by
Christie Aschwanden:
Before you read, think about your own experiences with science, either in
school or out of it. What do you think the goal of science is?
As you read, think about the relationship that Aschwanden sets up between
science and humans. What role does Aschwanden say humans play in science,
and is she persuasive?
Science is being turned against itself. For decades, its twin ideals of
transparency and rigor have been weaponized by those who
disagree with results produced by the scientific method. Under the
Trump administration, that fight has ramped up again.
The same entreaties crop up again and again: We need to root out
conflicts. We need more precise evidence. What makes these
arguments so powerful is that they sound quite similar to the points
raised by proponents of a very different call for change that’s
coming from within science. This other movement strives to
produce more robust, reproducible findings. Despite having
dissimilar goals, the two forces espouse principles that look
surprisingly alike:
Science needs to be transparent.
Results and methods should be openly shared so that outside
researchers can independently reproduce and validate them.
The methods used to collect and analyze data should be
rigorous and clear, and conclusions must be supported by
evidence.
The sound science push is no longer just Philip Morris sowing doubt
about the links between cigarettes and cancer. It’s also a 1998 action
plan by the American Petroleum Institute, Chevron and Exxon Mobil
to “install uncertainty” about the link between greenhouse gas
emissions and climate change (“1998 American Petroleum”). It’s
industry-funded groups’ late-1990s effort to question the science the
EPA was using to set fine-particle-pollution air-quality standards that
the industry didn’t want (Kaiser). And then there was the more
recent effort by Dow Chemical to insist on more scientific certainty
before banning a pesticide that the EPA’s scientists had deemed risky
to children (Biesecker). Now comes a move by the Trump
administration’s EPA to repeal a 2015 rule on wetlands protection by
disregarding particular studies. (To name just a few examples.)
What kinds of studies are they ignoring? Do they have other studies they are relying on,
instead?
Some of these ploys are getting a fresh boost from Congress. The
Data Quality Act (also known as the Information Quality Act) was
reportedly written by an industry lobbyist and quietly passed as part
of an appropriations bill in 2000. The rule mandates that federal
agencies ensure the “quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of
information” that they disseminate, though it does little to define
what these terms mean. The law also provides a mechanism for
citizens and groups to challenge information that they deem
inaccurate, including science that they disagree with. “It was passed
in this very quiet way with no explicit debate about it — that should
tell you a lot about the real goals,” Levy said.
But what’s most telling about the Data Quality Act is how it’s been
used, Levy said. A 2004 Washington Post analysis found that in the
20 months following its implementation, the act was repeatedly
used by industry groups to push back against proposed regulations
and bog down the decision-making process (Weiss). Instead of
deploying transparency as a fundamental principle that applies to
all science, these interests have used transparency as a weapon to
attack very particular findings that they would like to eradicate.
Most scientific controversies aren’t about science at all, and once the
sides are drawn, more data is unlikely to bring opponents into
agreement. Michael Carolan, who researches the sociology of
technology and scientific knowledge at Colorado State University,
wrote in a 2008 paper about why objective knowledge is not enough
to resolve environmental controversies (Carolan). “While these
controversies may appear on the surface to rest on disputed
questions of fact, beneath o en reside differing positions of value;
values that can give shape to differing understandings of what ‘the
facts’ are.” What’s needed in these cases isn’t more or better science,
but mechanisms to bring those hidden values to the forefront of the
discussion so that they can be debated transparently. “As long as we
continue down this unabashedly naive road about what science is,
and what it is capable of doing, we will continue to fail to reach any
sort of meaningful consensus on these matters,” Carolan writes.
These controversies are really about values, not scientific facts, and
acknowledging that would allow us to have more truthful and
productive debates. What would that look like in practice? Instead of
cherry-picking evidence to support a particular view (and insisting
that the science points to a desired action), the various sides could
lay out the values they are using to assess the evidence.
Do the sides even recognize the values that inform their assessments?
Works Cited
“1998 American Petroleum Institute Global Climate Science
Communications Team Action Plan.” Climate Files, 2018,
www.climatefiles.com/exxonmobil/1998-global-climate-science-
communications-team-action-plan/.
Biesecker, Michael. “Correction: EPA-Dow Chemical Story.” The Associated
Press, 3 July 2017,
www.apnews.com/2350d7be5e24469ab445089bf663cdcb.
Carolan, Michael S. “The Bright- and Blind-Spots of Science: Why
Objective Knowledge Is Not Enough to Resolve Environmental
Controversies.” Critical Sociology, vol. 34, no. 5, Sept. 2008, pp. 725–
740, doi:10.1177/0896920508093365.
DiChristopher, Tom. “EPA chief Scott Pruitt says carbon dioxide is not a
primary contributor to global warming.” CNBC, 10 Mar. 2017,
www.cnbc.com/2017/03/09/epa-chief-scott-pruitt.html.
Kaiser, Jocelyn. “Showdown Over Clean Air Science.” Science, vol. 277,
no. 5325, pp. 466–478,
www.science.sciencemag.org/content/277/5325/news-summaries.
Mooney, Chris. “Trump’s top environmental pick says she has ‘many
questions’ about climate change.” The Washington Post, 8 Nov. 2017,
www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/11/08/trumps-top-environmental-pick-says-
she-has-many-questions-about-climate-change/?
utm_term=.8acdb0fc7007.
Oreskes, Naomi, writer. Merchants of Doubt. Directed by Robert Kenner,
Sony Picture Classics and Mongrel Media, 2014.
Ong, E K, and S A Glantz. “Constructing ‘Sound Science’ and ‘Good
Epidemiology’: Tobacco, Lawyers, and Public Relations Firms.”
American Journal of Public Health, vol. 91, no. 11, 2001, pp. 1749–
1757, www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1446868/.
“Smoking and Health Proposal.” Brown and Williamson Records, 1969, pp.
1–9. www.industrydocuments.ucsf.edu/tobacco/docs/#id=psdw0147.
“Trump NASA Nominee Rep Jim Bridenstine (R-OK) Demands Obama
Apologize on Global Warming.” YouTube, 24 Mar. 2014,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=GUcsAFnwC7k.
Weiss, Rick. “’Data Quality’ Law Is Nemesis of Regulation.” The
Washington Post, 16 Aug. 2004, www.washingtonpost.com/wp-
dyn/articles/A3733-2004Aug15.html.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
For instance, in Europe, many decisions are guided by the precautionary principle —
a system that values caution in the face of uncertainty and says that when the risks
are unclear, it should be up to industries to show that their products and processes
are not harmful, rather than requiring the government to prove that they are harmful
before they can be regulated. By contrast, U.S. agencies tend to wait for strong
evidence of harm before issuing regulations. Both approaches have critics, but the
difference between them comes down to priorities: Is it better to exercise caution at
the risk of burdening companies and perhaps the economy, or is it more important to
avoid potential economic downsides even if it means that sometimes a harmful
product or industrial process goes unregulated? (par. 22)
1. Reread paragraphs 1–10, where Aschwanden introduces the issue, and underline
the historical and cultural context Aschwanden includes. How does this context
help readers understand the issue and its relevance?
2. In the final paragraph, Aschwanden writes, “Science matters, and we need to do
it as rigorously as possible.” Where in the essay does Aschwanden show why
science matters? What strategies does she use to demonstrate the importance of
science?
3. Reread the essay to see how Aschwanden presents this issue fairly and credibly
by quoting sources on different sides of the debate about science. Notice how
she presents the proponents of the open science movement and the sound
science movement. What words and phrases lend fairness and rhetorical
sensitivity to her representations of both sides? How does this kind of
presentation affect her credibility, particularly once she goes on to argue for her
position?
1. Underline the first place in which Aschwanden explicitly asserts her position.
Note any key words she uses there.
2. Reread the essay and put brackets around the sentences that restate the thesis in
various ways.
3. Now examine how Aschwanden restates her thesis. Look closely at the language
she uses to see whether she repeats key words, uses synonyms for them, or adds
new phrasing. What do you learn from Aschwanden’s repetition and her
variations?
It might seem like an easy task to sort good science from bad, but in reality it’s not
so simple. (par. 18)
Before you read, consider what you know about the heroin and opioid crisis
and how you know it. Has the crisis affected you or anyone you know?
As you read, consider how an op-ed — an opinion editorial — is different from
academic essays that argue for a position. How does Holmes develop and
support his position? What kinds of evidence does Holmes use?
It’s easy to distance yourself from tragedy, even when it’s happening
in your own town. One tragedy becomes like another, not really
hitting you until it hits you personally. It then becomes something
else, so powerful it’s almost surreal. Imagine what its like to enter
adulthood knowing a good portion of your friends are either opioid
or heroin addicts, or know others who are. For myself and much of
my generation, that’s increasingly the reality. Fortunately, I haven’t
lost any people yet. But that, sadly, can’t be said for some of my
closest friends. Without naming names or casting blame, that’s the
story I need to share.
That was from the ages of 15–18. I’m 21 now, and things have shi ed
in the oddest of ways. At first you hear about this kid snorting
something for giggles, then one too many stories of heroin use. Fall
and winter seemed to bring rehab admissions, and seasonal
depression. The use of opioids and heroin were closely related;
depending on which drug is easier to obtain.
Being unlucky means going about your life until, one day, you hear
someone’s gone. One friend of mine lost several people in less than
a year. They were all kids his age, 18–19, or younger. Punctuating
that tragedy were mug shots of those you once knew–arrested for
opioid possession or distribution. They’d occasionally dri through
your Facebook feed and then away again. You let it pass as if it’s just
another meme or pointless viral video. Except it’s not.
And where’s the response from city and county officials? Last year
the Milwaukee Common Council released a report called “888
Bodies and Counting,” which found there was a 495 percent increase
in heroin-related deaths in Milwaukee County between 2005 and
2014 along with a big increase in opioid-related deaths (Murphy).7
But where’s the followup to this report? Where’s the task forces,
treatments and visionary, daring new ideas tested in other states?
What about protests or demonstrations? Some treatment centers
have cropped up, but the response pales in comparison to the issue
at hand. Each day spent ignoring this crisis on a local level is a
subtle insult to the victims. It relegates the issue to the periphery,
leaving only shame for those caught in addiction.
Which leads to another thing that’s widely known, but never talked
about: addict shaming. For many people, whether younger, say 15–
21, or older users, shame and stigma is real. I’ve seen people who
weren’t addicts, but simply hung around some, ostracized by others.
It’s o en a matter of standing by someone you’ve known your entire
life. But to onlookers, those perhaps not as immediately affected by
the epidemic, judgements come easy.
Treating the addicted like lepers doesn’t solve anything. How many
families attempt to help their addicted loved ones, and how many
disown them? This is a facet of the crisis that needs to be openly
acknowledged. Without doing so, I fear America may never come to
grips with this issue. We must see addicts as people, not rotten fruits
to be shaken from the tree. Drug users are people, like you or me,
and they need our help.
Works Cited
Murphy, Michael J. “888* Bodies and Counting.” Milwaukee Common
Council, 30 Nov. 2018,
https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/3149191-888-Bodies-
and-Counting-Milwaukee-Common-Council.html.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread paragraphs 1–5, highlighting the phrases and words Holmes uses that
suggest what his position is on the heroin and opioid crisis in Milwaukee.
2. Now find the moment in the op-ed where Holmes asserts his position. How
effective is this placement for you as a reader? Is this the position you expected
him to take? Why or why not?
Sherry Turkle
The Flight from Conversation
Sherry Turkle (b. 1948), professor of the social studies of science and technology at
the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, earned her Ph.D. from Harvard University.
She is the author of many books, including Second Self: Computers and the Human Spirit
(1984); Life on the Screen: Identity in the Age of the Internet (1995); and Alone Together:
Why We Expect More from Technology and Less from Each Other (2011). Turkle’s most
recent book is Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in the Digital Age (2015), and
she has given a TED talk and hosts a podcast on the same topic. Turkle is a media
commentator on the social and psychological effects of technology. The article below
was published in the Sunday Review section of the New York Times in 2012.
Before you read, think about how much time you spend communicating with
friends and family via “texting and e-mail and posting” (par. 10) versus how
much time you spend talking with friends and family over the phone or face-to-
face.
As you read, pay attention to the kinds of evidence Turkle provides to support
her assertions, such as quotations from interviews and written sources,
examples, statistics, illustrations, and so on.
Texting and e-mail and posting let us present the self we want to be.
This means we can edit. And if we wish to, we can delete. Or
retouch: the voice, the flesh, the face, the body. Not too much, not
too little — just right.
Human relationships are rich; they’re messy and demanding. We
have learned the habit of cleaning them up with technology. And the
move from conversation to connection is part of this. But it’s a
process in which we shortchange ourselves. Worse, it seems that
over time we stop caring, we forget that there is a difference.
And so many people found this amazing. Like the sophomore who
wants advice about dating from artificial intelligence and those who
look forward to computer psychiatry, this enthusiasm speaks to how
much we have confused conversation with connection and
collectively seem to have embraced a new kind of delusion that
accepts the simulation of compassion as sufficient unto the day. And
why would we want to talk about love and loss with a machine that
has no experience of the arc of human life? Have we so lost
confidence that we will be there for one another?
We expect more from technology and less from one another and
seem increasingly drawn to technologies that provide the illusion of
companionship without the demands of relationship. Always-on /
always-on-you devices provide three powerful fantasies: that we will
always be heard; that we can put our attention wherever we want it
to be; and that we never have to be alone. Indeed our new devices
have turned being alone into a problem that can be solved.
When people are alone, even for a few moments, they fidget and
reach for a device. Here connection works like a symptom, not a
cure, and our constant, reflexive impulse to connect shapes a new
way of being.
So I say, look up, look at one another, and let’s start the
conversation.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Read to Summarize. Write a sentence or two explaining
Turkle’s position on digitally mediated communication (texting,
e-mailing, and posting) versus conversation.
2. Read to Respond. Write a paragraph analyzing anything that
seems contradictory, such as Turkle’s claim about the messiness
(par. 11) of relationships conducted face-to-face or via
telephone conversations versus via texting, posting, and e-
mailing; or Turkle’s denial that “our little ‘sips’ of online
connection add up to a big gulp of real conversation” (par. 12).
3. Read to Analyze Assumptions. Write a paragraph or two
analyzing an assumption you find intriguing in Turkle’s essay.
For example:
Before you read, think about how (or whether) you make an effort to protect
your privacy on social networking and other websites.
As you read, notice the sources cited in the opening paragraphs, and consider
how they contribute to your understanding of why many people think privacy is
not something they should be concerned about.
Legal and policy solutions focus too much on the problems under
the Orwellian metaphor — those of surveillance — and aren’t
adequately addressing the Kafkaesque problems — those of
information processing. The difficulty is that commentators are
trying to conceive of the problems caused by databases in terms of
surveillance when, in fact, those problems are different.
Commentators o en attempt to refute the nothing-to-hide argument
by pointing to things people want to hide. But the problem with the
nothing-to-hide argument is the underlying assumption that privacy
is about hiding bad things. By accepting this assumption, we
concede far too much ground and invite an unproductive discussion
about information that people would very likely want to hide. As the
computer-security specialist Schneier aptly notes, the nothing-to-
hide argument stems from a faulty “premise that privacy is about
hiding a wrong.” Surveillance, for example, can inhibit such lawful
activities as free speech, free association, and other First
Amendment rights essential for democracy.
Privacy is rarely lost in one fell swoop. It is usually eroded over time,
little bits dissolving almost imperceptibly until we finally begin to
notice how much is gone. When the government starts monitoring
the phone numbers people call, many may shrug their shoulders
and say, “Ah, it’s just numbers, that’s all.” Then the government
might start monitoring some phone calls. “It’s just a few phone calls,
nothing more.” The government might install more video cameras
in public places. “So what? Some more cameras watching in a few
more places. No big deal.” The increase in cameras might lead to a
more elaborate network of video surveillance. Satellite surveillance
might be added to help track people’s movements. The government
might start analyzing people’s bank records. “It’s just my deposits
and some of the bills I pay — no problem.” The government may
then start combing through credit-card records, then expand to
Internet-service providers’ records, health records, employment
records, and more. Each step may seem incremental, but a er a
while, the government will be watching and knowing everything
about us.
“My life’s an open book,” people might say. “I’ve got nothing to hide.”
But now the government has large dossiers of everyone’s activities,
interests, reading habits, finances, and health. What if the
government leaks the information to the public? What if the
government mistakenly determines that based on your pattern of
activities, you’re likely to engage in a criminal act? What if it denies
you the right to fly? What if the government thinks your financial
transactions look odd — even if you’ve done nothing wrong — and
freezes your accounts? What if the government doesn’t protect your
information with adequate security, and an identity thief obtains it
and uses it to defraud you? Even if you have nothing to hide, the
government can cause you a lot of harm … .
Works Cited
greatcarrieoakey (Carrie Oakey). “Look All You Want! I’ve Got Nothing to
Hide!” Reach for the Stars, Blogger, 14 May 2006,
greatcarrieoakey.blogspot.com/2006_05_01_archive.html.
Rosen, Jeffrey. The Naked Crowd: Reclaiming Security and Freedom in an
Anxious Age. Random House Books, 2004.
Schneier, Bruce. “The Eternal Value of Privacy.” Wired, 18 May 2006.
Schneier on Security,
www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2006/05/the_eternal_value_of.ht
ml.
Solzhenitsyn, Aleksandr. Cancer Ward. Translated by Nicholas Bethell and
David Burg. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1969.
Stone, Geoffrey R. “Freedom and Public Responsibility.” Chicago Tribune,
21 May 2006, p. 11.
READING FOR MEANING
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
► Not , but .
► focus on , which is characterized
by , and they don’t even notice ,
which is characterized by .
Legal and policy solutions focus too much on the problems under the Orwellian
metaphor — those of surveillance — and aren’t adequately addressing the Kafkaesque
problems — those of information processing. … [T]he problems are not just
Orwellian but Kafkaesque. (pars. 9–10)
1. Notice how Solove uses sources in his first three paragraphs. Given his purpose
to reframe a commonly held view of privacy, why do you think he begins this
way?
2. Reread paragraphs 6–7 to see how Solove explains the two contrasting
metaphors. Then skim paragraphs 8–10, highlighting any sentence patterns he
uses to mark the contrast.
3. Has Solove’s reframing of the discussion affected your understanding of privacy
and your concerns about its loss? Why or why not?
Miya Tokumitsu
In the Name of Love
Miya Tokumitsu earned her Ph.D. in art history from the University of Pennsylvania
and teaches art history and art curatorship at the University of Melbourne, Australia.
She is a contributing editor of Jacobin, an online and print quarterly of the American
le , where the following essay was published in 2015. In it, she critiques the clichéd
idea that people can only be happy if they pursue a career they love. The essay’s
success led to her book, Do What You Love and Other Lies about Success and Happiness
(2015).
Before you read, think about your expectations of your future job or career. Do
you think you will love what you do? Or do you think a job is a job, and not
necessarily something that needs to be rewarding and fulfilling?
As you read, consider how clearly Tokumitsu presents her argument. Can you
find her thesis easily? Identify the strategies she uses to remind you of her
position throughout her argument and consider how effective they are.
“Do what you love. Love what you do.”
The commands are framed and perched in a living room that can
only be described as “well-curated.” A picture of this room appeared
first on a popular design blog, but has been pinned, tumbl’d, and
liked thousands of times by now.
There’s little doubt that “do what you love” (DWYL) is now the
unofficial work mantra for our time. The problem is that it leads not
to salvation, but to the devaluation of actual work, including the
very work it pretends to elevate — and more importantly, the
dehumanization of the vast majority of laborers.
You’ve got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your
lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly
satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is
to love what you do.
In these four sentences, the words “you” and “your” appear eight
times. This focus on the individual is hardly surprising coming from
Jobs, who cultivated a very specific image of himself as a worker:
inspired, casual, passionate — all states agreeable with ideal
romantic love. Jobs telegraphed the conflation of his besotted
worker-self with his company so effectively that his black turtleneck
and blue jeans became metonyms for all of Apple and the labor that
maintains it.
… it would be good economy for a town to pay its laborers so well that they would not
feel that they were working for low ends, as for a livelihood merely, but for scientific,
even moral ends. Do not hire a man who does your work for money, but him who
does it for the love of it.
Admittedly, Thoreau had little feel for the proletariat (it’s hard to
imagine someone washing diapers for “scientific, even moral ends,”
no matter how well-paid). But he nonetheless maintains that society
has a stake in making work well-compensated and meaningful. By
contrast, the twenty-first-century Jobsian view demands that we all
turn inward. It absolves us of any obligation to or acknowledgment
of the wider world, underscoring its fundamental betrayal of all
workers, whether they consciously embrace it or not.
One consequence of this isolation is the division that DWYL creates
among workers, largely along class lines. Work becomes divided
into two opposing classes: that which is lovable (creative,
intellectual, socially prestigious) and that which is not (repetitive,
unintellectual, undistinguished). Those in the lovable work camp
are vastly more privileged in terms of wealth, social status,
education, society’s racial biases, and political clout, while
comprising a small minority of the workforce.
For those forced into unlovable work, it’s a different story. Under the
DWYL credo, labor that is done out of motives or needs other than
love (which is, in fact, most labor) is not only demeaned but erased.
As in Jobs’ Stanford speech, unlovable but socially necessary work is
banished from the spectrum of consciousness altogether.
Think of the great variety of work that allowed Jobs to spend even
one day as CEO: his food harvested from fields, then transported
across great distances. His company’s goods assembled, packaged,
shipped. Apple advertisements scripted, cast, filmed. Lawsuits
processed. Office wastebaskets emptied and ink cartridges filled. Job
creation goes both ways. Yet with the vast majority of workers
effectively invisible to elites busy in their lovable occupations, how
can it be surprising that the heavy strains faced by today’s workers
(abysmal wages, massive child care costs, et cetera) barely register
as political issues even among the liberal faction of the ruling class?
In ignoring most work and reclassifying the rest as love, DWYL may
be the most elegant anti-worker ideology around. Why should
workers assemble and assert their class interests if there’s no such
thing as work?
“Do what you love” disguises the fact that being able to choose a
career primarily for personal reward is an unmerited privilege, a
sign of that person’s socioeconomic class. Even if a self-employed
graphic designer had parents who could pay for art school and
cosign a lease for a slick Brooklyn apartment, she can self-
righteously bestow DWYL as career advice to those covetous of her
success.
There are many factors that keep PhDs providing such high-skilled
labor for such extremely low wages, including path dependency and
the sunk costs of earning a PhD, but one of the strongest is how
pervasively the DWYL doctrine is embedded in academia. Few other
professions fuse the personal identity of their workers so intimately
with the work output. This intense identification partly explains why
so many proudly le -leaning faculty remain oddly silent about the
working conditions of their peers. Because academic research
should be done out of pure love, the actual conditions of and
compensation for this labor become a erthoughts, if they are
considered at all.
In “Academic Labor, the Aesthetics of Management, and the Promise
of Autonomous Work,” Sarah Brouillette writes of academic faculty,
… our faith that our work offers non-material rewards, and is more integral to our
identity than a “regular” job would be, makes us ideal employees when the goal of
management is to extract our labor’s maximum value at minimum cost.
How to emulate the academic workplace and get people to work at a high level of
intellectual and emotional intensity for fi y or sixty hours a week for bartenders’
wages or less? Is there any way we can get our employees to swoon over their desks,
murmuring “I love what I do” in response to greater workloads and smaller
paychecks? How can we get our workers to be like faculty and deny that they work at
all? How can we adjust our corporate culture to resemble campus culture, so that our
workforce will fall in love with their work too?
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Skim her essay and highlight all the places where she restates her thesis — for
example, “While ‘do what you love’ sounds harmless and precious, it is ultimately
self-focused to the point of narcissism” (par. 11).
2. Underline any sentences that assert a reason in support of her thesis. (The word
because o en has a reason following it.) For example, she explains why DWYL is
implicitly elitist: “labor is not something one does for compensation, but an act
of self-love. If profit doesn’t happen to follow, it is because the worker’s passion
and determination were insufficient” (par. 6). How do the reasons support her
thesis? Are there any reasons that undermine her position or make it unclear? If
so, what are they?
Jessica Statsky
Children Need to Play, Not Compete
Jessica Statsky was a college student when she wrote this position paper for a sports
journalism course, in which she argues that organized sports are not good for children
between the ages of six and twelve.
I am strongly opposed to young kids playing tackle football. It is not the right stage of
development for them to be taught to crash into other kids. Kids under the age of
fourteen are not by nature physical. Their main concern is self-preservation. They
don’t want to meet head on and slam into each other. But tackle football absolutely
requires that they try to hit each other as hard as they can. And it is too traumatic for
young kids. (qtd. in Tosches A1)
As Tutko indicates, even when children are not injured, fear of being
hurt detracts from their enjoyment of the sport. The Little League
ranks fear of injury as the seventh of seven reasons children quit
(“Little League Parent”). One mother of an eight-year-old Peewee
Football player explained, “The kids get so scared. They get hit once
and they don’t want anything to do with football anymore. They’ll sit
on the bench and pretend their leg hurts … ” (qtd. in Tosches A1).
Some children are driven to even more desperate measures. For
example, in one Peewee Football game, a reporter watched the
following scene as a player took himself out of the game:
“Coach, my tummy hurts. I can’t play,” he said. The coach told the player to get back
onto the field. “There’s nothing wrong with your stomach,” he said. When the coach
turned his head the seven-year-old stuck a finger down his throat and made himself
vomit. When the coach turned back, the boy pointed to the ground and told him, “Yes
there is, coach. See?” (Tosches A33)
Winning and losing may be an inevitable part of adult life, but they
should not be part of childhood. Too much competition too early in
life can affect a child’s development. Children are easily influenced,
and when they sense that their competence and worth are based on
their ability to live up to their parents’ and coaches’ high expectations
— and on their ability to win — they can become discouraged and
depressed. Little League advises parents to “keep winning in
perspective,” noting that the most common reasons children give for
quitting, aside from change in interest, are lack of playing time,
failure and fear of failure, disapproval by significant others, and
psychological stress (“Little League Parent”). According to Dr. Glyn C.
Roberts, a professor of kinesiology at the Institute of Child Behavior
and Development at the University of Illinois, 80 to 90 percent of
children who play competitive sports at a young age drop out by
sixteen (Kutner).
Description
A woman, holding a baseball bat is readying to hit the ball while the coach says to her,
‘Please, Mrs. Enright, if I let you pinch-hit for Tommy, all the mothers will want to pinch-
hit.’ A little boy looks at the woman, waiting with a baseball bat in his hand while other
children wait in the stands.
Some parents would no doubt argue that children cannot start too
soon preparing to live in a competitive free-market economy. A er
all, secondary schools and colleges require students to compete for
grades, and college admission is extremely competitive. And it is
perfectly obvious how important competitive skills are in finding a
job. Yet the ability to cooperate is also important for success in life.
Before children are psychologically ready for competition, maybe we
should emphasize cooperation and individual performance in team
sports rather than winning.
Many people are ready for such an emphasis. In 1988, one New York
Little League official who had attended the Adelphi workshop tried to
ban scoring from six- to eight-year-olds’ games — but parents
wouldn’t support him (Schmitt). An innovative children’s sports
program in New York City, City Sports for Kids, emphasizes fitness,
self-esteem, and sportsmanship. In this program’s basketball games,
every member on a team plays at least two of six eight-minute
periods. The basket is seven feet from the floor, rather than ten feet,
and a player can score a point just by hitting the rim (Bloch). I believe
this kind of local program should replace overly competitive
programs like Peewee Football and Little League Baseball. As one
coach explains, significant improvements can result from a few
simple rule changes, such as including every player in the batting
order and giving every player, regardless of age or ability, the
opportunity to play at least four innings a game (Frank).
Some children want to play competitive sports; they are not being
forced to play. These children are eager to learn skills, to enjoy the
camaraderie of the team, and earn self-respect by trying hard to
benefit their team. I acknowledge that some children may benefit
from playing competitive sports. While some children do benefit
from these programs, however, many more would benefit from
programs that avoid the excesses and dangers of many competitive
sports programs and instead emphasize fitness, cooperation,
sportsmanship, and individual performance.
Works Cited
“The Bad News Pyromaniacs? Fiery Anaheim Little Manager Is, Rightly,
Fired.” Editorial. Los Angeles Times, 16 June 1990, p. B6,
articles.latimes.com/1990-06-16/local/me-31_1_team-manager.
Bloch, Gordon B. “Thrill of Victory Is Secondary to Fun.” The New York
Times, 2 Apr. 1990, p. C12.
Coakley, Jay J. Sport in Society: Issues and Controversies. Mosby, 1982.
Frank, L. “Contributions from Parents and Coaches.” CYB Message Board,
AOL, 8 July 1997, www.aol.com/. Accessed 14 May 2008.
Koppett, Leonard. Sports Illusion, Sports Reality. Boston: Houghton MIfflin,
1981. Print.
Kutner, Lawrence. “Athletics, through a Child’s Eyes.” The New York Times,
23 Mar. 1989, p. C8, www.nytimes.com/1989/03/23/garden/parent-
child.html.
Little League Parent Responsibilities. Warwick National Little League 2007
Safety Plan, Little League Baseball and So ball, 17 Apr. 2007,
www.littleleague.org/Assets/forms_pubs
/asap/Warwick_LL_safetyplan08.pdf.
Reed, Ken. “Youth Sports Burnout Driven by Achievement by Proxy
Syndrome.” The Huffington Post, 10 Oct. 2015,
www.huffingtonpost.com/ken-reed/youth-sports-burnout-
driv_b_8274078.html.
Rosenwald, Michael S. “Are Parents Ruining Youth Sports? Fewer Kids Play
Amid Pressure.” The Washington Post, 4 Oct. 2015,
www.washingtonpost.com/local/are-parents-ruining -youth-sports-
fewer-kids-play-amid-pressure/2015/10/04/eb1460dc-686e-11e5-9ef3-
fde182507eac_story.html.
Schmitt, Eric. “Psychologists Take Seat on Little League Bench.” The New
York Times, 14 Mar. 1988, late ed., p. B2. LexisNexis Academic,
www.lexisnexis.com.
Silverman, Steve. “The History of Youth Sports.” Livestrong, Demand
Media, Inc., 01 Sept. 2015, www.livestrong.com/article/353963-the-
history-of-youth-sports/.
Smith, Nathan, et al. Kidsports: A Survival Guide for Parents. Addison-
Wesley, 1983.
Tosches, Rich. “Peewee Football: Is It Time to Blow the Whistle?” The Los
Angeles Times,3 Dec. 1988, pp. A1+. LexisNexis,
articles.latimes.com/1988-12-03/news/mn-936_1_youth -football-
games.
“Youth Sports Injuries Statistics.” STOP Sports Injuries: Community
Outreach Toolkit, American Orthopaedic Society for Sports Medicine,
www.sportsmed.org/aossmimis/stop/downloads
/CommunityOutreachToolkit.pdf.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Some parents would no doubt argue that children cannot start too soon preparing to
live in a competitive free-market economy. A er all , secondary schools and colleges
require students to compete for grades, and college admission is extremely
competitive . And it is perfectly obvious how important competitive skills are in
finding a job.
Yet the ability to cooperate is also important for success in life. Before children are
psychologically ready for competition, maybe we should emphasize cooperation and
individual performance in team sports rather than winning. (par. 10)
Notice how Statsky treats alternative views with civility and respect,
enhancing her credibility, or ethos.
ANALYZE & WRITE
Write a paragraph analyzing other passages in which Statsky responds to alternative
points of view:
1. Reread the first sentence in paragraph 6, the first and last sentences in paragraph
9, and the first sentence in paragraph 12, highlighting the words that signal
Statsky’s acknowledgment of objections to her thesis.
2. Now reread the sentences following those you highlighted, to see how Statsky
deals with her opposition. Does she seem to practice rhetorical sensitivity here?
Why or why not?
How do the visuals illustrate the points that the authors are making in their essays?
Both authors are arguing for a position. How important are these visuals to supporting
that position?
Write a paragraph exploring the potential effects of removing these visuals from the
essays. What — if anything — would be lost?
Writing to Learn Position Argument
Write a brief essay analyzing one of the readings in this chapter (or another selection, perhaps
one by a classmate). Explain how (and perhaps, how well) the selection works as a position
argument. Consider, for example, how it
presents a controversial issue fairly and credibly by putting it in context and being
specific about the terms of the debate;
asserts a clear position in a thesis that forecasts the stages of the argument and the
reasons that support it;
argues directly for the position with writing strategies such as the use of facts,
statistics, examples, anecdotes, expert opinions, and analogies;
responds to objections, conceding where necessary and refuting when possible.
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the academic habits of mind
through the following practices:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING POSITION
ARGUMENTS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief position argument of your own. This Guide to Writing offers
detailed suggestions and resources to help you meet the special
challenges this kind of writing presents.
Choose an issue on which you either have a position or would like to investigate
further.
Consider what your readers might know about the issue, and what stance they might
take toward it.
Conduct research on the issue so you can support and clarify your own argument, and
address the objections your readers might raise as well as the alternative positions
they might prefer.
Adopt a reasonable tone, one that will lend credibility to your position.
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options. When choosing an
issue, keep in mind that the issue must be
You may already have an issue in mind. If you do not, the topics that
follow may suggest one you can make your own. Because writing is a
kind of inquiry, the topics are in the form of preliminary questions
intended to get you thinking about the positions associated with
these issues. While these preliminary questions may be answered
with a yes or no, your position and the thesis that introduces it
should be more complex in order to lay the groundwork for
developing your argument, as discussed in the next section.
Should particular courses, community service, or an internship
be a graduation requirement at your high school or college?
Please explain.
Should children raised in this country whose parents entered
illegally be given an opportunity to become citizens upon
finishing college or serving in the military? Please explain.
Should you look primarily for a job that is well paid, or for a job
that is personally fulfilling or socially responsible? Please
explain.
Should the racial, ethnic, or gender makeup of the police force
resemble the makeup of the community it serves? Please
explain.
Should your large lecture or online courses have frequent
(weekly or biweekly) exams instead of only a midterm and final?
Please explain.
Should the football conference your school (or another school
in the area) participates in be allowed to expand? Please
explain.
Should the state or federal government provide job training for
those who are unemployed but able to work? Please explain.
Before making a final decision about the issue on which you will
take a position, try writing nonstop about it for a few minutes. Doing
so will help stimulate your memory, letting you see what you already
know about the issue and how much research you will need to do.
Developing Your Argument
The writing and research activities that follow will enable you to test
your choice and discover good ways to argue for your position on the
issue.
What is the issue and why should your readers be concerned about
it?
How has the issue, or people’s opinions about the issue, changed?
What makes the issue important now?
What values and concerns do you and your readers share regarding
the issue?
You may already have a position on the issue; if so, try dra ing a
working thesis statement now. (If you have not yet taken a position
on the issue, you may want to skip ahead to the section on
researching an issue below. Researching the positions others have
taken and their reasons may help you decide on your own position
or refine a position you already hold.) Begin by describing the issue,
possibly indicating where others stand on it or what’s at stake, and
then saying what you think. These sentence strategies may help you
get started:
“There’s little doubt that ‘do what you love’ (DWYL) is now the
unofficial work mantra for our time. The problem is that it leads
not to salvation, but to the devaluation of actual work, including
the very work it pretends to elevate — and more importantly,
the dehumanization of the vast majority of laborers.”
(Tokomitsu, par. 4)
“The deeper problem with the nothing-to-hide argument is that
it myopically views privacy as a form of secrecy. In contrast,
understanding privacy as a plurality of related issues
demonstrates that the disclosure of bad things is just one
among many difficulties caused by government security
measures.” (Solove, par. 10)
“When overzealous parents and coaches impose adult standards
on children’s sports, the result can be activities that are neither
satisfying nor beneficial to children.” (Statsky, par. 1)
The following activities will help you find plausible reasons and
evidence for your position. Begin by writing down what you already
know. (If you did this when choosing your issue, look back at what
you wrote.) You can do some focused research later to fill in the
details or skip ahead to conduct research now. At this point, don’t
worry about the exact language you will use in your final dra .
Instead, just write the reasons you hold your position and the
evidence (such as anecdotes, examples, statistics, expert testimony)
that supports it. Keep your readers in mind — what will they find
most convincing?
Where you need supporting evidence, fill in the gaps with research.
Including Visuals.
The activity below will help you anticipate alternative positions your
readers may hold or objections they may have.
1. List the positions you expect your readers will hold and the
objections you expect them to raise. To think of readers’
concerns, consider their values, beliefs, and priorities.
2. Which objections can you refute? Which may you need to
concede?
Considering Your Purpose.
Write for several minutes about your purpose for writing this
position paper. The following questions will help you:
These parts can be organized in various ways: If your readers are not
likely to agree with your position, you may want to anticipate and
respond to their possible objections right before you present the
evidence in favor of your own position. If you expect readers are
likely to favor your position, you may want to concede or refute
alternatives a er offering your own reasons. Either way, you may
want to emphasize the common ground you share and conclude by
emphasizing that your position takes into account your shared
values.
As you dra , you may see ways to improve your original plan, and
you should be ready to revise your outline, shi parts around, or
drop or add parts as needed.
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next section
of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve it.
Martin Rablovsky, a former sports editor for the New York Times, says that in all his
years of watching young children play organized sports, he has noticed very few of
them smiling. “I’ve seen children enjoying a spontaneous pre-practice scrimmage
become somber and serious when the coach’s whistle blows,” Rablovsky says … (qtd
in Coakley 94).
Although the official Little League website acknowledges that children do risk
injury playing baseball, it insists that “severe injuries … are infrequent … far less
than the risk of riding a skateboard, a bicycle, or even the school bus” (“Little League
Parent”).
Source
Injuries seem to be inevitable in any rigorous activity, especially if players are new to
the sport and unfamiliar with its demands. But because of the safety precautions
taken in Little League, severe injuries such as bone fractures are infrequent. Most
injuries are sprains and strains, abrasions and cuts and bruises. The risk of serious
injury in Little League Baseball is far less than the risk of riding a skateboard, a
bicycle, or even the school bus.
What’s Working Well: Let the writer know where the issue is
especially well presented — for example, where the issue is given
historical or cultural context, or where the terms of the debate
are given clearly.
To Enhance Credibility
To Improve Readability
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from your invention writing, point out the section or sections that helped
you most.
If it came from your research notes and write-ups, point out the parts that helped
you most.
2. Reflect more generally on position arguments, a genre of writing that plays an
important role in our society. Consider some of the following questions:
How important are reasons and supporting evidence? When people argue positions
on television, on radio talk shows, and in online discussion forums like blogs, do
they tend to emphasize reasons and support? If not, what do they emphasize?
How does the purpose of television, radio, and online position arguments differ
from the purpose of the writers you read in this chapter and from your own purpose
in writing a position argument?
What contribution might position arguments make to our society that other genres
of writing cannot make?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about position arguments, you have been
practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and responded
to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing process. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 9
Speculating about Causes or
Effects
Who was the audience? How do you think addressing this audience affected the
choice of phenomenon, event, or trend, or the type of evidence presented? For
example, did the audience’s familiarity with the topic influence the number or type of
causes or effects that were presented?
What was the main purpose? Why did you (or the other writer or speaker) want the
audience to understand these causes or effects? For example, was it so that they
could demonstrate their own understanding on a test or take action in the future?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the speculation was
presented? What made the essay appropriate or inappropriate for its particular
audience and purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING ESSAYS
SPECULATING ABOUT CAUSES OR
EFFECTS
This guide introduces you to cause-and-effect writing by inviting you
to analyze a brief but powerful causal argument by Stephen King.
Before you read, think about the horror movie that you remember best and
consider why it appeals to you (or doesn’t).
As you read, test King’s argument about the appeal of horror movies against
your own experience. On first reading, how convincing are his causal
speculations?
I think that we’re all mentally ill; those of us outside the asylums
only hide it a little better — and maybe not all that much better, a er
all. We’ve all known people who talk to themselves, people who
sometimes squinch their faces into horrible grimaces when they
believe no one is watching, people who have some hysterical fear —
of snakes, the dark, the tight place, the long drop … and, of course,
those final worms and grubs that are waiting so patiently
underground.
What does he mean that we are all mentally ill? How is he defining mental illness?
When we pay our four or five bucks and seat ourselves at tenth-row
center in a theater showing a horror movie, we are daring the
nightmare.
Why? Some of the reasons are simple and obvious. To show that we
can, that we are not afraid, that we can ride this roller coaster.
Which is not to say that a really good horror movie may not surprise
a scream out of us at some point, the way we may scream when the
roller coaster twists through a complete 360 or plows through a lake
at the bottom of the drop. And horror movies, like roller coasters,
have always been the special province of the young; by the time one
turns 40 or 50, one’s appetite for double twists or 360-degree loops
may be considerably depleted.
It is true that the mythic, “fairy tale” horror film intends to take
away the shades of gray. … It urges us to put away our more civilized
and adult penchant for analysis and to become children again,
seeing things in pure blacks and whites. It may be that horror
movies provide psychic relief on this level because this invitation to
lapse into simplicity, irrationality, and even outright madness is
extended so rarely. We are told we may allow our emotions a free
rein … or no rein at all.
The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It
deliberately appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity
unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies
realized … and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark. For those
reasons, good liberals o en shy away from horror films. For myself,
I like to see the most aggressive of them — Dawn of the Dead, for
instance — as li ing a trap door in the civilized forebrain and
throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming
around in that subterranean river beneath.
Why bother? Because it keeps them from getting out, man. It keeps
them down there and me up here. It was Lennon and McCartney
who said that all you need is love, and I would agree with that.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. The subject of this essay is horror movies, but the key term in the title is the
word “crave.” Look up “crave” and “craving” to see what they mean. Then
highlight some of the other words and phrases King associates with the appeal of
horror movies, such as “mentally ill” and “hysterical fear” (par. 1). How do the
words you highlighted relate to the word crave?
2. Given these key terms, how would you describe the way King reframes the
subject for readers? How do these key terms enable him to plant the seed of his
main idea at the beginning of the essay?
1. Skim paragraphs 1–9 and 11–14 and mark the sentences that use these strategies.
Does each present a cause-effect relationship as well as a chronological
sequence? How do you know?
2. Why do you think King repeats these sentence strategies so o en in this essay?
How effective or ineffective is this strategy?
1. Look at the causes King considers in the opening paragraphs to determine how
he responds to them. For example, how does he support the assertion that some
of them are “simple and obvious” (par. 3)? What other arguments does he use to
refute these causes?
2. Given his purpose and audience, why do you think King begins by presenting
reasons he regards as “simple and obvious”? (par. 3)
Establishing Credibility to Present the Writer as Thoughtful and
Fair
1. Reread the headnote that precedes King’s essay, and reflect on what else his
readers might already know about him.
2. Skim the essay to decide whether the reasoning is clear and logical and the
examples and analogies relevant and trustworthy. Because King’s reasoning is
psychological (he argues that mental and emotional needs explain why some
people crave horror films), you can evaluate King’s credibility in light of your
own personal experience — that is, your understanding of the role horror movies
(and novels) play in your own life.
3. Describe the impression readers might get from King from reading both the
headnote and his essay. What details in the headnote might make them trust or
distrust what he says about his subject? What word choices or other details in the
essay might make him a credible authority on the subject?
READINGS
Anna Maria Barry-Jester
Patterns of Death in the South Still Show the
Outlines of Slavery
Anna Maria Barry-Jester is a senior correspondent at Kaiser Health News, a nonprofit
health news service. She previously worked as a staff writer for the news website
FiveThirtyEight where her articles focused on subjects such as public health,
immigration, food, and science. She has also held editorial producer positions at
Univision and ABC News and worked as a professional photographer and
videographer. Barry-Jester has won numerous awards for her journalism, in-depth
reporting, and editorial work. This article originally appeared on FiveThirtyEight.
Before you read, think about your own health. What factors impact how healthy
you are?
As you read, consider how Barry-Jester connects the health of southern black
Americans living in communities founded on slavery to the practice of slavery
itself. How does Barry-Jester indicate the lasting effects of that history as she
speculates about the causes of death in these communities?
There’s a map, made more than 150 years ago using 1860 census data,
that pops up periodically on the internet. On two yellowed, taped-
together sheets of paper, the counties of the Southern U.S. are shaded
to reflect the percentage of inhabitants who were enslaved at the
time. Bolivar County, Mississippi, is nearly black on the map, with
86.7 printed on it. Greene County, Alabama: 76.5. Burke, Georgia:
70.6. The map is one of the first attempts to translate U.S. census data
into cartographic form and is one of several maps of the era that tried
to make sense of the deep divisions between North and South, slave
states and free.1 But the reason the map resurfaces so frequently is
not just its historical relevance. Rather, it’s because the shading so
closely matches visualizations of many modern-day data sets. There
is the stream of blue voters in counties on solidly red land in the 2016
presidential election, or differences in television viewing patterns.
There’s research on the profound lack of economic mobility in some
places, and on life expectancy at birth.
Though these health outcomes are associated with race, race is not
the cause of disease. “There are certain genetic factors, of course,”
said Ali Mokdad, one of the IHME researchers, who previously
oversaw one of the largest public health surveys in the U.S. “But ... we
like to say, ’Diseases don’t know race.’” Instead, Mokdad said things
such as racism, economic deprivation and poor education —
measures that together are part of what is called socioeconomic
status — are largely to blame.
The Black Belt was the origin and center of not only Black America,
but also of rural Black America. Today, more than 80 percent of rural
black Americans live in the states that form the Black Belt. Black men
in the region routinely have mortality rates 50 percent higher than
the national average. In 1860, when 76.5 percent of the people in
Greene County were enslaved, the entire population totaled more
than 30,000. Today, the county has less than a third the number of
people it did back then, but blacks still constitute more than 80
percent.
The Rev. Christopher Spencer is tall and thickly built with a bald
head and narrow-rimmed glasses. His presence is large, but never
more so than when he’s swaying in church robes, preaching on a
Sunday morning. His church, St. Matthew Watson Missionary
Baptist, is tucked away in a clearing in the woods of Greene County,
just off a country stretch of U.S. Highway 43 and about 30 miles from
where he grew up.
The church, which recently celebrated its centennial, still has about
130 members despite the shrinking of the area’s population.
Preaching is Spencer’s passion, but he also works as a director of
community development at the University of Alabama, helping
recruit people for studies and pushing for jobs and opportunities in
the Black Belt.
The Black Belt moniker first referenced the rich, fertile soil that
millions of African slaves were forced to work, their labor making the
European settlers some of the wealthiest people in the world. By the
turn of the 20th century, the name had come to identify rural
counties with a high percentage of African-American residents. “The
term seems to be used wholly in a political sense. That is, to
designate counties where the black people outnumber the white,”
wrote Booker T. Washington in his 1901 book, “Up From Slavery: An
Autobiography.”
The Black Belt is filled with complicated realities. It was the center of
the civil rights movement but still has some of the most consistently
segregated schools in the country. White Europeans wanting to reap
from its verdant soil forced millions of slaves to the area, but today
healthy food is hard to find. Deeply rooted social networks tie people
to the land and community, but poverty and racism led millions to
leave the area in one of the largest internal migrations in human
history.
Experts say a long history of racism and poverty has le the region
short on resources and high on risk factors. Smoking and poor diets,
for example, likely contribute to many causes of mortality. But, many
experts argue that these so-called lifestyle factors shouldn’t simply be
viewed as choices people make that keep them unhealthy and that
they’re only a small part of the bigger picture.
Late last year, Army veteran Jimmy Edison stood up at St. Matthew
and asked the congregation to pray for him. He was having another
procedure in Tuscaloosa that week, something related to the open-
heart surgery he’d had several years before. The church had been
supportive in recent years, sending food to the house and praying for
him and his wife, Dionne, a er Jimmy’s heart trouble started, and
they’d been moved by the warmth of the congregation to become
members. A er the service, Edison listed the bad habits that had led
to his heart condition. He’d started drinking heavily on his days off in
the Army, smoked since he was a teenager and always been a self-
declared troublemaker who lived life hard.
A er a 2010 heart attack, Jimmy’s drinking was so bad that he said
they gave him beer at the VA hospital, afraid he’d get delirium
tremens. Even so, he said his diet was the hardest habit to change. “I
was a prolific drinker and smoker, and I had no problem giving that
up. But the fried food, that’s the real problem,” Edison said. Sitting in
the fellowship hall a er the service, he described in glorifying detail
the fried pork chops he missed so dearly, before explaining that his
mother had also suffered from hypertension, diabetes and heart
diseases. That family history has him convinced that there’s a genetic
factor to his heart disease, though his diet and drinking likely made
things worse. “It was like, I knew I was at risk, but I chose to play
Russian roulette. I can’t say I didn’t know,” Edison said.
Cultural norms play a role as well, and residents of the Black Belt are
less likely to get regular exercise than people just about anywhere
else in the country. Some of this is environmental: Humid, 100-
degree summer days combined with intermittent electricity make it
hard to do much of anything, let alone go for a walk. Monika Safford,
a professor of medicine at Weill Cornell Medical College, spent 12
years at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, researching
diabetes and heart disease. She said that in surveys she’s done in the
Black Belt, many people respond that they get no exercise whatsoever
on most days. “It was common when we were doing trials for people
to tell us they drove down the driveway to get their mail,” Safford
said.
People in the Black Belt don’t have higher mortality rates for every
cause of death, but the causes that disproportionately affect them are
telling. A growing body of research has found that generations of
economic and social disadvantage can increase the risk of neonatal
mortality. As extremely effective treatments for HIV were developed,
mortality related to AIDS plummeted across the country, but it
remains higher in the Black Belt than in most other places (as does
HIV prevalence).
Down the road from St. Matthew, Doreen Smith lives in a trailer le
to her by her grandparents. She went to a doctor in Demopolis in
1992 when she was pregnant with her first child at age 16 and has
taken each of her children to him since. She’s been told that to get
prenatal care, she needs to go to Tuscaloosa, but with only
intermittent access to a car, she said that’s always been too far. “Oh
no, I’m not going all the way to Tuscaloosa.”
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
But health in the Black Belt hasn’t been stagnant. While infant
mortality is higher there than almost anywhere in the country, it’s a
fraction of what it was a few decades ago. The same goes for heart
disease, the leading cause of death in the U.S. Those improvements
are attributed to several changes, including desegregation, better
housing and education. In fact, one of the most robust literatures on
the effects of racism on health comes from improvements to infant
mortality among black babies a er desegregation. Government
programs have also played a role, namely the birth of the community
health center movement and Medicaid, which was created in 1965 to
cover pregnant women, children and people with disabilities. Both
government efforts coincided with the civil rights movement and
other programs that sought to undo the effects of racism and poverty
throughout the country, particularly the rural South.
But there is still a lot of need today. Spencer is trying to tackle it from
two angles: helping people change their habits and working to
stabilize and improve struggling rural hospitals. They are long-
standing issues, but he remains hopeful they can change. “We just
really have to galvanize interest in the area,” he said.
Estimated deaths per 100,000 people from HIV and tuberculosis, 2014
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. One of the sources that Barry-Jester relies on is Ali Mokdad, an IHME researcher,
who said that “things such as racism, economic deprivation and poor education —
measures that together are part of what is called socioeconomic status — are
largely to blame” (par. 3). What other sources and evidence does Barry-Jester use
to support her argument?
2. Barry-Jester describes the media and government focus on the “disturbing rise in
mortality among U.S. whites with a high-school education” (par. 10). She then
argues that “the headlines obscured several important facts, chief among them
that the chart showed mortality for all U.S. blacks, not only those who also have a
high school education or less. A er the authors were criticized for leaving blacks
off a different chart in one of the papers, they told The Washington Post “the reason
it’s not there — which we explain — is that black mortality is so high it doesn’t fit
on the graph” (par. 10). How does this source help support Barry-Jester’s larger
argument?
C Thi Nguyen
Escape the Echo Chamber
C Thi Nguyen is an assistant professor of philosophy at Utah Valley University,
working in social epistemology, aesthetics, and the philosophy of games. He is
assistant editor at Aesthetics for Birds, a blog for aesthetic philosophers, and is a
founding editor of the Journal of the Philosophy of Games. He is Chair of the Diversity
Committee for the American Society for Aesthetics and he has previously written a
column about food for the Los Angeles Times. His latest book, Games: Agency as Art, is
forthcoming from Oxford University Press. This article, based on his scholarly
research, appeared originally in Aeon in 2018.
Before you read, think about whether you avoid engaging with those who don’t
share your perspectives, ideas, or beliefs. How does this manifest itself in your
face-to-face as well as your online encounters?
As you read, pay attention to how Nguyen explains the distinction between
echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Why is this distinction necessary?
Something has gone wrong with the flow of information. It’s not just
that different people are drawing subtly different conclusions from
the same evidence. It seems like different intellectual communities
no longer share basic foundational beliefs. Maybe nobody cares
about the truth anymore, as some have started to worry. Maybe
political allegiance has replaced basic reasoning skills. Maybe we’ve
all become trapped in echo chambers of our own making —
wrapping ourselves in an intellectually impenetrable layer of like-
minded friends and web pages and social media feeds.
But there are two very different phenomena at play here, each of
which subvert the flow of information in very distinct ways. Let’s
call them echo chambers and epistemic bubbles. Both are social
structures that systematically exclude sources of information. Both
exaggerate their members’ confidence in their beliefs. But they work
in entirely different ways, and they require very different modes of
intervention. An epistemic bubble is when you don’t hear people
from the other side. An echo chamber is what happens when you
don’t trust people from the other side.
Let’s start with epistemic bubbles. They have been in the limelight
lately, most famously in Eli Pariser’s The Filter Bubble (2011) and Cass
Sunstein’s #Republic: Divided Democracy in the Age of Social Media
(2017). The general gist: we get much of our news from Facebook
feeds and similar sorts of social media. Our Facebook feed consists
mostly of our friends and colleagues, the majority of whom share
our own political and cultural views. We visit our favourite like-
minded blogs and websites. At the same time, various algorithms
behind the scenes, such as those inside Google search, invisibly
personalise our searches, making it more likely that we’ll see only
what we want to see. These processes all impose filters on
information.
Such filters aren’t necessarily bad. The world is overstuffed with
information, and one can’t sort through it all by oneself: filters need
to be outsourced. That’s why we all depend on extended social
networks to deliver us knowledge. But any such informational
network needs the right sort of broadness and variety to work. A
social network composed entirely of incredibly smart, obsessive
opera fans would deliver all the information I could want about the
opera scene, but it would fail to clue me in to the fact that, say, my
country had been infested by a rising tide of neo-Nazis. Each
individual person in my network might be superbly reliable about
her particular informational patch but, as an aggregate structure,
my network lacks what Sanford Goldberg in his book Relying on
Others (2010) calls ’coverage-reliability’. It doesn’t deliver to me a
sufficiently broad and representative coverage of all the relevant
information.
But outright copies aren’t the only problem here. Suppose that I
believe that the Paleo diet is the greatest diet of all time. I assemble
a Facebook group called ’Great Health Facts!’ and fill it only with
people who already believe that Paleo is the best diet. The fact that
everybody in that group agrees with me about Paleo shouldn’t
increase my confidence level one bit. They’re not mere copies —
they —actually might have reached their conclusions independently
— but their agreement can be entirely explained by my method of
selection. The group’s unanimity is simply an echo of my selection
criterion. It’s easy to forget how carefully pre-screened the members
are, how epistemically groomed social media circles might be.
Jamieson and Cappella’s book is the first empirical study into how
echo chambers function. In their analysis, echo chambers work by
systematically alienating their members from all outside epistemic
sources. Their research centres on Rush Limbaugh, a wildly
successful conservative firebrand in the United States, along with
Fox News and related media. Limbaugh uses methods to actively
transfigure whom his listeners trust. His constant attacks on the
’mainstream media’ are attempts to discredit all other sources of
knowledge. He systematically undermines the integrity of anybody
who expresses any kind of contrary view. And outsiders are not
simply mistaken — they are malicious, manipulative and actively
working to destroy Limbaugh and his followers. The resulting
worldview is one of deeply opposed force, an all-or-nothing war
between good and evil. Anybody who isn’t a fellow Limbaugh
follower is clearly opposed to the side of right, and therefore utterly
untrustworthy.
Listen to what it actually sounds like when people reject the plain
facts — it doesn’t sound like brute irrationality. One side points out a
piece of economic data; the other side rejects that data by rejecting
its source. They think that newspaper is biased, or the academic
elites generating the data are corrupt. An echo chamber doesn’t
destroy their members’ interest in the truth; it merely manipulates
whom they trust and changes whom they accept as trustworthy
sources and institutions.
And, in many ways, echo-chamber members are following
reasonable and rational procedures of enquiry. They’re engaging in
critical reasoning. They’re questioning, they’re evaluating sources
for themselves, they’re assessing different pathways to information.
They are critically examining those who claim expertise and
trustworthiness, using what they already know about the world. It’s
simply that their basis for evaluation — their background beliefs
about whom to trust — are radically different. They are not
irrational, but systematically misinformed about where to place
their trust.
For those who have not been raised within an echo chamber,
perhaps it would take some significant intellectual vice to enter into
one — perhaps intellectual laziness or a preference for security over
truth. But even then, once the echo chamber’s belief system is in
place, their future behaviour could be reasonable and they would
still continue to be trapped. Echo chambers might function like
addiction, under certain accounts. It might be irrational to become
addicted, but all it takes is a momentary lapse — once you’re
addicted, your internal landscape is sufficiently rearranged such
that it’s rational to continue with your addiction. Similarly, all it
takes to enter an echo chamber is a momentary lapse of intellectual
vigilance. Once you’re in, the echo chamber’s belief systems
function as a trap, making future acts of intellectual vigilance only
reinforce the echo chamber’s worldview.
There is at least one possible escape route, however. Notice that the
logic of the echo chamber depends on the order in which we
encounter the evidence. An echo chamber can bring our teenager to
discredit outside beliefs precisely because she encountered the echo
chamber’s claims first. Imagine a counterpart to our teenager who
was raised outside of the echo chamber and exposed to a wide range
of beliefs. Our free-range counterpart would, when she encounters
that same echo chamber, likely see its many flaws. In the end, both
teenagers might eventually become exposed to all the same
evidence and arguments. But they arrive at entirely different
conclusions because of the order in which they received that
evidence. Since our echo-chambered teenager encountered the echo
chamber’s beliefs first, those beliefs will inform how she interprets
all future evidence.
But something seems very suspicious about all this. Why should
order matter so much? The philosopher Thomas Kelly argues that it
shouldn’t, precisely because it would make this radical polarisation
rationally inevitable. Here is the real source of irrationality in
lifelong echo-chamber members — and it turns out to be incredibly
subtle. Those caught in an echo chamber are giving far too much
weight to the evidence they encounter first, just because it’s first.
Rationally, they should reconsider their beliefs without that
arbitrary preference. But how does one enforce such informational
a-historicity?
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Nguyen writes that “current usage has blurred [a] crucial distinction” (par. 3)
between epistemic bubbles and echo chambers. How does Nguyen reframe the
subject of filters by focusing on these phenomena? What, specifically, does he
want his audience to understand?
2. What sources and examples does Nguyen rely on to differentiate between
epistemic bubbles and echo chambers? Why does this difference matter as it
relates to Nguyen’s speculations about the causes and effects of these
phenomena?
Nicholas Carr
Is Google Making Us Stupid?
Nicholas Carr (b. 1959) received his master’s degree in English and American literature
and language from Harvard. He writes on the social, economic, and business
implications of technology. He is the author of Does IT Matter? (2004), The Big Switch:
Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google (2008), and The Shallows: What the Internet Is
Doing to Our Brains (2010), which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction.
Carr has also written for many periodicals, including the Atlantic Monthly, the New
York Times Magazine, Wired, the Financial Times, the Futurist, and Advertising Age, and
has been a columnist for the Guardian and the Industry Standard. The essay below was
the cover story of the Atlantic Monthly’s Ideas issue in 2008.
Before you read, think about your own habits of concentration, considering
whether you are able to focus deeply for long periods of time or whether you
move from one idea to another fairly swi ly. Also think about whether
concentration has to be sacrificed for the sake of acquiring more information.
As you read, note how Carr mentions and responds to alternative ideas about the
effect of the Internet on our thinking.
“Dave, stop. Stop, will you? Stop, Dave. Will you stop, Dave?” So the
supercomputer HAL pleads with the implacable astronaut Dave
Bowman in a famous and weirdly poignant scene toward the end of
Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey. Bowman, having nearly been
sent to a deep-space death by the malfunctioning machine, is calmly,
coldly disconnecting the memory circuits that control its artificial
“brain.” “Dave, my mind is going,” HAL says, forlornly. “I can feel it. I
can feel it.”
I can feel it, too. Over the past few years I’ve had an uncomfortable
sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain,
remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory. My
mind isn’t going — so far as I can tell — but it’s changing. I’m not
thinking the way I used to think. I can feel it most strongly when I’m
reading. Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be
easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of
the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of
prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration o en
starts to dri a er two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread,
begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging
my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to
come naturally has become a struggle.
I think I know what’s going on. For more than a decade now, I’ve
been spending a lot of time online, searching and surfing and
sometimes adding to the great databases of the Internet. The Web
has been a godsend to me as a writer. Research that once required
days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in
minutes. A few Google searches, some quick clicks on hyperlinks,
and I’ve got the telltale fact or pithy quote I was a er. Even when I’m
not working, I’m as likely as not to be foraging in the Web’s info-
thickets, reading and writing e-mails, scanning headlines and blog
posts, watching videos and listening to podcasts, or just tripping
from link to link to link. (Unlike footnotes, to which they’re
sometimes likened, hyperlinks don’t merely point to related works;
they propel you toward them.)
Description
The board has the following text: the product of A and X squared plus the product of B
and X plus C equals 0. The sum of the squares of A and B equals C squared. The
teacher looks at the little boy with a backpack, and a book in his hand as he says to her,
‘The Cloud ate my homework.’ A globe, sheets of paper, and some books are on the
teacher’s table.
For me, as for others, the Net is becoming a universal medium, the
conduit for most of the information that flows through my eyes and
ears and into my mind. The advantages of having immediate access
to such an incredibly rich store of information are many, and they’ve
been widely described and duly applauded. “The perfect recall of
silicon memory,” Wired’s Clive Thompson has written, “can be an
enormous boon to thinking.” But that boon comes at a price. As the
media theorist Marshall McLuhan pointed out in the 1960s, media are
not just passive channels of information. They supply the stuff of
thought, but they also shape the process of thought. And what the
Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for
concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in
information the way the Net distributes it: in a swi ly moving stream
of particles. Once I was a scuba diver in the sea of words. Now I zip
along the surface like a guy on a Jet Ski.
I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to
friends and acquaintances — literary types, most of them — many say
they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the
more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.
Some of the bloggers I follow have also begun mentioning the
phenomenon. Scott Karp, who writes a blog about online media,
recently confessed that he has stopped reading books altogether. “I
was a lit major in college, and used to be [a] voracious book reader,”
he wrote. “What happened?” He speculates on the answer: “What if I
do all my reading on the Web not so much because the way I read has
changed, i.e., I’m just seeking convenience, but because the way I
THINK has changed?”
Anecdotes alone don’t prove much. And we still await the long-term
neurological and psychological experiments that will provide a
definitive picture of how Internet use affects cognition. But a recently
published study of online research habits, conducted by scholars
from University College London, suggests that we may well be in the
midst of a sea change in the way we read and think. As part of the
five-year research program, the scholars examined computer logs
documenting the behavior of visitors to two popular research sites,
one operated by the British Library and one by a U.K. educational
consortium, that provide access to journal articles, e-books, and
other sources of written information. They found that people using
the sites exhibited “a form of skimming activity,” hopping from one
source to another and rarely returning to any source they’d already
visited. They typically read no more than one or two pages of an
article or book before they would “bounce” out to another site.
Sometimes they’d save a long article, but there’s no evidence that they
ever went back and actually read it. The authors of the study report:
It is clear that users are not reading online in the traditional sense; indeed there are
signs that new forms of “reading” are emerging as users “power browse” horizontally
through titles, contents pages and abstracts going for quick wins. It almost seems that
they go online to avoid reading in the traditional sense.
The company has declared that its mission is “to organize the world’s
information and make it universally accessible and useful.” It seeks
to develop “the perfect search engine,” which it defines as something
that “understands exactly what you mean and gives you back exactly
what you want.” In Google’s view, information is a kind of
commodity, a utilitarian resource that can be mined and processed
with industrial efficiency. The more pieces of information we can
“access” and the faster we can extract their gist, the more productive
we become as thinkers.
Where does it end? Sergey Brin and Larry Page, the gi ed young men
who founded Google while pursuing doctoral degrees in computer
science at Stanford, speak frequently of their desire to turn their
search engine into an artificial intelligence, a HAL-like machine that
might be connected directly to our brains. “The ultimate search
engine is something as smart as people — or smarter,” Page said in a
speech a few years back. “For us, working on search is a way to work
on artificial intelligence.” In a 2004 interview with Newsweek, Brin
said, “Certainly if you had all the world’s information directly
attached to your brain, or an artificial brain that was smarter than
your brain, you’d be better off.” Last year, Page told a convention of
scientists that Google is “really trying to build artificial intelligence
and to do it on a large scale.”
Such an ambition is a natural one, even an admirable one, for a pair
of math whizzes with vast quantities of cash at their disposal and a
small army of computer scientists in their employ. A fundamentally
scientific enterprise, Google is motivated by a desire to use
technology, in Eric Schmidt’s words, “to solve problems that have
never been solved before,” and artificial intelligence is the hardest
problem out there. Why wouldn’t Brin and Page want to be the ones
to crack it?
Still, their easy assumption that we’d all “be better off” if our brains
were supplemented, or even replaced, by an artificial intelligence is
unsettling. It suggests a belief that intelligence is the output of a
mechanical process, a series of discrete steps that can be isolated,
measured, and optimized. In Google’s world, the world we enter
when we go online, there’s little place for the fuzziness of
contemplation. Ambiguity is not an opening for insight but a bug to
be fixed. The human brain is just an outdated computer that needs a
faster processor and a bigger hard drive.
I come from a tradition of Western culture, in which the ideal (my ideal) was the
complex, dense and “cathedral-like” structure of the highly educated and articulate
personality — a man or woman who carried inside themselves a personally
constructed and unique version of the entire heritage of the West. [But now] I see
within us all (myself included) the replacement of complex inner density with a new
kind of self — evolving under the pressure of information overload and the technology
of the “instantly available.”
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Read to Summarize. Write a sentence or two explaining Carr’s
concern regarding the Internet’s effect on our ability to
concentrate and think deeply.
2. Read to Respond. Write a paragraph analyzing anything that
seems interesting, such as the role of Carr’s anecdotes in the first
six paragraphs. Do they draw the reader into the essay? Present
the subject? Help readers identify with Carr? Provide hard
evidence? Or consider your own experience with reading on the
Internet, and whether you share Carr’s concern that the kind of
reading fostered there is undermining “deep reading” (par. 2).
3. Read to Analyze Assumptions. Write a paragraph or two
analyzing an assumption you find intriguing in Carr’s essay. For
example:
1. Reread paragraphs 4, 7, 8, 10, 17, 18, 19, and 22, in which Carr responds to
alternative arguments, underlining the main objections that he anticipates his
readers will have to his argument. For example, in paragraph 4, he anticipates
readers’ likely objection that having access to so much information is a terrific
advantage.
2. Now examine how Carr manages readers’ possible objections and questions. For
at least three of the objections or questions you identified in the paragraphs you
reread, notice the kinds of support he relies on to argue against each objection.
How appropriate and believable do you find his support? Why?
Contextualize the cartoon Carr uses in “Is Google Making Us Stupid?” to help you analyze it.
Contextualizing is a critical reading strategy that helps you understand a text or visual by
making inferences about its historical and cultural contexts and comparing those contexts to
your own context. This strategy not only helps you analyze the text or visual before you, but
also helps you understand how your reading of it is affected by your context. Write a
paragraph that addresses the following prompts.
What types of context do you need to understand the humor of the cartoon?
The cartoon originally appeared in the New Yorker magazine, a periodical that appeals
to a middle-aged, fairly well-to-do, and sophisticated readership. How does the
cartoon appeal to this audience?
What larger social and cultural context made the cartoon relevant in 2008? Is it still
relevant to you now? How has the context changed?
Consider the traditional appearance of the teacher, student, and classroom. How does
the contrast between that traditional look and the caption help generate the cartoon’s
humor?
Sendhil Mullainathan
The Mental Strain of Making Do with Less
Sendhil Mullainathan (b. 1972) received his Ph.D. from Harvard and is a professor of
economics there. He has published many articles in professional economics journals
and has the distinction of being a MacArthur Fellow. He is the author, with Jeffrey R.
Kling and William J. Congdon, of Policy and Choice: Public Finance through the Lens of
Behavioral Economics (2011), and he is the author, with Eldar Shafir, of Scarcity: Why
Having Too Little Means So Much (2013). The essay below is based on the work
described in Scarcity. For your reference, we have converted Mullainathan’s sources
to in-text citations and a list of Works Cited at the end of the selection.
Before you read, think about your own experiences with scarcity — with
having less than you need to achieve a goal. Were you aware of any
physiological or emotional challenges to “making do with less”?
As you read, note places where Mullainathan establishes his credibility, such as
where he presents his issue thoughtfully and fairly, and consider why you think
so.
Diets don’t just reduce weight, they can reduce mental capacity. In
other words, dieting can make you dumber. Understanding why this
is the case can illuminate a range of experiences, including
something as far removed from voluntary calorie restriction as the
ordeal of outright poverty.
This can happen even with no cookie in sight. Dieters conjure their
own cookies: psychologists find that dieters have spontaneous self-
generated cravings at a much higher rate than nondieters (Hill). And
these cravings are not the dieters’ only distraction. Diets force trade-
offs: If you eat the cookie, should you skip the appetizer at dinner?
But that restaurant looked so good!
This may sound defeatist. But there are positive lessons for how to
manage the different kinds of scarcity. The United States
government, laudably, offers financial aid for low-income students
to attend college. Qualifying for it, though, requires completing a
densely packed 10-page booklet, mentally taxing for anyone. A one-
page version would not only be simpler but it would also recognize
that the poor are short on bandwidth as well as cash.
So keep this in mind the next time you’re picking a diet to shed a few
pounds. Try one that won’t also shed a few I.Q. points.
Works Cited
Hill, Andrew J. “The Psychology of Food Craving.” Proceedings of the
Nutrition Society, vol. 66, no. 2, May 2007, pp. 277–85.
Mani, Anandi, et al. “Poverty Impedes Cognitive Function.” Science,
vol. 341, no. 6149, 30 Aug. 2013, pp. 976–90.
Mata, Jutta, et al. “When Weight Management Lasts. Lower
Perceived Rule Complexity Increases Adherence.” Appetite, vol.
54, no. 1, Feb. 2010, pp. 37–43.
Mullainathan, Sendhil, and Eldar Shafir. Scarcity: The New Science of
Having Less and How It Defines Our Lives. Picador, 2013.
Polivy, Janet, et al. “The Effect of Deprivation on Food Cravings and
Eating Behavior in Restrained and Unrestrained Eaters.”
International Journal of Eating Disorders, vol. 38, no. 4, Dec. 2005,
pp. 301–9, doi:10.1002/eat.20195.
Shiv, Baba, and Alexander Fedorikhin. “Heart and Mind in Conflict:
The Interplay of Affect and Cognition in Consumer Decision
Making.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 26, no. 3, Dec. 1999,
pp. 278–92.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread “The Mental Strain of Making Do with Less,” and annotate it for evidence
of credibility or lack of it. How knowledgeable does Mullainathan seem about
the subject? Look especially at paragraphs 3, 5, 9–12, and 15. Which paragraphs
most impress you with his authority? Why?
2. What evidence do you find that Mullainathan has thought deeply about his
subject? Do you think that dieting is the most important subject in his essay, or is
he really alerting his audience to something more pervasive? If so, how would
you explain his approach?
Clayton Pangelinan
#socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So Popular
Clayton Pangelinan wrote this essay in his first-year college composition course. He
was curious about why social networking had become so popular and has sustained its
popularity over some time, and he wanted to examine the causes for this sustained
interest.
Before you read, think about why you engage in social networking, and why you
think it has maintained its popularity a er it was initially invented.
As you read, pay attention to how Pangelinan tries to present his subject fairly,
to establish his causes, and to understand the larger significance of the trend he
examines.
Over the last decade or so, there has been a remarkable increase in
the popularity of social networking. As Figure 1 below [p. 438] shows,
the rise in popularity cuts across all age groups. Sixty-eight percent of
adults are Facebook users and Americans between the ages of 18 and
24 are using a variety of platforms. As the chart shows, 78 percent of
18- to 24-year-olds use Snapchat, 71 percent of Americans in the same
age group use Instagram, while 45 percent use Twitter, too.
Preferences among social networking sites have changed over the
years, but the bottom line is that social networking continues to be
enormously popular.
FIGURE 1 MAJORITY OF AMERICANS NOW USE FACEBOOK, YOUTUBE. Data from
“Social Media Use in 2018,” Pew Research Center Survey,
http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/.
Description
The horizontal axis represents the number of people from 0 to 100 and the vertical axis
represents the social media channels – YouTube, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram, and
Twitter. The readings are as follows:
50 plus: Twitter, 14; Instagram, 16; Snapchat, 7; Facebook, 55; and YouTube, 56
percent.
30 to 49: Twitter, 24; Instagram, 40; Snapchat, 23; Facebook, 80; and YouTube, 84
percent.
25 to 29: Twitter, 33; Instagram, 53; Snapchat, 53; Facebook, 83; and YouTube, 89
percent.
18 to 24: Twitter, 45; Instagram, 71; Snapchat, 78; Facebook, 80; and YouTube, 94
percent.
The fact that social networking is popular is well established. The
question is why is it so popular? The most basic answer is that social
networking is popular because it’s available. Without the
technological advances that transformed the static read-only Web
into the dynamic, interactive virtual community known as Web 2.0,
none of the social networking we all engage in today would have
been possible. A better answer, though, is that social media offer
people a way to satisfy their desire to connect with others and maybe
also be “world-famous for fi een minutes” (as Andy Warhol
supposedly remarked). A 2011 study asked people what their
motivations were for using social networking sites, and two-thirds of
those surveyed reported that they go online primarily to connect
with friends and family and meet new people (see Fig. 2). As social
animals, people have an inherent need for human connection.
Professor Matthew Lieberman, in his recent book Social: Why Our
Brains Are Wired to Connect, reports experiments using fMRIs to prove
that the need to connect is hard-wired. According to Lieberman, our
wiring impels us not only to share, but also to hear. Communication
naturally flows both ways: Not only are we “driven by deep
motivations to stay connected with friends and family” but we are
also “naturally curious about what is going on in the minds of other
people” (ix).
FIGURE 2 MOTIVATIONS FOR USING SOCIAL NETWORKING SITES. Data from
Smith, Aaron. “Why Americans Use Social Media.” Pew Research Center, 15 Nov.
2011, www.pewinternet .org/2011/11/15/why-americans-use-social-media/
Description
The horizontal axis represents the various reasons and the vertical axis represents the
percentage of people who quote each of the factor as major, minor or not a reason. The
readings are as follows:
Staying in touch with current friends: Major, 67; Minor, 24; and Not a reason, 9 percent.
Staying in touch with family members: Major, 64; Minor, 23; and Not a reason, 13
percent.
Connecting with old friends you’ve lost touch with: Major, 50; Minor, 36; and Not a
reason, 13 percent.
Connecting with others with shared hobbies or interests: Major, 14; Minor, 35; and Not a
reason, 50 percent.
Making new friends: Major, 9; Minor, 34; and Not a reason, 57 percent.
Reading comments by celebrities, athletes, or politicians: Major, 5; Minor, 20; and Not a
reason, 74 percent.
Finding potential romantic or dating partners: Major, 3; Minor, 13; and Not a reason, 84
percent.
We’re alone all the time. We’re alone on the bus, we’re alone walking down the street,
we’re alone at the office and in the classroom, alone waiting in line at Disney World.
We’re tired of being alone, which is why increasingly we are barely hesitating to do
whatever we feel we need to do to push out of solitude. (212–13)
Description
The enlisted age groups are 18 to 24, 25 to 29, 30 to 49, and 50 plus. The readings are
as follows:
Hard to give up: 18 to 24, 51 percent; 25 to 29, 40 percent; 30 to 49, 43 percent; and 50
plus, 33 percent.
Not hard to give up: 18 to 24, 49 percent; 25 to 29, 60 percent; 30 to 49, 56 percent; and
50 plus, 66 percent.
The average percentage taken among all social media users across all age groups is as
follows: hard to give up, 40 percent, and Not hard to give up, 59 percent.
Works Cited
Greenwood, Dara N. “Fame, Facebook, and Twitter: How Attitudes
about Fame Predict the Frequency and Nature of Social Media
Use.” Psychology of Popular Media Culture, vol. 2, no. 4, 2013, pp.
222–36. PsycINFO, doi:10.1037/ppm0000013.
Lenhart, Amanda. “Teens, Social Media & Technology Overview
2015.” Pew Research Center, 9 Apr. 2015,
www.pewinternet.org/2015/04/09/teens-social-media-technology-
2015/.
Lieberman, Matthew. Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connect.
Crown Publishing, 2013.
Niedzviecki, Hal. The Peep Diaries: How We’re Learning to Love
Watching Ourselves and Our Neighbors. City Lights Books, 2009.
Smith, Aaron. “Why Americans Use Social Media.” Pew Research
Center, 15 Nov. 2011, www.pewinternet.org/2011/11/15/why-
americans-use-social-media/.
“Social Networking Fact Sheet.” Internet Project Library Survey. Pew
Research Center, www.pewinternet.org/fact-sheets/social-
networking-fact-sheet/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2015.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread paragraphs 1–4. How does each paragraph serve the goal of establishing
the existence of a trend and presenting the questions about it fairly?
2. Now skim the subsequent paragraphs that develop his ideas. What kind of
evidence does Pangelinan present to support his speculations? Does this evidence
help you understand why social networking has maintained its popularity?
presents the argument fairly to help readers know the issue and enhance the writer’s
credibility;
uses writing strategies, such as definition, compare/contrast, example, illustration, and
analogy to make a logical, well-supported argument
responds to objections or alternative speculations that are fair and appropriate.
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING ESSAYS
SPECULATING ABOUT CAUSES OR
EFFECTS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief speculative essay of your own arguing for your preferred
causes or effects of an event, a phenomenon, or a trend. This Guide
to Writing offers detailed suggestions and resources to help you
meet the special challenges this kind of writing presents.
Choose a subject that invites you to speculate about its causes or effects: why it may
have happened or what its effects may be.
Research the subject, gathering detailed information from appropriate sources, and
present that information in a clear, logical way.
Establish the existence and significance of the subject.
Convince readers that the causes or effects you propose are more plausible than the
alternatives.
Choosing a Subject
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options. Keep in mind that it
must be
Here are some ideas that may help you find a subject.
Trends
Events
Phenomena
Making a chart listing subjects that interest you and their possible
causes or effects can help you decide which subject is most
promising.
Now that you have a potential subject, write for a few minutes,
analyzing your potential readers.
You may discover that you know more about your subject than you
suspect if you write about it for a few minutes without stopping.
This brief sustained writing will stimulate your memory and help
you probe your interest in the subject. As you write, consider the
following questions:
What about this subject interests me? What about it will interest
my readers?
► I think the [subject] is important because
……………………….
► My readers are likely to be curious about the subject
because ……………………… [Examples: it affects them
personally/it raises important moral, psychological, or
other questions they will find intriguing].
What do I already know about the subject? What do my readers
already know?
► I know what the obvious causes of [the subject] are, but I’m
curious about the underlying [cultural/ psychological/
ideological] causes because ……………………….
► The subject [has been in the news or is so well-known] that
Conducting Research.
Remember that the only category you must include in your essay is
the first: one or more causes or effects you will argue played a
major, and perhaps, surprising role. Including the other categories
will, however, make for a more complex and sophisticated piece of
writing.
Write for several minutes about your purpose for writing this essay.
The following questions will help you think about your purpose:
To get an idea about how you might formulate your thesis, take a
look at the thesis statements from the reading selections you’ve
studied in this chapter. Here are two:
The mythic horror movie, like the sick joke, has a dirty job to do. It deliberately
appeals to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let
free, our nastiest fantasies realized … and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark.
(King, par. 12)
The question is why is [social networking] so popular? The most basic answer is that
social networking is popular because it’s available. … A better answer, though, is that
social media offer people a way to satisfy their desire to connect with others and
maybe also be “world-famous for fi een minutes” … (Pangelinan, par. 2)
Now dra your own thesis statement, either using the sentence
strategies below as a jumping-off point (you can put them into your
own words when you revise) or using your own words and sentence
patterns:
For more on choosing and citing sources, see “Evaluating Sources” in Chapter 12.
Outlining what you have written can help you organize your essay
effectively for your audience. You may want to dra a sentence that
forecasts the elements of your argument to alert your readers to
your main points (and give yourself a tentative outline). Putting your
points in a logical order (from least to most effective, for example)
will make it easier for you to guide your readers from point to point.
A cause or effect analysis may contain as many as four basic parts:
These parts can be organized in various ways: If your readers are not
likely to agree with your speculations about causes or effects, you
may want to anticipate and respond to their possible objections just
before you present the evidence in favor of your argument. If you
expect readers are likely to favor your speculations, you may want to
concede or refute alternatives a er offering your own reasons.
Either way, you may want to emphasize the common ground you
share.
Now stitch that material together to create a dra . The next two
parts of this Guide to Writing will help you evaluate and improve it.
REVIEWING AND IMPROVING THE DRAFT
What’s Working Well: Let the writer know where the subject is
presented especially fairly — for example, where the issue is
framed so the reader’s curiosity is aroused, or it’s presented
clearly and objectively before the writer presents a point of view
about the causes or effects. Note where the writer seems
particularly knowledgeable and responds to differing points of
view with well-thought-out insights.
If there are too Clarify the role of each one and the
many proposed way it is related to others.
causes or effects, Drop one or more that seem too
obvious, obscure, or minor.
To Enhance Credibility
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from your invention writing, point out the section or sections that helped
you most.
If you got good advice from a critical reader, explain exactly how the person helped
you — perhaps by helping you understand a problem in your dra or by helping you
add a new dimension to your writing.
2. Reflect more generally on speculating about causes or effects, a genre of writing that
plays an important role in social life and public policy in the United States. Consider
some of the following questions:
Do you tend to adopt a tentative or an assertive stance when making such
speculations about public issues? Why?
How might your personal preferences and values influence your speculations
about, for example, the causes of health-care cost inflation or the effects of same-
sex marriage? How about your gender, ethnicity, religious beliefs, age, or social
class?
What contribution might writing that speculates about causes or effects make to
our society that other genres cannot make?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about speculating about causes or effects, you
have been practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing processes. Can you identify any
habits you practiced?
CHAPTER 10
Proposal to Solve a Problem
Who was the audience? How do you think communicating to this audience influenced
what was told or how it was told? For example, if the audience was not personally
affected by the problem, how were they inspired to care about solving the problem?
What was the main purpose? What did you — or the other writer or speaker — hope to
achieve? For example, was the primary purpose to inspire the audience to vote a
certain way or to urge people in a position of power to take a particular action?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the proposal was presented?
What made the proposal appropriate or inappropriate for its particular audience or
purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING PROPOSALS
This guide introduces you to proposal writing by inviting you to
analyze a proposal by Alice Wong that offers a surprising take on the
debate of single-use plastic.
Before you read, think about whether you have noticed that plastic straws are no
longer being used in many restaurants, including Starbucks. If you have noticed
this, what brought the change to your attention? If you haven’t, why do you think
that is?
As you read, pay attention to how Wong lays out the problem and the solution.
Based on how she describes the problem, does the solution seem logical and
practical?
Two items I always ask for with my drinks are a lid and a plastic
straw, emphasis on plastic. Lids prevent spillage when I’m navigating
bumpy sidewalks and curb cuts; straws are necessary because I do
not have the hand and arm strength to li a drink and tip it into my
mouth. Plastic straws are the best when I drink hot liquids;
compostable ones tend to melt or break apart.
It’s not easy or pleasant asking for help in public spaces like
restaurants, because you never know what attitudes you’ll encounter:
indifference, pity, or outright rejection. I don’t see these types of help
as special treatment or inspirational for someone to surreptitiously
post on social media as feel-good clickbait; they’re simply examples
of excellent hospitality.
Is the banning of plastic straws an example of the struggle for disability rights and justice or is
something else going on here?
lawyers and clients. Ableist attitudes that cast disabled people as ‘fakers’ or
‘complainers’ obscure the very real and painful experiences of not being able to eat and
drink freely.
8) As demand increases for alternatives to plastic, so do the voices from the disability
community sharing their concerns about how these bans will create additional labor,
hurdles, and difficulties. On social media, many disabled people have been sharing their
stories and keeping it 100 percent real. I observed and experienced all sorts of
microaggressions and outright dismissal of what disabled people are saying online.
I saw a Tweet that said: What did all you disabled people do before straws were
invented? I believe it was a Doctor who responded: They aspirated liquids into their
lungs and died of pneumonia. #MicDrop
(Bullet) 350 173 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy 3:05 PM - Jul
12, 2018 (Bullet) Mia | @SeeMiaRoll Half of the disability life experience is having non-
disabled ppl give suggestions like they innovative/creative when we’ve spent hours of
our lives explaining to EVERYONE and their mother why their ‘helpful’ suggestions don’t
work. #SuckItAbleism
(Bullet) 637 285 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy 12:36 AM - Jul
12, 2018
9) People have told me online that I still have access to biodegradable straws at
Starbucks, despite my reasons for using plastic ones. People have told me to bring my
own reusable straws without thinking about the extra work that entails. Why would a
disabled customer have to bring something in order to drink while non-disabled people
have the convenience
This is the experience of living in a world that was never built for
you: having to explain and defend yourself while providing infinite
amounts of labor at the demand of people who do not recognize their
nondisabled privilege. There are days when I want to put this on
repeat: “Believe disabled people. Period.” I refuse to apologize or feel
shame about the way my body works and how I navigate in the world.
Everyone consumes goods and creates waste. We all do what we can
to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We should recognize that different
needs require different solutions. I’m not a monster for using plastic
straws or other plastic items that allow me to live, such as oxygen
tubes.
Are these tweets credible sources? Why does the author include tweets in a serious
proposal?
Description
The text reads as follows:
and ability to use what is provided for free? This is neither just, equitable, nor hospitable.
10) This is the experience of living in a world that was never built for you: having to
explain and defend yourself while providing infinite amounts of labor at the demand of
people who do not recognize their nondisabled privilege. There are days when I want to
put this on repeat: ‘Believe disabled people. Period.’ I refuse to apologize or feel shame
about the way my body works and how I navigate in the world. Everyone consumes
goods and creates waste. We all do what we can to reduce, reuse, and recycle. We
should recognize that different needs require different solutions. I’m not a monster for
using plastic straws or other plastic items that allow me to live, such as oxygen tubes.
Imagine if your solution to segregated lunch counters and restaurants was for black
people to bring their own chair. Now apply that to straws and disabled people...
https://twitter.com/fabulancemedic/status/1018597995703689217 …
(Bullet) 105 40 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy 5:15 PM - Jul
15, 2018
(Margin note reads, Are these tweets credible sources? Why does the author include
tweets in a serious proposal?)
11) Restaurants are theater; they are also highly politicized, contested spaces. There
are times when I go out and the waiter asks my companion for my order instead of me.
I’ve gone through creepy, dirty side entrances just to get into a restaurant. I’ve been
called ‘the wheelchair’ by front-of-house staff when they commiserate on which table to
place me, since I apparently take up too much space. I also love the places where I feel
welcomed and respected. As they provide thoughtful and authentic hospitality, I respond
by being a loyal customer who appreciates the little touches that make a visit enjoyable.
12) The ban in Seattle comes with an exemption for people with disabilities, where
restaurants can provide plastic straws upon request for medical reasons. This is optional
for restaurants, so they may choose to not to make any available. What people don’t
understand with bans like this is that having to ask for a plastic straw puts an unfair
burden, and scrutiny, on people with disabilities. They should not have to prove a
medical need or even disclose their disability status when having a fun night out with
friends. This is not hospitality.
13) So where do we go from here? How can we cultivate accessible and hospitable
environments while reducing waste? Until someone invents a compostable straw with
the functionality of a plastic one, I have a
Description
The text reads as follows:
modest proposal for establishments that have banned plastic straws and those that are
considering it:
(Bullet) If you are an establishment with straws at a counter, provide both types, clearly
labeled, for people to choose from. If a cafe or restaurant wants to provide straws by
request, have the server offer plastic and biodegradable versions, just as they would
give any customer a choice of still or sparkling water. Customers can choose what is
best for them without alienating an entire group.
(Bullet) Re-examine the kinds of plastic you use in your establishment (example, plastic
wrap, containers) and find additional ways to reduce your consumption.
(Bullet) Expand your ideas about hospitality and accessibility; they are one and the
same.
(Bullet) Think about the intentional and unintentional barriers your establishment sets
that may keep people from visiting your place. Listen and learn from your customers’
critiques, including disabled customers. Don’t wait for protests or boycotts before
engaging with the disability community (I see you, Starbucks).
(Bullet) 406 219 people are talking about this Twitter Ads info and privacy
14) If cafes can offer four types of milk for espresso drinks and restaurants 50 types of
wine and beer, small businesses and large corporations can manage offering two types
of straws. The key is to have the same level of access for all items. You can
accommodate all your customers while reducing waste at the same time. Customers
respond to choice and flexibility.
Because in the end, isn’t it all about welcoming everyone into your space with authentic
and inclusive hospitality?
If cafes can offer four types of milk for espresso drinks and
restaurants 50 types of wine and beer, small businesses and large
corporations can manage offering two types of straws. The key is to
have the same level of access for all items. You can accommodate all
your customers while reducing waste at the same time. Customers
respond to choice and flexibility.
Because in the end, isn’t it all about welcoming everyone into your
space with authentic and inclusive hospitality?
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
1. Reread the first paragraph. How does the image Wong creates of herself and the
questions she asks before she leaves her home prepare the reader for the piece as
a whole, as well as for the solution Wong offers?
2. Look back at the title of the piece. What does the common saying “the last straw”
mean? Why do you think Wong chose this expression for her title? Explain your
answer.
3. Note that Wong uses a numbered list, as well as bullet points, in her essay. Why do
you think she does so? Is this a productive way of organizing her essay? Why or
why not?
For proposed solutions that already exist, the writer may need only to
give the solution a name and give examples of where it is being
applied successfully. Writers may also support their claims about the
solution’s effectiveness and feasibility with such evidence as
statistics, research studies, and quotations from experts.
1. Wong writes, “Until someone invents a compostable straw with the functionality
of a plastic one, I have a modest proposal for establishments that have banned
plastic straws and those that are considering it” (par. 13). Why do you think Wong
does not argue for the “development of a compostable straw with the functionality
of a plastic one”? Do you think that solution would be more or less effective and
feasible than the solutions she proposes? Explain your answer.
2. Do Wong’s solution(s) have the potential to solve the problem, and can the
solutions be implemented on a wide scale fairly easily and inexpensively?
3. Do you think that the four bulleted solutions Wong proposes are intended to be
applied all together as different parts of the same overarching solution, or could
someone pick and choose from her proposal list? Explain your answer, and also
consider if this affects the feasibility of her proposal.
1. Wong writes, “People have told me online that I still have access to biodegradable
straws at Starbucks, despite my reasons for using plastic ones. People have told
me to bring my own reusable straws without thinking about the extra work that
entails” (par. 9). Does Wong concede or refute these solutions? Do you think she is
successful? Why or why not?
2. Consider how Wong responds to those who say she can just ask for a plastic straw:
“Restaurants can provide plastic straws upon request for medical reasons . …
What people don’t understand with bans like this is that having to ask for a plastic
straw puts an unfair burden, and scrutiny, on people with disabilities” (par. 12).
What effect does the phrase “what people don’t understand” have on you as a
reader? Do you think you are one of the people Wong is calling out? Why or why
not?
3. Finally, what role do the tweets Wong includes play in her essay? Do they support
her solution? How do they suggest other ways of thinking about the problem and
possible solutions?
Notice how the transitions help orient readers to the twists and turns
of Wong’s argument. “So, where do we go from here,” for example,
emphasizes the crucial part of the solution: that something can be
done to address this problem that does not further alienate or
scrutinize people with disabilities.
People have told me online that I still have access to biodegradable straws at Starbucks,
despite my reasons for using plastic ones . … (par. 9)
1. Reread Wong’s essay with an eye toward rhetorical questions. Where and how
does she use these?
2. Look at the topic sentences in each of Wong’s paragraphs. Do these provide you
with an overview of what will be addressed in each paragraph? Does each
paragraph logically follow from the previous one? How so?
3. In addition to the cueing strategies mentioned above, what other organization
strategies does Wong use to organize her proposal? Overall, given Wong’s purpose,
how clear and comprehensible is the logic of this proposal argument? If you were
to give Wong advice on revising this proposal, what, if anything, would you
recommend?
READINGS
Harold Meyerson
How to Raise Americans’ Wages
Harold Meyerson (b. 1950) writes a weekly opinion column for the Washington Post
and contributes to its PostPartisan blog. He also serves as executive editor of the
progressive magazine, The American Prospect, in which his proposal “How to Raise
Americans’ Wages” first appeared in 2015. A senior fellow at the Center for American
Progress, Meyerson o en writes about politics, labor, and economics for major
publications like the New Yorker, the Atlantic, and the New York Times. He has also
hosted a weekly radio show and written a biography of The Wizard of Oz lyricist Yip
Harburg.
Before you read, think about why Meyerson opens his proposal as if it were a
fairy tale, with the conventional “once upon a time” beginning.
As you read, notice that Meyerson’s proposal offers several different but related
solutions to the problem. Consider how each solution would help to raise wages
for American workers.
In a nation where workers have lost the power they once had to
raise their incomes, what can be done to make those incomes rise?
Here are [four] proposals …
1. LEGISLATE WAGE HIKES IN STATES AND
CITIES
Since the late 1990s, local progressive governments have been able
to li wage levels for private-sector workers in government-owned
facilities (such as airports or museums) and projects that receive
government assistance (such as property-tax abatements or
infrastructure improvements) or require special governmental
approvals (such as sports arenas). Advocates of these “living wage”
ordinances argue that governments should not be using taxpayer
dollars to subsidize poverty-wage jobs . … Currently, at least 150
cities have established living-wage ordinances or community-benefit
agreements … .
Congress could create a lower tax rate for those corporations that
increased their median wage in line with the annual national
productivity increase . … Constructing a tax code that gives
corporations an incentive to pass on productivity increases to their
employees is admittedly a complex task. The tax break would have
to be big enough to be attractive to the companies’ directors and
managers. The break would also have to be withheld from
corporations that game the system by initially cutting their workers’
pay to reduce the median wage, then restore it through a
productivity increase. Devising a process for monitoring and
assessing corporate conduct would not be easy. But with
unionization — the straightforward means of linking employee pay
to productivity gains — off the table, complexity is the price we’d
have to pay to create a more prosperous economy … .
They should also promote legislation that would link corporate tax
rates to the ratio between CEO pay and the firm’s median pay: the
lower the ratio, the lower the tax. This is sure to elicit a backlash
from corporate elites and the financial sector, but it should gain
popular support. A poll conducted this February showed that 66
percent of the public believed that “executive pay is generally too
high” — an assessment shared by 79 percent of Democrats, 61
percent of independents, and 58 percent of Republicans. The rise in
the ratio of CEO to median-worker pay began about the time that
workers’ compensation was detached from increases in productivity.
In 1978, CEOs made 28 times the pay of their median-paid
employee; by 2012, CEOs made 273 times the median.
Were this proposal to become law, CEOs and their boards would face
a fundamental choice: They could persist in excessive executive
compensation at the expense of forcing their company to shell out
considerably more in corporate taxes. Or they could reduce
executive pay to levels the American people see as a more legitimate
reflection of executive worth. They would also have a self-interest in
raising their workers’ wages. Indeed, if enacted in conjunction with
the proposal linking the median worker’s pay to productivity
increases, this proposal would limit corporations’ incentive to game
that system by reducing workers’ pay before the median is
calculated.
The justification for the low rate on capital — that it boosts the
American economy by promoting domestic investment — has been
rendered absurd by the globalization of American businesses. The
disparity between capital and labor tax rates also means that the
government has diminished its take from that part of the national
income that is growing, while maintaining a higher rate on that part
of the nation’s income that is shrinking.
For all those reasons, the tax rates on capital should be raised to the
level of the rates on labor; indeed, given that taxable labor must be
domestic while taxable capital can be derived from anywhere, the
rate on capital should be higher than that on labor. But what to do
with this new revenue? As shareholder capital comes more and
more at labor’s expense, it should be taxed for the purpose of
boosting labor income. One option would be to devote some of it to
increase labor income through a major expansion of the Earned
Income Tax Credit, a tax rebate that supplements the income of the
working poor.
In a nation where workers have lost the power they once had to
raise their incomes, what can be done to make those incomes rise?
Here are [four] proposals …
1. Reread the four proposals, marking topic sentences and transition words. Now
look at the topic sentences in each of Meyerson’s paragraphs. Do these provide
you with an overview of what will be addressed in each paragraph? Look at the
transition words. Do they help each paragraph logically follow from the previous
one?
2. What other organization strategies does Meyerson use to organize his proposal
and how do they contribute to his overall argument?
Maryanne Wolf
Skim Reading Is the New Normal
Maryanne Wolf is a teacher and scholar who researches and advocates for children’s
literacy. She is the author of numerous books and academic articles, including Proust
and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain (2007), Tales of Literacy for the
21st Century (2016), and Reader, Come Home: The Reading Brain in a Digital World
(2018). She has taught at institutions including Tu s University, where she directed
the Center for Reading and Language Research, and UCLA, where she is the Director
of the Center for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners, and Social Justice. The essay below
appeared in the Guardian in 2018 as part of their weekly “Ideas for America” essay
series.
Before you read, think about what you skim read. Do you skim websites, your
assigned readings for your classes, other kinds of texts?
As you read, consider how Wolf uses research to support her proposal. Is this
effective? Explain your answer.
Look around on your next plane trip. The iPad is the new pacifier for
babies and toddlers. Younger school-aged children read stories on
smartphones; older boys don’t read at all, but hunch over video
games. Parents and other passengers read on Kindles or skim a
flotilla of email and news feeds. Unbeknownst to most of us, an
invisible, game-changing transformation links everyone in this
picture: the neuronal circuit that underlies the brain’s ability to read
is subtly, rapidly changing — a change with implications for
everyone from the pre-reading toddler to the expert adult.
Ziming Liu from San Jose State University has conducted a series of
studies which indicate that the “new norm” in reading is skimming,
with word-spotting and browsing through the text. Many readers
now use an F or Z pattern when reading in which they sample the
first line and then word-spot through the rest of the text. When the
reading brain skims like this, it reduces time allocated to deep
reading processes. In other words, we don’t have time to grasp
complexity, to understand another’s feelings, to perceive beauty, and
to create thoughts of the reader’s own.
There’s an old rule in neuroscience that does not alter with age: use
it or lose it. It is a very hopeful principle when applied to critical
thought in the reading brain because it implies choice. The story of
the changing reading brain is hardly finished. We possess both the
science and the technology to identify and redress the changes in
how we read before they become entrenched. If we work to
understand exactly what we will lose, alongside the extraordinary
new capacities that the digital world has brought us, there is as
much reason for excitement as caution.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
For help with looking for patterns of opposition and analyzing assumptions, see “Looking for
Patterns of Opposition” and “Analyzing Assumptions” in Chapter 2.
Complete the following writing prompts that help you look for patterns of opposition in
order to analyze the assumptions in Wolf’s essay.
Reread Wolf’s essay and annotate words or phrases that indicate oppositions. Based
on your annotations, continue filling in the chart, listing as many patterns of
opposition as you notice. For each pair, including those already on the chart, put an
asterisk next to the term or idea that the writer seems to value or prefer over the other
term or idea.
Print Digital
Before you read, note that the title asks the question “Why Not a Football
Degree?” What problem do you imagine a college degree in football would
solve?
As you read, consider that this proposal was written originally for the Wall
Street Journal, a newspaper concerned primarily with business and financial
matters. How does Shughart appeal to the interests and concerns of his original
audience?
Each of these events, which are only the latest revelations in a long
series of NCAA rule violations, has generated the usual hand-
wringing about the apparent loss of amateurism in college sports.
Nostalgia for supposedly simpler times when love of the game and
not money was the driving force in intercollegiate athletics has led
to all sorts of reform proposals. The NCAA’s decision in the late
1980s to require its member institutions to make public athletes’
graduation rates is perhaps the least controversial example.
Proposition 48’s mandate that freshman athletes must meet more
stringent test score and grade point requirements to participate in
NCAA-sanctioned contests than is demanded of entering non-
student-athletes has been criticized as a naked attempt to
discriminate against disadvantaged (and mostly minority) high-
school graduates who see college sports as a way out of poverty.
But whether or not one supports any particular reform proposal,
there seems to be a general consensus that something must be done.
If so, why stop at half-measures? I hereby offer three suggestions for
solving the crisis in college athletics.
If the NCAA and its member schools are truly concerned about the
academic side of the college athletic experience, let them put their
money where their collective mouth is. The period of an athlete’s
eligibility to participate in intercollegiate sports would remain at
four years, but the two additional years of scholarship support could
be exercised at any time during the athlete’s lifetime. Athletes who
use up their college eligibility and do not choose careers in
professional sports would be guaranteed financial backing to
remain in school and finish their undergraduate degrees. Athletes
who have the talent to turn pro could complete their degrees when
their playing days are over.
It follows that under the current system, the weaker programs are
virtually compelled to offer illegal financial inducements to players
and recruits if they wish to compete successfully with the traditional
powers. It also follows that shi ing to a market-based system of
compensation would remove some of the built-in advantages now
enjoyed by the top college athletic programs. It is surely this effect,
along with the reductions in the incomes of coaches and the “fat” in
athletic department budgets to be expected once a competitive
marketplace is permitted to work, that is the cause of the objection
to paying student-athletes a market-determined wage, not the
rhetoric about the repugnance of professionalism.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Their proposal “Ounces of Prevention — The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared
Beverages” was originally published in 2009 in the highly respected New England
Journal of Medicine, which calls itself “the most widely read, cited, and influential
general medical periodical in the world.”
Before you read, think about how the reputation of the publication in which this
proposal first appeared, together with Brownell and Frieden’s credentials, might
have influenced the original audience as well as how it may affect college
students reading the proposal today.
As you read, notice that Brownell and Frieden include graphs and cite their
sources. How do you think these features of their proposal might influence
readers?
Sugar, rum, and tobacco are commodities which are nowhere necessaries of life, which are
become objects of almost universal consumption, and which are therefore extremely proper
subjects of taxation.
Daily Caloric Intake from Sugar-Sweetened Drinks in the United States. Data are
from Nielsen and Popkin.3
Description
The data from Nielsen and Popkin are as follows: 1977 to 1978, 70; 1994 to 1996, 141;
and 1990 to 2000, 190.
Taxes on tobacco products have been highly effective in reducing
consumption, and data indicate that higher prices also reduce soda
consumption. A review conducted by Yale University’s Rudd Center
for Food Policy and Obesity suggested that for every 10 percent
increase in price, consumption decreases by 7.8 percent. An industry
trade publication reported even larger reductions: as prices of
carbonated so drinks increased by 6.8 percent, sales dropped by 7.8
percent, and as Coca-Cola prices increased by 12 percent, sales
dropped by 14.6 percent.5 Such studies — and the economic
principles that support their findings — suggest that a tax on sugared
beverages would encourage consumers to switch to more healthful
beverages, which would lead to reduced caloric intake and less
weight gain.
Some argue that government should not interfere in the market and
that products and prices will change as consumers demand more
healthful food, but several considerations support government
action. The first is externality — costs to parties not directly involved
in a transaction. The contribution of unhealthful diets to health care
costs is already high and is increasing — an estimated $79 billion is
spent annually for overweight and obesity alone — and
approximately half of these costs are paid by Medicare and Medicaid,
at taxpayers’ expense. Diet-related diseases also cost society in terms
of decreased work productivity, increased absenteeism, poorer
school performance, and reduced fitness on the part of military
recruits, among other negative effects. The second consideration is
information asymmetry between the parties to a transaction. In the
case of sugared beverages, marketers commonly make health claims
(e.g., that such beverages provide energy or vitamins) and use
techniques that exploit the cognitive vulnerabilities of young
children, who o en cannot distinguish a television program from an
advertisement. A third consideration is revenue generation, which
can further increase the societal benefits of a tax on so drinks. A
penny-per-ounce excise tax would raise an estimated $1.2 billion in
New York State alone. In times of economic hardship, taxes that both
generate this much revenue and promote health are better options
than revenue initiatives that may have adverse effects.
U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
Description
The data are from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and represent the U S city averages for
all urban consumers in January of each year. The years from 1979 to 2009 are
represented along the horizontal axis. The Price index (1982 to 1984 equals 100) is
represented along the vertical axis. The curve that represents Fresh fruits and
vegetables originates at (1978, 60) and ends at (2009, 325), tracing the following path:
(1979, 75), (1981, 90), (1983, 95), (1985, 105), (1987, 130), (1989, 145), (1991, 175),
(1993, 180), (1995, 210), (1997, 210), (1999, 250), (2001, 250), (2003, 275), (2005,
300), and (2007, 325). The curve that represents Consumer price index originates at
(1978, 60) and ends at (2009, 210), tracing the following path: (1979, 75), (1981, 99),
(1983, 100), (1985, 100), (1987, 110), (1989, 125), (1991, 140), (1993, 148), (1995,
150), (1997, 160), (1999, 170), (2001, 175), (2003, 180), (2005, 190), and (2007, 200).
The curve that represents Carbonated drinks originates at (1978, 60) and ends at (2009,
155), tracing the following path: (1979, 75), (1981, 100), (1983, 100), (1985, 100),
(1987, 110), (1989, 110), (1991, 120), (1993, 120), (1995, 120), (1997, 120), (1999,
115), (2001, 120), (2003, 130), (2005, 140), and (2007, 149). The curve that represents
Sugar and sweets originates at (1978, 60) and ends at (2009, 200), tracing the following
path: (1979, 70), (1981, 100), (1983, 100), (1985, 101), (1987, 110), (1989, 120), (1991,
140), (1993, 145), (1995, 150), (1997, 160), (1999, 170), (2001, 175), (2003, 180),
(2005, 190), and (2007, 195).
References
1Vartanian LR, Schwartz MB, Brownell KD. Effects of so drink
consumption on nutrition and health: a systematic review and meta-
analysis. Am J Public Health 2007;97:667–675.
2Forshee RA, Anderson PA, Storey ML. Sugar-sweetened beverages
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Objections have certainly been raised: that … , that … , that … , and that … . But … ,
… , and … (par. 6)
1. Reread paragraph 5. First, summarize the objection and Brownell and Frieden’s
reasons for refuting it. What cues do they provide to signal that an objection is
coming and to highlight their reasons? Why do you think they call their reasons
“considerations”? How convincing do you think these particular considerations
were likely to be for their original New England Journal of Medicine audience?
2. Reread paragraph 5, in which the authors respond to four other objections. What
cues do they provide to help you follow their argument? What reasons do
Brownell and Frieden give to refute these objections? Which refutations, if any, do
you think need further elaboration or support?
3. Given their purpose and audience, why do you think Brownell and Frieden focus
so much attention on the first objection, but choose to group the other four
objections together in a single paragraph?
James Benge
Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees
James Benge wrote the following proposal when he was a first-year college student.
His interest in science — and his knowledge about the disappearance of honeybees,
specifically — led him to consider solutions to this problem. To research the problem
and the solutions that other scholars have offered, he consults several scientific
studies, which he cites in his essay. Ultimately, though, Benge offers his own solution
to the problem, a solution that he believes gets at the root of the problem.
Before you read, consider what you know about honeybees. Are you familiar
with their importance to agriculture or that the number of honeybees is
decreasing?
As you read, consider who Benge assumes his audience is. Is it laypeople
unfamiliar with the subject? Biologists or other scientists knowledgeable about
the subject? A combination of the two? How do you know?
Let’s talk about honeybees. They’re loud, they sting, and they make
honey. The end. If only it were that easy. Honeybees are probably
the single most important component in almost all of agriculture. To
get a grasp of the impact these little guys have, we just need to
examine any one foodstuff and follow the trail it leaves. We spin the
wheel and land on almonds. Every August, billions of farm-grown
honeybees are released into the California Central Valley almond
orchards by being deceived that it is springtime. The almonds are
exported worldwide, bringing in billions of dollars; the husks are
sold as topsoil; and the rest is sold as cattle feed, all thanks to the
honeybee (Agnew). An article from Annals of Botany states that “70
percent of crops that account for about 35 percent of all agricultural
production depend to varying extents on pollinators” (Aizen et al.,
“How” 1585).
Bees alone are not the only viable successors that scientists are
looking at. Oddly enough, crickets, from a different order entirely,
are being examined for their pollination abilities. The discovery is
recent, but as Annals of Botany shows, a nocturnal and undescribed
species of raspy cricket is capable of pollinating orchids (Micheneau
et al.). This may seem a little too niche for anyone to care, but there
is potential for domestication, expanding its pallet for what it can
pollinate. This could take years, and since there is no natural colony
mind-set in crickets, there will need to be managerial techniques for
managing the crickets as well.
Works Cited
Agnew, Singeli. “The Almond and the Bee.” The San Francisco Chronicle,
14 Oct. 2007. United States Department of Agriculture National
Agricultural Library, www.nal.usda.gov.
Aizen, Marcelo A., et al. “How Much Does Agriculture Depend on
Pollinators? Lessons from Long-Term Trends in Crop Production.”
Annals of Botany, vol. 103, no. 9, 2009, pp. 1579–88,
doi:10.1093/aob/mcp076.
. “Long-Term Global Trends in Crop Yield and Production
Reveal No Current Pollination Shortage but Increasing Pollinator
Dependency.” Current Biology, vol. 18, no. 20, 2008, pp. 1572–75,
doi:10.1016/j.cub.2008.08.066.
Bjerga, Alan. “Blue Orchard Bees Find Favor in Colony Collapse Disorder
Peril.” Bloomburg.com, 19 Oct. 2007. United States Department of
Agriculture National Agricultural Library, www.nal.usda.gov.
CCD Steering Committee. Colony Collapse Disorder Action Plan. United
States Department of Agriculture, 20 June 2007,
www.ars.usda.gov/is/br/ccd/ccd_actionplan.pdf.
Kaplan, Kim. “Genetic Survey Finds Association Between CCD and Virus.”
United States Department of Agriculture National Agricultural Library,
6 Sept. 2007, www.nal.usda.gov.
Micheneau, Claire, et al. “Orthoptera, a New Order of Pollinator.” Annals
of Botany, vol. 105, no. 3, 2010, pp. 335-64, doi:10.1093/aob/mcp299.
Neumann, Peter, and Norman L. Carreck. “Honey Bee Colony Losses.”
Journal of Apicultural Research, vol. 49, no. 1, 2010, pp. 1-6,
doi:10.3896/IBRA.1.49.1.01.
Paxton, Robert J. “Does Infection by Nosema ceranae Cause ‘Colony
Collapse Disorder’ in Honey Bees (Apis mellifera)?” Journal of
Apicultural Research, vol. 49, no. 1, 2010, pp. 80-84,
doi:10.3896/IBRA.1.49.1.11.
Sylvers, Eric. “Case of the Disappearing Bees Creates a Buzz.” The New
York Times, 22 Apr. 2007. United States Department of Agriculture
National Agricultural Library, www.nal.usda.gov.
Winfree, Rachel, et al. “A Meta-Analysis of Bees’ Responses to
Anthropogenic Disturbance.” Ecology, vol. 90, no. 8, 2009, pp. 2068-76,
doi:10.1890/08-1245.1.
For help with reading strategies like summarizing and analyzing assumptions, see Chapter 2.
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING PROPOSALS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a brief proposal of your own. This Guide to Writing offers detailed
suggestions and resources to help you meet the special challenges
this kind of writing presents.
Choosing a Problem
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options and list as many
problems as you can. When choosing a subject, keep in mind that
the problem must be
The writing and research activities that follow will enable you to test
your problem and develop an argument supporting your proposed
solution.
Analyzing the Problem
Spend a few minutes thinking about what you and your readers
know about the problem and how you can convince your readers
that the problem you have identified is real and needs to be solved.
Brainstorm a List
Spend ten minutes listing everything you know about the problem.
Write quickly, leaving judgment aside for the moment. A er the ten
minutes are up, you can review your list and highlight or star the
most promising information.
Use Cubing
Now gauge the impact of the problem on your readers and the
attitudes they hold. How might these attitudes inform the solutions
they are likely to prefer?
Freewriting
Write without stopping for five or ten minutes about the problem’s
direct or indirect impact on your readers. Don’t stop to reflect or
consider; if you hit a roadblock, just keep coming back to the topic
or raise questions you could research later. At the end of the
specified time, review your writing and highlight or underline
promising ideas.
Considering Values
Comment on the values and attitudes of your readers and how they
have responded to similar problems in the past. Use these sentence
strategies as a jumping-off point:
List at least three possible solutions to the problem. You may want to
consider using the following approaches to start:
To learn more about finding information, avoiding plagiarism, or documenting sources, see
Chapter 12.
► It works in , , and , as
studies evaluating it by and show.
Identify two or three other solutions that your readers may prefer.
Choose the one that poses the most serious challenge to your
proposed solution. Then write a few sentences comparing your
solution with the alternative one, weighing the strengths and
weaknesses of each. Explain how you might demonstrate to readers
that your solution has more advantages and fewer disadvantages
than the alternative. (You may need to conduct additional research
to respond to alternative solutions.)
A working thesis will keep you focused as you dra and revise your
essay. The thesis statement in a proposal should offer the solution
and may also identify the problem. Particularly complex problems
may require complex solutions. Notice in the examples below that
both writers offer multi-pronged proposals that act as their thesis
statements.
If cafes can offer four types of milk for espresso drinks and restaurants 50 types of
wine and beer, small businesses and large corporations can manage offering two
types of straws (Wong, par 14).
For more on finding relevant sources of information, see “Evaluating Sources” in Chapter 12.
For help with proper citation for visuals, see “Citing and Documenting Sources in MLA Style”
in Chapter 12.
1. the problem
2. the solution
3. the reasons in support of the solution
4. a response to objections or alternative solutions readers might
propose
What’s Working Well: Let the writer know where the problem is
especially well presented — for example, where statistics,
examples, or other details help readers grasp the seriousness of
the problem, or where visuals such as graphs or photographs
impress upon readers the need to solve the problem.
What’s Working Well: Mark any parts of the essay that seem
notably well organized — for example, where the thesis
statement clearly identifies the proposed solution, where topic
sentences identify the main points, or where logical transitions
make the argument easy to follow.
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If you got good advice from a critical reader, explain exactly how the person helped
you — perhaps by helping you understand a problem in your dra or by helping you
add a new dimension to your writing.
2. Reflect more generally on proposals, a genre of writing that plays an important role in
our society. Consider some of the following questions:
How confident do you feel about making a proposal that might lead to
improvements in the functioning of a group or community? Does your proposal
attempt to bring about fundamental or minor change in the group?
Whose interest would be served by the solution you propose? Who else might be
affected? In what ways does your proposal challenge the status quo in the group?
What contribution might essays proposing solutions to problems make to our
society that other genres of writing cannot make?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about writing proposals to solve problems,
you have been practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing processes. Can you identify any
habits you practiced?
CHAPTER 11
Multi-Genre Writing: Pulling
It All Together
Who was the audience? Consider how communicating to the particular audience
(such as a friend rather than a teacher, or a group of your peers rather than a
gathering of their parents) shaped the piece of writing. How was the tone tailored to
appeal to them — informal, perhaps, for friends, more formal for parents or teachers?
What was the main purpose? Did one of the genres seem more prevalent than others
and, perhaps, dictate the piece’s main purpose?
How would you rate the rhetorical sensitivity with which the argument was presented?
What made it appropriate or inappropriate for its particular audience or purpose?
A GUIDE TO READING MULTI-
GENRE ESSAYS
This guide introduces you to multi-genre writing by inviting you to
analyze an essay on health care by Atul Gawande that uses the
primary genre of explaining concepts while also drawing on
features from observational writing and position arguments. You
may notice features from other genres in Gawande’s essay, too. This
is because genres are essentially a way of categorizing texts in order
to understand their composition and purpose. The three genres
used to discuss Gawande’s essay are simply those we want to
highlight in the activities and prompts for this reading.
By 2010, Bill Haynes had spent almost four decades under attack
from the inside of his skull. He was fi y-seven years old, and he
suffered from severe migraines that felt as if a drill were working
behind his eyes, across his forehead, and down the back of his head
and neck. They le him nauseated, causing him to vomit every half
hour for up to eighteen hours. He’d spend a day and a half in bed,
and then another day stumbling through sentences. The pain would
gradually subside, but o en not entirely. And a er a few days a new
attack would begin.
Haynes (I’ve changed his name, at his request) had his first migraine
at the age of nineteen. It came on suddenly, while he was driving.
He pulled over, opened the door, and threw up in someone’s yard. At
first, the attacks were infrequent and lasted only a few hours. But by
the time he was thirty, married, and working in construction
management in London, where his family was from, they were
coming weekly, usually on the weekends. A few years later, he began
to get the attacks at work as well.
Finally, desperate for a change, he and his wife quit their jobs,
rented out their house in London, and moved to a cottage in a rural
village. The attacks eased for a few months. A local doctor who had
migraines himself suggested that Haynes try the cocktail of
medicines he used. That helped some, but the attacks continued.
Haynes seesawed between good periods and bad. And without work
he and his wife began to feel that they were vegetating.
That question interested me, too. I work at the hospital where the
clinic is based. The John Graham Headache Center, as it’s called, has
long had a reputation for helping people with especially difficult
cases. Founded in the nineteen-fi ies, it now delivers more than
eight thousand consultations a year at several locations across
eastern Massachusetts. Two years ago, I asked Elizabeth Loder,
who’s in charge of the program, if I could join her at the clinic to see
how she and her colleagues helped people whose problems had
stumped so many others. I accompanied her for a day of patient
visits, and that was when I met Haynes, who had been her patient
for five years. I asked her whether he was the worst case she’d seen.
He wasn’t even the worst case she’d seen that week, she said. She
estimated that sixty per cent of the clinic’s patients suffer from daily,
persistent headaches, and usually have for years.
In her examination room, with its white vinyl floor and sanitary-
paper-covered examination table against the wall, the fluorescent
overhead lights were turned off to avoid triggering migraines. The
sole illumination came from a low-wattage table lamp and a
desktop-computer screen. Sitting across from her first patient of the
day, Loder, who is fi y-eight, was attentive and unhurried, dressed
in plain black slacks and a freshly pressed white doctor’s coat, her
auburn hair tucked into a bun. She projected both professional
confidence and maternal concern. She had told me how she begins
with new patients: “You ask them to tell the story of their headache
and then you stay very quiet for a long time.”
Loder gave a sympathetic shake of her head, and that was enough to
win the woman’s confidence. The patient knew that she’d been
heard by someone who understood the seriousness of her problem
— a problem invisible to the naked eye, to blood tests, to biopsies,
and to scans, and o en not even believed by co-workers, family
members, or, indeed, doctors.
She reviewed the woman’s records — all the medications she’d taken,
all the tests she’d undergone — and did a brief examination. Then we
came to the moment I’d been waiting for, the moment when I would
see what made the clinic so effective. Would Loder diagnose a
condition that had never been suspected? Would she suggest a
treatment I’d never heard of? Would she have some special
microvascular procedure she could perform that others couldn’t?
The answer was no. This was, I later came to realize, the key fact
about Loder’s capabilities. But I didn’t see it that day, and I was never
going to see it in any single visit.
She asked the woman to keep a headache diary using a form she
gave her to rate the peak level and hours of headache each day. She
explained that together they would make small changes in
treatments and review the diary every few months. If a regimen
produced a greater than fi y-per-cent reduction in the number and
severity of the headaches, they’d call that a victory.
Haynes told me that Loder gave him the same speech when he first
saw her, in 2010, and he decided to stick with her. He liked how
methodical she was. He kept his headache diary faithfully. They
began by formulating a “rescue plan” for managing his attacks.
During an attack, he o en vomited pills, so she gave him a supply of
non-narcotic rectal suppositories for fast-acting pain relief and an
injectable medicine if they didn’t work. Neither was pleasant to take,
but they helped. The peak level and duration of his attacks
diminished slightly. She then tried changing the medications he
used for prevention. When one medicine caused side effects he
couldn’t tolerate, she switched to another, but that one didn’t
produce any reduction in headaches. He saw her every three
months, and they kept on measuring and adjusting.
When I met Haynes, in 2015, he’d gone more than a year without a
severe migraine. “I haven’t had a dreadful attack since March 13,
2014,” he said, triumphantly. It had taken four years of effort. But
Loder’s systematic incrementalism had done what nothing else had.
I later went to visit Haynes and his wife at their lovely nine-room inn
on the Cape. He was tall and lanky, with a John Cleese mustache and
the kind of wary astonishment I imagine that men released a er
years in prison have. At sixty-two, he was savoring experiences he
feared he’d never get to have in his life.
Migraines had ruled his life for more than four decades. For the first
time, he could read a book all the way through. He could take jet
flights without fear of what the air pressure might do to his head.
His wife couldn’t say enough about the difference.
“It’s almost a miracle,” she said. “It has been life-changing for me. It
makes me so happy that he’s not ill. I feel good about my future. We
can look forward together.”
But the model wasn’t quite right. If an illness is a fire, many of them
require months or years to extinguish, or can be reduced only to a
low-level smolder. The treatments may have side effects and
complications that require yet more attention. Chronic illness has
become commonplace, and we have been poorly prepared to deal
with it. Much of what ails us requires a more patient kind of skill.
The resident opened the young man’s belly in two moves: with a
knife he made a swi , decisive slash down the middle, through the
skin, from the rib cage to below his umbilicus, then with open-jawed
scissors pushed upward through the linea alba — the tough fibrous
tendon that runs between the abdominal muscles — as if it were
wrapping paper. A pool of blood burst out of him. The resident
thrust a gloved hand into the opening. The attending surgeon stood
across from him, asking, in a weirdly calm, quiet voice, almost
under his breath, “Have you got it?”
Pause.
“Now?”
Pause.
How can anyone not love that? I knew there was a place for
prevention and maintenance and incremental progress against
difficult problems. But this seemed like the real work of saving lives.
Surgery was a definitive intervention at a critical moment in a
person’s life, with a clear, calculable, frequently transformative
outcome.
People came in with leg pains, arm pains, belly pains, joint pains,
head pains, or just for a checkup. I met an eighty-eight-year-old man
who had survived a cardiac arrest in a parking lot. I talked to a
physician assistant who, in the previous few hours, had
administered vaccinations, cleaned wax out of the ears of an elderly
woman with hearing trouble, adjusted the medications of a man
whose home blood-pressure readings were far too high, and
followed up on a patient with diabetes.
“We do the things you really don’t need specialists for,” a physician
assistant said. And I saw what a formidably comprehensive range
that could be. Asaf — Israeli-born and Minnesota-raised, which
means that he’s both more talkative and happier than the average
Bostonian — told me about one of his favorite maneuvers. Three or
four times a year, a patient comes in with disabling episodes of
dizziness because of a condition called benign positional vertigo. It’s
caused by loose particles of calcified debris rattling around in the
semicircular canal of the inner ear. Sometimes patients are barely
able to stand. They are nauseated. They vomit. Just turning their
head the wrong way, or rolling over in bed, can bring on a bout of
dizziness. It’s like the worst seasickness you can imagine.
“They walk out the door thinking you’re a shaman,” Asaf said,
grinning. Everyone loves to be the hero. Asaf and his colleagues can
deliver on-the-spot care for hundreds of conditions and guidance for
thousands more. They run a medical general store. But, Asaf
insisted, that’s not really how primary-care clinicians save lives.
A er all, for any given situation specialists are likely to have more
skill and experience, and more apt to follow the evidence of what
works. Generalists have no advantage over specialists in any
particular case. Yet, somehow, having a primary-care clinician as
your main source of care is better for you.
Asaf tried to explain. “It’s no one thing we do. It’s all of it,” he said. I
found this unsatisfying. I pushed everyone I met at the clinic. How
could seeing one of them for my — insert problem here — be better
than going straight to a specialist? Invariably, the clinicians would
circle around to the same conclusion.
For one thing, it made the man willing to seek medical attention for
potentially serious symptoms far sooner, instead of putting it off
until it was too late. There is solid evidence behind this. Studies have
established that having a regular source of medical care, from a
doctor who knows you, has a powerful effect on your willingness to
seek care for severe symptoms. This alone appears to be a
significant contributor to lower death rates.
This was not, however, the way the woman’s primary-care physician
approached her condition. Dr. Katherine Rose was a young, freckle-
faced physician two years out of training, with a precise and
methodical air. “I’m not sure I know what’s going on,” she admitted
to the woman.
Rose told me, “I think the hardest transition from residency, where
we are essentially trained in inpatient medicine, to my practice as a
primary-care physician was feeling comfortable with waiting. As an
outpatient doctor, you don’t have constant data or the security of in-
house surveillance. But most of the time people will get better on
their own, without intervention or extensive workup. And, if they
don’t get better, then usually more clues to the diagnosis will
emerge, and the steps will be clearer. For me, as a relatively new
primary-care physician, the biggest struggle is trusting that patients
will call if they are getting worse.” And they do, she said, because
they know her and they know the clinic. “Being able to tolerate the
anxiety that accompanies taking care of people who are sick but not
dangerously ill is not a skill I was expecting to need when I decided
to become a doctor, but it is one of the ones I have worked hardest to
develop.”
On Friday, December 15, 1967, at 4:55 P.M., the Silver Bridge, which
spanned the Ohio River, was funnelling the usual crawl of rush-hour
traffic between Gallipolis, Ohio, and Point Pleasant, West Virginia,
when a shotgun-like blast rang out. It was the sound of a critical link
in the bridge’s chain-suspension system giving way. In less than a
minute, 1,750 feet of the 2,235-foot span collapsed, and seventy-five
vehicles dropped into the river, eighty feet below. “The bridge just
keeled over, starting slowly on the Ohio side then following like a
deck of cards to the West Virginia side,” a witness said. Forty-six
people died; dozens more were injured.
They also report that bridges are in better condition than many
other parts of our aging infrastructure. The tendency to avoid
spending on incremental maintenance and improvements has
shortened the life span of our dams, levees, roads, sewers, and water
systems. This situation isn’t peculiar to the United States.
Governments everywhere tend to drastically undervalue
incrementalism and overvalue heroism. “Typically, breakdowns —
bridge washouts, overpass collapses, dam breaches — must occur
before politicians and voters react to need,” one global
infrastructure report observes. “Dislocation leads to rushed funding
on an emergency basis with dramatically heightened costs.”
For a long time, this would have seemed as foolish as giving your
money to a palmist. What will happen to a bridge — or to your body
— fi y years from now? We had no more than a vague idea. But the
investigation of the 1967 Silver Bridge collapse marked an advance
in our ability to shi from reacting to bridge catastrophes to
anticipating and averting them.
Recently, I called Bill Haynes’s internist, Dr. Mita Gupta, the one
who recognized that the John Graham Headache Center might be
able help him. She had never intended to pursue a career in primary
care, she said. She’d planned to go into gastroenterology — one of
the highly paid specialties. But, before embarking on specialty
training, she took a temporary position at a general medical clinic in
order to start a family. “What it turned into really surprised me,” she
said. As she got to know and work with people over time, she saw
the depth of the impact she could have on their lives. “Now it’s been
ten years, and I see the kids of patients of mine, I see people through
crises, and I see some of them through to the end of their lives.” Her
main frustration: how little recognized her abilities are, whether by
the insurers, who expect her to manage a patient with ten different
health problems in a fi een-minute visit, or by hospitals, which
rarely call to notify her, let alone consult her, when a patient of hers
is admitted. She could do so much more for her patients with a bit
more time and better resources for tracking, planning, and
communicating. Instead, she is constantly playing catch-up. “I don’t
know a primary-care physician who eats lunch,” she said.
The difference between what’s made available to me as a surgeon
and what’s made available to our internists or pediatricians or H.I.V.
specialists is not just shortsighted — it’s immoral. More than a
quarter of Americans and Europeans who die before the age of
seventy-five would not have died so soon if they’d received
appropriate medical care for their conditions, most of which were
chronic. We routinely countenance inadequate care among the most
vulnerable people in our communities — including children, the
elderly, and the chronically ill.
I see the stakes in my own family. My son, Walker, was born with a
heart condition, and in his first days rescue medicine was what he
needed. A cardiology team deployed the arsenal that saved him: the
drips that kept his circulation going, the surgery that closed the
holes in his heart and gave him a new aortic arch. But incremental
medicine is what he has needed ever since.
For twenty-one years, he has had the same cardiologist and nurse
practitioner. They saw him through his first months, when weight
gain, stimulation, and control of his blood pressure were essential.
They saw him through his first decade, when all he turned out to
need was someone to keep a cautious eye on how his heart did as he
developed and took on sports. They saw him through his growth
spurt, when the size of his aorta failed to keep up with his height,
and guided us through the difficult choices about what operation he
needed, when, and who should do it. Then they saw him through his
thankfully smooth recovery.
When he began to struggle in middle school, a psychologist’s
evaluation identified deficits that, he warned us, meant that Walker
would probably not have the cognitive capacity for college. But the
cardiologist recognized that Walker’s difficulties fit with new data
showing that kids with his heart condition tend to have a particular
pattern of neurological deficits in processing speed and other
functions which could potentially be managed. In the ensuing years,
she and his pediatrician helped bring in experts to work with him on
his learning and coping skills, and school planning. He’s now a
junior in college, majoring in philosophy, and emerging as a writer
and an artist. Rescue saved my son’s life. But without incremental
medicine he would never have the long and full life that he could.
In the next few months, the worry is whether Walker and others like
him will be able to have health-care coverage of any kind. His heart
condition makes him, essentially, uninsurable. Until he’s twenty-six,
he can stay on our family policy. But a er that? In the work he’s
done in his field, he’s had the status of a freelancer. Without the
Affordable Care Act’s protections requiring all insurers to provide
coverage to people regardless of their health history and at the same
price as others their age, he’d be unable to find health insurance.
Republican replacement plans threaten to weaken or drop these
requirements, and leave no meaningful solution for people like him.
And data indicate that twenty-seven per cent of adults under sixty-
five are like him, with past health conditions that make them
uninsurable without the protections.
The coming years will present us with a far larger concern, however.
In this era of advancing information, it will become evident that, for
everyone, life is a preexisting condition waiting to happen. We will
all turn out to have — like the Silver Bridge and the growing crack in
its critical steel link — a lurking heart condition or a tumor or a
depression or some rare disease that needs to be managed. This is a
problem for our health-care system. It doesn’t put great value on
care that takes time to pay off. But this is also an opportunity. We
have the chance to transform the course of our lives.
For help with summarizing and other reading strategies, see Chapter 2.
1. Read to Summarize. Write a few sentences explaining why
Gawande believes incremental (as opposed to rescue) care is so
important.
2. Read to Respond. Write a paragraph responding to Gawande’s
observation that “Our ability to use information to understand
and reshape the future is accelerating in multiple ways” (par.
71) or his position that “In this era of advancing information, it
will become evident that, for everyone, life is a preexisting
condition waiting to happen” (par. 84).
3. Read to Analyze Assumptions. Write a paragraph or two
analyzing an assumption you find intriguing in Gawande’s essay.
For example:
Explaining Concepts
1. Gawande does not directly define incremental care, but he offers illustrations
and examples of it throughout his essay. Keep a list of these illustrations. First,
consider them individually. How does each illustration help you understand
something about incremental care? Then consider these examples as a whole.
How do they work together to explain the concept of incremental care?
2. Gawande compares incremental care to rescue medicine throughout the essay,
but he makes other comparisons, too. Reread paragraphs 60–65 to analyze how
Gawande uses the strategy of comparison to explain the concept. What does he
compare incremental care to in this section? What does this comparison help
you understand about incremental care?
3. To help readers understand why incremental care is o en less valued than
rescue medicine, Gawande uses the cause-and-effect writing strategy. He traces
the cause of the prioritization of rescue medicine over incremental medicine to
the kind of rescue medicine practiced following the Second World War (par. 26),
before showing readers the effects of this privileging of rescue medicine. Locate
moments in the essay where Gawande describes the effects or consequences of
valuing rescue medicine over incremental care. What does Gawande’s use of the
cause-and-effect writing strategy help you understand about incremental care?
Observation
In writing up their observations, writers make choices about the
role they will perform. They can act as a detached spectator who
watches and listens but remains outside of the activity of the essay,
or they can act as a participant observer, an insider, who joins in the
activity. We can see examples of both roles in this excerpt from
Gawande’s essay.
Like the specialists at the Graham Center, the generalists at Jamaica Plain are
incrementalists. They focus on the course of a person’s health over time — even
through a life.
I was drawn to medicine by the aura of heroism — by the chance to charge in and
solve a dangerous problem. … I worked in a DNA virus lab for a time and considered
going into infectious diseases. But it was the operating room that really drew me in.
1. Find signs throughout the essay, such as Gawande’s use of the first- or third-
person perspective, that help you recognize where the author has taken on these
two roles. Keep track of these moments.
2. What do you notice about when Gawande shi s from one perspective to the
other? How do these different kinds of observations contribute to his
explanation of incremental care?
3. What advantages or disadvantages do you see in Gawande taking on the roles of
both spectator and participant? What would have been gained or lost had
Gawande chosen to maintain one role throughout?
For sentence strategies to use when responding to objections fairly, see “A Guide to Writing
Position Arguments” in Chapter 8.
There is a lot about the future that remains unpredictable. Nonetheless, the patterns
are becoming more susceptible to empiricism — to a science of surveillance, analysis,
and iterative correction. The incrementalists are overtaking the rescuers. But the
transformation has itself been incremental. So we’re only just starting to notice.
For more on the rhetorical situation see “Developing Rhetorical Sensitivity” in Chapter 1.
While texts within the same genre can look very different, genres do
have some typical features that make them recognizable. For
example, a proposal to solve a problem would lay out a problem and
offer a way to solve it just as autobiographical writing narrates a
story dramatically. If an author’s rhetorical situation lends itself to
drawing on multiple genres, as do the essays in this chapter, then
authors have more choices in terms of the features they use from
each genre. For example, a writer may be explaining a concept to an
audience unfamiliar with it. The writer will need to define and
illustrate the concept, two features of concept explanations. But, to
further help her audience understand the concept, the writer may
also draw on the autobiographical genre feature of conveying
significance powerfully in order to narrate her personal experience
with the concept. In this case, the features of concept explanations
and autobiographies work together to achieve the writer’s purpose,
namely to help her audience understand the concept.
You have already considered some of the most prominent features
of each genre that appears in Gawande’s essay. The prompts below
ask you to address how the features of those genres work alongside
and in conjunction with each other to meet the needs of Gawande’s
rhetorical situation.
Sometimes, it’s not enough to love something. You have to take that
thing — album, author, song, movie, show — and do more than love
it. It needs to be placed beyond mere love. You need to take that
thing, wrap it in plastic or put it on a pedestal. You need to dome it
under a force field so that other people’s grubby hands, opinions and
inferior fandoms can’t stain or disrespect it. You need not only to
certify it but also to forestall decertification. Basically, you need to
make it “canon.”
The phrase didn’t originate on the internet but is of the internet and
its wing of antidiscursive discourse. It places a work, a person or an
idea beyond reproach. It pre-resolves debate. That is, of course,
what a canon is — a settled matter. It’s established rules and norms.
It’s the books of the Bible. It’s the approved Catholic saints. It’s Jane
Austen, the Beatles, Miles Davis, Andy Warhol and Beyoncé.
For many years its Moses has been Harold Bloom, whose The Western
Canon: The Books and School of the Ages was a best-selling sensation in
1994, for what it argued was — and by way of omission wasn’t —
canon. In his introduction, Bloom went so far as to pre-emptively
dismiss complaints about his biases as coming from the “school of
resentment.” Asked in a 1991 Paris Review interview whom this
school comprised, Bloom explained that it’s “an extraordinary sort
of mélange of latest-model feminists, Lacanians, that whole semiotic
cackle.” These people, he went on to say, “have no relationship
whatever to literary values.”
You can see the reactionary urge on every side. We’ve reached this
comical — but politically necessary — place in which nonstraight,
nonwhite, nonmale culture of all kinds has also been placed beyond
reproach. Because it’s precious or rare or not meant for the people
who tend to do the canonizing. If Korama Danquah, writing for a
site called Geek Girl Authority, asserts that the sister of Black
Panther is more brilliant than the white billionaire also known as
Iron Man, she doesn’t want to hear otherwise. “Shuri is the smartest
person in the Marvel universe,” goes the post. “That’s not an
opinion, that’s canon. She is smarter than Tony Stark.” “Black
Panther,” according to this argument, is canon not only because it’s a
Marvel movie but because it matters too much to too many black
people to be anything else.
But that’s also made having conversations about the movie in which
somebody leads with, “I really liked it, but …” nearly impossible.
This protectionism makes all the sense in the world for a country
that’s failed to acknowledge a black audience’s hunger for, say, a
black comic-book blockbuster. But critic-proofing this movie —
making it too black to dislike — risks making it less equal to and
more fragile than its white peers.
For help with summarizing and other sentence strategies, see Chapter 2.
But resisting these critiques … with an automatic claim of canon feels like an act of
dominion. … Insisting that a canon is settled gives those concerns the –fake news—
treatment, denying a legitimate grievance by saying there’s no grounds for one. It’s
shutting down a conversation, when the longer we go without one, the harder it
becomes to speak (par. 9).
Here, although Morris does not use the typical if/then sentence
structure to speculate about the effect he describes, he makes a well-
supported cause-and-effect argument because he establishes a
chronological relationship — one thing happens a er another in
time — as well as a causal relationship — one thing makes another
thing happen.
See for a checklist of genre features. “Checklist: Multi-Genre Writing” later in this
chapter
For more on audience as an element of the rhetorical situation, see “Developing Rhetorical
Sensitivity” in Chapter 1.
1. Morris explains that when you make something canon it “places a work, a person
or an idea beyond reproach. It pre-resolves debate. That is, of course, what a
canon is — a settled matter. It’s established rules and norms. It’s the books of the
Bible. It’s the approved Catholic saints. It’s Jane Austen, the Beatles, Miles Davis,
Andy Warhol and Beyoncé” (par. 2). What does this list and other references
throughout Morris’s essay suggest about the audience he imagines for his piece?
Is it an eclectic audience comprised of people of different ages, cultures, races,
and interests, or is it a more uniform audience? Explain your answer and support
it with passages from the essay.
2. How do the features you have focused on in the Analyze & Write prompts above
complement each other to engage Morris’s imagined audience? How effective is
Morris’s chosen combination? What might be lost if Morris didn’t choose to draw
on all of these genre features?
3. What other features from the three genres Morris draws on are present in his
essay? How do these features reflect Morris’s understanding of his rhetorical
situation?
4. What other genres and specific features of each genre might Morris have chosen
to draw on to engage readers? How would these have revealed his understanding
of his audience while also meeting the needs of other aspects of the rhetorical
situation?
See “Checklist: Multi-Genre Writing” later in this chapter for a checklist of genre
features.
Phil Christman
On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality
Phil Christman is a writer and instructor of writing at the University of Michigan. He
is also the editor of the Michigan Review of Prisoner Creative Writing. Prior to teaching
at the University of Michigan, Christman taught English composition at North
Carolina Central University and served as Writing Coordinator at the Moore
Undergraduate Research Apprenticeship Program, a program dedicated to helping
minority students and other underrepresented populations prepare for graduate
school. He earned a Masters in English Literature from Marquette University and an
MFA in fiction from the University of South Carolina. Christman’s writing has
appeared in The Christian Century, Paste, Books & Culture, and other publications.
…As the geographer James Shortridge puts it, “The Middle West
came to symbolize the nation … to be seen as the most American
part of America” (33). Nor is average Americanness quite the same
as average Russianness or average Scandinavianness, for the United
States has always understood itself, however self-flatteringly, as an
experiment on behalf of humanity. Thus, Midwestern averageness,
whatever form it may take, has consequences for the entire world;
what we make here sets the world’s template. The historian Susan
Gray has even detected echoes in Turner’s language of Lamarckian
evolution, a theory dominant among biologists a century ago, when
Turner was writing. The new characteristics that the “old” races of
the world acquired in their struggle to build a world among the
prairies and forests would create an actual new, American race
(127).
But I also worry about the people who can pass as Midwestern-
normal. At its least toxic, this can lead to a kind of self-contempt: the
nice, intelligent young women in my classes at the University of
Michigan who describe themselves and their friends, with flat
malice, as “basic bitches.” In artists, it can lead to self-destructive
behavior, to the pursuit of danger in the belief that one’s actual
experiences have furnished nothing in the way of material. It also
leads us to one of the other great stereotypes of Midwesterners, one
that I think has a little more truth to it than the nonsense about hard
work and humility: We are repressed. Any emotion spiky or
passionate enough to disrupt the smooth surface of normality must
be shunted away. Garrison Keillor, and in some ways David
Letterman, made careers from talking about this repression in a
comic mode that both embodies it and transmutes it into art. The
Minnesota writer Carol Bly finds it less amusing:
[In the Midwest] there is a restraint against feeling in general. There is a restraint
against enthusiasm (“real nice” is the adjective — not “marvelous”); there is restraint
in grief (“real sober” instead of “heartbroken”); and always, always, restraint in
showing your feelings, lest someone be drawn closer to you. … When someone has
stolen all four wheels off your car you say, “Oh, when I saw that car, with the wheels
stripped off like that, I just thought ohhhhhhhh.”(4)
You repress your innate right to evaluate events and people, but … energy comes
from making your own evaluations and then acting on them, so … therefore your
natural energy must be replaced by indifferent violence. (5–6)
In college all of them had studied the putative effects of deracination, which were
angst and anomie, those dull horrors of the modern world. They had been examined
on the subject, had rehearsed bleak and portentous philosophies in term papers, and
they had done it with the earnest suspension of doubt that afflicts the highly
educable. And then their return to the pays natal, where the same old willows swept
the same ragged lawns, where the same old prairie arose and bloomed as negligence
permitted. Home. What kinder place could there be on earth, and why did it seem to
them all like exile? Oh, to be passing anonymously through an impersonal landscape!
Oh, not to know every stump and stone, not to remember how the fields of Queen
Anne’s lace figured in the childish happiness they had offered to their father’s hopes,
God bless him. … Strangers in some vast, cold city might notice the grief in her eyes,
even remember it for an hour or two as they would a painting or a photograph, but
they would not violate her anonymity. (282)
And then I arrive at the house that, out of all these little houses, by
some inconceivable coincidence, happens to be mine. I park the car.
I check the mail. I pet the cat. I ready myself for bed. I can’t stay up
too late. Between the Midwest that exists and the other Midwest, the
utopic no-place that I dream of, is hard work enough for a life.
Works Cited
Athitakis, Mark. The (New) Midwest. Belt Publishing, 2017.
Bly, Carol. “From the Lost Swede Towns.” Letters from the Country, Harper
& Row, 1981.
Etcheson, Nicole. “Barbecued Kentuckians and Six-Foot Texas Rangers:
The Construction of Midwestern Identity.” In Andrew Cayton and
Susan E. Gray, editors. The American Midwest, Indiana UP, 2001.
Gray, Susan E. “Stories Written in the Blood: Race and Midwestern
History.” In Andrew Cayton and Susan E. Gray, editors. The American
Midwest, Indiana UP, 2001, p. 127.
Lauck, Jon K. Toward a Revival of Midwestern History. U of Iowa P, 2014.
Lynd, Robert S., and Helen Merrell Lynd. Middletown: A Study in American
Culture. 1929. Harcourt, Brace, 1959, pp. 7–8.
Midgley, Mary. Myths We Live By. Routledge Classics, 2014.
Robinson, Marilynne. Home. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2008.
Shortridge, James. The Middle West. U of Kansas P, 1989, p. 33.
Wolfson, Matthew. “The Midwest Is Not Flyover Country.” The New
Republic, 22 Mar. 2014, newrepublic.com/article/117113/midwest-
not-flyover-country-its-not-heartland-either.
For help with summarizing and other reading strategies, see Chapter 2.
Reflection
Reflective writing is based on the writer’s personal experience and
explores something the writer did, saw, heard, or read. Unlike
strictly autobiographical or observational writing, reflective writing
uses these personal experiences to think about society, including
how people live and what people believe. In his reflective essay,
Christman also uses features from observational writing, which
offers thought-provoking portraits or profiles of a person or place,
in order to draw a portrait of the Midwest while also reflecting on
his own relationship to this region. Because his readers may not
understand the complexity that he attaches to the Midwest,
Christman takes time in his essay to explain the Midwest not just as
a geographical location, but as a concept, drawing also on features
of concept explanation. Reflective essays present an occasion —
something the writer experienced or observed — that led them to
think about their subject in depth. Christman begins with the
occasion of moving with his wife to Michigan. He uses this event to
introduce the subject of his essay; then, throughout the rest of the
essay, Christman reflects on the Midwest and the related issues it
raises for him:
1. Skim the essay, noticing how Christman uses examples — including from outside
sources — to help readers understand and accept his reflections. Choose one or
two examples and explain why you think they work especially well to help
readers understand what Christman means.
2. How does Christman convey his perspective (a feature of observational writing)
through his reflections? Which words and phrases in the essay show his
perspective? Does he ever explicitly tell readers what he thinks?
3. Reread paragraphs 2 and 14, noticing how Christman integrates sources
smoothly (a feature of concept evaluations) to support his reflections. How
effective are these sources at helping you understand the concept of the Midwest
and the relevance of Christman’s exploration?
For more on stance as an element of the rhetorical situation, see Chapter 1, p. 13.
1. First, reread paragraphs 1–4 in order to determine Christman’s stance toward his
subject. Which information, reflections, and illustrations does he use to convey
this overall attitude? Then, skim the rest of the essay. Is Christman’s stance
consistent? Explain your answer.
2. How do the features you have focused on in the Analyze & Write prompts above
complement each other to indicate Christman’s stance or attitude toward his
subject? How effective is Christman’s chosen combination? What might be lost if
Christman didn’t choose to draw on all of these features?
3. What other features from the three genres Christman draws on are present in his
essay? How do these features reflect Christman’s understanding of his rhetorical
situation?
4. What other genres and specific features of each genre might Christman have
drawn on to develop his stance? How would these support his chosen genre
while also meeting the needs of other aspects of his rhetorical situation?
Tajja Isen
How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?
Tajja Isen is a writer and a contributing editor to Catapult. Her work has appeared in
many publications including Electric Literature, The Globe and Mail, The Rumpus,
Catapult, and Buzzfeed. She is also a voice actress and has worked on shows such as
Atomic Betty, The Berenstain Bears, and The ZhuZhus. Isen holds a combined Juris
Doctorate/Masters in English and Law degree from the University of Toronto. The
essay below appeared in BuzzfeedNews in 2018.
In her new book, Penis Envy and Other Bad Feelings, writer and
theorist Mari Ruti discusses the role of our traumas in our stories of
self-making. There’s no doubt, to quote Ruti, that “who we are has a
great deal to do with how we have been wounded.” But that’s
qualitatively different from building our bodies of work around this
original wound. As I placed more work online, I came to understand
something that continues to shape my thinking: Despite the position
from which I write, and the need for it to inform my work, I also
want that work to bloom around a richer core than the supposed
pain of racial difference. If each writer chases a singular question,
then I need a refrain that does more open-ended, unexpected work
than just announcing the color of my skin as the intellectual bottom
line — even if, or especially if, that tortured pose is the kind of work
that editors expect.
For help with summarizing and other reading strategies, see Chapter 2.
Proposals to solve problems must first identify the problem and help
readers understand why the problem is worth addressing and
ultimately solving. Depending on how familiar readers are with the
problem, a writer may dedicate more space to analyzing the
problem and establishing its seriousness before moving on to
solutions.
1. Reread paragraphs 3–16. How does Isen use outside sources to help readers
understand that the problem exists and is serious?
2. In paragraphs 3–16, how does Isen also convey the autobiographical significance
(a feature of autobiographical writing) of the problem she outlines?
3. Reread paragraph 11 through the end of the essay in order to determine how
Isen conveys her perspective on the subject (a feature of observational writing)
as she demonstrates how the proposed solution would help solve the problem
she outlines. How feasible is her proposed solution? Are you convinced that it
would be effective?
For more on purpose as a feature of the rhetorical situation, see “Developing Rhetorical
Sensitivity” in Chapter 1.
You have already considered some of the most prominent features
of each genre that appears in Isen’s essay. The prompts below ask
you to address how the features of those genres work alongside and
in conjunction with each other to meet the needs of Isen’s rhetorical
situation.
1. How does Isen use rhetorical questions throughout her essay to help organize it
in a way that is clear, logical, and convincing (a feature of proposals to solve a
problem) to help achieve her purpose?
2. How do the features you have focused on in the Analyze and Write prompts
above complement each other to further Gawande’s purpose? How effective is
Gawande’s chosen combination? What might be lost if Gawande didn’t choose to
draw on all of these?
3. What other features from the three genres Isen draws on are present in her
essay? How do these features reflect Isen’s understanding of her rhetorical
situation?
4. What other genres and specific features of each genre might Isen have drawn on
and how would these support her purpose while also meeting the needs of other
aspects of the rhetorical situation?
Jonathan Jones
Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the Greatest?
Jonathan Jones is a British art critic and journalist. He has written three books: The
Lost Battles: Leonardo, Michelangelo and the Artistic Duel That Defined the Renaissance;
The Loves of the Artists; and Tracey Emin: 2007–2017. He served as a judge for both the
2009 Turner Prize, a highly competitive annual prize that is awarded to a British
visual artist, and the 2011 BP Portrait Award, a prestigious worldwide portrait
competition. Since 1999 he has written for the Guardian, which is where this essay
was published in 2018.
It’s the art fight of the year, the rumble in the museum. Who is the
greatest — Rembrandt van Rijn or Leonardo da Vinci? The two
geniuses both have big anniversaries this year. According to the
Netherlands, 2019 is officially the Year of Rembrandt. Amsterdam’s
Rijksmuseum, the Mauritshuis in The Hague and the Museum De
Lakenhall in Leiden are all putting on shows for the 350th
anniversary of his death in 1669. Yet Rembrandt isn’t getting his year
to himself. This also happens to be the 500th anniversary of the
death of Leonardo in 1519. It’s a great excuse for exhibitions by
Britain’s Royal Collection and British Library as well as a grand
retrospective at the Louvre.
So which is the bigger anniversary? The smart bet might seem to be
Rembrandt. His art is so absorbing, tragic and inward. His portraits
are the painterly equivalents of King Lear. He is a painter in whose
shadows the soul can linger. By contrast, Leonardo is a pop star
who’s still busting the market 500 years a er his death — and isn’t
that a bit oppressive? It’s hard not to feel alienated among all the
smartphone-touting tourists in front of the Mona Lisa. Not much
room there for the meditative silent communion you can have with
a Rembrandt.
For help with summarizing and other reading strategies, see Chapter 2.
Evaluation
1. Reread the title and the first two paragraphs of the essay. How do the title and
the opening two paragraphs set up the two items to be evaluated and begin to
anticipate the author’s judgment, as well as alternative judgments?
2. Jones chooses to adopt the role of detached spectator (one of the possible
authorial roles in observational writing) as he compares DaVinci and
Rembrandt. What advantages and disadvantages do you see in this role as he
evaluates the artists and their works? Can you imagine a way he may have taken
on the role of participant observer given the subject of his piece?
3. What reasonable evidence (a feature of position arguments) does Jones use to
support his evaluative argument? How effective do you think his evidence is?
For more on the rhetorical situation, see “Developing Rhetorical Sensitivity” in Chapter 1.
1. First, reread paragraphs 1–3, paying particular attention to the first sentence of
the essay. How and where does Jones’s stance toward his subject emerge? How
does his stance help set the tone for the rest of the essay? Were you expecting
this kind of stance in a piece about legendary artists? Why or why not?
2. How do the features you have focused on in the Analyze & Write prompts above
complement each other to indicate Jones’s stance toward his subject? How
effective is Jones’s chosen combination? What might be lost if Jones didn’t
choose to draw on each of these features?
3. What other features from the three genres Jones draws on are present in his
essay? How do these features reflect Jones’s understanding of his rhetorical
situation?
4. What other genres and specific features of each genre might Jones have drawn
on to develop his stance? How would these support his chosen genre while also
meeting the needs of other aspects of the rhetorical situation?
Aru Terbor
A Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic
Behavior
Aru Terbor was a senior psychology major focusing on behavioral psychology when he
wrote this paper for an upper-level psychology-themed writing course. The assignment
asked students to argue a position by exploring a concept or set of related concepts in
the field of behavioral psychology.
In other words, Baston believes that when one feels empathy toward
another, it produces altruistic motivation, which is motivation
characterized solely by increasing another’s welfare.
Description
The five major acts reported by the students are Helped Friend, Made Donation, Sent
Greeting card, Helped Stranger, and Tutored or mentored. The readings are as follows:
Helped friend, 70; Made Donation, 10; Sent Greeting card, 8; Helped Stranger, 5; and
Tutored or mentored, 7.
Description
The readings are as follows: Altruism, 93; and Egotism, 7.
As the second chart shows, the vast majority of students said that
they were motivated by wanting to help others, but seven percent of
students said they were motivated because the act benefitted
themselves in some way. By their own admission, this small
percentage was motivated by egoism rather than altruism.
So what does this data mean? First, it is important to note that there
are limitations to this study. The sample is small and limited to
university students. The data I collected may also be affected by what
is called response bias. As Rosenman, Tennekoon, and Hill, faculty
members at University of Washington’s School of Economic Sciences
explain:
Because the students taking the survey are reporting their own
motivations, response bias suggests the data might not fully and
accurately reflect the true motivations behind these altruistic acts.
So what does this mean for altruism and understanding the kind of
altruism that is motivated by empathy? If we understand why people
are motivated to behave altruistically — and we aren’t afraid to
consider egoism as a motivating factor — then we can have a better
idea of how to motivate people to be more empathetic.
Not only is empathy difficult to achieve, but its implications are not
always positive. Up until this point, this essay has assumed that
empathy is inherently a positive behavior with only positive
consequences. However, in empathizing with someone else there are
risks, including making less of the other person as you empathize
with them. Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline Rhodes, experts in
composition and rhetoric who consider how identity plays out in
writing, call this a “flattening effect” as “the ‘other’ is tamed as a
knowable entity” (431). Amy Shuman describes further the potential
negative implications of empathy: “Empathy offers the possibility of
understanding across space and time, but it rarely changes the
circumstances of those who suffer (5). Additionally, in Scenes of
Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-Making in Nineteenth-Century
America, dedicated to exploring how black identities were shaped
during and in the a ermath of slavery, Saidiya Hartman writes,
“Empathy is double-edged, for in making the other’s suffering one’s
own, this suffering is occluded by the other’s obliteration” (19). In
other words, although empathy is conceived of as a way to reach
beyond oneself and establish connections with others by identifying
with them, that identification may obscure that person and their
situation.
On many issues, empathy can pull us in the wrong direction. … Moral judgment
entails more than putting oneself in another’s shoes … plenty of good deeds —
disciplining a child for dangerous behavior, enforcing a fair and impartial procedure
for determining who should get an organ transplant, despite the suffering of those low
on the list — require us to put our empathy to one side. … Our best hope for the future
is not to get people to think of all humanity as family — that’s impossible. It lies,
instead, in an appreciation of the fact that, even if we don’t empathize with distant
strangers, their lives have the same value as the lives of those we love. … Our hearts
will always go out to the baby in the well; it’s a measure of our humanity. But empathy
will have to yield to reason if humanity is to have a future. (“The Baby”)
Bloom’s point is that empathy does not necessarily lead to good moral
judgment and that imagining that people can be inspired to
empathize with strangers is unrealistic. Instead, he suggests that we
need to use reason and more intellectual faculties in order to
appreciate the value of others, their lives, and their perspectives.
Works Cited
Alexander, Jonathan, and Jacqueline Rhodes. “Flattening Effects:
Composition’s Multicultural Imperative and the Problem of
Narrative Coherence” College Composition and Communication, vol.
65, no. 3, 2014, pp. 430–454.
Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics. Trans. W. D. Ross,
https://socialsciences.mcmaster.ca/econ/ugcm/3ll3/aristotle/Ethic
s.pdf.
Bloom, Paul. Against Empathy: The Case for Rational Compassion. Ecco,
2016.
—. “The Baby in the Well: The Case Against Empathy.” The New Yorker,
20 May 2013,
http://faculty.missouri.edu/segerti/capstone/BloomAgainstEmpat
hy.pdf.
Calloway-Thomas, Carolyn. A Call for a Pedagogy of Empathy,
Communication Education, vol. 67, no. 4, 2018, pp. 495–499. DOI:
10.1080/03634523.2018.1504977
DeStigter, Todd. 1999. “Public Displays of Affection: Political
Community through Critical Empathy.” Research in the Teaching of
English 33 (3): 235–244.
Gabbatiss, Josh. “There Is No Such Thing as a Truly Selfless Act,”
BBC.com, 19 July 2016, http://www.bbc.com/earth/story/20160718-
there-is-no-such-thing-as-a-truly-selfless-act.
Hartman, Saidiya V. Scenes of Subjection: Terror, Slavery, and Self-
Making in Nineteenth-Century America. Oxford UP, 1997.
Hoffman, Martin L. “Is Empathy Altruistic?” Psychological Inquiry,
vol. 2, no. 2, 1991, pp. 131–133.
Jhangiani, Rajiv and Hammond Tarry. “Chapter 8: Helping and
Altruism,” Principles of Social Psychology, edited by Charles
Stangor, https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/chapter/chapter-
summary-9/.
Malik, Kenan. “All the Fake News That Was Fit to Print.” The New York
Times, 4 Dec. 2016, www.nytimes.com/2016/12/04/opinion/all-the-
fake-news-that-was-fit-to-print.html.
Mar, Raymond A., Keith Oatley, Maja Djikic, and Justin Mullin.
“Emotion and Narrative Fiction: Interactive Influences Before,
During, and A er Reading.” Cognition and Emotion vol. 25, no 5,
2011, pp. 818–833.
Obama, Barack. “Obama to Graduates: Cultivate Empathy.”
Northwestern University News, 2006,
www.northwestern.edu/newscenter/stories/2006/06/barack.html.
Rosenman Robert, Vidhura Tennekoon, and Laura G. Hill
“Measuring Bias in Self-Reported Data,” International Journal of
Behavioral and Healthcare Research, vol. 2, no. 4, 2011, pp. 320–32.
Shuman, Amy. Other People’s Stories: Entitlement Claims and the
Critique of Empathy. University of Illinois Press, 2005.
Zaki, Jamil. “How to Avoid Empathy Burnout,” Nautilus, 7 April 2016,
http://nautil.us/issue/35/boundaries/how-to-avoid-empathy-
burnout.
For help with summarizing and other reading strategies, see Chapter 2.
“However, in empathizing with someone else there are risks, including making less of
the other person as you empathize with them. Jonathan Alexander and Jacqueline
Rhodes, experts in composition and rhetoric who consider how identity plays out in
writing, call this a “flattening effect” as “the ‘other’ is tamed as a knowable entity”
(431). (par. 16)
1. Make a list of the ways Terbor supports and explores his position. For help doing
so, see “Arguing Directly for the Position, and Supporting with Reasonable
Evidence” in Chapter 8 for additional information about facts, statistics,
examples, anecdotes, expert opinions, and analogies. Which of these do you think
best support his position? Why?
2. How does Terbor integrate sources smoothly (a feature of concept explanations)
in order to define and work with the concepts of empathy, altruism, empathy-
altruism, and critical empathy? How does Terbor identify those sources and what
information does he provide about them to help readers know the sources are
relevant and reliable?
3. Responding to objections and alternative speculations (a feature of cause and
effect writing), Terbor writes, “Many would argue that examples of altruism are all
around us, and that these examples are motivated by our empathetic feelings
toward others” (par. 4) but then he goes on to point out that the study he
conducted “does suggest that even acts that seem altruistic may be motivated by
egoism” (par. 12). List other moments in the essay where Terbor handles
objections and alternative speculations in a fair and balanced way. How does
Terbor concede and refute these other possibilities?
For more on design as part of the rhetorical situation, see “Developing Rhetorical Sensitivity”
in Chapter 1.
1. How do the graphs Terbor includes interact with his text in order to deliver
information vividly and persuasively?
2. Do you think the combination of text and visuals in this essay helps emphasize
Terbor’s argument? Can you imagine an alternative design — one that might
include more or different visuals, hyperlinks, animation, audio, video, or other
forms of interactivity — that would be equally or more compelling than the
current design?
3. What features from the three genres Terbor draws on are present in his essay?
How do these features reflect Terbor’s understanding of his rhetorical situation?
4. What other genres and specific features of each genre might Terbor have drawn
on to enhance the design of his text? How would these support his chosen genre
while also meeting the needs of other aspects of the rhetorical situation?
represents a combination of genres that work well together to achieve its purpose;
draws on specific features of the different genres in order to adequately explore its
subject;
engages readers by incorporating the most relevant features from each genre.
Your essay could also reflect on how you applied one or more of the following practices as
you read the selection:
Critical Analysis — what assumptions in the selection did you find intriguing, and
why?
Rhetorical Sensitivity — how effective or ineffective do you think the selection is in
achieving its purpose for the intended audience?
Empathy — did you find yourself identifying with the author, and how important was
this to the effectiveness of the selection?
A GUIDE TO WRITING MULTI-
GENRE ESSAYS
You have probably done a good deal of analytical writing about your
reading. Your instructor may also assign a capstone project to write
a multi-genre essay of your own. This Guide to Writing offers
detailed suggestions and resources to help you meet the special
challenges this kind of writing presents.
Choose a subject that interests you and consider the rhetorical situation.
Choose a primary genre, the one that most interests you or that will best help you
achieve your purpose, given your audience.
Review the chapter in this textbook where your primary genre is covered, paying close
attention to both the Guide to Reading and Guide to Writing sections. You need not
reread the reading selections, but do look closely at the strategies this genre typically
uses (listed at the beginning of the Guide to Reading section, following the bullet on
“Reading Like a Writer”) and the activities following the selections in the Guide to
Reading, especially the “Reading Like a Writer” prompts and activities.
Consider features of other genres that will complement your primary genre or help
you best achieve your purpose or engage your audience, and then review the
chapters on those genre features.
See, “The Writing Process” in Chapter 1, for coverage of the writing process.
Choosing a Subject
Rather than limiting yourself to the first subject that comes to mind,
take a few minutes to consider your options and list as many
subjects as you can. Because your subject is not bound by a specific
genre, you have a lot of freedom to first choose a subject that
interests you and then decide on the primary and other genres that
will work best to explore that subject. Below are some examples of
subjects and genres that could work well together.
For more on the rhetorical situation, see “Developing Rhetorical Sensitivity” in Chapter 1.
A working thesis will help you begin dra ing your multi-genre essay
purposefully. Your thesis should announce your subject and reflect
your primary genre. For example, if evaluation is your primary
genre, then you should make your overall judgment of the subject
clear. If you are explaining a concept, your thesis should announce
the concept and may also forecast any associated topics. If you are
writing a proposal to solve a problem, then the thesis should offer
the solution and may also identify the problem. While
autobiographies, literacy narratives, and reflective essays do not
necessarily require thesis statements, a working thesis will keep you
focused as you dra and revise your essay, and may also lead you to
new ideas. Here are two example thesis statements from the
readings in this chapter:
Canon formation, at its heart, has to do with defending what you love against
obsolescence, but love can tip into zealotry, which can lead us away from actual
criticism into some pretty ugly zones. (Morris, par. 10)
If we don’t take the time to understand these concepts, then calls for empathy are not
as informed as they might be. We then run the risk of misusing the concept,
misunderstanding its implications, and not being able to inspire the kind of empathy
that may help unify America. (Terbor, par. 3)
Organizing Your Multi-Genre Essay
For more on outlining, see “Planning a Dra ” in Chapter 1 and heading “Outlining” in
Chapter 2, respectively.
I finally had to submit. Primary care, it seemed, does a lot of good for people —
maybe even more good, in the long run, than I will as a surgeon. But I still wondered
how. (Gawande, par. 40)
Both empathy and altruism involve moving beyond oneself and thinking about
others, but as positive as these behaviors sound, everyone from philosophers to
neurobiologists have wondered whether there are such things as truly selfless acts.
(Terbor, par. 6)
For example , philosophers as far back as Aristotle have considered what motivates
humans to behave as they do and contemporary neurobiologists study chimpanzees,
squirrels, vampire bats and other animals to understand the mechanisms in the brain
that lead to acts of generosity because they believe this can help us understand
human behavior. (Terbor, par. 6)
Earlier this semester, I developed a research project for my psychology class that
explores the question of what drives human behavior, including behavior that at first
glance seems driven by altruistic motivations. (Terbor, par. 7)
Autobiography
Observation
Reflection
Evaluation
What’s Working Well: Let the writer know where the genres, and
specific features of each, complement each other.
What Needs Improvement: Tell the writer where you found the
essay dull, including why you think you became disengaged from
the essay. For example, was there too much detail or not enough,
or did you find yourself being distracted by other aspects of the
essay?
To Enhance Credibility
1. Write a page or so reflecting on what you have learned. Begin by describing what you
are most pleased with in your essay. Then explain what you think contributed to your
achievement.
If it was something you learned from the readings, indicate which readings and
specifically what you learned from them.
If it came from the writing you did in response to prompts in this chapter, point out
the section or sections that helped you most.
2. Reflect more generally on multi-genre writing.
Why might a writer use the features of multiple genres simultaneously?
How comfortable were you incorporating features from multiple genres into a
single essay?
How do you think your integration of features from multiple genres helped you
understand each genre better?
3. By reflecting on what you have learned about multi-genre writing, you have been
practicing metacognition, one of the academic habits of mind.
Were you aware of any other habits of mind you practiced as you read and
responded to the material in this chapter? If so, which habits did you find useful?
If not, think back now on your reading and writing process. Can you identify any
habits you used?
CHAPTER 12
Strategies for Research and
Documentation
Ask yourself questions like these about the sources you have
found:
Avoid plagiarism.
Also be sure you consider the following practical issues before you
begin your research project:
You may also want to write questions about your topic and then
focus on one or two that can be answered through research. These
will become the research questions that will guide your search for
information. You may need to add or revise these questions as you
conduct your search. The answers you devise over the course of your
research can form the basis for your thesis statement, however, for
the research process your instructor may have you focus on one or
two research questions before developing a thesis statement.
One of the best ways to keep track of your research is to keep all
your notes in one place, in a research log. Your log may be digital —
a folder on your computer with files for notes, lists of keywords, and
your working bibliography — or analog — a notebook with pockets
for copies of sources.
For example, a student might start with a term like home schooling
and then add home education or home study. A er reading an article
about her subject, she might also add student-paced education or
autonomous learning to expand her scope.
Keep in mind that different databases use different terms, and terms
that work well for one subject might not be successful in another.
For example, databases covering education and psychology might
index sources on some of the same subjects, but they might not use
the same keywords. A er consulting the thesaurus in ERIC, a
database focusing on education, the student might add parents as
teachers; a er consulting the thesaurus in the database PSYCArticles,
she might add nontraditional education.
Author(s) name(s)
Title and subtitle
Publication information: A book’s version or edition number
(for example, revised edition, 3rd ed.), the name of the source’s
publisher (except for sources whose authors are their
publishers and online sources whose titles are similar to their
publishers’ names), the date of publication (or copyright year),
and the page numbers of the section you consulted; a
periodical’s name, volume and issue number, date, and the
article’s page numbers.
Location information: The call number of a book; the name of
the database through which you accessed the source; the DOI
(digital object identifier — a permanent identifying code that
won’t change over time or from database to database) for an
article, or if one is unavailable, the full URL (ideally a
permalink, if the site provides one); the date you last accessed
the source (for a Web page or website), though you will not
always need to include an access date in your paper’s works-
cited entry; see pp. 640–644 for more information.
For more on annotating sources or synthesizing, see Chapter 2, pp. 35–40 or 47–48.
You will mine your notes for language to use in your dra , so be
careful to
Just as with a search engine like Google, you can search a library
catalog or database by typing your search terms — an author’s name,
the title of a work, a subject term or keyword, even a call number —
into the search box. To search successfully, put yourself in the
position of the people writing about your topic to figure out what
words they might have used. If your topic is “ecology,” for example,
you may find information under the keywords ecosystem, environment,
pollution, and endangered species, as well as a number of other related
keywords, depending on the focus of the research and your area of
study.
When conducting a search, you may get too few hits and have to
broaden your topic. To broaden your search, try the following:
Most o en, you’ll get too many hits. To narrow a search, try the
following:
In many cases, using phrases or word strings will limit your results to
items that include all the words you have specified. You may need to
insert quotation marks around the terms or insert the word and
between them to create a search phrase or word string. Check the
search tips for the database, catalog, or search engine you are using.
You can generally search for books (as well as reference works and
multimedia resources) by author’s name, title, keyword, or subject
heading, and narrow your search by using advanced search options.
Description
The webpage is divided into three sections top, middle, and bottom. The screen-grab
shows the title bar at the top which has the U C Riverside logo on the top left corner, the
title ‘Library Scotty Catalog,’ and a search box on the right. The following option buttons
are below the title bar: Library Website; New Books and Media; Help; Connect from
Home; New Search; and My Account. There is a search option below the buttons and to
the right and the corresponding margin note reads, Search box. Below this Search box,
there is a menu bar with the following options: New Search; Place a Hold (Margin note
reads, Hold book for patron); Add to Bag; M A R C Display; Modify Search; More Like
this (Margin note reads, Find similar items); and Another Search. There are three search
boxes below the menu bar as follows: Keyword; Virtual Charter Schools and Home; and
All U C R Libraries. There is a checkbox below the search boxes named ‘Limit search to
available items’. A result below that reads, ‘1 result found. Sorted by relevance (bar)
date (bar) title’. Relevance is highlighted.
Below this, there are three rows of text as follows: Row 1: Author, Klein, Carol (Carol L.)
(The name ‘Klein, Carol (Carol L.) is in bold); Row 2: Title, Virtual charter schools and
home schooling / Carol Klein. (The words ‘and’ and ‘Carol Klein’ are in bold); Row 3:
Publisher, Youngstown, N Y : Cambria Press, c2006. (A margin note pointing to the
words ‘Author,’ ‘Title,’ and ‘Publisher’ reads, ‘Author, title, and publication info’). Below
this, there is a bar mentioning L O C, CALL #, and STATUS. (Margin note reads,
‘Location, Call number, and Status’). The data under the L O C , CALL #, and STATUS
are Rivera, L C40.5. K54 2006, and NOT CHCKD OUT respectively. Below this, there
are two buttons named ‘Send via S M S/Email’ and ‘Help’. (A margin note points to the
‘Send via S M S/Email’ button and reads, ‘Send catalog info as a text message or an e-
mail’). Below the buttons, there is a symbol with text that reads, Permanent Link:
http://scotty.ucr.edu/record=b3284009~$5. On the right, under the heading More
Resources the text reads, ‘Ask a Librarian’ (Margin note reads, ‘Chat with a reference
librarian’); and a chat sign along with ‘Suggest a purchase’. Below it text reads, Note:
Textbooks may not be requested via Interlibrary Loan.
In the bottom section, there are seven rows of text as follows: Row 1: Call #, L C
40.5.K54 2006; Row 2: Description, xxlv, 175 p : ill; 24 c m; Row 3: Notes Includes
bibliographical references (p. [165] to 170) and index; Row 4: Subject California Virtual
Academies (Margin note reads, ‘Subject headings’); Home schooling – Web-based
instruction – California. Charter schools – California; Row 6: I S B N, 9781934043219
(alk. Paper); Row 7: Other #, 1934043214 (alk. Paper); 2006035398; Row 8: O C L C /
B I B, (O C o L C)76261606; 76261606. On the right, there is a scannable bar code
labeled Resource’s info via Q R code. (Margin note reads, ‘Capture catalog info with
smart phone.’)
Much of the information you will use to write your research project
will come from articles in periodicals, publications such as
newspapers, magazines, or scholarly journals that are published at
regular intervals. To locate relevant articles on your topic, start your
search with one of your library’s databases. Why not just start with a
Google search? There are two very good reasons:
If your database search returns too many unhelpful results, use the
search strategies discussed on p. 592 or use the database’s advanced
search options to refine your search. Many databases allow users to
restrict results to articles published in academic journals, for
example, or to articles that were published a er a certain date (see
fig. 12.2 on p. 595). Use the Help option or ask a librarian for
assistance.
Description
A menu bar at the top shows the following option buttons: New Search; Publications;
Subject Terms; Cited References;, More (with a drop-down menu); Sign In; Folder;
Preferences; Languages (with a drop-down menu); Ask-a-Librarian; and Help. The page
below this may be divided into three sections: top, bottom left, and bottom right.
In the top section, the EBSCO Host logo is on the left. Beside it are three Search
options under the heading ‘Searching: Academic search completed (bar) Choose
databases’ as follows: Search box with text ‘home schooling’ and option ‘S U Subject
Terms’ from a drop-down menu; AND with a drop-down menu, an empty search box and
‘Select a Field (opti…’ with a drop-down menu; AND with a drop-down menu, an empty
search box and ‘Select a Field (opti…’ with a drop-down menu. A plus sign and a minus
sign are next to the third Search Option. Beside the first Search option is a Search
button, Clear button, and a Help icon. (Margin note pointing to Academic Search
Complete reads, ‘Database’).
The text below this reads, Basic Search; Advanced Search; Search history and a drop-
down menu symbol next to it’.
In the bottom left section, there are three sub-sections labeled Refine Results with the
following text: Sub-section 1: Current search, Boolean/Phrase: S U home schooling;
Source Types, Academic Journals. Sub-section 2: Limit To: (Checkbox) Full Text;
(Checkbox) References Available; and (Checkbox) Scholarly (Peer Reviewed) Journals.
(Slide-bar) 1941 to 2015 Publication Date; Show more; Sub-section 3: Source Types,
(Checkbox) All results; (Ticked Checkbox) Academic Journals (326); (Checkbox)
Magazines (632); (Checkbox) Newspapers (84); (Checkbox) Book Reviews (55); and
(Checkbox) Trade Publications (30). Show more. (A margin note bracketing this section
reads, Options for narrowing search results.)
The bottom right section shows 1 to 10 of 326 search results. The headings of the same
are as follows: 1) African American Homeschooling and the Quest for a Quality
Education followed by a description. (Margin note pointing to the heading reads, Click
on title to retrieve article’s full record.) 2) Reconciling policy dissonance: patterns of
governmental response to policy noncompliance followed by a description. (Margin note
points to the ‘zoom’ button next to the heading and reads, Click a magnifying glass to
view abstract (summary) of article.) 3) Examining Claims of Family Process Difference
Ensuing From the Choice to Home-School followed by a description. (The word ‘Home’
is in bold.) 4) Are Homeschoolers Prepared for College Calculus? followed by a
description. (Margin note pointing to Linked Full Text option below the description reads,
Full text of article available.)
Advanced Search
Language: (Textbox with the text ‘any language’ and a drop-down menu)
Region: (Textbox with the text ‘any region’ and a drop-down menu)
Last update: (Textbox with the text ‘anytime’ and a drop-down menu)
Terms appearing: (Textbox with the text ‘anywhere in the page’ and a drop-down menu)
SafeSearch: (Textbox with the text ‘Show most relevant results’ and a drop-down menu)
Reading level: (Textbox with the text ‘no reading level displayed’ and a drop-down
menu)
File type: (Textbox with the text ‘any format’ and a drop-down menu)
Usage rights: (Textbox with the text ‘not filtered by license’ and a drop-down menu)
This section introduces you to some tools and strategies to use the
Web more efficiently. But first, a few cautions:
Your research project will be only as credible as the sources you use.
Because search engines index Web sources without evaluating
them, not all the results a search engine generates will be
credible and relevant to your purposes.
Web sources may not be stable. A website that existed last week
may no longer be available today, or its content may have
changed. Be sure to record the information you need to cite a
source when you first find it, as well as the date you find it.
Web sources must be documented. No matter what your source — a
library book, a scholarly article, or a website or Web page — you
will need to cite and document your source in your list of works
cited or references. If you are publishing your report online,
check also to determine whether you will need permission to
reproduce an image or any other elements.
Although you may use search engines like Google with great rapidity
and out of habit, as a college researcher you are likely to find it
worthwhile to familiarize yourself with other parts of the Google
search site. Of particular interest to the academic writer are Google
Scholar and Google Book Search. Google Scholar retrieves articles
from a number of scholarly databases and a wide range of general-
interest and scholarly books. Google Book Search searches both
popular and scholarly books. Both Google Scholar and Google Book
Search offer overviews and, in some cases, the full text of a source.
No matter how precisely you search the Web with a standard search
engine, you may not hit on the best available resources. Starting your
search from a subject guide, such as those provided by the Internet
Public Library or the librarians at your school, can direct you to
relevant and credible sources of online information.
Whatever search engine you use, always click on the link called Help,
Hints, or Tips on the search tool’s home page to find out more about
the commands and advanced-search techniques it offers to narrow
(or expand) your search.
Interactive Sources
Making Observations
Immediately a er your visit, fill in any gaps in your notes, and review
your notes to look for meaningful patterns. You might find mapping
strategies, such as clustering or outlining, useful for discovering
patterns in your notes. Take some time to reflect on what you saw.
Asking yourself questions like these might help:
How did what I observed fit my own or my readers’ likely
preconceptions of the place or activity? Did my observations
upset any of my preconceptions? What, if anything, seemed
contradictory or out of place?
What interested me most about the activity or place? What are
my readers likely to find interesting about it?
What did I learn?
Your purpose in writing about your visit is to share your insights into
the meaning and significance of your observations. Assume that your
readers have never been to the place, and provide enough detail for it
to come alive for them. Decide on the perspective you want to
convey, and choose the details necessary to convey your insights.
CONDUCTING INTERVIEWS
The best questions encourage the subject to talk freely but stick to
the point. You may need to ask a follow-up question to refocus the
discussion or to clarify a point, so be prepared. If you are unsure
about a subject’s answer, follow up by rephrasing that answer,
prefacing it by saying something like “Let me see if I have this right”
or “Am I correct in saying that you feel …………?” Avoid forced-choice
questions (“Which do you think is the better approach: ………… or
…………?”) and leading questions (“How well do you think ………… is
doing?”).
Take notes. Take notes during the interview, even if you are
recording your discussion. You might find it useful to divide
several pages of a notebook into two columns or to set up a word
processing file in two columns. Use the le -hand column to note
details about the scene and your subject or about your
impressions overall; in the right-hand column, write several
questions and record the answers. Remember that how
something is said is as important as what is said. Look for
material that will give texture to your writing — gesture, verbal
inflection, facial expression, body language, physical appearance
(dress, hair), or anything else that makes the person an
individual.
Listen carefully. Avoid interrupting your subject or talking about
yourself; rather, listen carefully and guide the discussion by
asking follow-up questions and probing politely for more
information.
Be considerate. Do not stay longer than the time you were
allotted unless your subject agrees to continue the discussion,
and show your appreciation for the time you have been given by
thanking your subject and offering her or him a copy of your
finished project.
Also make a list of any questions that arise. You may want to
follow up with your subject for more information, but limit
yourself to one e-mail or phone call to avoid becoming a bother.
Thank your subject. Send your interview subject a thank-you
note or e-mail within twenty-four hours of the interview. Try to
reference something specific from the interview, something you
thought was surprising or thought-provoking. Send your subject
a copy of your finished project with a note of appreciation.
CONDUCTING SURVEYS
Surveys let you gauge the opinions and knowledge of large numbers
of people. You might conduct a survey to gauge opinion in a political
science course or to assess familiarity with a television show for a
media studies course. You might also conduct a survey to assess the
seriousness of a problem for a service-learning class or in response
to an assignment to propose a solution to a problem (Chapter 10). You
can choose to administer the survey either in person or on a survey
creation and distribution site such as SurveyMonkey, SurveyGizmo,
or even Facebook. This section briefly outlines procedures you can
follow to carry out an informal survey, and it highlights areas where
caution is needed. Colleges and universities have restrictions about
the use and distribution of questionnaires, so check your institution’s
policy or obtain permission before beginning the survey.
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
The more respondents you have, the better, but constraints of time
and expense will almost certainly limit the number. As few as twenty-
five could be adequate for an informal study, but to get twenty-five
responses, you may need to solicit fi y or more participants.
You can conduct the survey in person or over the telephone; use an
online service such as SurveyMonkey or Zoomerang; e-mail the
questionnaires; or conduct the survey using a social media site such
as Facebook. You may also distribute surveys to groups of people in
class or around campus and wait to collect their responses.
Each method has its advantages and disadvantages. For example,
face-to-face surveys allow you to get more in-depth responses, but
participants may be unwilling to answer personal questions face-to-
face. Though fewer than half the surveys you solicit using survey
so ware are likely to be completed (your invitations may wind up in
a spam folder), online so ware will tabulate responses automatically.
Sources are relevant when they help you achieve your aims with your
readers. Relevant sources may
For more on focusing search results and selecting search terms, see pp. 591–592 earlier in this
chapter.
A search for sources may reveal more books and articles than any
researcher could ever actually consult. A search on the term home
schooling in one database, for example, got 1,172 hits. Obviously, a
glance at all the hits to determine which are most relevant would take
far too much time. To speed up the process, resources, such as
library catalogs, databases, and search engines, provide tools to
narrow the results. For example, in one popular all-purpose
database, you can limit results by publication date, language, and
publication or source type, among other options. (Check the Help
screen to learn how to use these tools.)
In the database used in Figure 12.5 (p. 608), limiting the home
schooling results to articles published in scholarly journals in English
over the last ten years reduced the number of hits to 56, a far more
reasonable number to review. Remember that if you have too few
results or your results are not targeted correctly, you can expand your
search by changing your search terms or removing limits selectively.
FIGURE 12.5 ANALYZING THE DETAILED RECORD OF AN ARTICLE FROM A
PERIODICALS DATABASE Analyze the detailed record of an article to determine
whether the article itself is worth reading by asking yourself the following
questions: Does the title suggest that the article addresses your topic? Are the
authors experts in the field? Was the article published in a periodical that is likely
to be credible, was it published recently, and is it lengthy enough to indicate that
the topic is treated in depth? Does the abstract (or summary) suggest that the
article addresses your topic? If so, what angle does it take?
Description
A menu bar at the top shows the following option buttons: New Search; Publications;
Subject Terms; Cited References;, More (with a drop-down menu); The page below this
can be divided into three sections: top, bottom left, and bottom right.
In the top section, a circular EBSCO Host logo is on the left. Beside it are three Search
options under the heading ‘Searching: Academic search completed (bar) Choose
database’ as follows: Search box with text ‘home schooling’ and option ‘S U Subject
Terms’ from a drop-down menu; AND with a drop-down menu, an empty search box and
‘Select a Field (opti…’ with a drop-down menu; AND with a drop-down menu, an empty
search box and ‘Select a Field (opti…’ with a drop-down menu. A plus sign and a minus
sign are next to the third Search Option. Beside the first Search option is a Search
button, Clear button, and a Help sign. (Margin note pointing to Academic Search
Complete reads, ‘Database’).
The text below this reads, Basic Search; Advanced Search; Search history and a drop-
down menu symbol next to it’.
The bottom left section shows two options, Detailed Record and Linked Full Text. Below
it a box reads, Find Similar Results using SmartText Searching.
The bottom right section shows 11 of 1,326 search results. The heading reads, African
American Homeschool Parents’ Motivations for Homeschooling and Their Black
Children’s Academic Achievement. (Margin note reads, Title: Does the article address
your topic?) Below it, the text reads as follows:
Abstract: This study explores the motivations of African American parents for choosing
homeschooling for their children and the academic achievement of their Black
homeschool students. Their reasons for homeschooling are similar to those of
homeschool parents in general, although some use homeschooling to help their children
understand Black culture and history. The average reading, language, and math test
scores of these Black homeschool students are significantly higher than those of Black
public school students (with effect sizes of 0.60 to 1.13) and equal to or higher than all
public school students as a group in this exploratory, cross-sectional, and explanatory
nonexperimental study. [Abstract from Publisher] (Margin note reads, Abstract: Does the
article address your topic? What angle does it take?)
ISSN: 1558-2159
DOI: 10.1080/15582159.2015.998966
If close scrutiny leaves you with too few sources — or too many
sources from too few perspectives — conduct a search using
additional or alternative keywords, or explore links to related
articles, look at the references in a particularly useful article, or look
for other sources by an author whose work you find useful.
Consider, first, whether the author is an expert in the field. The fact
that someone has a Ph.D. in astrophysics is no indication that he or
she will be an expert in military history, for example, so be careful
that the area of expertise is directly relevant to the topic.
For more details on strategies for evaluating the logic of an argument, see “Evaluating the
Logic of an Argument” in Chapter 2.
You may also need older, foundational sources that establish the
principles, theories, and data on which later work is based and may
provide a useful perspective for evaluating other works. To determine
which sources are foundational, note the ones that are cited most
o en in encyclopedia articles, lists of works cited or references, and
recent works on the subject. You may also want to consult your
instructor or a librarian to help you determine which works are
foundational in your field.
For the most part, .gov and .edu are the most likely to offer credible
sources of information for a college research project. However,
sources with any of these domains may vary in credibility. For
example, a file with a .com suffix may offer a highly credible history
of a corporation and be an appropriate source for someone writing a
history of corporate America, whereas a file with an .edu suffix may
have been posted by a student or by a faculty member outside his or
her area of expertise.
It is essential to look at websites carefully. Determine who sponsors
the site: Is it a business, a professional group, a private organization,
an educational institution, a government agency, or an individual?
Look for a link, usually at the top or the bottom of the home page,
called something like “Who We Are” or “About Us.” If you cannot
determine who sponsors a site, carefully double-check any
information you find there.
Consider, too, checking how o en the website has been linked to and
the types of links provided by the website. That a site has been linked
to repeatedly does not guarantee credibility, but the information may
be helpful in conjunction with other recommendations in this
chapter. To determine the number of times a Web page has been
linked to, type link: plus the URL into a Google search box. To check
the links provided, click on them and apply the criteria in this
chapter.
SYNTHESIZING SOURCES
Sentence strategies like the following can help you clarify where you
differ from or agree with the sources you have read:
For more on citing sources in MLA style, see pp. 627–632; for APA style, see pp. 645–647.
For the most part, any ideas, information, or language you borrow
from a source — whether the source is in print or online — must be
acknowledged by including an in-text citation and an entry in your
list of works cited (MLA style) or references (APA style). The only
types of information that do not require acknowledgment are
common knowledge (for example, John F. Kennedy was assassinated
in Dallas), facts widely available in many sources (U.S. presidents
used to be inaugurated on March 4 rather than January 20), well-
known quotations (“To be or not to be / That is the question”), and
material you created or gathered yourself, such as photographs that
you took or data from surveys that you conducted.
Avoiding Plagiarism
If you are confused about what is and what is not plagiarism, be sure
to ask your instructor.
USING INFORMATION FROM SOURCES TO
SUPPORT YOUR CLAIMS
When writing a research project, one of the ways you will use sources
is to support your own ideas. Make sure that each of your supporting
paragraphs does three things:
The main reason professors should give frequent exams is that when they do and
when they provide feedback to students on how well they are doing, students learn
more in the course and perform better on major exams, projects, and papers. It
makes sense that in a challenging course containing a great deal of material, students
will learn more of it and put it to better use if they have to apply or “practice” it
frequently on exams, which also helps them find out how much they are learning and
what they need to go over again.
You may italicize any words in the quotation that you want to
emphasize; add a semicolon and the words emphasis added (in regular
type, not italicized or underlined) to the parenthetical citation:
In her 2001 exposé of the struggles of the working class, Ehrenreich writes, “The wages
Winn-Dixie is offering — $6 and a couple of dimes to start with — are not enough, I
decide, to compensate for this indignity” (14; emphasis added).
You may decide to omit words from a quotation because they are not
relevant to the point you are making. When you omit words from
within a quotation, use ellipses — three spaced periods (…) — in
place of the missing words. When the omission occurs within a
sentence, include a space before the first ellipsis mark and a er the
last mark:
A period plus ellipses can indicate the omission not just of the rest of
a sentence but also of whole sentences, paragraphs, or even pages.
But Grimaldi’s commentary contends that for Aristotle rhetoric, like dialectic, had “no
limited and unique subject matter upon which it must be exercised. … Instead,
rhetoric as an art transcends all specific disciplines …” (6).
When you quote only single words or phrases, you do not need to use
ellipses because it will be obvious that you have le out some of the
original:
For the same reason, you need not use ellipses if you omit the
beginning of a quoted sentence unless the rest of the sentence begins
with a capitalized word and still appears to be a complete sentence.
In the dark, cold streets during the “short days of winter,” the boys must generate their
own heat by “play[ing] till [their] bodies glowed.” Music is “[shaken] from the buckled
harness” as if it were unnatural, and the singers in the market chant nasally of “the
troubles in our native land” (30).
Guterson notes that among Native Americans in Florida, “education was in the home;
learning by doing was reinforced by the myths and legends which repeated the basic
value system of their [the Seminoles’] way of life” (159).
“Did you think I loved you?” Edith later asks Dombey (566).
verb incompatibility
ungrammatical omissions
sentence fragments
Description
The text reads as follows:
The narrator suggests his bitter disappointment when ‘I saw myself as a creature driven
and derided by vanity’ (35). (The part ‘I saw myself’ is crossed out and replaced with ‘he
describes seeing himself’)
As this sentence illustrates, use the present tense when you refer to
events in a literary work.
Description
The text is divided into two columns named ‘Option 1’ and ‘Option 2’. The text in the
Option 1 column reads as follows: From the moment of the boy’s arrival in Araby, the
bazaar is presented as a commercial enterprise: ‘I could not find any sixpenny entrance
and… handing a shilling to a weary-looking man’ (34). (The word ‘handing’ is crossed
out and replaced with the word ‘hand[ed]’)
The text in the Option 2 column reads as follows: From the moment of the boy’s arrival
in Araby, the bazaar is presented as a commercial enterprise: ‘I could not find any
sixpenny entrance and… handing a shilling to a weary-looking man’ (34). (The word ‘I’ is
scored out and replaced with ‘He’. The phrase ‘and ellipsis handing a shilling to a weary
looking man’ is scored out and replaced with the phrase ‘so had to pay a shilling to get
in.’)
Sentence fragments sometimes result when writers forget to include
a verb in the sentence introducing a quotation, especially when the
quotation itself is a complete sentence. Make sure you introduce a
quotation with a complete sentence:
Description
The text reads as follows:
The girl’s interest in the bazaar leading the narrator to make what amounts to a sacred
oath: ‘If I go… I will bring you something’ (32). (The word ‘leading’ is scored out and
replaced with ‘leads.’)
In-Text Quotations.
Incorporate brief quotations (no more than four typed lines of prose
or three lines of poetry) into your text. You may place a quotation
virtually anywhere in your sentence:
At the Beginning
“To live a life is not to cross a field,” Sutherland, quoting Pasternak, writes at the
beginning of her narrative (11).
In the Middle
Woolf begins and ends by speaking of the need of the woman writer to have “money
and a room of her own” (4) — an idea that certainly spoke to Plath’s condition.
At the End
In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir describes such an experience as one in which
the girl “becomes an object, and she sees herself as object” (378).
Poetry
When you quote poetry within your text, use a slash (/) with spaces
before and a er to signal the end of each line of verse:
Alluding to St. Augustine’s distinction between the City of God and the Earthly City,
Lowell writes that “much against my will / I le the City of God where [faith] belongs”
(4–5).
Block Quotations.
In MLA style, use the block form for prose quotations of five or more
typed lines and for poetry quotations of four or more lines. Indent
the quotation half an inch from the le margin, as shown in the
following example:
In “A Literary Legacy from Dunbar to Baraka,” Margaret Walker says of Paul Lawrence
Dunbar’s dialect poems:
He realized that the white world in the United States tolerated his literary genius
only because of his “jingles in a broken tongue,” and they found the old “darky”
tales and speech amusing and within the vein of folklore into which they wished
to classify all Negro life. This troubled Dunbar because he realized that white
America was denigrating him as a writer and as a man. (70)
In APA style, use block form for quotations of forty words or more.
Indent the block quotation half an inch.
Similarly, Duncan Turner asserts, “As matters now stand, it is unwise to talk about
communication without some understanding of Burke” (259).
Apparently, some conditions , which have been illuminated by Bruner and other
discovery theorists , pave the way for people to learn .
Here, the paraphrase borrows almost all of its key language from the
source sentence, including the entire phrase pave the way for. Even if
you cite the source, this heavy borrowing would be considered
plagiarism.
SYNONYMS
Bruner and other researchers have also identified circumstances that seem to ease the
path to learning.
If you compare the source’s first sentence and this paraphrase of it,
you will see that the paraphraser has borrowed the phrases and
clauses of the source and arranged them in an almost identical
sequence, simply substituting synonyms for most of the key terms.
This paraphrase would also be considered plagiarism.
For more on summarizing as a reading and writing strategy, see “Summarizing” in Chapter 2.
Summaries like this one are more than a dry list of main ideas from a
source. They are instead a coherent, readable new text composed of
the source’s main ideas. Summaries provide balanced coverage of a
source, following the same sequence of ideas and avoiding any hint
of agreement or disagreement with them.
CITING AND DOCUMENTING
SOURCES IN MLA STYLE
The following guidelines are sufficient for most college research
assignments in English and other humanities courses that call for
MLA-style documentation. For additional information, see the MLA
Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, Eighth Edition (2016), the
MLA website, or a handbook with MLA citation information.
In most cases, include the author’s last name and the page number
on which the borrowed material appears in the text of your research
project. You can incorporate this information in two ways:
Signal Phrase: Simon, a well-known figure in New York literary society, described the
impression Dr. James made on her as a child in the Bronx: He was a ‘not-too-skeletal
Ichabod Crane’ (68) (Note pointing to Simon reads, Author’s last name. Margin note
pointing to the word ‘described’ reads, appropriate verb. Note pointing to ‘68’ reads,
page number.)
Description
The text reads as follows:
In most cases, you will want to use a signal phrase because doing so
lets you put your source in context. The signal-phrase-plus-page-
reference combination also allows you to make crystal clear where
the source information begins and ends. Use a parenthetical citation
alone when you have already identified the author or when citing the
source of an uncontroversial fact.
One author
When citing most works with a single author, include the author’s
name (usually the last name is enough)* and the page number on
which the cited material appears.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Block Quotation: In Kate Simon’s story ‘Birthing,’ the description of Doctor James
captures both his physical appearance and his role in the community: He looked so
much like a story character — the gentled Scrooge of a St. Nicholas Magazine
Christmas issue, a not-too-skeletal Ichabod Crane. ellipsis Doctor James was, even
when I knew him as a child, quite an old man, retired from a prestigious and lucrative
practice in Boston. ellipsis His was a prosperous intellectual family, the famous New
England Jameses that produced William and Henry, but to the older Bronx doctors, the
James was the magnificent old driven scarecrow. (68) (A note pointing to ‘Kate Simon’
reads ‘author’s name’. A note pointing to number ‘68’ reads ‘page number’.)
A writer should “resist the temptation to give the reader too lengthy an explanation”
(Bernays and Painter 7).
The Authority Rebel “tends to see himself as superior to other students in the class”
(Dyal et al. 4).
Unknown author
An international pollution treaty still to be ratified would prohibit ships from dumping
plastic at sea (“Plastic” 68).
If you cite more than one work by the same author, include a
shortened version of the title.
When old paint becomes transparent, it sometimes shows the artist’s original plans: “a
tree will show through a woman’s dress” (Hellman, Pentimento 1).
Two or more authors with the same last name
When citing works by authors with the same last name, include each
author’s first initial in the citation. If the first initials are also the
same, spell out the authors’ first names.
Chaplin’s Modern Times provides a good example of montage used to make an editorial
statement (E. Roberts 246).
The Washington State Board for Community and Technical Colleges will raise tuition
to offset budget deficits from Initiative 601 (4).
A tuition increase has been proposed for community and technical colleges to offset
budget deficits from Initiative 601 (Washington State Board 4).
Provide information that will help readers find the passage you are
citing no matter what edition of the novel, play, or poem they are
using. For a novel or other prose work, provide the part or chapter
number as well as the page numbers from the edition you used.
In Hard Times, Tom reveals his utter narcissism by blaming Louisa for his own failure:
“‘You have regularly given me up. You never cared for me’” (Dickens 262; bk. 3, ch. 9).
For a play in verse, use act, scene, and line numbers instead of page
numbers.
( )
At the beginning, Regan’s fawning rhetoric hides her true attitude toward Lear: “I
profess / myself an enemy to all other joys … / And find that I am alone felicitate / In
your dear highness’ love” (King Lear 1.1.74-75, 77-78).
For a poem, indicate the line numbers and stanzas or sections (if
they are numbered) instead of page numbers.
In “Song of Myself,” Whitman finds poetic details in busy urban settings, as when he
describes “the blab of the pave, tires of carts … the driver with his interrogating
thumb” (8.153-54).
If the source gives only line numbers, use the term lines in your first
citation and use only the numbers in subsequent citations.
In “Before you thought of spring,” Dickinson at first identifies the spirit of spring with a
bird, possibly a robin — “A fellow in the skies / Inspiriting habiliments / Of indigo and
brown” (lines 4, 7-8) — but by the end of the poem, she has linked it with poetry and
perhaps even the poet herself, as the bird, like Dickinson “shouts for joy to nobody /
But his seraphic self!” (15-16).
Work in an anthology
Use the name of the author of the work, not the editor of the
anthology, in your in-text citation.
In “Six Days: Some Rememberings,” Grace Paley recalls that when she was in jail for
protesting the Vietnam War, her pen and paper were taken away and she felt “a terrible
pain in the area of my heart — a nausea” (191).
Writers may have a visceral reaction — “a nausea” (Paley 191) — to being deprived of
access to writing implements.
Religious work
In your first citation, include the element that begins your entry in
the works-cited list, such as the edition name of the religious work
you are citing, and include the book or section name (using standard
abbreviations in parenthetical citations) and any chapter or verse
numbers.
She ignored the admonition “Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before
a fall” (New Oxford Annotated Bible, Prov. 16.18).
If you cite only one volume of a multivolume work, treat the in-text
citation as you would any other work, but include the volume
number in the works-cited entry (see p. 636).
Forster argued that modernist writers valued experimentation and gradually sought to
blur the line between poetry and prose (150).
Modernist writers valued experimentation and gradually sought to blur the line
between poetry and prose (Forster 3: 150).
If possible, locate the original source and cite that. If not possible,
name the original source but also include the secondary source in
which you found the material you are citing, plus the abbreviation
qtd. in. Include the secondary source in your list of works cited.
E. M. Forster says that “the collapse of all civilization, so realistic for us, sounded in
Matthew Arnold’s ears like a distant and harmonious cataract” (qtd. in Trilling 11).
Entire work
In The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, Thomas Kuhn discusses how scientists change
their thinking.
Work without page numbers or a one-page work (with / without
other section numbers)
The average speed on Montana’s interstate highways, for example, has risen by only 2
miles per hour since the repeal of the federal speed limit, with most drivers topping
out at 75 (Schmid).
Barack Obama joked that he and Dick Cheney agreed on one thing — Hamilton is
phenomenal (“Hamilton Cast” 00:02:34-36).
A few studies have considered differences between oral and written discourse
production (Gould; Scardamali et al.).
In your MLA-style research paper, every source you cite must have a
corresponding entry in the list of works cited, and every entry in your
list of works cited must correspond to at least one citation in your
research project.
Follow these rules when formatting your list of works cited in MLA
style:
Author Listings
One author
Two authors
Three or more authors
Unknown author
Corporation, organization, or government agency as author
Two or more works by the same author
One author
List the author’s last name first (followed by a comma), and insert a
period at the end of the name.
Isaacson, Walter.
Two authors
List the first author’s last name first (followed by a comma). List the
second author in the usual first-name / last-name order. Insert the
word and before the second author’s name, and follow the name with
a period.
List the first author’s last name first (followed by a comma). Then
insert et al. (which means and others in Latin) in regular type (not
italics).
Unknown author
Primary Colors: A Novel of Politics.
“Out of Sight.”
RAND Corporation.
United States, National Commission on Terrorist Attacks.
Basic format
Description
The text reads as follows:
Basic Format
Print: Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Marriage Plot. Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011. (A note
pointing to ‘Eugenides, Jeffrey’ reads ‘Author, last name first’. ‘The Marriage Plot’ is
labeled ‘Title (and subtitle, if any), italicized’. ‘Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2011’ is labeled
‘Publication info’. ‘Farrar, Straus and Giroux’ is labeled ‘Publisher’ and the year 2011 is
labeled ‘Publication date’.)
E-Book: Eugenides, Jeffrey. The Marriage Plot. Kindle ed., Farrar, Straus and Giroux,
2011. (‘Farrar, Straus, and Giroux’ is labeled ‘Publisher’. The year 2011 is labeled
‘Publication date’.)
Masri, Heather, editor. Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts. Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2009.
Hopkinson, Nalo. “Something to Hitch Meat To.” Science Fiction: Stories and Contexts,
Bedford / St. Martin’s, 2009, pp. 838-50.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Hopkinson, Nalo. ‘Something to Hitch Meat To.’ Masri 838 hyphen 50. (A note pointing
to ‘Hopkinson, Nalo’ reads, Selection author. A note pointing to ‘Something to Hitch
Meat To’ reads, Selection title. A note pointing to ‘Masri’ reads, Anthology author. A note
pointing to ‘838 hyphen 50’ reads, Selection pages in anthology.)
Introduction, preface, foreword, or a erword
Murfin, Ross C. Introduction. Heart of Darkness, by Joseph Conrad, 3rd ed., Bedford /
St. Martin’s, 2011, pp. 3-16.
Translation
Tolstoy, Leo. War and Peace. Translated by Richard Pevear and Larissa Volokhonsky,
Vintage Books, 2009.
Graphic narrative
Pekar, Harvey, and Joyce Brabner. Our Cancer Year. Illustrations by Frank Stack, Four
Walls Eight Windows, 1994.
Religious work
Give the title of the edition, the editor’s and translator’s names as
available, publisher, and date.
The Qu’ran: English Translation and Parallel Arabic Text. Translated by M. A. S. Abdel
Haleem, Oxford UP, 2010.
Multivolume work
If you use only one volume from a multivolume work, indicate the
volume number a er the title, using the abbreviation vol. If you use
more than one volume, indicate the total number of volumes at the
end of the entry.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. Vol. 2, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926. (A note
pointing to ‘Vol. 2’ reads, One volume cited.)
Sandburg, Carl. Abraham Lincoln. Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1926 hyphen 39. 6 vols. (A
note pointing to ‘6 vols.’ reads, More than one volume cited.)
Republished book
Alcott, Louisa May. An Old-Fashioned Girl. 1870. Puffin Books, 1995. (A note pointing to
‘1870’ reads, Original publication date. A note pointing to ‘Puffin Books, 1995’ reads,
Republication information.)
Hertenstein, Mike. The Double Vision of Star Trek: Half-Humans, Evil Twins, and Science
Fiction. Cornerstone Books, 1998.
Miller, Edwin Haviland. Walt Whitman’s “Song of Myself”: A Mosaic of Interpretation. U of
Iowa P, 1989.
Book in a series
Include the series title (without italics) and number (if any) at the end
of the entry, a er a period (never a comma). (Series information will
appear on the title page or on the page facing the title page.)
Zigova, Tanya, et al. Neural Stem Cells: Methods and Protocols. Humana Press, 2002.
Methods in Molecular Biology 198.
Dictionary entry or article in another reference book
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
Government document
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
Published proceedings of a conference
Description
This is a sample content for Long ALT text
Pamphlet or brochure
American Canoe Association. Cold Water Survival, Sport Fish Restoration and Boating
Trust Fund, U.S. Coast Guard, 2001.
Doctoral dissertation
Description
The text reads as follows:
Published: Abbas, Megan Brankley. Knowing Islam: The Entangled History of Western
Academia and Modern Islamic Thought. 2015. Princeton U, PhD dissertation. (‘Knowing
Islam: The Entangled History of Western Academia and Modern Islamic Thought’ is
italicized and labeled ‘Title in Italics’. ’2015. Princeton U, PhD dissertation’ is labeled
‘Dissertation information’.)
Description
The text reads as follows:
Online: Saho, Bala S. K. ‘The Appropriation of Islam in a Gambian Village: Life and
Times of Shaykh Mass Kay, 1827 hyphen 1936.’ African Studies Quarterly, vol. 12, no.
4, Fall 2011, asq.africa.ufl.edu/files/Saho-Vol12Is4.pdf. (This U R L is labeled ‘Location
(U R L)’).
Database: Haas, Heather A. ‘The Wisdom of Wizards — and Muggles and Squibs:
Proverb Use in the World of Harry Potter.’ Journal of American Folklore, vol. 124, no.
492, April 2011, p p. 29 hyphen 54. Academic Search Complete, go.galegroup.com/.
(‘Academic Search Complete’ is labeled ‘Database (italics)’. The U R L is labeled
‘Database location (U R L)’.)
If a journal does not use volume numbers, provide the issue number
only.
Description
The text reads as follows:
From a newspaper
Description
The text is as follows:
Print: Weisman, Jonathan, and Jennifer Steinhauer. ‘Patriot Act Faces Revisions
Backed by Both Parties.’ The New York Times, 1 May 2015, p p. A1 plus. (‘A1 plus’ is
labeled ‘Non-continuous pages’.)
Online: Humphrey, Tom. ‘Politics Outweigh Arguments about School Vouchers.’
Knoxville News Sentinel, 24 Jan. 2016. www.knoxnews.com/opinion/columnists/tom-
humphrey/tomhumphrey-politics-outweigh-arguments-about-schoolvouchers-29c77b33-
9963-0ef8-e053-0100007fcba4-366 300461.html. (‘Knoxville News Sentinel’ is labeled
‘Website (italics)’. ’24 Jan. 2016’ is labeled ‘Publication date’.)
Database: Pelley, Lauren. ‘Toronto Public Library Opens its 100th Branch.’ Toronto Star,
21 May 2015. Newspaper Source, search.ebscohost.com.i.ezproxy.nypl.org/login.aspx?
direct=true&AuthType=cookie,ip,url,cpid&custid=nypl&db=nfh&AN=6FPTS20150521334
36501&site=ehost-live. (‘Newspaper Source’ is labeled ‘Database (italics)’.)
From a magazine
Description
The text reads as follows:
Print: Stillman, Sarah. ‘Where Are the Children?’ The New Yorker, 27 Apr. 2015, p p. 40
hyphen 41. (’27 Apr. 2015’ is labeled ‘Publication date (weekly).)
Bennet, James. ‘To Stay or to Go.’ The Atlantic, Apr. 2015, p. 8. (‘Apr. 2015’ is labeled
‘Publication date (monthly)’.)
Online: Bennet, James. ‘Editor’s Note: To Stay or to Go.’ The Atlantic, Apr. 2015,
www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/04 / editors-note/386285/. (‘The Atlantic’ is
labeled ‘Website (italics)’.)
Review
If the review does not include an author’s name, start the entry with
the title of the review; then add Review of and the title of the work
being reviewed. If the review is untitled, include the Review of
description immediately a er the author’s name. For a review in an
online newspaper or magazine, add the URL, ideally a permalink. For
a review accessed through a database, add the database title (in
italics) and the DOI or URL.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Smith, Anna Deavere. ‘On the Road: A Search for American Character.’ National
Endowment for the Humanities, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,
Washington, 6 Apr. 2015. Address. (‘On the Road: A Search for American Character’ is
labeled ‘Title of lecture’. ‘National Endowment for the Humanities’ is labeled ‘Sponsoring
Organization’. ‘John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington’ is labeled
‘Location of conference’. ‘6 Apr. 2015’ is labeled ‘Date of lecture’.)
Letter
Description
The text reads as follows:
DuHamel, Grace. Letter to the author. 22 Mar. 2008. (‘DuHamel, Grace’ is labeled
‘Sender’. ‘Letter to the author’ is labeled ‘Recipient’. ‘22 Mar. 2008’ is labeled ‘Date’.)
Map or chart
Advertisement
Description
The text reads as follows:
Work of art
Description
The text reads as follows:
Museum: Palmer Payne, Elsie. Sheep Dipping Time. c. 1930s. Nevada Museum of Art,
Reno. (’Nevada Museum of Art, Reno’ is labeled ‘Location’.)
Print: Chihuly, Dale. Carmine and White Flower Set. 1987. Tacoma Art Museum.
Abrams Press, 2011, p. 109 (’Abrams Press, 2011, p. 109’ is labeled ‘Print publication
information’.)
Online: Sekaer, Peter. A Sign Business Shop, New York. 1935. International Center of
Photography, www.icp.org/exhibitions/signs-of-life-photographs-by-peter-sekaer.
(‘International Center of Photography’ is labeled ‘Website’. A margin note referring to the
U R L reads, ‘Location (U R L)’.)
Musical composition
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. 1809. IMSLP Music Library,
imslp.org/wiki/Violin_Concerto_in_D_major,_Op.61_(Beethoven,_Ludwig_van).
Gershwin, George. Porgy and Bess. 1935. Alfred A. Knopf, 1999.
Performance
The Dra . Directed by Diego Arciniegas, 10 Sept. 2015, Hibernian Hall, Boston.
Piano Concerto no. 3. By Ludwig van Beethoven, conducted by Andris Nelsons,
performance by Paul Lewis and Boston Symphony Orchestra, Symphony Hall,
Boston, 9 Oct. 2015.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Broadcast: ‘Being Mortal.’ Frontline. Written by Atul Gawande and Tom Jennings,
directed by Tom Jennings and Nisha Pahuja, P B S, 22 Nov. 2011. (‘Being Mortal’ is
labeled ‘Episode’, ‘Frontline’ is labeled ‘Program’, ‘Written by Atul Gawande and Tom
Jennings, directed by Tom Jennings and Nisha Pahuja’ is labeled ‘Key contributors’, ‘P
B S’ refers ‘Network’, and ’22 Nov. 2011’ is labeled ‘Broadcast date’.)
“The Choice.” The Borgias, directed by Kari Skogland, season 2, episode 5, Showtime, 6
May 2012. Netflix, www.netflix.com /watch/70261634.
( )
“Patient Zero.” Radio Lab, hosted by Jad Abumrad and Robert Krulwich, season 10,
episode 4, National Public Radio, 14 Nov. 2011. Podcasts, iTunes.
Film
Space Station. Produced and directed by Toni Myers, narrated by Tom Cruise, IMAX,
2002.
Online video
Nayar, Vineet. “Employees First, Customers Second.” YouTube, 9 June 2015,
www.youtube.com/watch?v=cCdu67s_C5E.
Music recording
Beethoven, Ludwig van. Violin Concerto in D Major, Op. 61. Performed by David
Oistrakh and the U.S.S.R. State Orchestra, conducted by Alexander Gauk. Allegro
Music, 1980.
Adele. “Hello.” 25, XL Recordings/Columbia, 2015.
Interview
Ashrawi, Hanan. “Tanks vs. Olive Branches.” Interview by Rose Marie Berger,
Sojourners, Feb. 2005, pp. 22-26.
Baldwin, Alec. “Two Angry Men.” Interview by Bob Garfield, On the Media, National
Public Radio, 4 Nov. 2015. www.wnyc.org/story/two-angry-men/.
McGann, Jerome J., editor. ‘Introduction to the Final Installment of the Rossetti Archive.’
The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Archive,
Institute for Advanced Technology in the Humanities, U of Virginia, 2008,
www.rossettiarchive.org/about/index.html.
( ‘McGann, Jerome J., editor’ is labeled ‘Editor (no author), last name first’. ‘Introduction
to the Final Installment of the Rossetti Archive’ is labeled ‘Document title (in quotation
marks)’.)
( ‘The Complete Writings and Pictures of Dante Gabriel Rossetti: A Hypermedia Archive’
is labeled ‘Title of site (italicized)’.)
(‘U of Virginia’ is labeled ‘Publisher,’ and 2008 is labeled ‘Publication date / last update)
Set the title in italics if the work is a book and in quotation marks if it
is an article, essay, poem, or other short work, and include the print
publication information relevant to your particular use following the
title.
Heims, Marjorie. “The Strange Case of Sarah Jones.” The Free Expression Policy Project,
FEPP, www.fepproject.org/commentaries/sarahjones.html.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Corelli, Marie. The Treasure of Heaven. 1906. Victorian Women Writer’s Project, edited
by Percy Willett, Indiana U, 10 July 1999, webapp1.dlib.indiana.edu / vwwp/view?
docId=VAB7176. (‘1906’ is labeled ‘Original publication date’.)
Blog
Cite an entire blog as you would an entire website (see above). If the
author of the blog post uses a pseudonym, use this, followed by the
author’s real name if you know it.
Description
The text is as follows:
Description
The text is as follows:
Marshall, Josh. ‘Coke and Grass at Amish Raid.’ Talking Points Memo, 1 Dec. 2011,
talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/coke-grass-at-amish-raid. (‘Marshall, Josh’ is labeled
‘Post author’. ‘Coke and Grass at Amish Raid’ is labeled ‘Post title’.)
Wiki article
Since wikis are written and edited collectively, start your entry with
the title of the article you are citing.
Description
The text is as follows:
E-mail message
Description
The text reads as follows:
Olson, Kate. ‘Update on State Legislative Grants.’ Received by Alissa Brown, 5 Nov.
2015. (‘Olson, Kate’ is labeled ‘Sender.’ ‘Update on State Legislative Grants’ is labeled
‘Subject line.’ The name ‘Alissa Brown’ is labeled ‘Recipient.’ ‘5 Nov. 2015’ is labeled
‘Date sent.’)
CITING AND DOCUMENTING
SOURCES IN APA STYLE
When using the APA system of documentation, include both an in-
text citation and a list of references at the end of the research project.
In-text citations tell your readers where the ideas or words you have
borrowed come from, and the entries in the list of references allow
readers to locate your sources so that they can read more about your
topic.
The most common types of in-text citations follow. For other, less
common citation types, consult the Publication Manual of the
American Psychological Association, Sixth Edition (2010) or the
American Psychological Association’s website. Most libraries will also
own a copy or provide digital access.
One author
Upton Sinclair (2005), a crusading journalist, wrote that workers sometimes “fell into
the vats; and when they were fished out, there was never enough of them le to be
worth exhibiting” (p. 134).
Description
The text reads as follows:
Parenthetical Citation: The Jungle (in italics), a naturalistic novel inspired by the French
writer Zola, described in lurid detail the working conditions of the time, including what
became of unlucky workers who fell into the vats while making sausage (Sinclair, 2005,
p. 134). (A note referring to ‘Sinclair, 2005, p. 134’ reads, ‘author’s last name plus date
plus page.’)
Sinclair, U. (2005). The Jungle. New York, NY: Oxford University Press. (Original work
published 1906)
In a signal phrase, use the word and between the authors’ names; in a
parenthetical citation, use an ampersand (&). When citing a work by
three to seven authors, list all the authors in your first reference; in
subsequent references, just list the first and use et al. (Latin for and
others).
As Jamison and Tyree (2001) have found, racial bias does not diminish merely through
exposure to individuals of other races.
Racial bias does not diminish through exposure (Jamison & Tyree, 2001).
For a first reference to a work with more than seven authors, list the
first six, an ellipsis (…), and the last author.
Unknown author
An international pollution treaty still to be ratified would prohibit all plastic garbage
from being dumped at sea (“Plastic Is Found,” 1972).
The full title of the article is “Plastic Is Found in the Sargasso Sea;
Pieces of Apparent Refuse Cover Wide Atlantic Region.”
Middle-class unemployed workers are better off than their lower-class counterparts
because “the white collar unemployed are likely to have some assets to invest in their
job search” (Ehrenreich, 2005b, p. 16).
(NIH, 2015)
Cite the secondary source in the reference list, and in your essay
acknowledge the original source.
E. M. Forster said that “the collapse of all civilization, so realistic for us, sounded in
Matthew Arnold’s ears like a distant and harmonious cataract” (as cited in Trilling,
1955, p. 11).
Author Listings
One author
More than one author
Unknown author
Corporation, organization, or government agency as author
Two or more works by the same author
One author
Schneier, B. (2015). Data and Goliath: The hidden battles to collect your data and control
your world. New York, NY: Norton.
If there are more than seven authors, list only the first six, insert an
ellipsis (…), and add the last author’s name.
Unknown author
If an author is designated as “Anonymous,” include the word
Anonymous in place of the author, and alphabetize it as “Anonymous”
in the reference list.
When you cite two or more works by the same author, arrange them
in chronological (time) order.
Pinker, S. (2005). So how does the mind work? Mind and Language, 20(1): 1-24.
doi:10.1111/j.0268-1064.2005.00274.x
Pinker, S. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined. New York, NY:
Viking.
When you cite two works by the same author in the same year,
alphabetize entries by title and then add a lowercase letter following
each year.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Print: Pinker, S. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined.
New York, N Y: Viking. (‘Pinker, S’ is labeled ‘Author’. ‘2011’ is labeled ‘Year’. ‘The better
angels of our nature: Why violence has declined’ is labeled ‘Title’. ‘New York, N Y’ is
labeled ‘City, State (abbr)’. ‘Viking’ is labeled ‘Publisher’.)
E-Book: Pinker, S. (2011). The better angels of our nature: Why violence has declined.
New York, NY: Viking. [Nook Version]. (’Noble Version’ is labeled ‘E-publication
information’.)
Edited collection
Waldman, D., & Walker, J. (Eds.). (1999). Feminism and documentary. Minneapolis, MN:
University of Minnesota Press.
Translation
Tolstoy, L. (2002). War and peace (C. Garnett, Trans.). New York, NY: Modern Library.
(Original work published 1869)
Government document
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. (2009). Trends in underage drinking in
the United States, 1991-2007. Washington, DC: Government Printing Office.
Note: When the author and publisher are the same, use the word
Author (not italicized) as the name of the publisher.
For articles, capitalize only the first word of the title, proper nouns
(Barclay, Berlin), and the first word following a colon (if any). Omit
quotation marks around the titles of articles, but capitalize all the
important words of journal, newspaper, and magazine titles, and set
them in italics. If you are accessing an article through a database,
follow the model for a comparable source.
From a scholarly journal
Description
The text reads as follows:
Include the digital object identifier (or doi) when available. When a
doi has not been assigned, include the journal’s URL.
Description
The text reads as follows:
Houston, R. G., and Toma, F. (2003). Home schooling: An alternative school choice.
Southern Economic Journal, 69(4), 920-936. Retrieved from
http://www.southerneconomic.org (A note referring to ‘Retrieved from
http://www.southerneconomic.org’ reads, ‘U R L.’)
From a newspaper
Description
The text reads as follows:
Print: Peterson, A. (2003, May 20). Finding a cure for old age. The Wall Street Journal
(The phrase ‘The Wall Street Journal’ is italicized), pp. D1, D5. (‘2003’ is labeled ‘Year,’
‘May’ is labeled ‘Month,’ and ‘20’ is labeled ‘Date’.)
Electronic: Zimmer, C. (2015, May 6). Under the sea, a missing link in the evolution of
complex cells. The New York Times. Retrieved from http://www.nytimes.com/
From a magazine
Description
The text reads as follows:
Print: Gladwell, M. (9 September 2013). Man and superman. The New Yorker, 89(27),
76-80. (‘9 September 2013’ is labeled ‘Weekly or biweekly’.)
Description
The text reads as follows:
Freeland, C. (2015, May). Globalization bites back. Atlantic, 315(4), 82–86. (A note
referring to ‘2015, May’ reads, ‘Monthly or bimonthly.’)
Review
Description
The text reads as follows:
Nussbaum, E. (2015, January 26). House of chords [Review of the television series
Empire and Mozart in the Jungle.] The New Yorker, 90(45), 70-72. (A note referring to
‘Review of the television series Empire and Mozart in the Jungle’ reads, ‘Review of’ plus
Item type plus title of Item reviewed.’)
Television program
Description
The text reads as follows:
Oliver, J. (Host), & Leddy, B. (Director). (2015, October 4). Mental health [Television
series episode]. In Last week tonight with John Oliver. New York, N Y: H B O.
(‘Television series episode’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Description
The text reads as follows:
Nolan, C. (Writer and director). (2010). Inception [Motion picture] Los Angeles, C A:
Warner Bros. (‘Motion picture’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Sound recording
Description
The text reads as follows:
Podcast: Dubner, S. (2012, May 17). Retirement kills [Audio podcast]. Freakonomics
Radio. Retrieved from http://www.freakonomics.com
Recording: Ibeyi. River. (2015). On Ibeyi [C D]. London, England: XL Recordings. (‘C D’
is labeled ‘Label’.)
Interview
Do not list personal interviews in your reference list. Instead, cite the
interviewee in your text (last name and initials), and in parentheses
give the notation personal communication (in regular type, not
italicized) followed by a comma and the date of the interview. For
published interviews, use the appropriate format for an article.
name of author
date of publication or most recent update (in parentheses; if
unavailable, use the abbreviation n.d.)
title of document (such as a Web page)
title of website
any special retrieval information, such as a URL; include the
date you last accessed the source only when the content is likely
to change or be updated (as on a wiki, for example)
Website
The APA does not require an entry in the list of references for entire
websites. Instead, give the name of the site in your text with its Web
address in parentheses.
American Cancer Society. (2011, Oct. 10). Child and teen tobacco use. Retrieved from
http://www.cancer.org/Cancer/CancerCauses/TobaccoCancer
/ChildandTeenTobaccoUse/child-and-teen-tobacco-use-what-to-do
Heins, M. (2014, September 4). Untangling the Steven Salaita Case. In The Free
Expression Policy Project. Retrieved from http://www.fepproject.org
/commentaries/Salaita.html
Description
The text reads as follows:
Paikeday, T. (2005, October 10). ‘Esquivalience’ is out [Electronic mailing list message].
Retrieved from http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin / wa?A15ind0510b&L5ads- 1#1
(‘Electronic mailing list message’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Ditmire, S. (2005, February 10). NJ tea party [Newsgroup message]. Retrieved from
http://groups.google.com/group/TeaParty (‘Newsgroup message’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Blog post
Description
The text reads as follows:
Mestel, R. (2012, May 17). Fructose makes rats dumber [Blog post]. Retrieved from
http://www.latimes.com/health/boostershots/la-fructose-makes-rats-stupid-brain-
20120517,0,2305241.story?track5rss (‘Blog post’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Wiki entry
Start with the article title and include the post date, since wikis may
be updated frequently (use n.d. if there is no date), as well as the
retrieval date.
Sleep. (2011, November 26). Retrieved December 18, 2015, from Wiki of Science:
http://wikiofscience.wikidot.com/science:sleep
E-mail message
Personal correspondence, including e-mail, should not be included
in your reference list. Instead, cite the person’s name in your text,
and in parentheses give the notation personal communication (in
regular type, not italicized) and the date.
Computer so ware
Description
The text reads as follows:
Google Earth. (2017). Earth View (Version 2.18.5) [Mobile application software].
Retrieved from https://chrome.google.com/webstore/ (‘Earth View’ is labeled ‘Label’.)
Notes
Preface
* These Academic Habits of Mind are taken from “The Framework for Success in Postsecondary
Writing” (developed jointly by CWPA, NCTE, and the National Writing Project).
Chapter 1
1 These definitions of habits of mind have been adapted from the document “The Framework for
Success in Postsecondary Writing,” developed jointly by CWPA, NCTE, and the National Writing
Project.
2 A listing of the sources of texts cited can be found at the end of the chapter.
3 Hans-Georg Voss and Heidi Keller, Curiosity and Exploration: Theories and Results (New York:
2 Throughout the paper, I may refer to lectures without any numbers or formulas as “word
intensive” lectures, and I may refer to lectures with numbers and formulas as “number intensive”
lectures.
[Ed.]
3 The tobacco industry’s agnogenesis methods were so effective that companies actually
measured their results. For instance, Proctor said, they’d ask people if they agreed with the
Surgeon General that cigarettes cause cancer, and then they’d show a propaganda film. “It might
be 65 percent who agreed with the Surgeon General before and 43 percent a er. They were able
to measure, down to the decimal point, the amount of ignorance they created.”
4 The bill has been passed by the House but still awaits a vote in the Senate.
5 The bill allows for certain information to be redacted, but that process is expensive, so it poses
practical challenges.
6 A Congressional Budget Office report concludes it “would significantly reduce the number of
studies that the agency relies on when issuing or proposing covered actions for the first few years
following enactment of the legislation.”
7 Relevant links have been converted to citations with a works cited list at the end of the reading
[Ed.]
www.propublica.org/series/internships. [Ed.]
9 Schwartz, Madeleine. “Opportunity Costs: The True Price of Internships.” Dissent Magazine,
www.dissentmagazine.org/article/opportunity-costs-the-true-price-of-internships. [Ed.]
Chapter 9
1 The map, which depicts census data, had political motivations, according to the National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. It was drawn by pro-Union government officials who
wanted to create a visual link between secession and slavery.
2 Despite a scarcity of data, Native American health disparities are well documented, as are
rampant poverty, unemployment and low educational attainment. According to the Indian Health
Service, the life expectancies for Native Americans are 4.4 years shorter than those of the U.S.
population as a whole.
Chapter 10
* In a longitudinal study, researchers observe changes taking place over a long period of time; in
an interventional study, investigators give research subjects a measured amount of whatever is
being studied and note its effects; and in a correlational study, researchers examine statistics to
see if two or more variables have a mathematically significant similarity. [Editor’s note]
Chapter 11
1 The identification of Middletown and Muncie is attested in a number of places; see the chapter
on Middletown in Igo, Sarah E. The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass
Public. Harvard UP, 2008.
2 See Edward McClelland’s delightful How to Speak Midwestern, Belt Publishing, 2016, pp. 9–10.
3 I mean this more or less literally. The book exists; see Sugrue, Thomas J. The Origins of the Urban
*But see entries for “Two or More Works by the Same Author” and “Two or More Authors with the
Same Last Name” on p. 629 and for “Work without Page Numbers or a One-Page Work” on p. 631.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Bogost, Ian. “Brands Are Not Our Friends,” from The Atlantic,
October 2018. Copyright © 2018 Atlantic Media Co. As published in
The Atlantic magazine. All rights reserved. Distributed by Tribune
Content Agency, LLC. Reprinted by permission.
Edge, John T. “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” originally
published in Oxford American (September/October 1999). Copyright
© 1999 by John T. Edge. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Holmes, Isiah. “The Heroin and Opiod Crisis Is Real,” from Urban
Milwaukee, August 28, 2017.
https://urbanmilwaukee.com/2017/08/28/op-ed-the-heroin-and-
opioid-crisis-is-real/. Reprinted with the permission of the author.
Isen, Tajja. “How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?” Copyright © BuzzFeed Inc. Reprinted by permission.
Jennings, Dana. “Our Scars Tell the Story of Our Lives,” from The
New York Times, July 21, 2009. © 2009 The New York Times. All rights
reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws
of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or
retransmission of this Content without express written permission
is prohibited.
Pollan, Michael. “Altered State,” from The New York Times, April 28,
2015. © 2015 The New York Times. All rights reserved. Used by
permission and protected by the Copyright Laws of the United
States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or retransmission of
this Content without express written permission is prohibited.
Sedaris, David. Excerpt from “Me Talk Pretty One Day.” Copyright ©
1999, 2000 by David Sedaris. Used by permission of Little, Brown and
Company and Don Congdon Associates. All rights reserved.
Shah, Saira. “Longing to Belong.” First published in The New York
Times Magazine, September 21, 2003. Copyright © 2003. Reprinted by
permission of the author.
Staples, Brent. Excerpt from “Black Men and Public Space.” First
published in Harper’s (1987). © 1987 by Brent Staples. Excerpt from
Parallel Time. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Turkle, Sherry. “The Flight from Conversation,” from The New York
Times, April 21, 2012. © 2012 The New York Times. All rights
reserved. Used by permission and protected by the Copyright Laws
of the United States. The printing, copying, redistribution, or
retransmission of this Content without express written permission
is prohibited.
Wong, Alice. “The Last Straw,” from Eater, Jul 19, 2018.
https://www.eater.com/2018/7/19/17586742/plastic-straw-ban-
disabilities. Reprinted with permission from Vox Media, Inc.
Argument
Alice Wong, “Last Straw, The,” 460–464
Amitai Etzioni, “Working at McDonald’s,” 277–280
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, “Patterns of Death in the South Still Show
the Outlines of Slavery,” 404–411
Arjun Shankar and Mariam Durrani, “Curiosity and Education: A
White Paper,” 7–8
Aru Terbor, “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A,”
562–568
Atul Gawande, “Heroism of Incremental Care, The,” 516–529
Christie Aschwanden, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science,’”
339–345
Christine Romano, “Jessica Statsky’s ‘Children Need to Play, Not
Compete’: An Evaluation,” 317–320
Christine Rosen, “Myth of Multitasking, The,” 309–313
Clayton Pangelinan, “#socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So Popular,”
438–441
C Thi Nguyen, “Escape the Echo Chamber,” 413–421
Daniel J. Solove, “Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to
Hide,’ ” 360–364
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 139 (par. 5)
Harold Meyerson, “How to Raise Americans’ Wages,” 469–473
Ian Bogost, “Brands Are Not Our Friends,” 298–301
Isiah Holmes, “Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real, The,” 351–353
James Benge, “Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees,” 494–
496
Jessica Statsky, “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” 374–378
Jonathan Jones, “Leonardo v Rembrandt: Who’s the Greatest?,” 558–
559
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, “Ounces of Prevention -
The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages,” 487–491
Lewis H. Van Dusen, Jr., “Legitimate Pressures and Illegitimate
Results,” 58–59
Linda Fine, “Bringing Ingenuity Back,” 160 (par. 8)
Malcolm Gladwell, “What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” 303–307
Martin Luther King Jr., From “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 37–40
Maryanne Wolf, “Skim Reading Is the New Normal,” 476–478
Matthew Hertogs, “Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of
the Effects of Transcription Method on Student Learning,” 287–295
Melanie Tannenbaum, “Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly, The,” 246–251
Miya Tokumitsu, “In the Name of Love,” 367–372
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 424–430
Phil Christman, “On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality,”
542–547
Selena Jiménez, “Measuring the Value of College,” 29–33
Sendhil Mullainathan, “Mental Strain of Making Do with Less, The,”
433–435
Sherry Turkle, “Flight from Conversation, The,” 355–358
Stephen King, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” 397–399
Susan Cain, “Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?,” 221–225
Susan Engel, “Case for Curiosity, The,” 10–11
Wesley Morris, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
535–538
William F. Shughart II, “Why Not a Football Degree?,” 482–485
Cause or Effect
Amitai Etzioni, “Working at McDonald’s,” 278–280 (pars. 11–15, 19)
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, “Patterns of Death in the South Still Show
the Outlines of Slavery,” 404–411
Annie Dillard, “American Childhood, An,” 74–75 (pars. 10–19)
Aru Terbor, “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A,”
562–568
Atul Gawande, “Heroism of Incremental Care, The,” 517, 519–521,
523–525, 528–529 (pars. 5, 21–24, 29–37, 50–51, 57, 60, 82)
Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space,” 179–181 (pars. 1–3, 6,
11–14)
Christine Rosen, “Myth of Multitasking, The,” 311–313 (pars. 7–17)
Clayton Pangelinan, “#socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So Popular,”
438–441
C Thi Nguyen, “Escape the Echo Chamber,” 413–421
Daniel J. Solove, “Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to
Hide,’ ” 364 (pars. 15–16)
David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 83 (par. 22)
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 139, 141–142
(pars. 5, 15–16, 18)
Harold Meyerson, “How to Raise Americans’ Wages,” 469–473
Ian Bogost, “Brands Are Not Our Friends,” 299–300 (pars. 5, 15)
Isiah Holmes, “Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real, The,” 351–352 (pars.
4–5)
James Benge, “Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees,” 494–
496
Jeff Howe, “Rise of Crowdsourcing, The,” 238, 242 (pars. 10–11, 32)
Jenée Desmond-Harris, “Tupac and My Non-Thug Life,” 102–103
(pars. 9, 12)
Jessica Statsky, “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” 374–377 (pars.
2–10)
John Tierney, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” 231, 233 (pars.
5, 12–13)
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, “Ounces of Prevention -
The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages,” 487–491
Martin Luther King Jr., From “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 39
(pars. 7–8)
Maryanne Wolf, “Skim Reading Is the New Normal,” 476–478
Matthew Hertogs, “Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of
the Effects of Transcription Method on Student Learning,” 293–295
(pars. 23–28)
Maya Rupert, “I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” 201–
202 (pars. 12–15)
Melanie Tannenbaum, “Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly, The,” 248–250 (pars. 17, 19, 20–21, 24)
Miya Tokumitsu, “In the Name of Love,” 368–371 (pars. 6, 10, 13, 20,
26–29, 32)
Molly Montgomery, “In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets,” 92–93
(pars. 34, 36–37, 42)
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 424–430
Rhea Jameson, “Mrs. Maxon,” 106, 108 (pars. 7, 12–13)
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 151–155 (pars. 2–4,
10, 14–15, 19–22)
Samantha Wright, “Starving for Control,” 207 (pars. 18–19)
Sendhil Mullainathan, “Mental Strain of Making Do with Less, The,”
433–435
Sherry Turkle, “Flight from Conversation, The,” 355 (pars. 1, 4)
Stephen King, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” 397–399
Tajja Isen, “How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?,” 551–552 (pars. 3, 7)
Wesley Morris, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
535–538
William F. Shughart II, “Why Not a Football Degree?,” 482–485 (pars.
2, 4–14)
Definition
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, “Patterns of Death in the South Still Show
the Outlines of Slavery,” 406 (par. 7)
Annie Dillard, “American Childhood, An,” 73 (par. 1)
Aru Terbor, “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A,”
562–567 (pars. 1–2, 4–6, 8, 14, 21)
Christie Aschwanden, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science,’”
341–342 (pars. 7, 12)
Christine Romano, “Jessica Statsky’s ‘Children Need to Play, Not
Compete’: An Evaluation,” 317 (par. 1)
Christine Rosen, “Myth of Multitasking, The,” 309–310 (pars. 2, 7, 8)
C Thi Nguyen, “Escape the Echo Chamber,” 413–414, 416 (pars. 2–5,
16)
Dana Jennings, “Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives,” 187 (pars. 9–
11)
James Benge, “Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees,” 494–
495 (par. 3)
Jeff Howe, “Rise of Crowdsourcing, The,” 236–243
John T. Edge, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 132 (pars. 5, 7)
John Tierney, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” 230–233
Malcolm Gladwell, “What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” 303–304
(par. 2)
Martin Luther King Jr., From “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 39 (par.
9)
Melanie Tannenbaum, “Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly, The,” 246–251
Michael Pollan, “Altered State: Why ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean
Anything,” 254–257
Miya Tokumitsu, “In the Name of Love,” 368–369 (pars. 7–9)
Molly Montgomery, “In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets,” 88
(par. 12)
Susan Cain, “Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?,” 221–225
Wesley Morris, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
535–536 (pars. 2–3)
William Tucker, “Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion, The,” 259–261
Description
Amanda Coyne, “Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison,
The,” 144–148
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, “Patterns of Death in the South Still Show
the Outlines of Slavery,” 406 (par. 5)
Annie Dillard, “American Childhood, An,” 73–74, 76 (pars. 3, 5, 7, 24)
Ben Greenman, “Online Curiosity Killer, The,” 5–7
Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space,” 179–181
Dana Jennings, “Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives,” 186–187
David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 81–84
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 138–142
Isiah Holmes, “Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real, The,” 351–352 (pars.
1–7)
Jacqueline Woodson, “Pain of the Watermelon Joke, The,” 190–191
(pars. 1–9)
Jenée Desmond-Harris, “Tupac and My Non-Thug Life,” 100–103
John T. Edge, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 131–134
Linda Fine, “Bringing Ingenuity Back,” 159–161
Manuel Muñoz, “Leave Your Name at the Border,” 194 (pars. 2–3)
Michael Pollan, “Altered State: Why ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean
Anything,” 254–257
Miya Tokumitsu, “In the Name of Love,” 368 (pars. 1–4)
Molly Montgomery, “In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets,” 86–93
The New Yorker, “Soup,” 124–126
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 424, 430 (pars. 1–2, 24)
Rhea Jameson, “Mrs. Maxon,” 106–108
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 151–156
Saira Shah, “Longing to Belong,” 96–97
Samantha Wright, “Starving for Control,” 205, 207 (pars. 1, 3, 20)
Stephen King, “Why We Crave Horror Movies,” 397 (par. 1)
Wesley Morris, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
535 (par. 1)
Example
Alice Wong, “Last Straw, The,” 461–462 (pars. 6–8)
Amanda Coyne, “Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison,
The,” 144, 146–148 (pars. 1, 9, 12–14, 19–26)
Amitai Etzioni, “Working at McDonald’s,” 278–279 (pars. 7, 11–12)
Anna Maria Barry-Jester, “Patterns of Death in the South Still Show
the Outlines of Slavery,” 406–410 (pars. 8–15, 20–21)
Aru Terbor, “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A,”
563–566 (pars. 4, 8–14)
Atul Gawande, “Heroism of Incremental Care, The,” 516–529
Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space,” 179 (pars. 1, 3, 5, 8–10)
Christie Aschwanden, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science,’”
339–345
Christine Romano, “Jessica Statsky’s ‘Children Need to Play, Not
Compete’: An Evaluation,” 318–320 (pars. 4–10)
Christine Rosen, “Myth of Multitasking, The,” 309–310, 312–313
(pars. 3–6, 10, 12, 17)
Clayton Pangelinan, “#socialnetworking: Why It’s Really So Popular,”
438–441 (pars. 1, 4–8)
C Thi Nguyen, “Escape the Echo Chamber,” 414–421 (pars. 6–9, 11–
14, 17, 20, 27–29, 37, 39)
Dana Jennings, “Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives,” 186–187
Daniel J. Solove, “Why Privacy Matters Even If You Have ‘Nothing to
Hide,’ ” 360–364 (pars. 2, 5, 11–14)
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 138–142
Harold Meyerson, “How to Raise Americans’ Wages,” 470–471 (pars.
3, 5)
Ian Bogost, “Brands Are Not Our Friends,” 298–301
Isiah Holmes, “Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real, The,” 351–352 (pars.
1–7)
Jacqueline Woodson, “Pain of the Watermelon Joke, The,” 190–192
James Benge, “Adapting to the Disappearance of Honeybees,” 495
(par. 6)
Jeff Howe, “Rise of Crowdsourcing, The,” 236–243
Jessica Statsky, “Children Need to Play, Not Compete,” 374–377 (pars.
3–4, 8)
John T. Edge, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 133 (par. 12)
John Tierney, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” 230–233 (pars.
1–3, 6–9, 12)
Kelly D. Brownell and Thomas R. Frieden, “Ounces of Prevention -
The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared Beverages,” 488, 490
(pars. 2, 7)
Linda Fine, “Bringing Ingenuity Back,” 160–161 (par. 11)
Malcolm Gladwell, “What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” 303–306
(pars. 1, 3–4, 8, 12)
Manuel Muñoz, “Leave Your Name at the Border,” 194–197
Mario Livio, “Curious” From Why: What Makes Us Curious?, 10
Martin Luther King Jr., From “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 38, 39–
40 (pars. 3–4, 9)
Maryanne Wolf, “Skim Reading Is the New Normal,” 476–477 (pars.
1, 5)
Matthew Hertogs, “Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of
the Effects of Transcription Method on Student Learning,” 288, 290–
291 (pars. 4–5, 10–22)
Maya Rupert, “I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” 199–
202
Melanie Tannenbaum, “Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly, The,” 246–251 (pars. 3, 7–13, 17, 21, 26–30)
Michael Pollan, “Altered State: Why ‘Natural’ Doesn’t Mean
Anything,” 254–257 (pars. 1, 3, 5–11, 14–15)
The New Yorker, “Soup,” 125–126 (pars. 3, 6)
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 424–426 (pars. 3, 5–6,
13–14)
Phil Christman, “On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality,”
542–547
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 152, 154, 156 (pars.
7, 18–19, 28)
Samantha Wright, “Starving for Control,” 205–208
Sendhil Mullainathan, “Mental Strain of Making Do with Less, The,”
433–435 (pars. 2–7, 9–10, 13, 15)
Sherry Turkle, “Flight from Conversation, The,” 355–358 (pars. 2, 5–
10, 16–19, 26)
Susan Cain, “Shyness: Evolutionary Tactic?,” 221–225 (pars. 1–3, 6,
10–14, 20–21, 23)
Tajja Isen, “How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?,” 551–555
Wesley Morris, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
536–537 (pars. 4, 10–12)
William F. Shughart II, “Why Not a Football Degree?,” 482 (par. 1)
William Tucker, “Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion, The,” 259–261
Narration
Alice Wong, “Last Straw, The,” 460–463 (pars. 1–4, 9–11)
Amanda Coyne, “Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison,
The,” 144–148
Annie Dillard, “American Childhood, An,” 73–76
Atul Gawande, “Heroism of Incremental Care, The,” 516–529
Ben Greenman, “Online Curiosity Killer, The,” 5–7
Brent Staples, “Black Men and Public Space,” 179–181
Dana Jennings, “Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives,” 186–187
David Sedaris, “Me Talk Pretty One Day,” 81–84
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 138–142
Isiah Holmes, “Heroin and Opioid Crisis Is Real, The,” 351–353
Jacqueline Woodson, “Pain of the Watermelon Joke, The,” 190–191
(pars. 1–9)
Jenée Desmond-Harris, “Tupac and My Non-Thug Life,” 100–103
John T. Edge, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 131–134
Linda Fine, “Bringing Ingenuity Back,” 159–161
Manuel Muñoz, “Leave Your Name at the Border,” 194–197
Maya Rupert, “I, Wonder: Imagining a Black Wonder Woman,” 199–
202
Molly Montgomery, “In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets,” 86–93
The New Yorker, “Soup,” 126 (pars. 7–12)
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 424–426, 430 (pars. 2–
5, 24)
Phil Christman, “On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality,”
542–547
Rhea Jameson, “Mrs. Maxon,” 106–108
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 151–156
Saira Shah, “Longing to Belong,” 96–97
Samantha Wright, “Starving for Control,” 205–208
Tajja Isen, “How Can We Expand the Way We Write about Our
Identities?,” 551–555
Process
Alice Wong, “Last Straw, The,” 464 (par. 13)
Atul Gawande, “Heroism of Incremental Care, The,” 518–519, 522,
524, 526–527 (pars. 14–18, 46–47, 58, 69–72)
Christie Aschwanden, “There’s No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science,’”
341 (par. 8)
Gabriel Thompson, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 139–142 (pars.
6–16, 19)
John T. Edge, “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 132, 134 (pars.
4, 17)
John Tierney, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” 232–233 (pars.
10–11)
Linda Fine, “Bringing Ingenuity Back,” 159–160 (pars. 3–6)
Malcolm Gladwell, “What College Rankings Really Tell Us,” 303–307
Matthew Hertogs, “Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of
the Effects of Transcription Method on Student Learning,” 289–290
(pars. 6–9)
Nicholas Carr, “Is Google Making Us Stupid?,” 428 (par. 16)
Rhea Jameson, “Mrs. Maxon,” 106–107 (pars. 1, 8)
Robin Wall Kimmerer, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 155–156 (pars. 23–
26)
William Tucker, “Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion, The,” 259–261
(pars. 3–6)
Index of Authors, Titles, and
Terms
databases, library
APA citation, 649, 651–52
general and subject-specific, 594
MLA citation, 635–42
search, 266, 328–29, 386, 448, 504–5, 584, 587–88, 591–95, 596
types of, 594
date of publication, of sources, 609–10
“Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A” (Terbor),
562–71, 574, 576
definition, as explanatory strategy, 226, 268
description
with details. See details, about subject
of events, 213
naming strategy. See naming, for describing subject
of observations, 599–600
of people: in autobiographies, 79–80, 109–10, 114–15, 118, 119–
20; in observations, 127–28, 165, 174; in reflection, 183, 212, 213
of places: in autobiographies, 78–79, 94–95, 114–15, 118, 119–20;
in observations, 127–28, 165, 169, 174; in reflection, 183, 212, 213
to support evidence, 8
design
of multi-genre writing, 571
of reference list, 647
of surveys, 603–5
of Works-Cited list, 632
Desmond-Harris, Jenée, “Tupac and My Non-Thug Life,” 100–105,
115
details, about subject
in autobiographies and literary narratives, 78, 79, 114–15
in observations, 127, 167
in reflections, 183
dialogue
dramatizing action with, 113
presenting people and places with, 109–10, 114–15, 127
quoted versus summarized, 109–10, 115, 167
speaker tags, 109, 115, 127, 167
dictionaries, 587
dictionary entry
APA citation, 650
MLA citation, 637
digital object identifier (DOI), 588, 632, 649, 651
Dillard, Annie, “American Childhood, An,” 72–80, 113
discourse, 13
discussion, honing ideas through, 12
discussion lists
APA citation, 653–54
MLA citation, 644
as sources, 597–98
doctoral dissertation
APA citation, 650
MLA citation, 638
documentation
APA style, 589, 623–24, 645–54
MLA style, 589, 619, 623–24, 627–44
styles of, 589
DOI (digital object identifier), 588, 632, 649, 651
domain
searches by, 596
suffixes, and credibility, 612
dominant impression
in autobiography, 78, 116–17, 120
in observations, 130, 157, 174
“Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?” (Tierney), 230–35
dra s
autobiography, 111–20
concept explanation, 264–73
editing and proofreading, 18, 19, 29–33. See also specific types of
essays
evaluation, 324–35
multi-genre writing, 572–81
observation, 164–75
planning, 17, 19, 21–22, 28
position argument, 382–93
proposal, 500–511
reflection, 211–17
reviewing and improving, 17, 19, 25–27. See also specific types of
essays
revising, 18, 19, 28–33. See also specific types of essays
speculative argument, 444–56
writing, 17, 19, 22–25. See also specific types of essays
dramatic arc, in autobiography, 77, 98–99, 112–13
DuckDuckGo, 448
Durrani, Mariam, “Curiosity and Education: A White Paper,” 7–9
DVDs
APA citation, 652
MLA citation, 642
e-books
APA citation, 649–50
MLA citation, 635–38
Economist, The, 610
Edge, John, T. “I’m Not Leaving Until I Eat This Thing,” 129, 131–37,
170, 171
edited collection. See anthology
editing and proofreading, 18, 19, 29–33. See also specific types of essays
editions of books
APA citation, 650
MLA citation, 636
editorials
APA citation, 652
MLA citation, 639–40
opinion (op-eds), 354
effect. See cause and effect; speculative arguments
effectiveness, of proposed solution, 466
either/or reasoning, 63
electronic sources. See Internet research
ellipses, 389, 619–20, 646, 648
e-mail
APA citation, 654
MLA citation, 642, 644
emotional manipulation, recognizing, 34, 35, 65, 209–10
empathy, 3, 12, 110, 163, 210, 323, 381, 443, 499, 571
emphasis, italics for, 619
encyclopedias, 587
EndNote, 589
end punctuation, with quotations, 620, 621
engagement, 2, 12. See also under audience and purpose
Engel, Susan, “Case for Curiosity, The,” 10–12
entire work, MLA citation, 631
ERIC (Education Resources Information Center), 588, 594
“Escape the Echo Chamber” (Nguyen), 413–23
et al., 646
ethics
observational profile and, 164–65
source integration and, 228
ethos, 349, 380, 388
Etzioni, Amitai, “Working at McDonald’s,” 276–86, 302, 327
evaluations, 275–336
guide to reading, 276–323; annotating, 276, 277–80; assumptions
analysis, 280–81, 296–97, 301–2, 307–8, 314, 321;
comparing/contrasting related readings, 316; credibility of
writer, evaluating, 316; cueing devices, 283–84, 285–86, 308, 321–
22; evidence, 282–83, 297; judgment, supporting, 275, 276, 282–
83, 297, 314–15, 560–61; objections, responding to, 276, 283–84,
308; organizing the evaluation, 276, 285–86, 321–22; reading for
meaning, 276, 280–81, 296–97, 301–2, 307–8, 313–14, 320–21;
reading like a writer, 276, 281–86, 297, 302, 308, 314–15, 321–22,
560–61; read to respond, 280, 296, 301, 307, 314, 320–21; refuting
and conceding, 283–84, 308; sources, citing, 281, 314–15;
subject, presenting, 276, 281–82, 302; summarizing, 280, 296,
301, 307, 313, 320; tone, 308, 316
guide to writing, 324–36, 578; argument, summary to support,
331–32; dra , editing and proofreading, 335; dra , reviewing
and improving, 332–35; dra , revising and troubleshooting,
333–35; dra , writing, 324–32; dra ing evaluation, 332;
judgment, supporting, 328, 333, 334; objections, responding to,
329–30, 331, 333, 335; organizing the evaluation, 330–31, 333,
335; peer review guide, 332–33; purpose and audience,
exploring, 326–27; refuting and conceding, 329–30, 331, 333, 335;
researching, 328–29; sources, citing, 330; sources, integrating,
331–32; subject, choosing and assessing, 324–26; subject,
presenting, 325–26, 333, 334; visuals and other media, including,
330; working thesis statement, formulating, 327; writing
assignment, 324
for logic of argument, 35, 60–62
in multi-genre writing, 558, 560–61, 578
readings: “Brands Are Not Our Friends” (Bogost), 298–302;
“Jessica Statsky’s ‘Children Need to Play, Not Compete’: An
Evaluation” (Romano), 302, 317–22, 327, 331–32; “Myth of
Multitasking, The” (Rosen), 309–16; “Typing vs. Handwriting
Notes: An Evaluation of the Effects of Transcription Method on
Student Learning” (Hertogs), 287–97, 316; “What College
Rankings Really Tell Us” (Gladwell), 303–8; “Working at
McDonald’s” (Etzioni), 276–86, 302, 327
reflecting on, 336
rhetorical situations for, 275–76
of sources, 8, 585, 587, 607–14
thinking about, 276
of writer’s credibility, 35, 66–68, 316
writing to learn, 322–23
event, narrating and describing, 213
evidence
in concept explanations, 228
critical analysis of, 3
in evaluations, 282–83, 297, 328
in position arguments, 339, 348–49, 359, 385–86, 387, 388
in proposals, 466
providing, strategies for, 8
for research project, 585, 618–24
in speculative arguments, 402, 448, 451
writing process developing, 17
examples
believability of, 61
in evaluations, 282, 283, 321–22
as explanatory strategy, 235, 268
to present problem, 502
in reflections, 183, 184, 209, 213
to support evidence, 8, 283, 348
Excel, 589
expert testimony
in concept explanations, 266–67, 269
in evaluations, 283, 297, 329, 331–32
in position arguments, 569–70
in proposals, 466, 500–501, 507
in sources, 609
in speculative arguments, 437
to support evidence, 8, 283, 297, 349
explanation of concepts. See concept explanations
explicit perspective, 4
key words
for coherence, 184, 198
repetition of, 77, 184, 198, 285
in searches, 328–29, 386, 447, 504–5, 587–88, 591–92
synonyms for, 227, 588, 592
Kimmerer, Robin Wall, “Asters and Goldenrods,” 151–58, 167
King, Martin Luther, Jr., “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” 36–42, 44–
52, 55–61, 63, 65–69
King, Stephen
on reading and writing, 14
“Why We Crave Horror Movies,” 396–403
knowledge
common, 616
testing for, 66
magazines
APA citation, 651–52
MLA citation, 639
as sources, 610–11
main idea
thesis conveying. See thesis
topic sentences announcing, 227
writing process developing, 17
mapping
idea, 17, 21
observations, 600
reading strategy, 35, 42–43
maps, MLA citation, 640
“Measuring the Value of College” (Jiménez), 29–33
medium, rhetorical sensitivity to, 3, 110
“Mental Strain of Making Do with Less, The” (Mullainathan), 433–37
metacognition, 2, 12, 121, 176, 218, 274, 336, 394, 457, 582
“Me Talk Pretty One Day” (Sedaris), 81–85, 115
metaphors
annotating, in reflections, 189
for concept explanations, 229
defined, 51
for describing subject, 78, 94, 114, 127
in speculative arguments, 431
Meyerson, Harold, “How to Raise Americans’ Wages,” 469–75, 504,
506
MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers, 627
MLA International Bibliography, 594
MLA style, 589, 619, 623–24, 627–44
block quotations, 623–24, 629
directory, 628, 633–34
in-text citations, 619, 627–32
Works-Cited list, 25, 32–33, 451, 627, 632–44
Modern Language Association (MLA) style. See MLA style
Montgomery, Molly, “In Search of Dumplings and Dead Poets,” 86–95
Morris, Wesley, “Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?,”
535–41, 574
“Mrs. Maxon” (Jameson), 106–10, 114
Mullainathan, Sendhil, “Mental Strain of Making Do with Less, The,”
433–37
multi-genre writing, 513–82
guide to reading, 514–71; annotating, 515; assumptions analysis,
530, 538–39, 548–49, 556, 559–60, 569; autobiography, 551;
concept explanations, 515, 530–31, 535, 539–40, 542, 562;
credibility of writer, establishing, 532; design of text, 571;
evaluations, 558, 560–61; logical argument, making, 539–40;
objections, responding to, 532–33; observations, 515, 531–32,
542, 549–50, 551, 558; position arguments, 515, 532–33, 535, 558,
562, 569–70; proposals, 551, 556–57; purpose, considering, 557;
reading for meaning, 515, 529–30, 538–39, 548–49, 555–56, 559–
60, 569; reading like a writer, 515, 530–34, 539–41, 549–50, 556–
57, 560–61; read to respond, 529–30, 538, 548, 555, 559, 569;
reflections, 542, 549–50; refuting and conceding, 532–33;
reviewing dra , 579–80; speculative arguments, 535, 539–40,
562; stance of writer, 550, 561; summarizing, 529, 538, 548, 555,
559, 569
guide to writing, 572–82; autobiography, 578; checklist, 577;
concept explanations, 578; credibility of writer, establishing,
581; cueing devices, 574–76; dra , editing and proofreading,
581; dra , reviewing and improving, 579–81; dra , revising and
troubleshooting, 580–81; dra , writing, 572–79; dra ing multi-
genre essay, 576; evaluations, 578; observations, 578;
organization, 574–76, 580, 581; peer review guide, 579–80;
position arguments, 578; proposals, 579; reflections, 578;
rhetorical situation, considering, 573–74; speculative
arguments, 579; subject, choosing, 573; working thesis
statement, formulating, 574; writing assignment, 572
readings: “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior,
A” (Terbor), 562–71, 574, 576; “Heroism of Incremental Care,
The” (Gawande), 514–34, 575; “How Can We Expand the Way We
Write about Our Identities?” (Isen), 551–57; “Leonardo v
Rembrandt: Who’s the Greatest?” (Jones), 558–61; “On Being
Midwestern: The Burden of Normality” (Christman), 542–50;
“Who Gets to Decide What Belongs in the ‘Canon’?” (Morris),
535–41, 574
reflecting on, 582
rhetorical situations for, 513–14, 533–34, 540–41, 550, 557, 561,
570–71, 573–74
thinking about, 514
writing to learn, 571
multimedia sources
APA citation, 652–53
MLA citation, 640–42
multiple authors
APA citation, 646, 648
MLA citation, 629, 634
multiple-choice questions, 603, 604
multivolume works, MLA citation, 631, 636
Muñoz, Manuel, “Leave Your Name at the Border,” 194–98, 214
musical works, MLA citation, 641, 642
“Myth of Multitasking, The” (Rosen), 309–16
objections
of reader, anticipating/responding to, 451–52, 467, 498, 505–6
revising to improve response to, 217
writers’ response to. See concession; refutation
observational studies, 122, 586, 599–600
observations, 122–76
guide to reading, 123–63; annotating, 123, 124–26; assumptions
analysis, 126–27, 135, 142–43, 148–49, 157, 161–62; comparing
and contrasting readings, 136–37; contextualizing, 136–37;
dominant impression, 130, 157; organizational patterns, 128–29,
162–63, 173; people, presenting, 127–28; perspective of writer,
123, 130, 149–50, 157–58, 173; reading for meaning, 123, 126–27,
134–35, 142–43, 148–49, 156–57, 161–62; reading like a writer,
123, 127–30, 135–36, 143, 149–50, 157–58, 162–63, 515, 531–32,
549–50; read to respond, 126, 134, 142, 148, 156–57, 161;
reviewing dra , 172–73; spectator versus participant observer
role of author, 129, 143, 172, 531–32; subject, presenting, 127–28,
130, 135–36, 149–50, 157–58; summarizing, 126, 134, 135, 142,
148, 156, 161
guide to writing, 164–76, 578; conducting
interviews/observations, 166–67; dominant impression, 174;
dra , editing and proofreading, 175; dra , organizing, 171, 173–
74, 175; dra , reviewing and improving, 172–75; dra , revising
and troubleshooting, 173–75; dra , writing, 164–72; dra ing
observational essay, 171–72; main point in, 170–71;
organizational patterns, 171, 173–74, 175; peer review guide,
172–73; perspective on the subject, developing, 169–70, 173, 174;
quotations, integrating in writing, 167–68; scheduling by
backward planning, 166; sources, working with, 167–68;
spectator versus participant observer role of author, 168–69;
subject, choosing, 164–65; subject, developing perspective on,
169–70, 173, 174; subject, researching, 165–67; visuals, using,
171; working thesis statement, formulating, 170–71; writing
assignment, 164
in multi-genre writing, 515, 531–32, 542, 549–50, 551, 558, 578
readings: “Asters and Goldenrods” (Kimmerer), 151–58, 167;
“Bringing Ingenuity Back” (Fine), 159–63, 168; “Gringo in the
Lettuce Fields, A” (Thompson), 138–43, 169, 170–71; “I’m Not
Leaving Until I Eat This Thing” (Edge), 129, 131–37, 170, 171;
“Long Good-Bye: Mother’s Day in Federal Prison, The” (Coyne),
144–50, 167, 169; “Soup” (New Yorker), 123–30, 167, 170
reflecting on, 175–76
rhetorical situations for, 122–23
thinking about, 123
writing to learn, 163
occasions, presenting in reflection, 179, 182–83, 203–4, 211–12, 215,
216–17, 549
omissions
ellipses for, 389, 619–20
ungrammatical, 622
“On Being Midwestern: The Burden of Normality” (Christman), 542–
50
one-page work, MLA citation, 631–32
“Online Curiosity Killer, The” (Greenman), 5–7
online research. See Internet research
openness, 2, 12, 72, 123, 178, 220, 276, 338, 396, 459, 515
open questions, 601, 603, 604
opinion editorials (op-eds), 354
opposition
patterns of, looking for, 35, 55–56, 480–81
transitional words and phrases for, 492
organization
of autobiographies, 118, 120
of concept explanations, 220, 227–28, 253, 269–70, 271, 272–73
effective, elements of, 120, 175
of evaluations, 276, 285–86, 321–22, 330–31, 333, 335
logical, 285–86, 321–22, 333, 453, 456, 467–68
of multi-genre writing, 574–76, 580, 581
narrative, 128, 162, 171, 173
of observations, 128–29, 162–63, 171, 173–74, 175
of position arguments, 387–88
of proposals, 460, 467–68, 474–75, 508, 510, 511
of reflections, 184, 217
spatial, 78, 128, 162–63, 171, 174
of speculative arguments, 453, 456, 540
topical, 128, 162, 171, 173
organizations
APA citation, 647, 648
MLA citation, 630, 634
“Ounces of Prevention-The Public Policy Case for Taxes on Sugared
Beverages” (Brownell and Frieden), 487–93, 504, 507, 508
“Our Scars Tell the Stories of Our Lives” (Jennings), 186–89, 215
outlining
for concept explanation, 269–70
for evaluations, 330–31
formal outline, 42, 269
for multi-genre writing, 574–75
observations, 600
for position arguments, 387–88
for proposals, 508
reading strategy, 34, 41–42, 44
revising, 28
scratch outline, 41, 44
for speculative arguments, 453
in writing process, 17, 19, 21, 28
Oxford Reference Online, 587
Talking to Learn, 12
Tannenbaum, Melanie, “Problem When Sexism Just Sounds So Darn
Friendly, The,” 246–53, 267
television programs
APA citation, 652
MLA citation, 641–42
Terbor, Aru, “Deeper Look at Empathetic and Altruistic Behavior, A,”
562–71, 574, 576
thank yous, a er interviews, 602
that
ambiguous use of, 511
with quotations, 624
“There’s No Such Thing as ‘Sound Science’” (Aschwanden), 338–50
thesis
in concept explanations, 270
evaluating logic of, 60–62
forecasting in. See forecasting statements
formulating. See working thesis
in position argument, 347–48, 373, 384–85, 390
Thinking About
autobiography, 72
concept explanation, 220
evaluation, 276
multi-genre writing, 514
observation, 123
position argument, 118
proposals, 459
reflection, 178
speculative argument, 396
this, ambiguous use of, 511
Thompson, Gabriel, “Gringo in the Lettuce Fields, A,” 138–43, 169,
170–71
Tierney, John, “Do You Suffer from Decision Fatigue?,” 230–35
time
adverbs/prepositions of, 78
chronological order, 131, 401, 540, 597, 649
time markers, 78, 212
transitions of, 78, 184
time-based medium, work in, MLA citation, 632
titles of works
title within a title, 636
in working bibliography, 588
Tokumitsu, Miya, “In the Name of Love,” 367–73, 381, 385
tone
in academic discourse, 13
analyzing visuals, 54
assumptions relayed in, 8, 49
in dialogue, 114
in evaluations, 308, 316
explanatory, 258
of observations, 130, 167, 174
of position arguments, 392
and refutation, 12, 308
speaker tags to convey, 109, 167
topical organization, 128, 162, 171, 173
topics, choosing. See specific types of essays
topic sentences, 227, 285–96, 468, 575–76
trade publications, 610–11
transitional words and phrases
for coherence, 184
for comparing and contrasting, 149–50, 227, 322, 330, 350
as cueing device, 11, 149–50, 283–84, 285–86, 321–22, 575–76
for logical relationships, 286, 321–22
for organization, 227, 285–86, 321–22, 468, 575–76
for refuting and conceding, 492
for time and spatial relationships, 78, 184
translation
APA citation, 650
MLA citation, 635
Tucker, William, “Art and Creativity of Stop-Motion, The,” 259–63
“Tupac and My Non-Thug Life” (Desmond-Harris), 100–105, 115
Turkle, Sherry, “Flight from Conversation, The,” 355–59
Twitter, 597
two-way questions, 603, 604
“Typing vs. Handwriting Notes: An Evaluation of the Effects of
Transcription Method on Student Learning” (Hertogs), 287–97, 316