Today's Goals
Goal 1: Get Turnitin info
Goal 2: Start Essay 1 with an introduction: Write about someone you know who followed his or passion with or without desired results. Or write about someone you know in elementary, middle, or high school who has way too much homework.
Goal 3: Turn in your introduction tomorrow to take the place of Homework #1.
Goal 4: Be prepared to spend Wednesdays and Thursdays in the next-door computer lab. Be prepared to use Google Docs or Word with a USB flash drive.
Goal 5: Look at the syllabus, writing assignments, and grading.
English 1A Summer 2019 Syllabus: Section 6333
6-8:50 meets from June 17 to July 25 (Thursday, July 4, is a holiday)
Class meets in H206
Office Hours:
Monday through Thursday 5:30-6 p.m. in H121P
Email: jmcmahon@elcamino.edu
Books and Materials You Need to Buy for This Class
Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now by Jaron Lanier
Rules for Writers, 8th Edition by Diana Hacker
1 pocketed, flat folder for your Homework Portfolio
Sample MLA format essay on Purdue Owl
Work You Must Do in This Class
One: Five Typed Essays
You will write 5 typed essays in MLA format. The first 4 essays will be 1,000 words. The fifth essay, your capstone essay, will be 1,200 words and will need 5 sources for your Works Cited. The first 4 essays are worth 150 points. The final fifth essay is worth 250 points. These essays will be uploaded on turnitin.
Late Essays
Late essays are accepted for a week after deadline and are marked down a full grade.
Two Reading Response Portfolio
You must generate a writing response to every reading. Instead of getting quizzed on the readings, you will write 3-paragraph reading-response essays to the readings. Each mini essay should have at least 3 signal phrases citing the text of the assigned reading. You will not be uploading these essays on turnitin.com. Instead, you will bring a typed hard copy to class and discussing it with your team of 3 or 4 students.. An unacceptable essay won’t be given credit. You will keep these essays in a flat, pocketed folder, which I will grade during Finals Week. Unless you have a doctor’s note, you cannot make-up missing mini essays. You should be motivated to show up to every class. Your portfolio is worth 150 points. I grade it two halves at 75 points per half.
Three. Before the essays are due on turnitin, there is a peer edit session with some exceptions like when a holiday falls the week before final due date. You bring hard copies of your completed typed draft so your team can review your work, and you can review theirs. Like your mini essays, the completed draft gets a stamp, either a top-tier stamp or a middling one.
Grading Based on 1,000 Points
First 4 essays: 150 for 600
Final 5th essay: 250
Portfolio, Part 1 and Part 2, 75 each for 150
Grading Point Scheme
Total Points: 1,000 (A is 900-100; B is 800-899; C is 700-799; D is 600 to 699)
Essay Assignment 1 Options
Option 1:
In an essay of 1,000 words, defend, refute, or complicate Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset. Your second source will be “In the Name of Love” by Miya Tokumitsu. You won’t receive credit unless you have an MLA format Works Cited page at the end of your essay.
Option 2:
In the context of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s online short story "Winter Dreams" and Hasan Minhaj's Netflix 72-minute comedy special "Homecoming King," develop a thesis about two men in search of validation in pursuit of “The Great White Princess” and why Hasan Minhaj’s validation quest is triumphant while Dexter Green’s quest is one of utter failure.
Option 3:
Read Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me” and Andrea Townsend "A Teacher's Defense of Homework" and develop an argumentative essay about giving homework to middle school and high school students.
Option 4:
Justin Peters' essay "Joe Rogan's Galaxy Brain," published in liberal-slanting Slate magazine, presents an argument that Joe Rogan and his podcast guest philosopher Sam Harris are wrong to believe in giving a platform to hateful voices. In the words of Peters, Rogan and Harris are morally wrong in their following premise: "[Liberals and progressives holding] people accountable for what they say and what those words do is an offense far worse than saying cruel, racist, and divisive things in the first place. The reputational damage done to the utterer is the real social problem, not the more diffuse damage done by the utterance."
Joe Rogan defends giving a platform to Alt-Right "crackpots" while talking to comedian Neil Brennan in this podcast segment published on You Tube under title "Why Joe Rogan Has Right Wing Guests on His Show." Rogan argues that deplatforming is dangerous to American democracy and freedom of speech. This notion of deplatforming is under further controversy by democratic presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren refusing to go on Fox News because she argues that Fox News is a "hate-for-profit racket." But others, like Megan Day in her essay "Elizabeth Warren Should Have Gone on Fox News," argue that Warren's virtue signaling is actually misguided and shows she is too interested in showcasing her moral purity than she is in engaging people with contrary ideas to her own. Even liberal MSNBC's "Morning Joe" criticizes Warren for not going into enemy territory to argue her message.
In the context of the deplatforming controversy surrounding Joe Rogan and Elizabeth Warren, develop an argumentative thesis about deplatforming: Is engaging in conversations with opposing voices a way of giving harmful platform to hate and moral bankruptcy or is this cross-cultural conversation a way of shedding light on evil and finding opportunity to persuade one's opponents?
There can be a middle-ground in this debate. For example, one could justify having Ben Shapiro and Jordan Peterson on their show while eschewing a complete troll like Alex Jones.
Also consider that if you have strong opinions, they should be worth fighting for. Joe Rogan, who does MMA training and fighting, is a fighter. He doesn't mind going into the belly of beast and fighting the battles of the day. Elizabeth Warren, some might argue, is a pacifist who is eager to showboat her virtue to her crowd of the already converted but too cowardly to engage in battle with the enemy. If she can't fight, is she a worthy candidate? Some say no. Others say her moral purity is precisely her appeal. Frame the debate under your own terms.
Essay Assignment 2
For a 1,000-word essay, develop an argumentative thesis that addresses Jaron Lanier (Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now) and Andrew Sullivan’s claim (“I Used to be a Human Being”) that social media compromises personal excellence, degrades one’s core humanity, and accelerates the disintegration of democracy. You may also consult Black Mirror episode “Nosedive,” Sherry Turkle’s Ted Talk “Connected, But Alone,” and Tristan Harris’ Ted Talk video “How a Handful of Tech Companies Control Billions of Minds Everyday.” Also consult these works from Tristan Harris: “Our Minds Have Been Hijacked by Our Phones,” and “How Technology Hijacks People’s Minds.
Essay Assignment 3
Option A:
In a 1,000-word essay, compare Dr. David Pilgrim’s Jim Crow Museum explanation of Jim Crow laws of yesterday to Childish Gambino’s exploration in “This Is America” to Jim Crow exploitation today. You may consult “Hidden Meanings” video, Dr. Lori Brooks’ Hidden Meanings video, “Childish Gambino’s Genius Absurdity,” and PBS analysis. Your claim will be to address the argument that Jim Crow still exists or not today.
Option B
In the context of Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost,” develop a thesis that evaluates the assertion that for many Americans the Civil War denies real history and replaces that real history with a pernicious mythology, often called The Lost Cause, that perpetuates the false doctrine of white supremacy. You may also consult John Oliver Confederate Flag critique video.
Option C
Develop a claim that supports, refutes, or complicates the claim that electoral college should be replaced by the popular vote. Be sure to have a counterargument section.
Essay Assignment 4
Option A
See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. Consult Conor Friedersdorf essay “John Oliver’s Weak Case for Callout Culture.”
Option B
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.” Consult Vice video about social media and tribalism; also consult Brian Klaas video on how tribalism in social media is undermining democracy. Also consult the role of Backfire Effect and tribalism.
Option C
Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section. For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other credible sources.
Option D
Read Jean Twenge’s “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and write an essay that argues for or against Twenge’s claim that smartphones combined with helicopter parenting are resulting in delayed development of Millennials and Generation Z (born after mid 90s). You may refer to CNN Special Report: Being Thirteen.
Option E
Read "In admissions scandal, the students should be expelled" by Michael Hiltzik and develop a thesis that supports or refutes the author’s claim. Should rich students whose parents paid their way illegally into top-tier colleges be expelled? Are all these students equal? Some are not even taking classes seriously evidenced by their YouTube videos. Others may be performing well. Should their performance make a difference? You can also consult Atlantic essay about "Real Scandal" and how there is no way to prevent the next college scandal.
Option F
Read Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and write an argumentative thesis that supports or refutes her claim.
Default Setting Essay Template for 1,000-word essay
8 Paragraphs, 130 words per paragraph, approx. 1,000 words (1,040 to be exact)
Paragraph 1: Attention-getting introduction
Paragraph 2: Transition from introduction to argumentative claim (thesis)
Paragraphs 3-5: Body paragraphs that give reasons for supporting your claim.
Paragraphs 6 & 7: Counterarguments in which you anticipate how your opponents will disagree with you, and you then provide rebuttals to those counterarguments.
Paragraph 8: Conclusion, an emotionally powerful re-statement of your thesis.
Make sure to include a Works Cited page.
Essay #5
You need 5 credible sources for the MLA Works Cited page in your final capstone essay.
Your guidelines for your Final Research Paper are as follows:
This research paper should present a thesis that is specific, manageable, provable, and contestable—in other words, the thesis should offer a clear position, stand, or opinion that will be proven with research.
You should analyze and prove your thesis using examples and quotes from a variety of sources.
You need to research and cite from at least five sources. You must use at least 3 different types of sources.
At least one source must be from an ECC library database.
At least one source must be a book, anthology or textbook.
At least one source must be from a credible website, appropriate for academic use.
The paper should not over-rely on one main source for most of the information. Rather, it should use multiple sources and synthesize the information found in them.
This paper will be approximately 5-7 pages in length, not including the Works Cited page, which is also required. This means at least 5 full pages of text. The Works Cited page does NOT count towards length requirement.
You must use MLA format for the document, in-text citations, and Works Cited page.
You must integrate quotations and paraphrases using signal phrases and analysis or commentary.
You must sustain your argument, use transitions effectively, and use correct grammar, spelling, and punctuation.
Your paper must be logically organized and focused.
Default Setting Essay Template for 1,200-word essay
9 Paragraphs, 135 words per paragraph, approx. 1,200 words (1,215 to be exact)
Paragraph 1: Attention-getting introduction
Paragraph 2: Transition from introduction to argumentative claim (thesis)
Paragraphs 3-6: Body paragraphs that give reasons for supporting your claim.
Paragraphs 7 & 8: Counterarguments in which you anticipate how your opponents will disagree with you, and you then provide rebuttals to those counterarguments.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion, an emotionally powerful re-statement of your thesis.
Make sure to include a Works Cited page.
Final Essay #5 for 1,200 words
Option A
Develop an argumentative thesis that analyzes the intersection of tribalism and fake facts as anti-vaxxers bring disease back to the world. Consult the following: “The Real Horror of Anti-Vaxxers” by Frank Bruni, Michelle Au’s fear tactic essay in Slate, John Oliver video on vaccinations. See Bulwark “Contagion of Folly.” See New York Times logical fallacies video. Also see "Why Vaccination Refusal Is a White Privilege Problem."
Variation of Option A
Defend or refute the claim made in "The Anti-Vaxxers Spreading Measles in Portland Should be Arrested" by Patrick A. Coleman.
Option B
See video “3 Arguments Why Marijuana Should Stay Illegal” and read Annie Lowry’s essay “America’s Invisible Pot Addicts” and support, refute, or complicate the argument that legalizing weed is a bad idea. See Netflix documentary Grass Is Greener.
Option C
In context of Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading,” support, refute, or complicate Alfie Kohn’s assertion that grading is an inferior education tool that all conscientious teachers should abandon. In other words, will students benefit from an accountability-free education? Why? Explain.
Option D
Develop a thesis that about the ritualization of violence as described by Steve Almond in his essay “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?” and his video “Eager Violence of the Heart--America’s Football Obsession.” As a source, you can also consult The Professor in the Cage by Jonathan Gottschall.
Option E
Support, refute, or complicate Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” that spyware is a legit and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers.
Option F
Read Madeleine Pape's Guardian essay "I was sore at losing to Caster Semeyna," and develop an argumentative thesis about the controversy surrounding Semeyna's desire to compete in women's sports. You can also consult the NYT editorial "The Myth of Testosterone," "The Controversy Around Caster Semeyna Explained," and "The Caster Semeyna Ruling Is a Disgrace to the Sporting World." See PBS video. Also see Vox article "'I am a woman and I am fast.'" Also see Washington Post on the debate on what is scientific or not about gender.
Summer 1A 2019 Reading and Writing Schedule
Week 1 Cal Newport & Passion Hypothesis
June 17 Introduction. We will read Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset. We will also look at excerpts from “In the Name of Love” by Miya Tokumitsu. Homework #1 for June 18: Read F. Scott Fitzgerald’s online short story “Winter Dreams” and explain in 3 paragraphs how Dexter Green was addicted to Judy Jones as if she were an illegal narcotic.
June 18 Go over “Winter Dreams” and see Hasan Minhaj’s “Homecoming King.” 1-3. Homework #2 for June 19: Read Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me” and Andrea Townsend "A Teacher's Defense of Homework" and in 3 paragraphs explain the dilemma parents face when struggling with their children’s homework.
June 19 Go over homework debate. Homework #3 for June 20: Read Justin Peters' essay "Joe Rogan's Galaxy Brain," published in liberal-slanting Slate magazine, and in 3 paragraphs explain Peters’ criticism of Joe Rogan.
June 20 Go over Joe Rogan and the debate about deplatforming. Go over thesis statements in class. We will work on 3 sample thesis statements in class.
Week 2 Jaron Lanier & Why You Should Delete Your Social Media Accounts
June 24 Essay 1 Due on turnitin. Go over Andrew Sullivan’s “I Used to be a Human Being,”, Sherry Turkle, and Tristan Harris. Watch “Nosedive.” Homework #4 for June 25: Read Lanier pages 1-39 and in 3 paragraphs explain how social media destroys free will.
June 25 Go over Lanier 1-39. Homework #5 for June 26: Read pages 39-76 and in 3 paragraphs explain how social media makes us terrible versions of ourselves.
June 26 Go over Lanier 39-76. Homework #6 for June 27: Read Lanier 76-145 and turn in a tentative thesis both in hard copy and email before class.
June 27 Go over Lanier 76-145. Go over student thesis statements in class.
Week 3 Old and New Jim Crow in America & Electoral Vs. Popular Vote
July 1 Essay 2 due on turnitin. We will compare Dr. David Pilgrim’s Jim Crow Museum explanation of Jim Crow laws of yesterday to Childish Gambino’s exploration in “This Is America” to Jim Crow exploitation today. You may consult “Hidden Meanings” video, Dr. Lori Brooks’ Hidden Meanings video, “Childish Gambino’s Genius Absurdity,” and PBS analysis. Homework #7: Read Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost” and explain how some people rewrite the history of slavery.
July 2 Go over Jamelle Bouie’s “Remembering History as Fable” and Jack Schwartz’s “It’s Time for the Lost Cause to Get Lost.” Your Homework #8 for July 3: Read Jamelle Bouie’s argument in his essays “Getting Rid of the Electoral Isn’t Just About Trump” and “The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy” and summarize his arguments for replacing electorate with popular vote.
July 3 We will go over Jamelle Bouie’s argument in his essays “Getting Rid of the Electoral Isn’t Just About Trump” and “The Electoral College Is the Greatest Threat to Our Democracy” and summarize his arguments for replacing electorate with popular vote.
July 4 Holiday
Week 4 Public Shaming, Tribalism, College, Student Loans
July 8 Essay 3 due on turnitin. Grade Portfolio #1, which will consist of homework assignments 1-9. See Monica Lewinsky Ted Talk video “The Price of Shame” and John Oliver video on “Public Shaming” and develop an argumentative thesis about what type of shaming is good for society and what kind of shaming cannot be defended. If we have time, we will go over Kajsa Elas Ekman’s essay “All surrogacy is exploitation” and address essay strategies.
Homework #9 for July 9 is to read David Brooks’ Atlantic essay “People Like Us” and explain why we gravitate people who share our values.
July 9 We will go over “People Like Us” and watch two videos about social media and tribalism from Vice and Brian Klaas. Homework #10 for next class: Read Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and write a 3-paragraph essay supporting or refuting free community college.
July 10 We will go over Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and develop a thesis. Homework #11 for July 11 is to read Michael Hiltzik’s "In admissions scandal, the students should be expelled"and write a 3-paragraph essay that analyzes the validity of his claim. Homework #13 for July 11 is to submit email of your tentative thesis for Essay 4. Also bring hard copy to class.
July 11. We will go over "In admissions scandal, the students should be expelled" by Michael Hiltzik and we will answer question: should rich students whose parents paid their way illegally into top-tier colleges be expelled? Are all these students equal? Some are not even taking classes seriously evidenced by their YouTube videos. Others may be performing well. Should their performance make a difference? You can also consult Atlantic essay about "Real Scandal" and how there is no way to prevent the next college scandal. We will also go over Clint Smith’s essay "Elite Colleges Constantly Tell Low-Income Students That They Don't Belong.”
For your counterargument regarding Clint Smith’s essay, we will look at David Brooks’ notorious essay “How We Are Ruining America.”
Homework #12 for July 11 is to submit an email and bring hard copy of your first essay’s first two pages, including a tentative thesis.
Week 5 Anti-Vaxxers, Marijuana, and NFL Violence
July 15 Essay 4 due on turnitin. Your homework #13 for July 16 is to read Annie Lowry’s essay “America’s Invisible Pot Addicts” and in 3 paragraphs support, refute, or complicate the argument that legalizing weed is a bad idea.
We will develop an argumentative thesis that analyzes the intersection of tribalism and fake facts as anti-vaxxers bring disease back to the world. We will consult the following: “The Real Horror of Anti-Vaxxers” by Frank Bruni, Michelle Au’s fear tactic essay in Slate, John Oliver video on vaccinations. See “Anti-Vaxxers Trolled a Doctor’s Office” in the Washington Post. We will also consult Bulwark “Contagion of Folly.” We will also consult New York Times logical fallacies video, and we will read "Why Vaccination Refusal Is a White Privilege Problem."
July 16 We will see video “3 Arguments Why Marijuana Should Stay Illegal” and go over Annie Lowry’s essay “America’s Invisible Pot Addicts. We will also see Netflix documentary and Netflix Explained. If we have time, we will read Alfie Kohn’s “From Degrading to De-Grading.”
Your homework #14 for July 17 is to read Steve Almond’s essay “Is It Immoral to Watch the Super Bowl?” and in 3 paragraphs support or refute his claim.
July 17 We will go over Steve Almond’s essay. We will also watch his video “Eager Violence of the Heart--America’s Football Obsession.” As a source, you can also consult The Professor in the Cage by Jonathan Gottschall. Your homework #15 for July 18 is to write an introduction and thesis to be emailed to me before class. Also bring a hard copy to class.
July 18 We will go over Harlan Coben’s argument from “The Undercover Parent” and discuss if spyware is a legit and compelling safety measure that parents may need to use for their children’s computers. We will go over counterarguments. We will also go over your introductions and thesis statements in class. Your homework #16: In the context of Madeleine Pape's Guardian essay "I was sore at losing to Caster Semeyna," explain in 3 paragraphs Pape’s defense of Caster Semeyna.
Week 6 Doing Your Final Essay Piece by Piece
July 22 Go over Madeleine Pape's Guardian essay "I was sore at losing to Caster Semeyna," and develop an argumentative thesis about the controversy surrounding Semeyna's desire to compete in women's sports. You can also consult the NYT editorial "The Myth of Testosterone," "The Controversy Around Caster Semeyna Explained," and "The Caster Semeyna Ruling Is a Disgrace to the Sporting World." See PBS video. Also see Vox article "'I am a woman and I am fast.'" Also see Washington Post on the debate on what is scientific or not about gender. We will work on thesis statements in class Your homework #17 is to submit to me your introduction and tentative thesis for July 23.
July 23 We will go over your essay in progress. Your homework #18 is to submit two counterarguments and rebuttals and Works Cited with 5 sources in both email and hard copies.
July 24 We will go over your counterarguments and overall essay in progress with emphasis on counterarguments and rebuttals.
July 25 Essay 5 is due on turnitin. We will grade your Portfolio #2 in class.
You Must Use turnitin to submit essay and bring hard copy on due date
Each essay must be submitted to www.turnitin.com where it will be checked for illegal copying/plagiarism. I cannot give credit for an essay that is not submitted to this site by the deadline.
The process is very simple; if you need help, detailed instructions are available at http://turnitin.com/en_us/training/student-training/student-quickstart-guide
You will need two pieces of information to use the site:
Class ID and Enrollment Password, which I will give you first week of class
Classroom Decorum: No smart phones can be used in class. If you’re on your smartphone and I see you, you get a warning the first time. Second time, you must leave the class and take an absence
Tardies: Two tardies equals one absence.
Homework for Your Portfolio
Your Homework Portfolio connects with a 20-minute class activity that begins the class in your team (of 3 or 4 people).
Your essays are of the “mini” variety: 3 paragraphs, 350 words long, and have at least 3 signal phrases citing the text in the form of direct quotations, paraphrase, or summary.
Almost every class-assigned reading has a mini essay that you will keep in your portfolio.
Every class, while you discuss the study question with your team, I will come around and put a stamp on the completed typed mini essay.
Even though I grade your Portfolio mid-way into the semester as “Portfolio 1,” keep all your subsequent essays in the same Homework Portfolio. In other words, don’t throw your hard-copies of your essay away after I grade “Portfolio 1.”
Course Catalog Description:
This course is designed to strengthen the students’ ability to read with understanding and discernment, to discuss assigned readings intelligently, and to write clearly. Emphasis will be on writing essays in which each paragraph relates to a controlling idea, has an introduction and a conclusion, and contains primary and secondary support. College-level reading material will be assigned to provide the stimulus for class discussion and writing assignments, including a required research paper.
Course Objectives:
One. Recognize and revise sentence-level grammar and usage errors.
Two. Read and apply critical-thinking skills to numerous published articles and to college-level, book-length works for the purpose of writing and discussion.
Three. Apply appropriate strategies in the writing process including prewriting, composing, revising, and editing techniques.
Four. Compose multi-paragraph, thesis-driven essays with logical and appropriate supporting ideas, and with unity and coherence.
Five. Demonstrate ability to locate and utilize a variety of academic databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scholarly websites.
Six. Utilize MLA guidelines to format essays, cite sources in the texts of essays, and compile Works Cited lists.
Student Learning Outcomes:
Upon completion of this course, students will:
- Complete a research-based essay that has been written out of class and undergone revision. It should demonstrate the student’s ability to thoughtfully support a single thesis using analysis and synthesis.
- Integrate multiple sources, including a book-length work and a variety of academic databases, peer-reviewed journals, and scholarly websites. Citations must be in MLA format and include a Works Cited page.
- Demonstrate logical paragraph composition and sentence structure. The essay should have correct grammar, spelling, and word use.
Students with Disabilities:
It is the policy of the El Camino Community College District to encourage full inclusion of people with disabilities in all programs and services. Students with disabilities who believe they may need accommodations in this class should contact the campus Special Resource Center (310) 660-3295, as soon as possible. This will ensure that students are able to fully participate.
Academic Honesty and Plagiarism:
El Camino College places a high value on the integrity of its student scholars. When an instructor determines that there is evidence of dishonesty in any academic work (including, but not limited to cheating, plagiarism, or theft of exam materials), disciplinary action appropriate to the misconduct as defined in BP 5500 may be taken. A failing grade on an assignment in which academic dishonesty has occurred and suspension from class are among the disciplinary actions for academic dishonesty (AP 5520). Students with any questions about the Academic Honesty or discipline policies are encouraged to speak with their instructor in advance.
Attendance and Class Participation
You can’t miss more than 4 classes. A tardy counts as one half an absence. These rules are designed so that we will be compliant with Title 5 Contact Hour Laws prescribed by the State of California.
Student Resources:
- Reading Success Center (East Library Basement E-36)
- Software and tutors are available for vocabulary development & reading comprehension.
- Library Media Technology Center - LMTC (East Library Basement)
- Computers are available for free use. Bring your student ID # & flash drive. There’s a charge for printing.
- Writing Center (H122)
- Computers are available for free use. Free tutoring is available for writing assignments, grammar, and vocabulary. Bring your student ID & flash drive to save work. Printing is NOT available.
- Learning Resource Center - LRC (West Wing of the Library, 2nd floor)
- The LRC Tutorial Program offers free drop-in tutoring. For the tutoring schedule, go toelcamino.edu/library/lrc/tutoring .The LRC also offers individualized computer adaptive programs to help build your reading comprehension skills.
- Student Health Center (Next to the Pool)
- The Health Center offers free medical and psychological services as well as free workshops on topics like “test anxiety.” Low cost medical testing is also available.
- Special Resource Center – SRC (Southwest Wing of Student Services Building)
The SRC provides free disability services, including interpreters, testing accommodations, counseling, and adaptive computer technology.
We will read Cal Newport’s book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You and explore the dangerous features of the Passion Hypothesis.
Option 1:
In an essay of 1,000 words, defend, refute, or complicate Cal Newport’s claim from his book excerpt from So Good They Can’t Ignore You that the Passion Hypothesis is dangerous and should be replaced by the craftsman mindset. Your second source will be “In the Name of Love” by Miya Tokumitsu. You won’t receive credit unless you have an MLA format Works Cited page at the end of your essay.
Suggested Essay Structure:
Paragraph 1: Summarize Newport's argument or write about someone who followed his or her passion with or without desired results.
Paragraph 2: Explain how you've been pursuing your career goals before reading Newport's book. Then explain how his book affects the way you might re-think your strategy and approach to your career plans.
Paragraph 3: Your thesis: Example: "Cal Newport's argument that should should shun the Passion Hypothesis and replace it with a craftsman's mindset is convincing (is not convincing) because ______________, ______________, _________________, and ______________________.
Paragraphs 4-7 are your supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 8: Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph in which you anticipate how your opponents will oppose your thesis and your rebuttal to their counterargument.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion: Dramatic reiteration of your thesis.
1,000 words
Sources and Signal Phrases
You must use at least 2 sources and 6 signal phrases for your essay.
Cal Newport's Book Page
Excerpt from Cal Newport's So Good They Can't Ignore You.
Option 3:
Read Karl Taro Greenfeld’s “My Daughter’s Homework Is Killing Me” and Andrea Townsend "A Teacher's Defense of Homework" and develop an argumentative essay about giving homework to middle school and high school students.
Suggested Essay Structure:
Paragraph 1: Explain the homework dilemma facing America for your introduction.
Paragraph 2: Develop a thesis that agrees or disagrees with Greenfeld's contention that his daughter is assigned too much homework and this overload points to a broader problem about homework in American society.
Paragraphs 3-6 are your supporting paragraphs
Paragraph 7: Counterargument-Rebuttal Paragraph in which you anticipate how your opponents will oppose your thesis and your rebuttal to their counterargument.
Paragraph 9: Conclusion: Dramatic reiteration of your thesis.
1,000 words
Sources and Signal Phrases
You must use at least 2 sources and 6 signal phrases for your essay.
Study Questions
One. What revelation does Thomas, the Buddhist Monk, make as he finds how to crack the koan codes (word puzzles) and become an enlightened Buddhist practitioner?
Sometimes your passion is a canard, a dead-end, a chimera, and an illusion.
Sometimes you think you know your passion but you don't.
Sometimes your passion fills you on a caprice, a whim, an impulse and is therefore short-lived.
Following your passions could make you homeless.
McMahon's passions:
radio announcer
writer
pianist
comedian
public intellectual
Cal Newport's Aspiring Monk
For example, the aspiring monk followed his passion, to pursue Buddhism to the extreme, and he felt empty, he felt he was the same person he was before, he felt the same urge to find meaning.
His passion had betrayed him.
Cal Newport juxtaposes Thomas’ failed quest with an obsession that Newport has had for a long time, the very obsession that provides impetus for this book we’re reading: Why do some people end up loving what they do while others fail to be happy and feel empty and wasted in their efforts?
Trying to find a professor job in a struggling economy in 2010, Newport’s prospects were bleak. How could he find happiness in such bleak circumstances?
As Newport embarked on his quest to discover why some people find happiness in their work while others do not, he concluded that passion was overrated.
In fact, he ended up rejecting the Passion Hypothesis, the idea that we find happiness by following our passion. “Follow your bliss” is a false path, a canard, a dangerous cliché.
Two. What common thread holds Newport’s book together?
The importance of developing a high-quality ability that cannot be easily replicated so that one is not easily replaceable is one of the dominant themes of this book.
How to develop such an ability is another theme.
Rule #1: Don’t Follow Your Passion
Steve Jobs, as we know him, is a myth.
Not only is Steve Jobs a myth, he perpetuated a myth: “The only way to be great at your work is to love what you do. Don’t settle. Keep searching until you find your passion.”
“Follow your passion. Life is for the living.”
“Passion is the engine to living a life.”
Steve Jobs’ words are a disingenuous, empty clichés; they are false; they are dangerous; and he didn’t even apply those words to his life, his real life, not the mythical one people have been led to believe about him.
Steve Jobs is a perpetrator of the Passion Hypothesis, which says the following: The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then to find a job that matches this passion.
Three. What is the real Steve Jobs story?
He never followed his passion to create Apple computer. Before Apple, he was living as a hippy on a commune and doing work with Atari. He travelled as a sort of nomad or vagabond, dabbling in Zen Buddhism, but really he lived the life of a dilettante, doing casual work here and there.
But then he needed money, and he Steve Wozinak who helped Steve Jobs sell model-kit computers at $500 a piece. Steve Jobs had no passion and no vision for some giant company that would take over the world. He wanted quick cash. That was it.
Once he saw an opportunity to make even bigger money, Steve Jobs busted his butt doing deep work to make himself competitive against the other people trying to make money in the same computer space.
Had Steve Jobs followed his passion, to be a lazy Buddhist monk living in Zen communes and travelling here and there, he would have never been able to compete against the burgeoning computer engineers.
He would have floundered.
He would have been a nobody.
He would have been a professional bum.
He would have been an annoying quasi-spiritual Zen-cliché-larded mountebank.
Steve Jobs Became Successful Because He Didn’t Follow His Passion
Steve Jobs didn’t follow his passion. He followed an opportunity and delivered by developing in himself a unique ability that made him valuable to others.
Following your passion is a lie.
Following your passion is canard.
Following your passion is the kiss of death.
Following your passion is an empty cliché spewed by sanctimonious, brain-dead mediocrities.
Cal Newport points out that Steve Jobs became passionate AFTER he mastered his craft, AFTER he honed his talent, AFTER he developed unique skills that allowed him to navigate a world-dominating computer company.
Three. What is famous radio broadcaster Ira Glass’ advice on becoming successful?
Much to the disappointment of the interviewers who wanted Glass to pontificate on the notion of “following your bliss,” Glass gives some sobering advice:
First, you’re going to suck at what you do. You have to go through the drudgery and mental strain of moving through your suck at it phase and reach a point of mastery.
It’s the endurance and drive to move past your “I suck at it” phase and reach a higher level of expertise that accounts for success and happiness.
You have to develop your Tedium Muscle to make breakthroughs and elevate your craft to a higher level.
Cal Newport goes on to explain that we can’t know what our passion is in the beginning. It’s rare that people have a clearly defined passion at a young age.
I can only think of one exception: George Carlin, the famous comedian, told Terry Gross on Fresh Air that he knew he was going to be a comedian when he was in the fifth grade.
But that is the exception, not the rule.
We should live by the general rule.
Complex Career Origin Principle
Cal Newport writes: “Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the single idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
Real Passion Principle: Time and Mastery
“Passion takes time.” You have to cultivate it with deep work, undistracted focus on your craft.
To support the above, Yale researcher Amy Wizesniwski wanted to look at job happiness. She divided jobs in 3 ways:
One. A job is a way to pay the bills.
Two. A career is a path toward increasingly better work.
Three. A calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.
Dream Job Fallacy
Mastery is greater than passion as a factor for happiness.
Having a “dream job” wasn’t the key to happiness, AW found. She found that it was time spent on the job and mastery of the job.
Her findings contradict the lame Passion Hypothesis, that childish, infantile myth that all you have to do is find your passion and as soon as you get the job you are instantly happy. “You followed your bliss! Oh happy you!”
Complexity to Consider: You don't have a passion and build a master for it; quite the contrary, you may have to build a mastery or at the very least a baseline of competence in order to have enough knowledge to have an authentic passion.
“Passion is a side effect of mastery.”
Develop your mastery first. Then the passion comes as a natural result.
This reminds me of something Viktor Frankl writes: Don’t aim to be happy. Aim for a life of purpose and meaning and then happiness will be an unintentional byproduct.
Rule #1: Don’t Follow Your Passion
Steve Jobs, as we know him, is a myth.
Not only is Steve Jobs a myth, he perpetuated a myth: “The only way to be great at your work is to love what you do. Don’t settle. Keep searching until you find your passion.”
“Follow your passion. Life is for the living.”
“Passion is the engine to living a life.”
Steve Jobs’ words are a disingenuous, empty clichés; they are false; they are fatuous; they are dangerous; and he didn’t even apply those words to his life, his real life, not the mythical one people have been led to believe about him.
Steve Jobs is a perpetrator of the Passion Hypothesis, which says the following: The key to occupational happiness is to first figure out what you’re passionate about and then to find a job that matches this passion.
Three. What is the real Steve Jobs story?
He never followed his passion to create Apple computer. Before Apple, he was living as a hippy on a commune and doing work with Atari. He travelled as a sort of nomad or vagabond, dabbling in Zen Buddhism, but really he lived the life of a dilettante, doing casual work here and there.
But then he needed money, and he Steve Wozinak who helped Steve Jobs sell model-kit computers at $500 a piece. Steve Jobs had no passion and no vision for some giant company that would take over the world. He wanted quick cash. That was it.
Once he saw an opportunity to make even bigger money, Steve Jobs busted his butt doing deep work to make himself competitive against the other people trying to make money in the same computer space.
Had Steve Jobs followed his passion, to be a lazy Buddhist monk living in Zen communes and travelling here and there, he would have never been able to compete against the burgeoning computer engineers.
He would have floundered.
He would have been a nobody.
He would have been a professional bum.
He would have been an annoying quasi-spiritual Zen-cliché-larded mountebank.
Steve Jobs Became Successful Because He Didn’t Follow His Passion
Steve Jobs didn’t follow his passion. He followed an opportunity and delivered by developing in himself a unique ability that made him valuable to others.
Following your passion is a lie.
Following your passion is canard.
Following your passion is the kiss of death.
Following your passion is an empty cliché spewed by sanctimonious, brain-dead mediocrities.
Cal Newport points out that Steve Jobs became passionate AFTER he mastered his craft, AFTER he honed his talent, AFTER he developed unique skills that allowed him to navigate a world-dominating computer company.
Three. What is famous radio broadcaster Ira Glass’ advice on becoming successful?
Much to the disappointment of the interviewers who wanted Glass to pontificate on the notion of “following your bliss,” Glass gives some sobering advice:
First, you’re going to suck at what you do. Let's repeat: You have to go through the "I suck at this phase" for a while.
You have to go through the drudgery and mental strain of moving through your suck at it phase and reach a point of mastery.
It’s the endurance and drive to move past your “I suck at it” phase and reach a higher level of expertise that accounts for success and happiness.
Cal Newport goes on to explain that we can’t know what our passion is in the beginning. It’s rare that people have a clearly defined passion at a young age.
I can only think of one exception: George Carlin, the famous comedian, told Terry Gross on Fresh Air that he knew he was going to be a comedian when he was in the fifth grade.
But that is the exception, not the rule.
We should live by the general rule.
Complex Career Origin Principle
Cal Newport writes: “Compelling careers often have complex origins that reject the single idea that all you have to do is follow your passion.”
If you study successful people, many have complex origins that explain their career choice. They didn't pick their passion like low-hanging fruit.
Real Passion Principle: Time and Mastery
“Passion takes time.” You have to cultivate it with deep work, undistracted focus on your craft.
To support the above, Yale researcher Amy Wizesniwski wanted to look at job happiness. She divided jobs in 3 ways:
One. A job is a way to pay the bills.
Two. A career is a path toward increasingly better work.
Three. A calling is work that is an important part of your life and a vital part of your identity.
Having a “dream job” wasn’t the key to happiness, AW found. She found that it was time spent on the job and mastery of the job.
Her findings contradict the lame Passion Hypothesis, that childish, infantile myth that all you have to do is find your passion and as soon as you get the job you are instantly happy. “You followed your bliss! Oh happy you!”
“Passion is a side effect of mastery.”
Develop your mastery first. Then the passion comes as a natural result.
This reminds me of something Viktor Frankl writes: Don’t aim to be happy. Aim for a life of purpose and meaning and then happiness will be an unintentional byproduct.
Newport's Career Manifesto
A CAREER MANIFESTO: Be a Craftsman or a Craftsperson
Career advice has fallen into a terribly simplistic rut. Figure out what you’re passionate about, then follow that passion: this idea provides the foundation for just about every guide to improving your working life.
The Career Craftsman rejects this reductionist drivel.
The Career Craftsman understands that “follow your passion and all will be happy” is a children’s tale. Most people don’t have pre-existing passions waiting to be unearthed. Happiness requires more than solving a simple matching problem.
The Career Craftsman knows there’s no magical “right job” waiting out there for you. Any number of pursuits can provide the foundation for an engaging life.
The Career Craftsman believes that compelling careers are not courageously pursued or serendipitously discovered, but are instead systematically crafted.
The Career Craftsman believes this process of career crafting always begins with the mastery of something rare and valuable. The traits that define great work (autonomy, creativity, impact, recognition) are rare and valuable themselves, and you need something to offer in return. Put another way: no one owes you a fulfilling job; you have to earn it.
The Career Craftsman believes that mastery is just the first step in crafting work you love. Once you have the leverage of a rare and valuable skill, you need to apply this leverage strategically to make your working life increasingly fulfilling. It is then — and only then — that you should expect a feeling of passion for your work to truly take hold.
The Career Craftsman thinks the idea that “societal expectations” are trying to hold you down in a safe but boring career path is a boogeyman invented to sell eBooks. You don’t need courage to create a cool life. You need the type of valuable skills that let you write your own ticket.
The Career Craftsman never expects to love an entry level job (or to stay in that job long before moving up).
The Career Craftsman thinks “is this my calling?” is a stupid question.
The Career Craftsman is data-driven. Admire someone’s career? Work out exactly how they made it happen. The answers you’ll find will be less romantic but more actionable than you might expect.
The Career Craftsman believes the color of your parachute is irrelevant if you take the time to get good at flying the damn plane in the first place.
“Drivel” of the Passion Mindset
Or if you reject the craftsman mindset, you can have the passion mindset, which asks how much value your job is offering you.
Newport argues it is only by producing the craftsman mindset that you can create work that you love.
In terms of maturity, the craftsman mindset is the approach of a mature, fully realized human being.
In contrast, a passion mindset is the approach of a naive, immature, lazy narcissist.
Seven. What is the pre-existing passion principle and why does Cal Newport reject it?
There are some who argue that musician Jordan Tice and comedian Steve Martin, both referenced in Newport’s book, are master craftsman who work hard because they are doing so in the service of something they love, in work they are passionate about.
Newport rejects this argument. In the entertainment business, “the tape doesn’t lie.” Both performers work super hard because they want to improve their performance.
They both actually have doubt about their vocations as musician and comedian respectively.
What they are sure about is that if they are going to be good they are going to have to engage in deep work.
Both Jordan Tice and Steve Martin have developed consistent habits of hard work as the foundation of improving their craft.
They have developed a craftsman mindset.
Eight. Why does a craftsman mindset produce a great job?
Only by creating a great craft, bringing great product to the job, does a person have a great job, which Newport observes is distinguished by three ingredients:
Creativity: Ira Glass reinvented radio.
Impact: Steve Jobs affected the way the world uses technology.
Control: Craftsman are not micromanaged by their bosses because of the value they bring to the job.
Nine. What is career capital?
One, great work, which is rare and valuable.
Two, great workers, who have rare and valuable skills.
Three, craftsman mindset, which is determined to be so great they can’t ignore you.
Always Know How Much Career Capital You Have Before Making Career Change
On Cal Newport’s blog, he elaborates on the life of Lisa Feuer, who is featured in his book:
The Courage Fallacy
In 2005, Lisa Feuer quit her marketing job. She had held this same position throughout her 30s before deciding, at the age of 38, that it was time for something different.
As the New York Times reported in an article from last summer, she wanted the same independence and flexibility that her ex-husband, an entrepreneur, enjoyed. Bolstered by this new resolve, Lisa invested in a $4000 yoga instruction course and started Karma Kids Yoga — a yoga practice focused on young children and pregnant women.
Lisa’s story provides a pristine example of what I call the choice-centric approach to building an interesting life. This philosophy emphasizes the importance of choosing better work. Having the courage to leave your boring but dangerously comfortable job — to borrow a phrase from Tim Ferriss — and instead follow your “passion,” has become the treasure map guiding this philosophy’s adherents.
But there’s a problem: the endings are not always so happy…
The Economics of Remarkable Lives
As the recession hit, Lisa’s business struggled. One of the gyms where she taught closed. Two classes offered at a local public high school were dropped due to under-enrollment. The demand for private lessons diminished.
In 2009, she’s on track to make on $15,000 — not nearly enough to cover her expenses.
This, of course, is the problem with the choice-centric approach to life: it assumes that a much better job is out there waiting for you. The reality, however, is often more Darwinian: much better jobs are out there, but they’re only available to people with much better skills than most of their peers.
As I’ve argued before, the traits that make a remarkable life remarkable — flexibility, engagement, recognition, and reward — are highly desirable. Therefore, to land a job (or start a business) that returns these rewards, you must have a skill to offer that’s both rare and valuable.
It’s simple economics.
Lisa didn’t have a skill that was rare or valuable. She did receive professional Yoga training, but the barrier to entry for this training was the ability to write a tuition check and take a few weeks worth of classes. This skill wasn’t rare or valuable enough to guarantee her the traits she admired in the lives of successful entrepreneurs, and as soon as the economy hiccuped she experienced this reality.
Her courage to follow her “passion” was not enough, in isolation, to improve her life.
The Value of Nerves
This brings me back to the (perhaps) controversial title of this post. If you’re in a job that’s boring but tolerable, and you feel nervous about quitting, you might consider trusting this instinct. Your mind might be honing in on the economic truth that you don’t have a skill rare and valuable enough to earn you a substantially better deal somewhere else. Because of this, your mind understandably reacts to your career day dreams with jitters.
On the other hand, those who have built up highly desirable skills rarely feel much nervousness about the prospect of switching jobs. They’ve probably had other job offers, or can name a half-a-dozen clients that would pay handsomely for their consulting services.
For example…
Tens of thousands of bored cubicle dwellers fantasize about building their own companies. (Writers have built lucrative careers around pitching this message.) Most of these workers, however, are nervous about this idea due to the very real possibility that their business ventures will fold, leaving them, like Lisa, broke, without health insurance, and worse off than before.
By contrast, earlier this year I received a call from a head hunter trying to recruit me to work at a Manhattan-based start-up incubator that would, in essence, pay me to think up and try out business ideas. (Jeff Bezos was in a similar position at D.E. Shaw when he came up with the idea for Amazon.com.)
My point is that if I wanted to start my own company (which I don’t), I wouldn’t feel nervous. The reason is clear: By earning a PhD in computer science at MIT I developed a skill that’s rare and valuable to this particular economic segment. The market has made this value clear to me; ergo, no nerves.
The Hard Focus-Centric Approach
Though I’m not nervous about the idea of starting my own company, I am, at this point in my career, nervous about the path that most interests me: becoming a professor at a quality research university.
Instead of paralyzing me, however, these nerves provide wonderful clarity. My goal during my postdoc years now centers on eliminating this nervousness. To do so, I need to make myself unambiguously one of the top candidates in the computer science academic job market. This, in turn, requires incredibly high-quality research that promises to push my research sub-fields forward. This specific goal has trickled down into concrete changes in my day to day work habits. Most notably, I’ve recently rebuilt my schedule around hard focus, and I spend much more time reading the research literature and thinking about the long-term direction of my short-term work.
In other words, nervousness can provide more than just sober-minded warning. It can also help guide you in your efforts to build a remarkable life. Instead of grappling with vague worry — “Am I stupid for wanting to try this new career path?” — you can focus your energy toward a clear metric: building up a valuable skill until you’ve eliminated this nervousness.
Jobs to Avoid
One, the job offers you few opportunities to distinguish yourself with rare and valuable work.
Two, the job makes you focus on useless or morally wrong activities.
Three, the job forces you to work with people you don’t like.
Tedium Is Necessary: Build Your Tedium Muscle
Why did Jordan Tice excel in guitar in ways that Cal Newport did not in spite of their equal years of playing time?
“Discomfort with mental discomfort is a liability in the performance world.”
You must work through the discomfort to reach higher limits of your talent. Only then can you achieve breakthroughs and develop a skill that is rare and valuable.
Jordan practiced, and this meant a lot of repetitious tedium.
In addition to doing deep work, Jordan got instant feedback.
We learn that deep work is most effective when a teacher or mentor figure gives us feedback as we make our progress.
In contrast, Cal played casually. Jordan became a professional. Cal became a guitar-playing dilettante.
What is the 10,000-Hour Rule?
Excellence at performing a complex task requires a minimum of hours to accomplish. We’re not just talking any hours. We’re talking deep work hours, that is undistracted focus entailing a lot of mental discomfort.
Being willing to do 10,000 hours of deep work is a trait we see in people who labeled as geniuses like Mozart and Bill Gates.
Genius does not exist without deep work.
Talent without deep work is a flop, a dud, and a waste.
Is hard work enough to reach a level of mastery?
No. Deep work leads to deliberate practice, which requires feedback. Without deliberate practice and feedback, even a talented hard-working person will hit a plateau.
What are the Five Habits of a Craftsman?
1: Decide what capital market you are in. There are 2 kinds of markets –
Winner-take-all: One killer skills with a few winners all over the world (e.g. Hollywood script writer)
Auction: Diverse collection of skills. Here, there are many different types of career capital and each person might generate their own unique collection (e.g. CEO of a Fortune 500 company)
2: Identify your capital type. Ignore this if you are in a winner-take-all market as there’s only one type of capital. (i.e. be among the top 10 script writers in the world to make it in Hollywood)
For an auction market, however, seek open gates i.e. opportunities to build capital that are already open to you. Open gates get us farther faster. Skill acquisition is like a freight train: Getting it started requires a huge application of effort, but changing its track once it’s moving is easy. (e.g. keep moving upwards in an organization and then laterally instead of trying to move laterally and start from scratch)
3: Define “good.” Set clear goals. For a script writer, the definition of “good” is clear – his scripts being taken seriously.
4: Stretch and destroy. Deliberate practice – that uncomfortable sensation in our heads that feels like physical strain, as if neurons are physically re-forming into new configurations.
5: Be patient. Look years into the future for the payoff. It’s less about paying attention to your main pursuit, and more about your willingness to ignore other pursuits that pop up along the way to distract you.
Six. What is the power of control and how does control result in job happiness?
Giving people more control at work increases their happiness, fulfillment, and engagement.
But you cannot earn safe control without career capital. Think of the lady who quit her job to run yoga studios. She had to go on food stamps.
Signal Phrases Used for In-Text Citations
About 80% of your essay should be your writing and 20% should be quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material.
We use signal phrases to let reader know we are quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing.
Here is an exhaustive list of signal phrases.
Adapted from A Writer’s Reference with Writing in the Disciplines 7th ed. by Diana Hacker and Nancy Sommers
How can I use them?
Below are some guidelines and tips for using signal phrases.
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Signal phrases usually include the author’s name but can also include the author’s job title or background (“reporter for Washington Post,” “researcher,” “senator,” “scholar,” and so on) and/or the title of the source.
-
Signal phrases usually come at the beginning of a sentence before the source material, but they can also occur in the middle of a source or at the end.
-
To avoid monotony and repetition, try to vary both the language and placement of your signal phrases.
According to Maxwell and Hanson,…
As the 2017 IRS report indicates, …
Smith and Johnson state that …
Some scholars have shown…
Legal scholar Terrence Roberts offered a persuasive argument: “….”
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Choose a verb that is appropriate to the way you are using your source. Below is a list of verbs that can be used in signal phrases:
acknowledges adds admits affirms agrees answers argues asserts claims comments concedes confirms contends counters counterattacks declares defines denies disputes echoes endorses estimates finds grants illustrates implies insists mentions notes observes predicts proposes reasons recognizes recommends refutes rejects reports responds reveals speculates states suggests surmises warns writes
4 Steps of MLA In-Text Citations
You need to do four things when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a text.
Step One: The first thing you need to do is introduce the material with a signal phrase.
Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.
Step Two: The quote, paraphrase, or summary you use.
Step Three: The parenthetical citation, which comes after the cited material.
Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’ “unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).
In the cultural website One-Way Street, Richard Prouty observes that Lasdun's "men exist in a fixed point of the universe, but they have no agency" (para. 7).
Step Four: Analyze your cited material. The analysis should be of a greater length than the cited material. Show how the cited material supports your thesis.
Example Set 3 Based on Categories PDF
Signal Phrases Examples
“Scientists Are Totally Rethinking Animal Cognition” by Ross Andersen (The Atlantic)
In the West, consciousness was long thought to be a divine gift bestowed solely on humans. Western philosophers historically conceived of nonhuman animals as unfeeling automatons. Even after Darwin demonstrated our kinship with animals, many scientists believed that the evolution of consciousness was a recent event. They thought the first mind sparked awake sometime after we split from chimps and bonobos. In his 1976 book, The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind, Julian Jaynes argued that it was later still. He said the development of language led us, like Virgil, into the deep cognitive states capable of constructing experiential worlds.
“Welfare for Those Unwilling to Work? It’s Not as Crazy as You Think” by Christine Emba (Washington Post)
As journalist Annie Lowrey, whose book “Give People Money” surveyed basic income programs around the world, points out, the United States is distinguished both by its exaltation of self-sufficiency and its unique racial divide. As it turns out, racism makes it hard to improve the safety net: Research shows that whites are less likely to support welfare programs when they’re told that blacks might benefit, even if they themselves are receiving social support. In fact, this was a flaw in the original New Deal: Agricultural and domestic laborers, most of whom were black, were purposefully excluded from many of the New Deal’s most important provisions.
“70,000 Years of Human History in 400 Pages” by Michael Saler (The Nation)
Through the ubiquity of such tools, scholars and laypeople alike are slowly being acclimatized to thinking in the long term, an outlook encouraged by Jo Guldi and David Armitage in The History Manifesto (2014). They argue that an emphasis on what the historian Fernand Braudel called the longue durée back in 1958 is now the approach best suited to a world awash in data of extended times and climes. Critics of The History Manifesto reasonably point out that while Big and Deep may be appealing, even seductive, size matters: Extra-large will not fit all, and specific historical questions will always determine the scope and method of investigation. Yet the existence of the debate itself (quite lively on Twitter, of all places) is testimony to the reincarnation of Braudel’s project.
“Can You Believe YouTube Caused the Rise in Flat-Earthers?” by Madison Malone Kircher
When YouTube said earlier this year that it would “begin reducing recommendations of borderline content and content that could misinform users in harmful ways,” people praised the decision. A certain ex-engineer called it a “historic victory” on Twitter and applauded the company for making such a move, possibly at a great expense to its business model. Which … ha. Among the types of videos YouTube said it would cut back on recommending was flat-Earth content. As in, videos peddling the idea that the Earth is not, as science has repeatedly proven, round. And while I’m all for quashing the spread of truly wrongheaded and potentially dangerous ideas, in the case of flat-Earth indoctrination, the damage has long since been done.
Researchers from Texas Tech University believe they’ve isolated YouTube videos as ground zero for the spread of flat-earth theories, The Guardianreports. Speaking with attendees at the biggest annual gathering of flat-Earthers both in 2017 and 2018, the research team found that people who fell into the world of the flat Earth were often those who were already spending time on YouTube watching other conspiracy videos (about 9/11, for example). This feedback loop — where watching conspiracy videos leads to being shown more conspiracy videos, which in turn motivates creators to make more conspiracy content — was also cited by the above-mentioned ex-YouTube engineer. It’s that circle that has enabled flat-Earth content to thrive. Researchers said one of the most popular videos is a nearly two-hour-long piece that details myriad reasons why, if you’re smart enough to think beyond what has been crammed into your brain by society for your whole life, the Earth is so obviously flat.
Writing Effective Introduction Paragraphs for Your Essays
Weak Introductions to Avoid
One. Don’t use overused quotes and cliches (long list of cliches):
“We have nothing to fear but fear itself.”
“My fellow Americans, ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”
“To be or not to be, that is the question.”
Two. Don’t use pretentious, grandiose, overwrought, bloated, self-regarding, clichéd, unintentionally funny openings:
Since the Dawn of Man, people have sought love and happiness . . .
In today’s society, we see more and more people cocooning in their homes . . .
Man has always wondered why happiness and contentment are so elusive like trying to grasp a bar of sudsy, wet soap.
We have now arrived at a Societal Epoch where we no longer truly communicate with one another as we have embarked upon the full-time task of self-aggrandizement through the social media of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, et al.
In this modern world we face a new existential crisis with the advent of newfangled technologies rendering us razzle-dazzled with the overwhelming possibilities of digital splendor on one hand and painfully dislocated and lonely with our noses constantly rubbing our digital screens on the other.
Since Adam and Eve traipsed across the luxuriant Garden of Eden searching for the juicy, succulent Adriatic fig only to find it withered under the attack of mites, ants, and fruit flies, mankind has embarked upon the quest for the perfect pesticide.
Three. Never apologize to the reader:
Sorry for these half-baked chicken scratch thoughts. I didn’t get a lot of sleep last night and I didn’t have sufficient time to do the necessary research for the topic you assigned me.
I’m hardly an expert on this subject and I don’t know why anyone would take me seriously, but here it goes.
Forgive me but after over-indulging last night at HomeTown Buffet my brain has been rendered in a mindless fog and the ramblings of this essay prove to be rather incoherent.
Four. Don’t throw a thesis cream pie in your reader’s face.
In this essay I am going to prove to you why Americans will never buy those stupid automatic cars that don’t need a driver. The four supports that will support my thesis are ______________, ______________, _______________, and ________________.
It is my purpose in this essay to show you why I'm correct on the subject of the death penalty. My proofs will be _________, _______, _________, and ___________.
Five. Don’t use a dictionary definition (standard procedure for a sixth grade essay but not college in which you should use more sophisticated methods such as extended definition or expert definitions):
The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines metacognition as “awareness or analysis of one’s own learning or thinking process.”
General Principles of an Effective Introduction Paragraph
It piques your readers’ interest (often called a “hook”).
It is compelling.
It is timely.
It is relevant to the human condition and to your topic.
It transitions to your topic and/or thesis.
The Ten Types of Paragraph Introductions
One. Use a blunt statement of fact or insight that captures your readers’ attention:
It's good for us to have our feelings hurt.
You've never really lived until someone has handed you your __________ on a stick.
Men who are jealous are cheaters.
We would assume that jealous men are obsessed with fidelity, but in fact the most salient feature of the jealous man is that he is more often than not cheating on his partner. His jealousy results from projecting his own infidelities on his partner. He says to himself, “I am a cheater and therefore so is she.” We see this sick mentality in the character Dan from Ha Jin’s “The Beauty.” Trapped in his jealousy, Dan embodies the pathological characteristics of learned helplessness evidenced by ___________, _______________, ________________, and _______________.
Rick Wilson, author of "Bob Woodward, Bane of Presidents, Turns His Fire on Cheeto Jesus," opens his essay with cogent language:
Washington, D.C. may soon be littered with the political bodies of people who believed they could spin their way out of the impact of the new Bob Woodward book, Fear. I’ve been to the Washington rodeo enough times to know that Woodward’s methodical, grinding style of investigation doesn’t lend itself to escaping unscathed, especially for bad actors and loose cannons. Hell, as a young Department of Defense aide in 1990, I saw it up close when his book, The Commanders, led to the firing of USAF Chief of Staff Mike Dugan. He had tapes then, as he does now.
This week, it’s Donald Trump’s turn under Woodward’s political electron microscope, and the President’s hissy-fit reaction tells us how close Woodward’s work has struck. Trump knows his White House staff, up to and including his daughter, thinks he’s off the rails, a danger to himself and the country, and unable to execute the duties of a Waffle House manager much less the President of the United States.
John Taylor Gatto opens his essay “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why” as thus:
I taught for thirty years in some of the worst schools in Manhattan, and in some of the best, and during that time I became an expert in boredom. Boredom was everywhere in the world, and if you asked the kids, as I often did, why they felt so bored, they always gave the same answers: They said the work was stupid, that it made no sense, that they already knew it. They said they wanted to be doing something real, not just sitting around. They said teachers didn’t seem to know much about their subjects and clearly weren’t interested in learning more. And the kids were right: Their teachers were every bit as bored as they were.
Boredom is the common condition of schoolteachers, and anyone who has spent time in a teacher’s lounge can vouch for the low energy, the whining, the dispirited attitudes, to be found there. When asked why they feel bored, the teachers tend to blame the kids, as you might expect. Who wouldn’t get bored teaching students who are rude and interested only in grades? If even that. Of course, teachers are themselves products of the same twelve-year compulsory school programs that so thoroughly bore their students, and as school personnel they are trapped inside structures even more rigid than those imposed upon the children. Who, then, is to blame?
Gatto goes on to argue in his thesis that school trains children to be servants for mediocre (at best) jobs when school should be teaching innovation, individuality, and leadership roles.
Two. Write a definition based on the principles of extended definition (term, class, distinguishing characteristics) or quote an expert in a field of study:
Metacognition is an essential asset to mature people characterized by their ability to value long-term gratification over short-term gratification, their ability to distance themselves from their passions when they’re in a heated emotional state, their ability to stand back and see the forest instead of the trees, and their ability to continuously make assessments of the effectiveness of their major life choices. In the fiction of John Cheever and James Lasdun, we encounter characters that are woefully lacking in metacognition evidenced by _____________, ______________, _____________, and _______________.
According to Alexander Batthanany, member of the Viktor Frankl Institute, logotherapy, which is the search for meaning, “is identified as the primary motivational force in human beings.” Batthanany further explains that logotherapy is “based on three philosophical and psychological concepts: Freedom of Will, Will to Meaning, and Meaning in Life.” Embracing the concepts of logotherapy is vastly more effective than conventional, Freud-based psychotherapy when we consider ________________, ______________, __________________, and ________________.
Three. Use an insightful quotation that has not, to your knowledge anyway, been overused:
George Bernard Shaw once said, “There are two great tragedies in life. The first is not getting what we want. The second is getting it.” Shaw’s insight speaks to the tantalizing chimera, that elusive quest we take for the Mythic She-Beast who becomes are life-altering obsession. As the characters in John Cheever and James Lasdun’s fiction show, the human relationship with the chimera is source of paradox. On one hand, having a chimera will kill us. On the other, not having a chimera will kill us. Cheever and Lasdun’s characters twist and torment under the paradoxical forces of their chimeras evidenced by _____________, _______________, ______________, and __________________.
Four. Use a startling fact to get your reader’s attention:
There are currently more African-American men in prison than there were slaves at the peak of slavery in the United States. We read this disturbing fact in Michelle Alexander’s magisterial The New Jim Crow, which convincingly argues that America’s prison complex is perpetuating the racism of slavery and Jim Crow in several insidious ways.
We read that in the latest study by the Institute for Higher Education, Leadership & Policy at Cal State Sacramento that only 30% of California community college students are transferring or getting their degrees. We have a real challenge in the community college if 70% are falling by the wayside.
8,000 students walk through El Camino's Humanities Building every week. Only 10% will pass English 1A. Only 3% will pass English 1C.
99% of my students acknowledge that most students at El Camino are seriously compromised by their smartphone addiction to the point that the addiction is making them fail or do non-competitive work in college.
Five. Use an anecdote (personal or otherwise) to get your reader’s attention:
When my daughter was one years old and I was changing her diaper, she without warning jammed her thumb into my eye, forcing my eyeball into my brain and almost killing me. After the assault, I suffered migraine headaches for several months and frequently would have to wash milky pus from the injured eye.
One afternoon I was napping under the covers when Lara walked into the room talking on the phone to her friend, Hannah. She didn’t know I was in the room, confusing the mound on the bed with a clump of pillows and blankets. I heard her whisper to Hannah, “I found another small package from eBay. He’s buying watches and not telling me.”
That’s when I thought about getting a post office box.
This could be the opening introduction for an essay topic about “economic infidelity.”
As we read in Stephen King’s essay “Write or Die”:
“Hardly a week after being sprung from detention hall, I was once more invited to step down to the principal’s office. I went with a sinking heart, wondering what new sh** I’d stepped in.”
Six. Use a piece of vivid description or a vivid illustration to get your reader’s attention:
My gym looks like an enchanting fitness dome, an extravaganza of taut, sweaty bodies adorned in fluorescent spandex tights contorting on space-age cardio machines, oil-slicked skin shrouded in a synthetic fog of dry ice colored by the dizzying splash of lavender disco lights. Tribal drum music plays loudly. Bottled water flows freely, as if from some Elysian spring, over burnished flesh. The communal purgation appeals to me. My fellow cardio junkies and I are so self-abandoned, free, and euphoric, liberated in our gym paradise.
But right next to our workout heaven is a gastronomical inferno, one of those all-you-can-eat buffets, part of a chain, which is, to my lament, sprouting all over Los Angeles. I despise the buffet, a trough for people of less discriminating tastes who saunter in and out of the restaurant at all hours, entering the doors of the eatery without shame and blind to all the gastrointestinal and health-related horrors that await them. Many of the patrons cannot walk out of their cars to the buffet but have to limp or rely on canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and other ambulatory aids, for it seems a high percentage of the customers are afflicted with obesity, diabetes, arthritis, gout, hypothalamic lesions, elephantiasis, varicose veins and fleshy tumors. Struggling and wheezing as they navigate across the vast parking lot that leads to their gluttonous sanctuary, they seem to worship the very source of their disease.
In front of the buffet is a sign of rules and conduct. One of the rules urges people to stand in the buffet line in an orderly fashion and to be patient because there is plenty of food for everyone. Another rule is that children are not to be left unattended and running freely around the buffet area. My favorite rule is that no hands, tongues, or other body parts are allowed to touch the food. Tongs and other utensils are to be used at all times. The rules give you an idea of the kind of people who eat there. These are people I want to avoid.
But as I walk to the gym from my car, which shares a parking lot with the buffet patrons, I cannot avoid the nauseating smell of stale grease oozing from the buffet’s rear dumpster, army green and stained with splotches and a seaweed-like crust of yellow and brown grime.
Often I see cooks and dishwashers, their bodies covered with soot, coming out of the back kitchen door to throw refuse into the dumpster, a smoldering receptacle with hot fumes of bacteria and flies. Hunchbacked and knobby, the poor employees are old, weary men with sallow, rheumy eyes and cuts and bruises all over their bodies. I imagine them being tortured deep within the bowels of the fiery kitchen on some Medieval rack. They emerge into the blinding sunshine like moles, their eyes squinting, with their plastic garbage bags twice the size of their bodies slung over their shoulders, and then I look into their sad eyes—eyes that seem to beg for my help and mercy. And just when I am about to give them words of hope and consolation or urge them to flee for their lives, it seems they disappear back into the restaurant as if beckoned by some invisible tyrant.
The above could transition to the topic of people of a certain weight being required to buy three airline tickets for an entire row of seats.
Seven. Summarize both sides of a debate.
America is torn by the national healthcare debate. One camp says it’s a crime that 25,000 Americans die unnecessarily each year from treatable disease and that modeling a health system from other developed countries is a moral imperative. However, there is another camp that fears that adopting some version of universal healthcare is tantamount to stepping into the direction of socialism.
Eight. State a misperception, fallacy, or error that your essay will refute.
Healthcare
Americans against universal or national healthcare are quick to say that such a system is “socialist,” “communist,” and “un-American,” but a close look at their rhetoric shows that it is high on knee-jerk, mindless paroxysms and short on reality. Contrary to the enemies of national healthcare, providing universal coverage is very American and compatible with the American brand of capitalism.
Civil War in America
In the South, it is still common to hear white people speak of the Civil War by denying its connection to the evils of slavery and treason. Rather, it is commonly spouted by white people in the south that the Civil War was the result of "Northern aggression" and "state rights," but these explanations are odious poppycock and are part of America's shameful history of fake news, which afflicts our country like an ugly, festering cancer sore to this very day.
Nine. Make a general statement about your topic.
From Sherry Turkle’s essay “How Computers Change the Way We Think”:
The tools we use to think change the ways in which we think. The invention of written language brought about a radical shift in how we process, organize, store, and transmit representations of the world. Although writing remains our primary information technology, today when we think about the impact of technology on our habits of mind, we think primarily of the computer.
Ten. Pose a question your essay will try to answer:
Why are diet books more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more fat?
Why is psychotherapy becoming more and more popular, yet Americans are getting more and more crazy?
Why are the people of Qatar the richest people in the world, yet score at the bottom of all Happiness Index metrics?
Why are courses in the Humanities more essential to your well-being that you might think?
What is the difference between thinking and critical thinking?'