Review of Works Cited page MLA format:
Sample with Guide
Format Rules
Brief Format Rules
Review of Comma Splices (a continuing problem as I read your essays)
Comma Splices—joining two complete sentences with a comma (3 of these on an essay at Cal State or UC results in an automatic F)
The only words you can use to join to complete sentences with a comma before the joining word are what are called “FANBOYS”—for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so
For example, these sentences are correct with one of the FANBOYS words:
- Eddie Haskell was known as an obsequious sniveling fraud in the iconic Leave It to Beaver, but he has remained throughout the ages a beloved TV character.
- McMahon abstains from HomeTown Buffet, and he also avoids Shakey’s, Claim Jumpers, McDonalds, Taco Bell, Del Taco, Subway, Quiznos, and Dominoes.
- Paris Hilton remains the quintessential celebrity, yet her achievements in life are nil rendering her an absolute cipher.
You can NOT connect two complete sentences with conjunctive adverbs and use a comma. You must use a period or a semicolon. For a list of conjunctive adverbs, CLICK HERE.
Examples of comma splices in which conjunctive adverbs, INCORRECTLY, are used to join two complete sentences.
- Going AWOL is a sign of cowardice, however, we should not coerce the absent soldier from going back to his platoon.
- We are a country that dismisses sleep as the act of the Lazy Man, to the contrary, though, sleep is essential to supreme health.
- Young people are addicted to text messaging, moreover, they ostracize their peers who are not “text-message literate” because they are considered “out of touch.”
- You should avoid Claim Jumpers tonight for dinner, instead go home, barbecue yourself some salmon, and sauté a pound of spinach with olive oil, herbs, spices, and freshly grated Parmesan cheese.
- The crying cow grabbed my attention, never in my life did I look at a cow that way.
- Mr. Dawkins is an exceptional professor, I am positive he changed my life.
One. Essay Assignment
In a 5-page research paper, explain why the novel is so painfully dark as to be almost unbearable in its worldview. Your outline might look like this:
Paragraph 1: Introduction
Paragraph 2: Thesis with 4 or 5 mapping components
Paragraphs 3-9: Elaborate on your mapping components
Paragraph 10, conclusion restates your thesis
Last page is your Works Cited page with no fewer than 5 sources
Another Option:
In page one, write a personal narrative about a time you compromised your individual conscience by obeying peer pressure or some authority figure.
Then in the second page, start your thesis paragraph in which you connect the themes to the dangers of obedience as it relates to power, authority, and symbiosis. Because this is your multiple-source research paper, you will need to connect the novel’s themes to themes outside the text. You may, for example, look at the theme of obedience in the context of Stanley Milgram’s famous experiments or the abuse of power in the Stanford Experiment.
A thesis might look like this: The Chocolate War shows the demands of tribalism, which compromises our humanity by ________________________, _____________________________, _________________________, and _______________________________.
In your final page, you will write about how you or someone you know who exercised noble disobedience to defy authority or peer pressure. Your conclusion will tie in your personal account with your novel analysis.
Your body paragraphs will correspond to the components you use to fill in the above blanks. Your conclusion will be one sentence, a brief, dramatic restatement of your thesis. Your final page, your Works Cited page, will show the sources you used from The Chocolate War, from my blog, from interviews, or from other helpful sources you find. Your Works Cited page and manuscript must conform to MLA format. Be sure to make your own catchy, creative title.
Another, Open-Ended Option for The Chocolate War
Analyze the conflict between the demands of conformity and individual conscience as they play out in the novel by comparing this conflict to someone you know. Same research requirements as above.
Variation of Your First Option: Nihilism in the Novel
Answer the question: Why is the novel saddled in nihilism with no hope of free will or redemption? Consider centripetal motion of the characters, corruption in high places, blind obedience to power, dehumanization, and determinism.
Lexicon
1. embryonic stage of mental development, psychological immaturity that makes one blindly obey a parent or authority figure. To obey blindly is to never grow beyond the embryonic stage. A man who wants his wife to blindly obey him does not want an adult partner; he wants a child and vice versa.
The Orange County Diet Never Expands
Taco 7-Layer Salad
Macaroni and Cheese
Tator Tots
Chili
Fried Chicken
Cupcakes
People who marry someone, not out of love, but to please others, live in the embryonic stage.
People who let others make all their choices for them: college study, career, marriage, exercise, etc., live in the embryonic stage.
In Chapter 1, Jerry seems to be going out for football because “it’s the thing to do.” He seems to be on autopilot in his blind pursuit of conformity. He is in the embryonic stage.
2. Emergence or birth of humanity is predicated on doubting, questioning, and sometimes challenging authority. Heroes and prophets question the status quo, the way things are. The death of humanity is a result of groupthink, sacrificing critical thinking to please the group. Consider groupthink experiments like counting lines in a diagram.
3. Placid conformity, passive and unquestioning, without skeptical powers
4. “Bread and Circus”: The disparity between technological and moral development: Even as technology evolves, most humans are content with “bread and circus,” which results in placid conformity. Since the beginning of time, 1% of the human race controls 99% of the masses by placating them with bread and circus.
5. In our “free society,” most obedience takes the form of consumer obedience, which is conformity to desires stirred by marketing and peer pressure.
6. Consumer ostracism (not having an iPod) or an iPhone or an iPad. You must have an iPhone, for example, to engage in all the exciting apps like push-ups wars and calorie counting.
7. Tribal obedience, doing what the herd does to avoid being ostracized.
Example of Consumer Obedience: Costco Is a Super Store That Creates “Obedient Consumers”
1. Costco shoppers believe they have to buy bulk to get a “good deal” even if their products perish or are consumed in such unhealthy large quantities.
2. Costco shoppers like to show off what “a great deal” they got to other people.
3. Costco shoppers feel they are in competition with other shoppers to get a “great deal.”
4. Costco shoppers pay for an annual membership and are proud they belong to a special club that entitles them to remarkable privileges.
5. Costco shoppers over-spend because they’re deluded into thinking they are getting a “bargain.”
6. Costco shoppers are so compelled to “stock up” on “supplies” that they shop with a certain anxiety as if they were preparing for a drought, a famine, or a nuclear shelter. There is a joyless survival mentality.
7. Costco shoppers shop to escape from a desperation and fear about life and the more they shop the more dehumanized and violent they become.
What Is “Noble Disobedience”?
One. Noble disobedience; an act of will in which we rebel against our caretakers, regardless of their intentions, when they wish to “protect” us by stagnating our growth and making us like babies in the womb. See the film Pleasantville or The Truman Show.
Two. Smothered by the Caretaker. When an authority figure—God, parents, spouse, teacher, school gang like the Vigils, community—takes care of all our needs but restrains our intellectual and emotional growth so that in essence we remain like fetuses in the womb. We never emerge and become fully human. We should be disobedient toward these smothering caretakers and establish our independence, our autonomy, and emerge as fully-realized adult human beings.
Three. Disobeying the Herd. Another form of noble disobedience is when we refuse to conform to the Herd, the group who acts cruel against the outsider, insists that we’re not cool unless we buy an iPod or a pair of True Religion designer jeans. Or there is Jerry’s refusal to sell chocolates, first from his teacher’s order, then from the order of The Vigils.
Four. Related the number 3, disobedience to Consumer Culture, which says you can’t define yourself as a “winner in society” unless you have a collection of “essential possessions.” For example, some believe, knowingly or not, that there are only two types of people in the world, home owners and renters.
Five. Disobedience as the courage to be different, to produce art that is not popular and then over time it becomes popular. This is called having the conviction of genius.
Six. Disobedience means venturing into the Unknown and leaving your familiar lifestyle behind you because though your familiar lifestyle gives you comfort and belonging, it does not give you a sense of meaning or individuality. For example, it may mean leaving a comfortable relationship that languishes in stagnation. I had a student who left her boyfriend and went to UNLV for this reason.
Seven. Disobedience means ignoring the expectations of your family and friends regarding your career and marriage plans.
Eight. Disobedience means refusing to worship society’s gods, heroes, and myths when you can see the fraud and emptiness behind the icons.
Nine. Disobedience means not being so needy as requiring the approval of others even if this absence of approval results in your having to stand alone. Your courage allows you to stand in solitude without the comfort and approval of the Herd.
Ten. Disobedience means “saying no to power.” This means from a philosophical point of view that we desire justice for all instead of a few enjoying power over the many.
Eleven. Disobedience means disobeying the bureaucracy that demands our dehumanization through unquestioned obedience of routine and sometimes immoral actions.
Twelve: Psychologist, philosopher, and author Erich Fromm writes: “If a man can only obey and not disobey, he is a slave; if he can only disobey and not obey, he is a rebel. Jerry’s conflict is choosing between being a slave to conformity or a noble rebel against it. We shall see.
Obeying the Herd: Examples from Students
1. Fighting because the herd expected you to, not because you wanted to. Men and women have provided this one.
2. Smoking.
3. Illegal racing on city streets.
4. Dating a woman who scared the hell out of a guy.
5. A guy majors in accounting to ingratiate himself with his father. Now he's an alcoholic truck driver for Frito Lay.
6. A girl in middle school lets her friends at a slumber party "dress her up" in meretricious, revealing, scandalously scanty garments and garish makeup to the point that when she looks at herself in the mirror she can't recognize herself.
7. A guy joins the Marines because all his buddies are doing it and then he realizes he hates military life.
8. Stealing parents' prescription drugs to have a blindfolded drug party.
Research Paper Sources for your Works Cited Page
Adolescent Literature
Alienation in The Chocolate War
Bryan-Chocolate War
The book's nihilism offends a school, which wants a petition to ban it!
The Chocolate War: Still Tasting Good
Why The Chocolate War Was Banned
LSU Faculty
Chocolate War Resource Guide