Your Annotated Bibliography
Your annotated bibliography, like your Works Cited page, shows your sources (in this case 5) in alphabetical order.
Under each listing, you need 3 paragraphs:
Provide a concise summary.
Show the significance or quality of the source (authority, credibility, thoroughness, relevance).
Explain the source's purpose or usefulness for supporting your thesis.
Outlines for Essays That Argue a Position
Present the topic
Concede your opponents' position
Develop a thesis statement that both asserts your position and addresses your opponents.
Provide your first reason (mapping component) with support.
Provide your second reason (mapping component) with support.
(Etc.)
Counterargument-Refutation Section
Conclusion
Harvard College Writing Center Conclusion Advice
Purdue Owl Formal Topic Outline
Common Errors: Comma Splices and Sentence Fragments
Find the comma splice:
Grading freshmen composition essays makes you lose IQ points. Why? Because there’s only one of you grading over 500 sub-literate essays a semester. You don’t raise them up, by sheer numbers, they pull you down. Try telling this to your Dean and see how sympathetic he is. He’ll say, “We hired you to change the future of America, you nincompoop!”
Identify Comma Splices and Fragments in the Following
I’m in a constant struggle to lose weight. I exercise like a fitness demon, that’s not the problem. My problem is that I eat like a crazed survivor of a famine whose every meal must compensate for the deprivation I’ve suffered in some cosmic universe that doesn’t exist. Except in my gluttonous imagination.
I embraced the six meals a day philosophy a long time ago. The premise is that you should eat several small meals, each one no bigger than the palm of your hand. Rather than eat three large meals and thereby overburden your digestive system. The problem is that my six meals aren’t palm sized, they’re more the size of a watermelon and even then I’m still hungry. Now that you mention it, I don’t even eat six meals a day, I eat ten. And not small snacks either. We’re talking substantial heaping cartloads of food.
Did I tell you I can’t stop eating after one plate? I like to take seconds and thirds. Sometimes fourths. And then there’s my daughters’ leftovers, Panini grilled cheese pesto sandwiches, popcorn, tortilla chips, pancakes, waffles, French toast. I snort it all up like an anteater as I clean the kitchen table.
Have we discussed chocolate cake? I need two large slices, about twice a week, to fend off the existential vacuum. I’ll take red velvet in a pinch. Though it doesn’t penetrate my craving sensors as deeply as the chocolate.
My wife is currently baking coffee cinnamon swirl cake because she likes to bake a dessert before we watch our favorite show Game of Thrones.
I told her I didn’t want any coffee cake as I’m trying to trim my waistline, but she reminded me that I already ate over half of it. I don’t even remember what I’m eating, I think I’m in trouble.
Sentence Fragments on Owl Purdue
Sample Introduction and Thesis
If our posts on Facebook get us a lot of attention in the form of “likes” and comments and we find this attention makes us gloat like we’re the King of Facebook, we have to ask ourselves: Should we be getting our thrills in this manner? Of all the things to get thrilled about, the birth of a baby, the expulsion of a fascist leader, the discovery of a cure for some terminable disease, why do so many of us jump for joy upon getting Facebook “likes” and comments?
Could the answer be we’ve lowered our expectations about what defines our own happiness? Before Facebook, we had more exalted expectations that drove us, that defined our goals, which made us truly happy. But now we sit in a robe while eating a Pop Tart and copy and paste something someone else wrote on Facebook and the attention we get from our posts makes us happy.
Maybe we shouldn’t be happy. Maybe we should be ashamed. Maybe we should be full of self-loathing. Maybe we should be full of disgust.
In addition to a Facebook “like” category, there needs to be a “Get a Life, You Pathetic Loser” category, so that my real friends can remind me how far down the rabbit hole of a wasted life I’ve allowed Facebook and Twitter to send me.
Such are the sentiments of Sherry Turkle, the author of Alone Together who argues convincingly that Facebook and other forms of social media have denigrated the human condition by ________________, ________________, __________________, ___________________, and ___________________________.
Intro: NYT article about how connected and alone we are.
Study Questions
One. What is the liminal world and how do we get lost there?
See page 213 in which we see there are worlds beyond our daily life routines where we feel encouraged to experiment with our identity and alter ego, giving it a powerful life that can get out of control. This is where we nurture our avatar and we lose boundaries with ourselves and others, surrendering to a life of excess fantasy and cutting cut off from reality.
Two. A flourishing human being experiences “flow,” we read on page 226. What is “flow” and how does the networked life impede it? What are the consequences? Flow means being fully immersed into the present, being fully focused, having undivided attention. People who are truly happy experience flow; people who are miserable distract themselves from their misery by texting and checking their Facebook status.
Three. What is the “seeking” drive and how does it make us addicted to being networked? 227
We crave connectivity so much that we're vulnerable to the ping of a new email or some other sound summoning us. As a result, we live a life of fragmented distraction.
Four. What are the rules of texting such as the ten minute response rule and others? See page 265. Also “full attention reciprocity” and its imbalance. One friend tries harder and feels less because of it.
“I text you more than you text me. And my response time is quicker than yours. What gives? Should I end this friendship?”
Five. What does the abused man on page 281 say about people, even sadistic ones, that makes them better than robots? They have a story. There is a "back story" like characters in a movie. They are part of life. Robots are not.
Six. What is the Facebook Friend Paradox? See 280. We have so many "friends" on Facebook but Americans say they've never had so few friends.
Seven. Summarize the abuse of technology and this abuse’s role in dehumanization. See 292, 293, 295, and elsewhere.
The abuse is gradual. As Marshal McLuhan writes, quoted from The Shallows by Nicholas Carr, “The effects of technology do not occur at the level of opinions or concepts,” but alter “patterns of perception steadily and without any resistance.”
In other words, the Net or the “Media work their magic, or their mischief, on the nervous system itself.”
The technology takes over our minds and our bodies. There are psychological changes taking places, chemical addiction, a tingle of neurotransmitter when you see a red colored “like” on Facebook.
The technology has become so small, little handheld devices, that it has become ubiquitous and as such inseparable from us. It has gotten inside us.
An example of the Net’s growing power: In 2005 adults in North America spent six hours online weekly; by 2009 that number doubled to twelve hours.
For young adults, that number is much higher.
The average American teen sends/receives 2,272 texts a month.
Average American is “on screen” 8.5 hours a day.
Our technology as “remapped the neural circuitry,” writes Nicholas Carr.
Carr points out that our powers of concentration have diminished. We quickly get “fidgety.”
Former good readers can’t read long books or even long articles anymore. They can only skim info-bites.
We call less; we read newspapers less; we spend face-to-face time with people less, we read less, we use snail mail less; the list goes on.
Eight. What is realtechnik and how is it an antidote to our dehumanization? See the definition and others in this book review.
- Page 267
As you read through Turkle's thoughts and observations, certain concepts stand out as especially important. Here I will mention a few that made a strong impression on me:
- Realtechnik — a way of thinking about the impact of technologies and the choices we can make about their uses.
- What I call realtechnik suggests that we step back and reassess when we hear triumphalist or apocalyptic narratives about how to live with technology. Realtechnik is skeptical about linear progress. It encourages humility, a state of mind in which we are most open to facing problems and reconsidering decisions. It helps us to acknowledge costs and recognize the things we hold inviolate.
Nine. Distinguish between our vulnerabilities and our needs. See page 295.We are vulnerable to technologically-driven narcissism, and we have lost our real needs, real human connection, replacing them with artificial needs, control and adulation.
Carr writes, “We are plunged into an eco-system of interruption technologies.” The effect is fragmentation and the atrophy of our concentration and focus.
Ten. Turkle’s book is that of a Net Skeptic refuting the Net Enthusiasts. Some would call Turkle a Luddite. Is that a fair criticism? Explain.
Nicholas Carr writes: “The products of modern science are not in themselves good or bad; it is the way they are used that determines their value.”
Eleven. What effect does technology have on the brain? Carr writes that the brain is malleable, that it is shaped by technology, that parts of the brain die and other parts flourish depending on a changing environment. “The brain is very plastic.”
“There is evidence that the cells of our brains literally develop and grow bigger with use, and atrophy or waste away with disuse.”
Being hooked on the Net, we switch back and forth different interruption technologies and we lose competence, intelligence, and intellect.
Twelve. What effect does the Net have on our intellect?
Carr writes: “We enter an environment that promotes cursory reading, hurried and distracted thinking, and superficial learning.”
Considering the brain’s plasticity, “if you were to set out to invent a medium that would rewire our mental circuits as quickly and thoroughly as possible, you would probably end up designing something that looks and works a lot like the Interent.”
“The Net delivers precisely the kind of sensory and cognitive stimuli-repetitive, intensive, interactive, addictive—that have been shown to result in strong and rapid alterations in brain circuits and functions.”
We read in The Shallows that researcher Maryanne Wolf says Net immersion makes us “sacrifice the facility that makes deep reading possible. We revert to being ‘mere decoders of information.’”
Carr writes that the Web is “an interruption machine” and “frequent interruptions scatter our thoughts, weaken our memory, and makes us tense and anxious. The more complex the train of thought we’re involved in, the greater the impairment the distractions cause.”
Carr cites studies that when we go back and forth from two or more tasks, we impede thinking and competence.
Other studies show that the more we’re on the Web, the more we become Skimmers, not Readers. Brain and eye activity changes.
A skimmer is called a “Power Browser.” The PB reads more but more superficially. “Hyperlinks distract people from reading and thinking deeply.”
As skimmers, we no longer value narratives, stories that tell important truths about ourselves.
According to Douglas Rushkoff, "The traditional linear story works by creating a character we can identify with, putting that character we can identify with, putting that character in danger, and then allowing him or her to discover a way out. We meet Oedipus, Luke Skywalker, or Dora the Explorer. Something happens--an initiating event--that sends the character on a quest." The characters embark on, what Joseph Campbell calls, a "heroic journey."
With "interactivity," the remote control, for example, consumers of entertainment are less likely to absorb a meaningful narrative. They'd rather skim.
Without meaningful narratives, we become ignorant, even dumb, according to Rushkoff, who writes that Americans are immersed in a "mediated disortion field," with such misinformation that the number of Americans "unsure about evolution increased from 7 percent to 21 percent, while those questioning global warming increased from 31 percent in 1997 to 48 percent in 2010."
Skimmers are not apparently well educated.
The Internet, Rushkoff continues, makes us skinners of "Everyone Is Equal" so that legit and non-legit opinion makers share the stage. See Cult of the Amateur.
Doug's Critique of Networked World with comments
Research Sources
Review of Internet Dangers
One. Multitasking results in divided energy and mediocre work as we live in a state of continual partial attention.
Two. Death of intimacy results from preference of control and convenience over compromise and reciprocity. Everyone is "pauseable."
Three. A networked life encourages narcissism and constant need for social validation from others; also a networked life makes us feel we're the center of the universe.
Four. A networked life flattens our personae into emoticans.
Five. We suffer off-the-grid anxiety because we have an always-on mentality.
Six. We live in the New Solitude, which means we're mentally absent from others but at the same time we're tethered to each other in a degraded way.
Seven. We live in present shock in which we see "the diminishment of anything that isn't happening right now--and the onslaught of everything that supposedly is" (Rushkoff).
Eight. We suffer from digiphrenia, as Rushkoff writes, using technology to be in more than one place at the same time.
Nine. Internet alters our brain circuits for the worse, turning us into "skimmers."
Links that accuse Turkle of being a technophobe:
From Jonah Lehrer in NYT:
There is no easy reply to these critiques. The Internet is full of absurdities, from the booming economy of virtual worlds — a user recently paid $335,000 for land on a fictitious asteroid in Entropia Universe — to the mass retweeting of ****** ******. It’s always fun to mock the stilted language of teenagers and lament the decline of letter writing. But these obvious objections shouldn’t obscure the real mystery: If the Internet is such an alienating force, then why can’t we escape it? If Facebook is so insufferable, then why do hundreds of millions of people check their page every day? Why did I just text my wife instead of calling her?
I certainly don’t expect Turkle to have all the answers, but her ethnographic portraits would have benefited from a more probing investigation of such questions. The teenagers she quotes complain about everything — phones, texting, e-mail, Skype. And yet, virtually none of them seem willing to turn off the digital spigot.
Perhaps this is because, despite our misgivings about the Internet, its effects on real-life relationships seem mostly positive, if minor. A 2007 study at Michigan State University involving 800 undergraduates, for instance, found that Facebook users had more social capital than abstainers, and that the site increased measures of “psychological well-being,” especially in those suffering from low self-esteem. Other studies have found that frequent blogging leads to increased levels of social support and integration and may serve as “the core of building intimate relationships.” One recurring theme to emerge from much of this research is that most people, at least so far, are primarily using the online world to enhance their offline relationships, not supplant them.
Needless to say, the portrait painted by these studies is very different from the one in Turkle’s fascinating, readable and one-sided book. We are so eager to take sides on technology, to describe the Web in utopian or dystopian terms, but maybe that’s the problem. In the end, it’s just another tool, an accessory that allows us to do what we’ve always done: interact with one other. The form of these interactions is always changing. But the conversation remains.
Jonah Lehrer’s most recent book is “How We Decide.”
Example Thesis Structures
Turkle's argument that social media has diminished our humanity is convincing when we consider ______________, ___________, _____________, ______________, and ________________.
Turkle's argument that social media presents dangers to our humanity is both exaggerated and erroneous evidenced by ___________, ___________, ________________, ____________, and _______________.
While Turkle does a good job of showing the narcissism and disconnection from the misuse of social media, her vision of a future techno-dystopia is misguided because _______________, ____________, _______________, and _________________.
Objections to Sherry Turkle's Argument
One. She is too one-sided with only negative anecdotes and examples of the way technology disconnects us and makes us narcissistic.
Two. She exaggerates the pitfalls and dangers of social media.
Three. She offers no solutions to social media addiction and dehumanization.
Four. She resists the inevitability of change brought on by technology.
According to Andrea A. Lunsford in The St. Martin’s Handbook, Eight Edition, there are 20 writing errors that merit “The Top 20.”
One. Wrong word: Confusing one word for another.
Here's a list of wrong word usage.
A full-bodied red wine compliments the Pasta Pomodoro.
Compliment is a to say something nice about someone.
Complement is to complete or match well with something.
The BMW salesman excepted my counteroffer of 55K for the sports sedan.
The word should be accepted.
Kryptonite effects Superman in such a way that he loses his powers.
Effect is a noun. Affect is a verb, so it should be the following:
Kryptonite affects Superman in a such a way that he loses his powers.
There superpowers were compromised by the Gamma rays.
We need to use the possessive plural pronoun their.
Two. Missing comma after an introductory phrase or clause
Terrified of slimy foods, Robert hid behind the restaurant’s dumpster.
In spite of my aversion to rollercoasters, I attended the carnival with my family.
Three. Incomplete documentation
Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness.”
It should read:
Noted dietician and nutritionist Mike Manderlin observes that, “Dieting is a mental illness” (277).
Four. Vague Pronoun Reference
Focusing on the pecs during your Monday-Wednesday-Friday workouts is a way of giving you more time to work on your quads and glutes and specializing on the way they’re used in different exercises.
Before Jennifer screamed at Brittany, she came to the conclusion that she was justified in stealing her boyfriend.
Five. Spelling (including homonyms, words that have same spelling but different meanings)
No one came forward to bare witness to the crime.
No one came forward to bear witness to the crime.
Every where we went, we saw fast food restaurants.
Everywhere we went, we saw fast food restaurants.
Love is a disease. It’s sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation.
Its sickness derives from its power to intoxicate and create capricious, short-term infatuation.
Six. Mechanical error with a quotation
In his best-selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure”.
In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure.”
In his best selling book Love Is a Virus from Outer Space, noted psychologist Michael M. Manderlin asserts that, “Falling in love is a form of madness for which there is no cure” (18).
“It forever stuns me that people make life decisions based on something as fickle and capricious as love”, Michael Manderlin writes (22).
“It forever stuns me that people make life decisions based on something as fickle and capricious as love,” Michael Manderlin writes (22).
Seven . Unnecessary comma
I need to workout when at home, and while taking vacations.
You do however use a comma if the comma is between two independent clauses:
I need to workout at home, and when I go on vacations, I bring my yoga mat to hotels.
I need to workout every day, because I’m addicted to the exercise-induced dopamine.
You do however use a comma after a dependent clause beginning with because:
Because I’m addicted to exercise-induced dopamine, I need to workout everyday.
Peaches, that are green, taste hideous.
The above is an example of an independent clause with a essential information or restrictive information. Not all peaches taste hideous, only green ones. The meaning of the entire sentence needs the dependent clause so there are no commas.
However, if the clause is additional information, the clause is called nonessential or nonrestrictive, and we do use commas:
Peaches, which are on sale at Whole Foods, are my favorite fruit.
Eight. Unnecessary or missing capitalization
Some Traditional Chinese Medicines containing Ephedra remain legal.
We only use capital letters for proper nouns, proper adjectives, first words of sentences, important words in titles, along with certain words indicating directions and family relationships.
Nine. Missing word
The site foreman discriminated women and promoted men with less experience.
The site foreman discriminated against women and promoted men with less experience.
Chris’ behavior becomes bizarre that his family asks for help.
Chris’ behavior becomes so bizarre that his family asks for help.
Ten. Faulty sentence structure
The information which high school athletes are presented with mainly includes information on what credits needed to graduate and thinking about the college which athletes are trying to play for, and apply.
A sentence that starts out with one kind of structure and then changes to another kind can confuse readers. Make sure that each sentence contains a subject and a verb, that subjects and predicates make sense together, and that comparisons have clear meanings. When you join elements (such as subjects or verb phrases) with a coordinating conjunction, make sure that the elements have parallel structures.
The reason I prefer yoga at home to the gym is because I prefer privacy.
I prefer yoga at home to the gym because of privacy.
11. Missing Comma with a Nonrestrictive Element
Marina who was the president of the club was the first to speak.
The clause who was the president of the club does not affect the basic meaning of the sentence: Marina was the first to speak.
A nonrestrictive element gives information not essential to the basic meaning of the sentence. Use commas to set off a nonrestrictive element.
12. Unnecessary Shift in Verb Tense
Priya was watching the great blue heron. Then she slips and falls into the swamp.
Verbs that shift from one tense to another with no clear reason can confuse readers.
13. Missing Comma in a Compound Sentence
Meredith waited for Samir and her sister grew impatient.
Without the comma, a reader may think at first that Meredith waited for both Samir and her sister.
A compound sentence consists of two or more parts that could each stand alone as a sentence. When the parts are joined by a coordinating conjunction, use a comma before the conjunction to indicate a pause between the two thoughts.
14. Unnecessary or Missing Apostrophe (including its/it's)
Overambitious parents can be very harmful to a childs well-being.
The car is lying on it's side in the ditch. Its a white 2004 Passat.
To make a noun possessive, add either an apostrophe and an s (Ed's book) or an apostrophe alone (the boys' gym). Do not use an apostrophe in the possessive pronouns ours, yours, and hers. Useits to mean belong to it; use it's only when you mean it is or it has.
15. Fused (run-on) sentence
Klee's paintings seem simple, they are very sophisticated.
She doubted the value of medication she decided to try it once.
A fused sentence (also called a run-on) joins clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence with no punctuation or words to link them. Fused sentences must be either divided into separate sentences or joined by adding words or punctuation.
16. Comma Splice
I was strongly attracted to her, she was beautiful and funny.
We hated the meat loaf, the cafeteria served it every Friday.
A comma splice occurs when only a comma separates clauses that could each stand alone as a sentence. To correct a comma splice, you can insert a semicolon or period, connect the clauses with a word such as and or because, or restructure the sentence.
17. Lack of pronoun/antecedent agreement
Every student must provide their own uniform.
Pronouns must agree with their antecedents in gender (male or female) and in number (singular or plural). Many indefinite pronouns, such as everyone and each, are always singular. When a singular antecedent can refer to a man or woman, either rewrite the sentence to make the antecedent plural or to eliminate the pronoun, or use his or her, he or she, and so on. When antecedents are joined by or or nor, the pronoun must agree with the closer antecedent. A collection noun such as team can be either singular or plural, depending on whether the members are seen as a group or individuals.
18. Poorly Integrated Quotation
A 1970s study of what makes food appetizing "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565).
Corrected
In a 1970s study about what makes food appetizing, we read, "Once it became apparent that the steak was actually blue and the fries were green, some people became ill" (Schlosser 565).
"Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life" (Eighner 383). Finding edible food is especially tricky.
Corrected
"Dumpster diving has serious drawbacks as a way of life," we read in Eighner's book (383). One of the drawbacks is that finding food can be especially difficult.
Quotations should fit smoothly into the surrounding sentence structure. They should be linked clearly to the writing around them (usually with a signal phrase) rather than dropped abruptly into the writing.
19. Missing or Unnecessary Hyphen
This paper looks at fictional and real life examples.
A compound adjective modifying a noun that follows it requires a hyphen.
The buyers want to fix-up the house and resell it.
A two-word verb should not be hyphenated. A compound adjective that appears before a noun needs a hyphen. However, be careful not to hyphenate two-word verbs or word groups that serve as subject complements.
20. Sentence Fragment
No subject
Marie Antoinette spent huge sums of money on herself and her favorites. And helped to bring on the French Revolution.
No complete verb
The aluminum boat sitting on its trailer.
Beginning with a subordinating word
We returned to the drugstore. Where we waited for our buddies.
A sentence fragment is part of a sentence that is written as if it were a complete sentence. Reading your draft out loud, backwards, sentence by sentence, will help you spot sentence fragments.
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