Comma Splices
Comma splices are two complete sentences joined with a comma when they should be separated by a period.
Comma Splice
Football is America’s number one sport, however parents are discouraging their children from playing it.
Corrected
Football is America’s number one sport. However, parents are discouraging their children from playing it.
Run-On (joining two sentences without appropriate punctuation)
Because football causes head trauma, parents don’t want their children to play this sport instead they want their children to go into martial arts, wrestling, and other “tough” sports that don’t result in as many concussive events.
Corrected
Because football causes head trauma, parents don’t want their children to play this sport. Instead, they want their children to go into martial arts, wrestling, and other “tough” sports that don’t result in as many concussive events.
Comma Splice
Football is an inherently violent sport that demands brutal collisions, in contrast, basketball focuses more on finesse and agility.
Corrected
Football is an inherently violent sport that demands brutal collisions. In contrast, basketball focuses more on finesse and agility.
Comma Splice
On the one hand, I have fond memories of watching football with my father, on the other hand I wince with the guilt of deriving entertainment from a sport that leads to the players’ brain damage.
Corrected
On the one hand, I have fond memories of watching football with my father. On the other hand, I wince with the guilt of deriving entertainment from a sport that leads to the players’ brain damage.
Sentence Fragments
Sentence fragments are phrases or clauses that writers confuse with complete sentences.
Fragment
I am eager to watch the new NFL season. Although, I am weary of my own participation in a sport that is brutally violent.
Corrected
Corrected
I am eager to watch the new NFL season although I am weary of my own participation in a sport that is brutally violent.
Corrected
I am eager to watch the new NFL season. However, I am weary of my own participation in a sport that is brutally violent.
Fragment
Because my conscience dictates that I find other entertainments that don’t involve the brutality of grown men who are doomed to die on average between the ages of 55 and 59 and live a life of dotage and senility.
Corrected
Because my conscience dictates that I find other entertainments that don’t involve the brutality of grown men who are doomed to die on average between the ages of 55 and 59 and live a life of dotage and senility, I have decided that I will no longer watch football.
Fragment
Because my conscience dictates that I find other entertainments that don’t involve the brutality of grown men who are doomed to die on average between the ages of 55 and 59 and live a life of dotage and senility, I have decided that I will no longer watch football. Unless I'm at my father-in-law's house.
Corrected
Because my conscience dictates that I find other entertainments that don’t involve the brutality of grown men who are doomed to die on average between the ages of 55 and 59 and live a life of dotage and senility, I have decided that I will no longer watch football, unless I'm at my father-in-law's house.
Fragment
If I continue to watch a sport that brutalizes its athletes, treating them like fighting dogs in an illegal fighting pit and are doomed to suffer permanent injury, pain, and general misery.
Corrected
If I continue to watch a sport that brutalizes its athletes, treating them like fighting dogs in an illegal fighting pit and are doomed to a life of crippling misery, my conscience will plague me to my dying days.
"Why Do We Read and Write Essays? They're Just Someone's Opinions. Aren't All Opinions Alike? "
Some people say after reading an essay, “Well, it’s just an opinion.” But are all opinions alike?
Robert Atwan in his American Now textbook writes six major types of opinions.
As you will see, some are more appropriate for the kind of critical thinking an essay deserves than others.
One. Inherited opinions: These are opinions that are imprinted on us during our childhood. They come from “family, culture, traditions, customs, regions, social institutions, or religion.”
People’s views on religion, race, education, and humanity come from their family.
Inherited opinions come from cultural and social norms.
In some cultures, it's okay to tell others your income. It's a taboo in America.
We are averse to eating dogs in America because eating dogs is contrary to America’s cultural and social norms. However, other countries eat dogs without any stigma.
We are also averse to eating insects in America when in some countries grubs are a delicacy.
We think it's normal to slaughter trees every year as part of our celebration of Christmas.
We eat until we're so stuffed we cannot walk in America; in contrast, in Japan they follow the rule of hara hachi bu, which means they stop at 80% fullness.
Peanut butter in America represents Mom's Love; in France and Brazil, however, peanut butter is trash and an insult to place in front of someone.
In America, we put dry cereal into a bowl and then pour milk over it. That is not practiced in a lot of other countries.
In America when a woman says yes to a man's date proposal, the man, Louis C.K. tells us, will shake his fist like a tennis champion and scream, "Yeah!" We admire this behavior because we grow up seeing it.
We soak up these types of opinions through a sort of osmosis and a lot of these beliefs are unconscious.
Two. Involuntary opinions: These are the opinions that result from direct indoctrination and inculcation (learning through repetition). If we grow up in a family that teaches us that eating pork is evil, then we won’t eat at other people’s homes that serve that porcine dish.
Or we may, as a result if our religious training, abjure rated R movies.
Or we may have strong feelings, one way or another, regarding gay marriage based on the doctrines we’ve learned over time.
We may have strong feelings about immigration policy based on what we learn from our family, friends, and institutions.
We may have strong feelings about the police and the prison system based on what we learn from family, friends, and institutions.
Three. Adaptive opinions: We adapt opinions to help us conform to groups we wish to belong to. We are often so eager to belong to this or that group that we sacrifice our critical thinking skills and engage in Groupthink to please the majority.
A student from China back in the 1940s or 1950s was raised in the country. He went to a city school and the richest boy made a sculpture of a butterfly. Everyone loved the butterfly but my student. He explained that a butterfly had 4 wings, not 2. He was sent to the "dunce corner" for the whole day.
He should have kept his mouth shut or pretended that butterflies have 2 wings. That's an example of Groupthink.
Atwan writes that “Adaptive opinions are often weakly held and readily changed . . . But over time they can become habitual and turn into convictions.”
For example, it’s easy for one to be against guns in Santa Monica. However, those views might be less “adaptive” in rural parts of Kentucky or Tennessee.
It's easy to be a vegan in Southern California, but you'll have more challenges being a vegan in certain parts of Texas, Kansas, and the Carolinas where barbecue is king.
Four. Concealed opinions. Sometimes we have strong opinions that are contrary to the group we belong to so we keep our mouths shut to avoid persecution. You might not want to proclaim your atheism, for example, if you were attending a Christian college.
Five. Linked opinions. Atwan writes, “Unlike adaptive opinions, which are usually stimulated by convenience and an incentive to conform, these are opinions we derived from an enthusiastic and dedicated affiliation with certain groups, institutions, or parties.”
For example, the modern “Tea Party” people or self-proclaimed Patriots embrace a series of linked opinions: Obama is not American. Obama is a socialist. Obama is helping terrorists get across the boarder. Terrorists helped elect Obama. Obama wants to strip Americans of their right to own guns so that the government and/or terrorists can move in and take Americans’ freedoms.
As you can see, all these opinions are linked to each other. Believing in one of the above opinions encourages belief in the other.
Six. Considered opinions. Atwan writes, “These are opinions we have formed as a result of firsthand experience, reading, discussion and debate, or independent thinking and reasoning. These opinions are formed from direct knowledge and often from exposure and considering other opinions.”
Often considered opinions result in examining mythologies or fake narratives that are drilled down our throats and we deconstruct these false narratives so that we can see the truth behind them.
There are many fake narratives:
Columbus “discovering” America.
The European pilgrims “sharing” with the American Indians.
White slave owners “blessing” Africans with Christianity.
The pharmaceutical industry making our health job one.
Mexican workers in America "stealing" jobs from Americans.
Poor people "choose" to be poor.
Poor people deserve to be poor because they're bad, morally flawed human beings.
Obese people got fat from being morally flawed such as being selfish and gluttonous.
Developing critical thinking skills means being able to pick apart a false narrative and examine the true narrative behind it.
Some would define literacy as developing critical thinking skills and that failure to do so is to remain a mindless consumer, an obedient child to the parental authorities of market trends and advertising.
It's your choice: You can either swallow the blue pill (blissful ignorance) or the red pill (uncomfortable, often painful truth).
“Green Guilt” by Stephen Asma
One. What kind of outrage does the author’s son express in the first paragraph?
“Don’t you love the earth?” becomes a way of making two statements: One’s allegiance to a cause or a special tribe and self-righteous scolding of someone whose behavior doesn’t conform to the tribe.
These scoldings or admonishments reinforce group cohesion and tribal identity.
Two. What does our need for guilt say about us?
We seem to have some neurosis that makes us feel empty unless we’re on a “guilt trip.”
Guilt seems to be the glue that tells people we’re “fighting on the same team” and if you deviate from the game plan you’re a reprobate, a sinner, an outcast, or even a pariah.
We also love to shame others as we feel elevated, intoxicated, and aggrandized by our self-righteous posturing.
Three. The author writes that behind our guilt is a pervading sense of worthlessness and shame? What is behind these feelings?
He writes that “internalized self-loathing” is a mechanism designed to help us be more civilized. Otherwise we’d live in a Hobbesian nightmare (anarchy).
Self-loathing helps us repress our Id (raw, uncontrollable desire) or our tendencies for self-abandonment and indulgence. By repressing our desires collectively, we protect the interest of the many.
How big of a blanket do I spread out on the beach? How loud do I play my boombox while I'm slopping coconut tanning butter on my tanned torso. How reckless do I fling the Frisbee to my beach buddy, allowing the Frisbee to hit nearby beach visitors? Do I pick up my dog's mess at the dog beach? Do I control my dog's incessant barking? How loud do I laugh at the movie theater? How loud is my eating and slurping while watching the movie?
Self-loathing also represses our aggression.
For example, I loathe myself when I’m driving and I lose my temper. Self-loathing represses my road rage temper tantrums. But that repression requires energy, so that when I’m a “nice and courteous drive” I come home exhausted; after all, for a guy like me being nice requires enormous amounts of energy (repression requires energy after all).
Not eating all the food I want—burgers, pizzas, cakes, pies, etc.—requires even more self-loathing that results in repression and of course the end effect is exhaustion.
“Being me is a full-time job.”
Adding to our neurosis, when we suppress our aggression, as evidenced in the road rage example above, we turn our aggression inward, Asma writes, and this results in “self-cruelty."
Rather than hate the world, we hate ourselves. And this self-hatred serves civilization, that is, until some of us blow up, as we read about all too often in the news.
Four. According to Asma, how did our psychology create a guilt-infused religion?
Asma writes we have always used guilt, repression, and self-loathing as ways to live and cooperate in a civilized society. Rather than psychoanalyze ourselves, we poured out our unconscious guilt and other toxic emotions into religious doctrines that would externalize that guilt and shame by calling us “sinners.” Religion, according to Nietzsche, allows us to be cruel to ourselves.
We can infer from this essay that according to Asma religion is a whip that we use to exact cruelty upon ourselves.
Five. Do guilt and self-loathing exist in secular, urban hipster cultures?
Yes, they do, but they take another form of religion: environmentalism: Asma writes that now “we have the transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic grocery bags instead of paper.”
Asma adds, brilliantly I might say, that we have other secular avenues for self-inflicted cruelty and guilt: We punish our indulgent eating habits with crazy diets and cleanses and running on treadmills for hours upon hours until we want to die.
Here's a blog The Emptiness featuring a post titled "Green guilt and slave morality."
Writing Assignment modified from #5 Writing in our text Acting Out Culture:
"Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience," Asma declares," we now have the transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic grocery bags instead of paper" (27). Write a longer essay (1,000 words) in which you identify and evaluate the comparison Asma is making here. According to Asma, what are the key differences between the "religious sins"of the past and the "transgressions" that characterize everyday life today? And what larger point is he trying to make here about the way our understanding of "sin" has changed? Then take a closer look at each of the "transgressions" he lists here. To what extent, in your view, is it valid to feel "guilty" about each? Is it helpful, necessary, and/or right for these oversights to "plague our conscience"? Why or why not?
Breaking Down the Essay Assignment Into Its Parts
"Instead of religious sins plaguing our conscience," Asma declares," we now have the transgressions of leaving the water running, leaving the lights on, failing to recycle, and using plastic grocery bags instead of paper" (27). Write a longer essay (1,000 words) in which you identify and evaluate the comparison Asma is making here.
It appears Asma is comparing religious and secular "sin" as mechanisms that allow selfish creatures, a.k.a. human beings, to co-exist and create societies without mutilating and killing each other.
He may be wrong. Perhaps a tribe's notion of sin empowers it with the belief that it is entitled to kill other tribes who have different religious codes. People kill "Los Otros" in the name of their faith.
Or maybe the sense of sin and repression cause BOTH peace and war depending on the circumstances.
Perhaps as we read in The Emptiness blog, "sin" is an invention of those in power to keep the rest of us in control, to make us powerless slaves:
Asma goes wrong however when he attempts to explain why people in Western civilization have this “need” as he sees it to flagellate themselves with guilt. In fact, his argument itself is a form of self-attack. Its almost as if he is apologizing to his left/liberal friends for breaking orthodoxy in his next argument.
All this internalized self-loathing is the cost we pay for being civilized.
Asma’s idea is that people need guilt in order to restrain themselves from attacking others. He claims that without his own residual “self-loathing” he would not hesitate to attack people at Starbucks that annoy him by ordering pretentious sounding drinks. This reveals far more about Asma’s personal psychology than it does about the tendency of people in western cultures to be violent and anti-social. Internally western countries are remarkably peaceful and orderly by global standards.
So why do people cling to these guilt based moral systems? Well, how are people raised? If almost everyone in a culture exhibits a certain trait in common, is it because that trait is “natural”? Is it “natural” to be a Muslim, and that is why everyone in Muslim countries grows up to be a Muslim? Or is it that children in these countries learn very young that they must conform to the beliefs and prejudices of the adults that control society? The same principle is at work in our culture. Even if we think the modern West is secular and progressive, it is still built on a foundation of shared Judeo-Christian slave morality that persists even as the modern man can no longer bring himself to believe in invisible men in the clouds. Environmentalism is just Christianity 2.0.
Slave morality has always been a power strategy for the priestly class. But the old priestly class has been ebbing in power for centuries now, and the field is open for new players to enter the game. Environmentalists, Climate scientists, diet puritans and other lifestyle scolds are all vying to take their place and be the ones to save your soul by selling you indulgences in the form of carbon credits and raw food shakes. As long as our society is built on a foundation of slave morals people will continue to go for it.
According to Asma, what are the key differences between the "religious sins"of the past and the "transgressions" that characterize everyday life today?
And what larger point is he trying to make here about the way our understanding of "sin" has changed?
He seems to be saying that now that we have a psychological understanding of sin, we are less reliant on religion to provide guilt, shame, and repression; however, because we still depend on these forms of self-cruelty to cooperate in a society we create secular religions to do shame's bidding.
Then take a closer look at each of the "transgressions" he lists here. To what extent, in your view, is it valid to feel "guilty" about each?
You're either arguing that guilt is a helpful behavior tool or a slave tool for the "power priests," secular or otherwise.
Or to complicate the matter, you might argue that guilt is both good and bad as a behavior tool.
Is it helpful, necessary, and/or right for these oversights to "plague our conscience"? Why or why not?
Sample Thesis Statements
"Green Guilt" makes a powerful argument that we must accept the afflictions of guilt and sin, whether that sin be religious or secular, in order that we get along in a cooperative society.
We must conclude after reading Stephen Asma's brilliant "Green Guilt" that human happiness must be compromised in the service of guilt and self-induced "sin" in order that we suppress our selfish drives, cooperate with one another, and hone our conscience in a constantly Darwinian universe.
Stephen Asma's cogent and insightful "Green Guilt" delivers a bombshell to the human race: Absolute happiness is a farce that must take back seat to guilt and misery in order to promote a cooperative society.
Even though it appears Stephen Asma is not religious in any orthodox sense, it is of note that his secular explanation of sin does not conflict at all with my religious sense of it. In fact, my religious sense of sin is compatible with Stephen Asma's secular version when we consider __________, _____________, ____________, and _____________.
"Green Guilt" is just a pathetic excuse for the "slave morality" that allows the power brokers or One Percent to exact control upon the rest of us.
Stephen Asma's attempt to universalize sin as a secular affliction collapses when we consider the affliction he refers to is not universal at all but rather confined to privileged liberals who have created a code of behavior that requires shaming in order to make others conform to their ways.
Developing PEEL Paragraphs (PEEL equals Point, Evidence or Example, Elaboration or Explanation, and Links)
When writing a research paper, it’s very important in the evidence or example section to use a quote from the text.
Paragraph Example (I've underlined the links or transitions)
"Green Guilt" makes a powerful argument that we must accept the afflictions of guilt and sin, whether that guilt be caused by religious or secular forces, in order that we survive and thrive in a cooperative society. As we read in Asma’s essay, “All this internalized self-loathing is the cost we pay for being civilized. In a very well organized society that protects the interests of many, we have to refrain from our natural instincts.” Indeed, our natural instincts, if left unchecked, would create a barbaric world where no kind of viable or even pleasing society could flourish. A second curse of selfish desires unbridled by a sense of guilt and sin would be the moral dissolution that would ensue as hordes of people would become numb to pleasures resulting in frustration and increased violence. We see evidence of such mayhem and grand displays of nihilism in hedonistic societies right before they crumble such as the Fall of Rome. Finally, let us not neglect to point out that a sense of sin can prompt us to be more disciplined so that we maximize the success of our personal goals rather than squandering our life on the foolish errands prompted by our unharnessed desires. To conclude, Asma convincingly shows us that it is in our best interests to repress our base passions by swallowing the Sin Pill in order to fulfill our potential as individuals and as a society.
“The Faces in the Mirror”
One. Why do we want to hype the stars and make them gods who would defy the banal existence that might accurately define them?
Time investment justification:
We need to justify all the money and attention we spend on them so we don’t feel like idiots. We have to believe they’re special and exist on a higher plane than we do.
Celebrities are like Greek gods who entertain us:
We’re also bored and we assuage our boredom by believing in "the magic of celebrity" even though a deep part of us knows this magic is not true. Behind the celebrities' clown masks are aged faces wrinkled with emptiness and despair.
Emotional children crave celebrity hype:
Perhaps this need to believe in magic is evidence that we’re still tiny children emotionally.
We live vicariously through the stars.
Bored with our banal existence, we live vicariously through the stars. We wish our own lives were full of grand moments but in truth as The Wire's Lester Freamon tells his friend McNulty: "There are no grand moments. Life is the ____that happens to you while you wait for the [grand] moments that never come."
Two. What is problematic about the “relationship between persona and person”?
As we see in the Robin Williams example in which he knows someone sees the celebrity but not the real man, the persona always kills our connection to person.
The persona is the fake tyrant that consumes us.
The persona is the hype that dehumanizes us.
The persona is the glitter that diminishes us.
The persona is the fantasy that degrades us.
Why?
Because celebrity, money, power, and beauty are all drugs: The fanboy (or fangirl) who gawks over celebrity, money, power, or beauty becomes drugged by this false god and the false god becomes drugged by being perceived as a false god. As a result, both parties go insane.
I knew a guy who was so good looking, girls used to look at him and start crying. He moved to Tahiti where he became worshipped as a god complete with velvet paintings and statues in front of restaurants.
This insanity is rendered in the 2014 film Birdman.
Robin Williams is sick of being looked at as a false god.
Having experienced the degradation many times, Robin Williams’ eyes went dead and he could not connect with the author Ty Burr.
Another problem is our paradoxical relationship with the stars. On one hand, we worship them as gods; on the other, we resent them for “their presumption to set themselves up as gods when our egos told us we were the ones deserving of attention.”
The dark side of worshipping false gods is that deep down we resent idols that loom over us as superior beings:
Fanboys and fangirls hunger for tabloids and celebrity gossip to see their gods fall into drug rehab and scandal.
Mobs tear their clothing “as if to simultaneously absorb and obliterate the object of affection.”
Essay Topic for a Cause and Effect Analysis Thesis:
Develop a thesis that answers the following question: What are the causes behind the pathological relationship between celebrities and their admirers?
Sample Thesis
As "Faces in the Mirror" shows us, celebrity worship is a sick symbiotic relationship between celebrity and fanboy characterized by ____________, ____________, ___________, and _____________.
Thesis that disagrees with the above:
While there may be some fanboys who take their celebrity worship too far, celebrity culture is good for us since celebrities give us necessary distractions from our boring lives, they gives us beauty and fashion for which we can aspire, they give us glamour which points to a higher reality than the plain reality society tells us we have to live in, and they give us a shared interest which allows us "normal folk" to bond with one another.
Essay Option:
Compare the themes in "The Faces in the Mirror" with the themes of celebrity in Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu's masterpiece film Birdman (2014).
“Markets and Morals” by Michael Sandel
One. Why does Sandel give us a litany of things we can buy?
Here’s the list: prison cell upgrade, car pool lane fast track, surrogate mother, citizenship, killing endangered animals, doctor’s cell phone.
Here’s the list of things we can sell: forehead ad space, body for experiments, mercenary in war-torn country, read a book, not watch TV, lose fourteen pounds in 4 months, life insurance of the near dead so you can collect their policy.
Sandel’s point is that market creep has wrapped its tentacles around us so that we don’t even know that buying and selling—consumerism—is the dominant feature of our lives.
If we grew up wrapped in the consumer cocoon, then we think it’s our normal. It is our normal, but it’s crazy. Why? Because in such a world there are no boundaries. Buying and selling becomes our religion. It is the only religion. It is the “Era of Market Triumphalism.”
In Market Triumphalism, we equate greed with "strong moral character." We say to the most ruthless successful person, "You are a hard worker. You must be mature, disciplined, focused, and strong. You are the kind of person I want to be."
In Market Triumphalism, we're just worshipping money and power for their own sake.
Two. What were the forces that led to Market Triumphalism?
The early 1980s ushered Reagan and Margaret Thatcher’s conviction of free markets with no regulation. Bill Clinton and Tony Blair continued the legacy.
But in 2008 the Great Recession hit us and now Market Triumphalism has been replaced with doubt.
Three. What more than greed fueled Market Triumphalism?
Growing markets obliterated boundaries between moral and sacred spheres on one hand and market spheres on the other. When the spheres intersected, we entered into a protracted moral crisis.
We mixed the Sacred with the Profane:
Having a baby is a sacred act. Turing it into a business is a human degradation.
Proposing to your girlfriend is a sacred act. Having her post it on Twitter and Facebook for the ad revenue before you’ve even put the ring on her finger is a human degradation.
Putting people into prison is a form of societal punishment. Letting business run prison takes the moral component out of it and makes profit motive the thing that drives the agenda. That is a compromise of a society’s morality.
Pharmaceutical companies want to make money and this incentive clashes with promoting good health.
Health care is a business in our country when other countries say it should not be.
This expansion of the market into all parts of our lives is harmful for two reasons:
It fosters inequality and corruption.
Money buys political influence, medical care, education, safe neighborhoods, and healthy food, to name some.
Markets are also corrupt. For example, if prison and policing are a profit-incentive businesses, then there is incentive to arrest and imprison a quota of people regardless of crime rates.
College is too much of a business in this country and it's geared to the rich as we read here.
And more recently, we see Market Triumphalism in the essay "Why We Should Fear University, Inc."
Essay Option
Support, refute, or complicate the argument that Ty Burr's "Faces in the Mirror" and Michael Sandel's "Markets and Morals" complement the theme of human degradation and "moral vacancy" in an age of excessive marketing and pathological self-promotion.
Sample Thesis
Reading “Faces in the Mirror” by Ty Burr and “Markets and Morals” by Michael Sandel, it is apparent that we live in an age of unchecked marketing that is to society’s detriment evidenced by a free market untethered by ethical concerns______________, ________________, _____________, and _________________.
“Understanding Black Patriotism” by Michael Eric Dyson
One. What is the difference between black patriotism and “lapel-pin nationalism”?
The history of black people is the history of struggle, to fight against slavery, Jim Crow, unfair incarceration laws, unequal income distribution, to name some, and this struggle for a better country through the struggle is far more in-depth and arduous than people spewing easy slogans and clichés.
If one is angry toward one’s country, then one has hope for change. True abandonment of one’s country is not expressed anger or outrage but apathy, and the percentage of people of all colors who stay at home on election days speaks to apathy.
In contrast, there is “My country, right or wrong,” which is a dogmatic credo of the ignorant peasant who subscribes, not to patriotism, but to jingoism, the act of cheerleading or being a fanboy for one’s country without doing the research or hard work concerning the relevant issues.
A jingoist is a Kool-Aid drinker or fanboy who blindly embraces all things that pertain to one’s country.
A true patriot, according to Dyson, is a critical thinker who wants an accurate diagnosis of America's ills in order to make a better America.
Two. What examples does Dyson provide regarding hypocrisy of patriotism?
Dyson points at the five deferments of Dick Cheney, hawkish on terrorism, who may have been hawkish when he was calling the shots, but when it came to him fighting he stayed home from the war five times. He really used those deferments but was eager to make others fight his war.
In contrast, African American critic of American racism Jeremiah Wright surrendered his student deferment and volunteered to join the Marines.
Essay Option
Defend, refute, or complicate the assertion that critical patriotism, the kind that Dyson attributes to great African American thinkers, is a superior variety of patriotism to the white jingoism described in the essay.
Sample Thesis
Pro Dyson Thesis
Those who attempt to dismiss the criticisms of great African American thinkers as being anti-American are engaging in the most vile form of tribalism and jingoism, and they would be well served to embrace these African American thinkers’ authentic patriotism, which is evidenced by __________, ___________, ___________, and ____________.
Pro Dyson Thesis
Attempts to label the great African American thinkers who have criticized US policy as anti-American collapse when we consider that these thinkers are the truest kind of patriot. This is evidenced by _____________, _______________, ________________, and ____________________.
Against Dyson Thesis
While I concede to Dyson’s point that we can criticize US policy and still be patriotic, Dyson’s examples are too extreme evidenced by _________________, _________________, ________________, and _______________________.
In the following video, we see Michael Eric Dyson make his point about true patriotism as he contrasts it with false patriotism:
False patriots apologize for abusers of civil rights.
False patriots white-wash the real narratives that define racism in America.
False patriots get defensive when truthful criticisms are put on the table.
False patriots romanticize America's ugly past, "the good old days," which were actually a toxic environment populated by racist zombies drunk on the poison Kool-Aid of White Supremacy.
McMahon Grammar Exercise: Essential and Nonessential Clauses
Circle the relative clause and indicate if it’s essential with a capital E or nonessential with a capital N. Then use commas where necessary.
One. I’m looking for a sugar substitute that doesn’t have dangerous side effects.
Two. Sugar substitutes which often contain additives can wreak havoc on the digestive and nervous system.
Three. The man who trains in the gym every day for five hours is setting himself up for a serious muscle injury.
Four. Cars that operate on small turbo engines don’t last as long as non-turbo automobiles.
Five. Tuna which contains high amounts of mercury should only be eaten once or twice a week.
Six. The store manager who took your order has been arrested for fraud.
Seven. The store manager Ron Cousins who is now seventy-five years old is contemplating retirement.
Eight. Magnus Mills’ Restraint of Beasts which is my favorite novel was runner up for the Booker Prize.
Nine. Parenthood which is a sort of priesthood for which there is no pay or appreciation raises stress and cortisol levels.
Ten. I need to find a college that specializes in my actuarial math major.
Eleven. UCLA which has a strong actuarial math program is my first choice.
Twelve. My first choice of car is the Lexus which was awarded top overall quality honors from Consumer Reports.
Thirteen. Mangoes which sometimes cause a rash on my lips and chin area are my favorite fruit.
Fourteen. A strange man whom I’ve never known came up to me and offered to give me his brand new Mercedes.
Fifteen. My girlfriend who was showing off her brand new red dress arrived two hours late to the birthday party.
Sixteen. Students who meticulously follow the MLA format rules have a greater chance at success.
Seventeen. The student who tormented himself with the thesis lesson for six hours found himself more confused than before he started.
Eighteen. There are several distinctions between an analytical and argumentative thesis which we need to familiarize ourselves with before we embark on the essay assignment.
Nineteen. The peach that has a worm burrowing through its rotted skin should probably be tossed in the garbage.
Twenty. Peaches, which I love to eat by the bucketful are on sale at the farmer’s market.
Twenty-one. Baseball which used to be America’s pastime is declining in popularity.
Subordination and Coordination (Complex and Compound Sentences)
Complex Sentence
A complex sentence has two clauses. One clause is dependent or subordinate; the other clause is independent, that is to say, the independent clause is the complete sentence.
Examples:
While I was tanning in Hermosa Beach, I noticed the clouds were playing hide and seek.
Because I have a tendency to eat entire pizzas, inhaling them within seconds, I must avoid that fattening food.
Whenever I’m driving my car and I see people texting while driving, I stop my car on the side of the road.
I have to workout every day because I am addicted to exercise-induced dopamine.
I feel overcome with a combination of romantic melancholy and giddy excitement whenever there is a thunderstorm.
We use subordination to show cause and effect. To create subordinate clauses, we must use a subordinate conjunction:
The essential ingredient in a complex sentence is the subordinate conjunction:
|
after |
once |
until |
I workout too much. I have tenderness in my elbow.
Because I workout too much, I suffer tenderness in my elbow.
My elbow hurts. I’m working out.
Even though my elbow hurts, I’m working out.
We use coordination to show equal rank of ideas. To combine sentences with coordination we use FANBOYS (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so)
The calculus class has been cancelled. We will have to do something else.
The calculus class has been cancelled, so we will have to do something else.
I want more pecan pie. They only have apple pie.
I want more pecan pie, but they only have apple pie.
Using FANBOYS creates compound sentences
Angelo loves to buy a new radio every week, but his wife doesn’t like it.
You have high cholesterol, so you have to take statins.
I am tempted to eat all the rocky road ice cream, yet I will force myself to nibble on carrots and celery.
I want to go to the Middle Eastern restaurant today, and I want to see a movie afterwards.
I really like the comfort of elastic-waist pants, but wearing them makes me feel like an old man.
Both subordination and coordination combine sentences into smoother, clearer sentences.
The following four sentences are made smoother and clearer with the help of subordination:
McMahon felt gluttonous. He inhaled five pizzas. He felt his waist press against his denim waistband in a cruel, unforgiving fashion. He felt an acute ache in his stomach.
Because McMahon felt gluttonous, he inhaled five pizzas upon which he felt his waist press against his denim waistband resulting in an acute stomachache.
Another Example
Joe ate too much heavily salted popcorn. The saltiness made him thirsty. He consumed several gallons of water before bedtime. He was up going to the bathroom all night. He got a bad night’s sleep. He performed terribly during his job interview.
Due to his foolish consumption of salted popcorn, Joe was so thirsty he drank several gallons of water before bedtime, which caused him to go to the bathroom all night, interfering with his night’s sleep and causing him to do terribly on his job interview.
Another Example
Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure. He leaned over the fence to reach for his sandwich. He fell over the fence. A tiger approached Bob. The zookeeper ran between the stupid zoo customer and the wild beast. The zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger, forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and wild beast. During the struggle, the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff.
Don’t Do Subordination Overkill
After Bob dropped his peanut butter sandwich in the tiger’s enclosure, he leaned over the fence to recover his sandwich and fell into the enclosure during which time he was approached by a hungry tiger forcing the nearby zookeeper to run between Bob and the wild beast in such a manner that the zookeeper tore his rotator cuff, which resulted in a prolonged disability leave and the loss of his job, a crisis that compelled the zookeeper to file a lawsuit against Bob for financial damages.
Grammar: Dangling Modifiers
Rewrite the following sentences to correct the dangling modifiers:
1. Larded with greasy fries, the waiter served me a burnt steak.
2. Mr. McMahon returned her essay with a wide grin.
3. To finish by the 4 P.M. deadline, the computer keyboard blazed with the student's fast typing fingers.
4. Chocolate frosted with caramel sauce, John devoured the cupcakes.
5. Tapping the desk with his fingers, the school clock's hands moved too slowly before recess.
6. Showering the onion rings with garlic salt, his sodium count spiked.
7. The girl walked her poodle in high heels.
8. Struggling with the tight jeans, the fabric ripped and made an embarrassing sound.
9. Turning off the bedroom lights, the long, hard day finally came to an end.
10. Piled high above the wash machine, I decided I had better do a load of laundry.
11. Standing on the hotel balcony, the ocean view was stunning.
12. Running across the floor, the rug slipped and I collapsed.
13. Writing anxiously, the essay looked littered with errors.
14. Mortified by my loss to my opponents, my baseball uniform sagged.
15. Hungry after a day of football, the stack of peanut butter sandwiches on the table quickly disappeared.
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