Starfish Link:
https://elcamino.starfishsolutions.com/starfish-ops/
Comma Splices
A comma splice is joining two sentences with a comma when you should separate them with a period or a semicolon.
Incorrect
People love Facebook, however, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
People love Facebook. However, they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Corrected
Though people love Facebook, they fail to realize Facebook is sucking all their energy.
Incorrect
Patience is difficult to cultivate, it grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Patience is difficult to cultivate. It grows steadily only if we make it a priority.
Corrected
Because patience grows within us so slowly, patience is extremely difficult to cultivate.
You can use a comma between two complete sentences when you join them with a FANBOYS word or coordinating conjunction (for, and, nor, but, or, yet, so).
Correct
People love Facebook, but they don't realize Facebook is sucking all of their energy.
Lawrence loves pesto pizza, yet his intolerance to pine nuts compels him to choose the cheese and vegetable calzone.
Incorrect:
Lawrence loves pesto pizza, however, his intolerance to pine nuts compels him to choose the cheese and vegetable calzone.
To Avoid Comma Splices, Know the Difference Between Coordinating Conjunctions (FANBOYS) and Conjunctive Adverbs
Examples
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week. Nonetheless, he remained skinny.
Jerry ate ten pizzas a week, but he remained skinny.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW. Instead, she bought the Acura.
Barbara didn't buy the BMW, yet she did buy the Acura.
Steve wasn't interested in college. Moreover, he didn't want to work full-time.
Steve wasn't interested in college, and he didn't want to work full-time.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me. However, I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do want you to help me do my taxes.
I don't want you to pay me back the hundred dollars you owe me, but I do, however, want you to help me do my taxes.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid. Consequently, I think we should break up.
I feel that our relationship has become stale, stagnant, and turgid, so I think we should break up.
Students hate reading. Therefore, they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Students hate reading, so they must be tested with closed-book reading exams.
Avoiding Comma Splices and Run-Ons
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.
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.
After each sentence, put a “C” for Correct or a “CS” for Comma Splice. If the sentence is a comma splice, rewrite it so that it is correct.
One. Bailey used to eat ten pizzas a day, now he eats a spinach salad for lunch and dinner.
Two. Marco no longer runs on the treadmill, instead he opts for the less injury-causing elliptical trainer.
Three. Running can cause shin splints, which can cause excruciating pain.
Four. Running in the incorrect form can wreak havoc on the knees, slowing down can often correct the problem.
Five. While we live in a society where 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers are on the rise, the reading of books, sad to say, is on the decline.
Six. Facebook is a haven for narcissists, it encourages showing off with selfies and other mundane activities that are ways of showing how great and amazing our lives our, what a sham.
Seven. We live in a society where more and more Americans are consuming 1,500-calorie cheeseburgers, however, those same Americans are reading less and less books.
Eight. Love is a virus from outer space, it tends to become most contagious during April and May.
Nine. The tarantula causes horror in many people, moreover there is a species of tarantula in Brazil, the wandering banana spider, that is the most venomous spider in the world.
Ten. Even though spiders cause many people to recoil with horror, most species are harmless.
Eleven. The high repair costs of European luxury vehicles repelled Amanda from buying such a car, instead she opted for a Japanese-made Lexus.
Twelve. Amanda got a job at the Lexus dealership, now she’s trying to get me a job in the same office.
Thirteen. While consuming several cinnamon buns, a twelve-egg cheese omelet, ten slices of French toast slathered in maple syrup, and a tray of Swedish loganberry crepes topped with a dollop of blueberry jam, I contemplated the very grave possibility that I might be eating my way to a heart attack.
Fourteen. Even though I rank marijuana far less dangerous than most pharmaceutical drugs, alcohol, and other commonly used intoxicants, I find marijuana unappealing for a host of reasons, not the least of which is its potential for radically degrading brain cells, its enormous effect on stimulating the appetite, resulting in obesity, and its capacity for over-relaxing many people so that they lose significant motivation to achieve their primary goals, opting instead for a life of sloth and intractable indolence.
Essay 2 for 150 points. Options: 1,400 words typed and 3 sources: Hard copy and turnitin upload due no later than the start of class on March 22.
Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” and Curtis Silver’s “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships” (444) allege certain pathologies result from social media. These pathologies include an empathy deficit, depression, narcissism, shortened attention span, online shaming, lost conversation skills, and even altered brain development. In an argumentative essay, support, refute, or complicate the assertion from Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” (online essay) that social media is harmful for our social, cultural and intellectual development.
Sample Outline
Paragraphs 1: Summarize the pathologies explained in Turkle's and Silver's essays or write about a personal experience or observation of social pathologies resulting from excessive social media use. 150 words.
Paragraph 2: Write a profile of a person you know who is squandering his or life on social media while becoming afflicted with a myriad of social pathologies. 150 words.
Paragraph 3: Write an argumentative thesis that either attributes these pathologies to social media, as is claimed in Turkle's essay, or argue that social media is not the culprit. 100 words.
Paragraphs 4-7: Support your thesis with these body paragraphs. 4x150=600 words. (1,000 subtotal)
Paragraphs 8 and 9: Anticipate how your opponents would disagree with you (counterargument) and show why your opponents are wrong (rebuttal). 2x150=300 (subtotal is 1,300)
Typical counterargument goes like this: "My opponents claim that I am wrong because of _________; however, their claim fails to address ___________." Or, "My opponents will take issue with __________; however, their opposition is clearly misguided when we consider _______________."
Paragraph 9: Conclusion, a restatement of your thesis with powerful emotion (pathos). 100 words (1,400 total)
Final page: MLA Works Cited with minimum of 3 sources (you can try Easy Bib). Be sure to using hanging indent format for MLA. Here's a Create MLA Works Cited video. Here's the 2016 MLA Format.
If I Were a Student, My Thesis Might Look Like This
While social media can be useful as an educational tool when time-blocked with clearly defined outcomes, the majority of users approach social media as a form of entertainment and sharing, which, as Sherry Turkle, Andrew Sullivan, and Cal Newport show, is a major impairment to one's human and professional development evidenced by its addictive, attention-fragmenting, "deep work" killing, conversation-impeding, solitude-impeding, and narcissism-building properties.
Mapping Components Taken from Above Matched with Research
Attention Fragmentation or Shortened Attention Span
Sample Introduction That Transitions to a Thesis
In the age of social media, we curate our own lives. A curator is a guide who controls the message. He is the custodian of his own self-image. Indeed, in the age of social media we curate our own lives, often emphasizing that which makes us look successful and desirable and concealing that which makes puts us in a less flattering light. The danger of being our own curator is that we begin to believe in our own BS. For the last two decades, I’ve curated myself as an intellectual, one who passionately engages in my three loves, reading, writing, and piano playing, but I’ve recently had an awakening in which I realized that thousands of hours lazily spent on the Internet have compromised my intellectual life rendering me somewhat of a fraud to others and myself. My awakening is partly the result of four books: So Good They Can’t Ignore You and Deep Work by Cal Newport, The Talent Code by Daniel Coyle, and Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked by Adam Alter. I am not alone in realizing I’ve squandered thousands of hours engaging in mindless clicking before an Internet screen. My friend, who is far more brilliant than I am, described his wasted existence in the following email:
Like you, I got lost and wasted tens of thousands of hours on the internet. I'm wondering when I reached my 10,000 hours of internet mastery? If I started regular use around 1995, and I averaged at least a few hours a day (which increased over the years to a current and embarrassing 8+/day...my job allows me to spend half or so of the eight-hour shift on the internet, then I'm on a few hours at night), I'm guessing I achieved Internet Mastery by about 2000 or so. I've probably logged 50,000 hours or so by now...which means I could have mastered five different art forms by now. What a tragic waste.
My friend and I both agreed that we’re going to drastically cut down our Internet use and devote ourselves to “deep work,” defined by Cal Newport as prolonged periods of mental discomfort resulting from giving singular concentration to one’s craft. We can only make this change because our self-curated image as “intellectuals” has proven to be a false one in the face of our wasted Internet time. Hopefully, we will change and no longer be curators of a lie.
Sadly, as Sherry Turkle points out, millions of us have become Great Curators of BS and as a result we have compromised our humanity evidenced by __________________________, ______________________________, ___________________________, and ____________________________________.
4 Questions We Must Ask About Our Introduction:
One. Is it authentic?
Two. Is it compelling and hook the reader? (sometimes we have to be personal and gut-wrenching)
Three. Is it relevant to our thesis?
Four. Does it transition to our thesis?
"Resist the Internet" by Ross Douthat
How Social Media Almost Ruined Andrew Sullivan's Life
Major Themes of Destruction from Social Media:
One. Audience illusion: thinking that you have this beholden audience that makes you special when in reality you are just another banal blip on an infinite horizon of infinite blips. Your sense of celebrity is a delusion, but it's all you know: curating the banalities of your existence and convincing yourself that you are a person of high regard.
Two. Easy Replication: Posting on social media is easily replicated and therefore makes you expendable. Copying and pasting links on your social media pages requires the intellectual sophistication of a child zombie. In fact, the zombie state is the result of such compulsive posting.
Three. Social Media Experimentation: Andrew Sullivan was one of the first to conduct this human experiment and he was left physically, psychologically, and spiritually eviscerated. An intellectual, he could no longer read books or sustain singular thoughts, or think about the pains that were roiling inside his soul. He could no longer function as a normal human being, and he felt compelled to write an essay titled "I Used to be a Human Being."
Four. Dopamine addiction: Like millions of people, smartphones and computers made him a slave to dopamine, a chemical from the brain that Attention Engineers know how to create in social media and Las Vegas-type environments.
"Do Facebook and Other Social Media Encourage Narcissism?"
Another Danger of Social Media:
Fewer and fewer people are engaging in deep work.
If I Were a Student, My Thesis Might Look Like This
While social media can be useful as an educational tool when time-blocked with clearly defined outcomes, the majority of users approach social media as a form of entertainment and sharing, which, as Sherry Turkle, Andrew Sullivan, and Cal Newport show, is a major impairment to one's human and professional development evidenced by its addictive, attention-fragmenting, "deep work" killing, conversation-impeding, solitude-impeding, and narcissism-building properties.
Mapping Components Taken from Above Matched with Research
Attention Fragmentation or Shortened Attention Span
Essay 2 for 150 points. Options: 1,400 words typed and 3 sources: Hard copy and turnitin upload due no later than the start of class on March 22.
Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” and Curtis Silver’s “The Quagmire of Social Media Friendships” (444) allege certain pathologies result from social media. These pathologies include an empathy deficit, depression, narcissism, shortened attention span, online shaming, lost conversation skills, and even altered brain development. In an argumentative essay, support, refute, or complicate the assertion from Sherry Turkle’s “The Flight from Conversation” (online essay) that social media is harmful for our social, cultural and intellectual development.
Sample Outline
Paragraph 1 Summarize the pathologies explained in Turkle's and Silver's essays.
Paragraph 2: Write a profile of a person you know who is squandering his or life on social media while becoming afflicted with a myriad of social pathologies.
Paragraph 3: Write an argumentative thesis that either attributes these pathologies to social media, as is claimed in Turkle's essay, or argue that social media is not the culprit.
Paragraphs 4-7: Support your thesis with these body paragraphs.
Paragraph 8: Anticipate how your opponents would disagree with you (counterargument) and show why your opponents are wrong (rebuttal).
Typical counterargument goes like this: "My opponents claim that I am wrong because of _________; however, their claim fails to address ___________." Or, "My opponents will take issue with __________; however, their opposition is clearly misguided when we consider _______________."
Paragraph 9: Conclusion, a restatement of your thesis with powerful emotion (pathos).
Final page: MLA Works Cited with minimum of 3 sources (you can try Easy Bib). Be sure to using hanging indent format for MLA. Here's a Create MLA Works Cited video. Here's the 2016 MLA Format.
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 (for counterargument-rebuttal section)
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.
Argument Against Turkle: Sturgeon's Law
Sturgeon's law states that over 90% of everything is crap. By that logic, over 90% of people using social media are using it in a way that's not in their best interests. But do we throw away social media? Here's another example: According to Sturgeon's Law, over 90% of teachers are woefully bad, but does that mean we abolish teaching?
Life is about accepting the good with the bad, and Sturgeon's Law tells us that most things are bad--very, very bad.
Sample Thesis in Support of Turkle
We ignore Turkle's warning about the way technology is degrading our humanity at our own peril. The evidence supports Turkle's contention that technology, especially social media, is bringing us down "dark places we don't want to go," evidenced by our inability to be alone, our addiction to false connection, and our acclimation to anti-social behavior.
Sample Thesis That Refutes Turkle
While Turkle makes some cogent points about the dangers of social media, her technology diatribe collapses under the weight of evidence that shows other forces, not social media, are dehumanizing us and making us lonely. These forces include Sturgeon's Law, economic collapse, and suburban sprawl.
Sample Thesis That Defends Turkle
While I concede that Sturgeon's Law, economic collapse, and suburban sprawl contribute to the loneliness and social pathology evident in our digital age, these factors do not diminish in any way Turkle's examination of the manner in which technology and social media interact to degrade our humanity in many ways including _____________, ______________, __________________, and _____________________.
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