Breakthrough Writer: 1A Agenda 7-9-19: "People Like Us," Tribalism; Should College be Free?

Suggested Outlines for Essay #4

Outline #1 Surrogacy

Paragraph 1: Introduce the subject of surrogacy with an attention-getting surrogacy nightmare scenario. There are too many to count, so just choose one or two for your introduction.

Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis in which you agree or disagree with Kajsa Ekis Ekman's essay "All Surrogacy Is Exploitation." Your thesis should include 4 reasons that support your thesis.

Paragraphs 3-6: Supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal

Paragraph 8: powerful restatement of thesis for conclusion

Outline #2

Conventional Toulmin Structure Essay Outline for Shaming and "Callout Culture"

Paragraph 1: Outline John Oliver's argument for "callout culture."

Paragraph 2. Outline Friedsorf's critique of Oliver's argument.

Paragraph 3. Develop an argumentative thesis with 3 reasons to support your thesis.

Paragraphs 4-6: Your supporting paragraphs

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-Rebuttal

Paragraph 8: Conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis

Outline #3

Outline for Refutation Model Essay for Shaming and "Callout Culture"

Paragraph 1: Outline John Oliver's argument for "callout culture."

Paragraph 2. Outline Friedsorf's critique of Oliver's argument for "callout culture."

Paragraph 3: Develop a thesis that refutes either Oliver or Friedsort by refuting 4 flaws in their argument.

Paragraphs 4-7: You're taking a baseball bat and knocking down each flaw, one at a time.

Paragraph 8: Conclusion, a powerful restatement of your thesis.

Suggested Essay Outline for "People Like Us"

Outline #4

First Sample Outline for "People Like Us" and Tribalism

Paragraphs 1 and 2, your introduction: For your introduction, get your reader's attention by contrasting your tribe with a tribe you would never belong to. You should be very specific and use humor to get reader's attention. You might write about hipsters, jaded Millennials, yoga fanatics, foodies, survivors of some dysfunctional unit or other. You can come up with the term of the tribes involved.

You might even address our society's separation by looking at hooligans, hobbits, and Vulcans.

Or you might carve out a new tribe: Ashamed Rich Kids who wear hobo dreads and, avoiding bathing, pretend they're homeless even though you recently saw them driving a Mercedes to their palatial estate.

Paragraph 3, your thesis: Write an argumentative thesis.

Paragraphs 4-7 would be your supporting paragraphs.

Paragraph 8 would be your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph

Paragraph 9 is your conclusion.

Outline #5

Second Sample Outline for Refutation of Tribalism

Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us."

Paragraph 2: Transition to your thesis: Argue that while tribalism offers comfort and belonging, one must face that tribalism is larded with liabilities that compel us to reject tribalism in favor of cosmopolitanism, the belief that we are members of the world, not a closed tribe.

Paragraphs 3-6: Analyze the liabilities of tribalism.

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal

Paragraph 8: Powerful restatement of your thesis for conclusion to achieve pathos.

Outline #6

Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"

Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education costs pricing struggling people out of a necessary education and the proposal by some to offer free community college.

Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.

Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.

Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs

Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis

Option B

Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us.” Consult Vice video about social media and tribalism; also consult Brian Klaas video on how tribalism in social media is undermining democracy. Also consult the role of Backfire Effect and tribalism.

Option C

Develop an argumentative thesis that addresses the claim that community college should be free. Be sure to have a counterargument section. For research, use Rahm Emanuel’s “A Simple Proposition to Revive the American Dream” and Jay Mathews’ “Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price” and any other credible sources.

Option D

Read Jean Twenge’s “Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation?” and write an essay that argues for or against Twenge’s claim that smartphones combined with helicopter parenting are resulting in delayed development of Millennials and Generation Z (born after mid 90s). You may refer to CNN Special Report: Being Thirteen.

Option E

Read "In admissions scandal, the students should be expelled" by Michael Hiltzik and develop a thesis that supports or refutes the author’s claim. Should rich students whose parents paid their way illegally into top-tier colleges be expelled? Are all these students equal? Some are not even taking classes seriously evidenced by their YouTube videos. Others may be performing well. Should their performance make a difference? You can also consult Atlantic essay about "Real Scandal" and how there is no way to prevent the next college scandal.

Option B

"People Like Us" and companion piece: "These Are the Americans Who Live in a Bubble" by Emma Green

Outline #4

First Sample Outline for "People Like Us" and Tribalism

You might even address our society's separation by looking at hooligans, hobbits, and Vulcans.

Paragraph 3, your thesis: Write an argumentative thesis.

Paragraphs 4-7 would be your supporting paragraphs.

Paragraph 8 would be your counterargument-rebuttal paragraph

Paragraph 9 is your conclusion.

Outline #5

Second Sample Outline for Refutation of Tribalism

Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us."

Paragraphs 3-6: Analyze the liabilities of tribalism.

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal

Paragraph 8: Powerful restatement of your thesis for conclusion to achieve pathos.

One. What is Tribalism?

Tribalism is the human instinct to gather in groups that are like us in terms of culture, identity, values, education, economic level, religious beliefs, and political worldview.

We feel more comfortable, less anxious, more connected, more accepted in our tribe. Our tribe also gives us a sense of meaning and reinforces our values and beliefs.

Tribalism has intensified in the United States during the last 15 years or so, thanks in part to social media. Politics have also made us more tribalistic in recent years.

Two. Types of Tribalism

Education Level

Zip Code

Sartorial (fashion)

Hipster

Racial Identity

Politics

Age or generation

Hobbits (comfort seekers who live in ignorance)

Hooligans (purveyors of fake news and fascist politics)

Vulcans (educated, rational thinkers)

Middle-Class Aesthetics and Values (neighborhood rules and regulations about house, lawn, decorations, etc)

Cable TV

Social Media friends

Social Media news feed loop

Causes of Tribalism

Cognitive Bias and Groupthink

People sacrifice their critical thinking skills and create a subjective social reality by filtering information based on pre-conceived biases.

Their biases compel them to seek evidence and reasoning that confirm and reinforce their biases while they avoid evidence that challenges and contradicts their biases. Over time, their subjective social reality crystalizes until it becomes almost impervious to any kind of challenges from the outside. They in effect live in an indestructible bubble.

Naturally, cognitive bias compels people to seek others who are like-minded. As a result, societies exist as tribalistic clusters instead of diverse groups.

Desires to be in Tribe

One. What explains our hunger for sameness in terms of the people we surround ourselves with?

Anxiety and Disconnection Vs. Belonging

We’re anxious and alienated from “people who aren’t like us.” We’d rather feel connection and comfort from being with “members of our tribe,” be it in education, politics, class aspirations, etc. We want to be around people who share our values and our way of seeing the world.

Such tribalism is both comforting and effective in making us happy.

Such tribalism appeals to our ego: "We're right, and the people we hang out with confirm that we are right."

We're Attached to Our Cognitive Biases Than We Are Diversity of Thought

Here’s the killer fact we don’t want to confront: We’re happier by remaining in our tribe. We don’t want to be around people who don’t share our values.

Why?

Because we are hard-wired to be self-segregating based on interests and values.

If we’re hipsters, we want to live in a community of hipsters.

If we’re suburban consumers, we want to be around suburban consumers.

If we’re creative, we want to be around a community of artists.

People who shop at Trader Joe’s are of a certain educated and political ilk.

People who shop at Whole Foods are of a certain educated and political ilk.

People who don’t vaccinate their children hang out with other like-minded parents.

People who watch Fox News hang out with Fox News viewers.

People who watch MSNBC hang with MSNBC viewers.

People who like luxury watches create online watch communities.

The Internet with its millions of blogs is all about consolidating people of common interests. The same can be said with YouTube and its over 500 million channels.

If you’re a college graduate the chances are your friends will be college graduates.

If you’re not college educated, the chances are your friends won’t be either.

If you’re fat, your friends probably are also.

If you’re skinny, your friends probably are also.

If you're beautiful, your friends probably also enjoy a fair amount of pulchritude.

If you’re an MMA fighter or enthusiast, your friends probably are also.

If you’re a vegan, so are your friends.

If you’re sympathetic to civil rights and equal justice, you probably don’t have friends who harbor racist views.

If you’re against guns, you probably don’t hang out with outspoken members of the NRA.

If you’re an atheist, especially an outspoken one, you probably don’t have a lot of Christian friends.

If you think skinny jeans on men look stupid, you probably don’t have a lot of male friends who wear skinny jeans.

Foodies hang out with foodies.

Coffee connoisseurs hang out with coffee connoisseurs.

Gamers hang out with gamers.

Sommeliers hang out with sommeliers.

If you're a gourmand who gorges on camembert, you probably hang out with other gourmands who wallow in camembert.

If you're a member of the cognoscenti, you probably hang out exclusively with other members of the cognoscenti.

If you're a Morrissey freak, you probably hang out with other Morrissey freaks.

We want to live in a bubble with people just like us. We feel comfortable being insulated from the “outside world.”

So let’s get real: There is no diversity. There’s only sameness.

The liabilities of tribalism you might cover in your thesis' mapping components:

One. blind conformity

Two. complacency

Three. blindness to the tribe's flaws

Four. narcissism

Five. close-mindedness

Six. closed-off effect to rest of the world

Seven. diminished value of the individual in favor of the tribe

Eight. Traditional fallacy: valuing tradition for tradition's sake but no real justification

Counterarguments: Legit Reasons for Staying Within the Tribe

One. Being with people who share our values is our natural default setting.

Two. Being with people who share our values gives us a sense of belonging and greater happiness.

Three. Being with people who share our values gives us more communal trust and less stress.

Four. It's futile to exist with people who are our antithesis. For example, if you're an intellectual, do you want to associate with anti-intellectuals? If your a feminist, do you want to break bread with misogynists? If your passionately anti-racist, do you want to hang out with racists?

Fiction that refutes tribalism: H.G. Well's "The Country of the Blind"

Movie that refutes tribalism: The 1998 film Pleasantville.

Argumentative essay based on idea that Brooks is overreaching:

One. Develop a thesis that analyzes the human inclination for staying within the tribe of sameness as explained in David Brooks’ “People Like Us” (very popular with students).

Consider these critiques of Brooks:

David Brooks speaks the truth, but his thesis is overreaching. Tribalism, the desire to live among "our kind," takes second seat to money and privilege:

If you have money, you want to live in luxury. You care less about the tribe that surrounds you in your new rich neighborhood.

If you have money, you move to rich neighborhood with better education opportunities (good schools) even if the people who attend those schools are repulsive snobs whom you wouldn't normally hang out with.

If you have money, you live in a safe place even if the neighbors aren't your ideal neighbors in terms of values.

If you have money, you move to a gated community with pools, security services, good schools, a well-oiled infrastructure. You don't think much about the tribe that lives in your neighborhood.

If you have money, you choose a neighborhood that has good technology (cable, data speed) rather than a tribe.

We are tribalists second. We are creatures of opportunity first.

In Southern California, 63% of citizens are renters. 37% are homeowners.

In Southern California, the median income is nearly 70K, which can afford 8% of available houses.

We live in places based on income, not tribe. Tribe comes after the fact.

We are "money-ists more than we are tribalists:

McMahon's Contrary Thesis or Refutation of David Brooks' Thesis

While I agree with David Brooks that we are tribalistic by nature, I reject his tribalism argument because his claim obfuscates a deeper truth that economic stratification, not tribalism, determines where we gather; we are less creatures of tribalism and more creatures of opportunity; our tribalistic values are not set in stone but as flexible as the financial opportunities we possess; we belong to the tribe as a symptom of the core cause, opportunity.

Student Refutation of Tribalism as Evidenced in David Brooks' "People Like Us"

A student's best friend is not from her "tribe." Her friend is from a completely different tribe, and this makes the student reject the implication from Brooks' essay that we must "stick to our tribe" to maximize our sense of security, belonging, and happiness.

Sample Thesis Statements

Tribalism, the instinct to "stick to one's kind," is a disease of the toothy, pinch-faced peasant doomed to a life of hyper-conformity, claustrophobic, oppressive traditions, close-mindedness, and blindness to the tribe's prejudices and other defects.

In contrast, a cosmopolitan, a student of the world, sees that integrity, values, and respect are not owned by one's tribe, but the individual. Therefore, we should value the individual, not the tribe.

McMahon's Contrary Thesis or Refutation of David Brooks' Thesis

Student Refutation of Tribalism as Evidenced in David Brooks' "People Like Us"

Argument

Tribalism is disappearing or taking a back seat to social media-induced depression or the social media zombie state.

The attention economy has stolen people's attention so they are too fragmented to belong to this or that tribe.

Social media has spelled the death of tribal identity because our attention is too fragmented to develop any kind of meaningful identity.

Tribalism Is Shrinking in Favor of Social-Media Driven Depression

In 1999, the movie The Matrix prophesied that the entire world would succumb to The Blue Pill, a form of brainless intoxication in which people disappeared into a cocoon of blissful ignorance.

2011 a Turning Point in History as Tribalism Shrinks in the Face of Social Media-Induced Dopamine Addition and Depression

The prophecy became evident in 2011 when the smartphone, an opium drip machine hooked to the brain 24/7, started to build critical mass.

Now people are losing their tribal roots in favor of Casual Nihilism, the narcissistic exercise of curating fraudulent facsimiles of one’s existence, of fragmenting one’s brain, and of being ignorant of the insidious despair that ensues.

Casual Nihilism is poison for the human individual to blossom and find the real bliss: focusing for long periods of time and working hard on one’s craft.

That Casual Nihilism has replaced Meaningful Work as the paradigm of modern life is a tragedy that will ensue unspeakable disasters, including the failure to detect fake news, the failure to know how to repel marketing and government manipulation, and the general failure to grow up and be a fully realized human being.

See YouTube video about how social media controls our brains. The video title is "You Will Wish You Watched This Before You Started Using Social Media."

Example of Thesis for Tribalism in the Age of Social Media:

Social media, alt-right trolls, fake news, demonization of the credible media, refusal to listen, psychometrics, and grandstanding as a form of virtue-signalling have made Americans tribalistic in weaponized, often dangerous ways that are undermining our democracy.

Second Sample Outline for Refutation of Tribalism

Paragraph 1: Outline David Brooks' essay and explain the appeal of tribalism, that is to say living in communities of "people just like us."

Paragraphs 3-6: Analyze the liabilities of tribalism.

Paragraph 7: Counterargument-rebuttal

Paragraph 8: Powerful restatement of your thesis for conclusion to achieve pathos.

Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"

Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education costs pricing struggling people out of a necessary education and the proposal by some to offer free community college.

Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.

Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.

Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs

Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis

Should Community College be Free?

One. Rahm Emanuel in The Atlantic argues that community college, like K through 12, should be free.

Two. We see that free community college is no panacea or cure-all in The Washington Post article.

Three. National Review argues against free college.

Four. Forbes is against free college.

Five. New York Times provides many voices on the free college debate.

Six. LA Times observes that tuition could be abolished, but that would be no panacea for the problem of high costs.

Rahm Emanual makes the case for free community college:

During the industrial age, when high school was the gateway to the American dream, public-school systems covered the costs of earning a diploma. Today, however, as associate’s degrees have replaced high-school diplomas as the indispensable ticket into the middle class, families are forced to cover the costs of tuition and more. If the information-age economy demands a workforce with additional training, we need to begin cutting students and families the same deal: Anyone willing to work hard and earn the degree should be able to attend community college—for free.

Argument #1: In the post-industrial age, what is often now called the Information Age, high school is no longer the ticket to a middle-class job; an AA degree is.

Counterargument: An AA degree is not a ticket to anything with the exception of tech degrees in auto tech, air conditioning, medical tech, etc. Therefore, offering free AA degrees seems a feeble solution to the problem of lifting people to a higher economic rung on the ladder.

With that basic bargain in mind, a small band of mayors and governors has begun working to spark a quiet revolution in American education. We believe that associate’s degrees should be as accessible for the next 80 years as high-school diplomas have been for the past 80. So the City of Chicago has joined Oregon, Rhode Island, and Tennessee in experimenting with ways to make community college free. Three years in, we’re starting to develop a clearer picture of how this can work.

Because Washington has yet to shed any real light on how best to do this, each state and city has taken a different tack. Under the terms of the Chicago Star Scholarship, a program that has already enrolled more than 6,000 students, we tied eligibility to academic achievement. If a student at a local public high school maintains a B average, the City will provide a free associate’s degree at a local community college, regardless of immigration status. Then, through a program we call Star Plus, students who have maintained that 3.0 GPA are eligible to receive subsidized tuition at 18 of the four-year colleges located in Chicago, enabling many to graduate debt-free.

At the outset, we chose to make our program merit-based for two reasons. First, we suspected that setting a rigorous academic standard would change attitudes inside Chicago’s high schools. If students in grades nine to 12 know that good grades will earn them a guaranteed free education, they’re further incentivized to run through the tape. (Chicago’s high-school graduation rate grew from 56.9 percent in 2011 to 78.2 percent in 2018.) Second, we theorized that making the scholarship merit-based would help the program avoid the plague of college dropouts—and that’s exactly what’s happened. Chicago Star’s retention rate is 86 percent, well above the national average of 62.7 percent.

Next, we decided to institute a series of carrots and sticks. Unlike some of its sister programs, Chicago Star covers not only tuition, but books and public transportation as well. And we decided to require recipients to complete the program in three years, allowing students to earn their associate’s degree while working full-time, but precluding them from dragging the process out indefinitely. Our shot-clock approach works: 49.7 percent of Chicago Star recipients complete their degree, more than double the national average of 23.6 percent.

The demographic impact is remarkable. More than two-thirds of Chicago Star scholars are Hispanic (compared with 20 percent in Oregon)—and 80 percent are first-generation college students (compared with 43 percent in Tennessee). But proud as we are of these successes, there’s no substitute for rigorous data analysis, and Washington should get in the game of determining which approaches work best. Policy makers in Arkansas, Hawaii, Kentucky, Nevada, and other states working to shape similar programs should know how free community college affects high-school graduation rates, for example, and whether “use it or lose it” time limits drive completion rates. As cities and states serve as laboratories of democracy, our national leaders must look to these programs as models for modernizing and expanding access to higher education.

Chicago Star is already changing young lives. You need not look beyond Elijah Ruiz, who graduated from Whitney M. Young Magnet High School, attended Wilbur Wright College on the Star Scholarship, and then earned a full ride to Cornell. Or Rikyah Wright, who had earned college credits in high school through Chicago’s “dual credit, dual enrollment” program, and then took advantage of Star to enroll in fall 2017 at Harold Washington College with an entire semester’s worth of credit already under her belt. Wright went on to the University of Illinois, and is set to graduate in 2020.

Argument #2: Requiring a B average will motivate high school students and make getting a free AA degree a matter of personal responsibility, something political conservatives should be able to embrace. We are not opening the gates free education to everyone: only those who maintain a 3.0 GPA.

Counterargument: The majority of community college students come from failed public high schools and have severe deficits in writing and math. Only a pittance of students from public schools will have a 3.0 GPA accompanied by a baseline of literacy and math acquisition. Therefore, the free AA will only serve a tiny percentage of the population and will not even put a dent on the crisis of education and upward mobility. Rahm Emanuel's proposal is a feel-good Band Aid, little more than lipstick on a pig, as it were.

I’ve spent most of the past four decades in public life. I helped President Bill Clinton turn the federal deficit into a surplus in the 1990s, and I worked with President Barack Obama to shape the Affordable Care Act. But I can say without reservation that I’m as proud of the Star Scholarship as I am of any other professional achievement. I can feel its impact in the embrace of tearful parents who understand how an associate’s degree will help their children achieve the American dream. This program matters. And all Americans—not just those fortunate enough to live in Chicago—deserve similar opportunities.

For years, reformers have focused on the impact that pre-k can have on young people as they grow into adulthood. Now, cities and states are working quietly to revolutionize public education again. More than a century ago, America sparked an explosion of social mobility by creating a robust system of public schools that run to 12th grade. By adding community colleges to the nation’s public-school systems and educational requirements, we can do the same today. Once we understand how best to do this, government can rebuild the pipeline to the American middle class and the belief in the American dream. And that, as Joe Biden might say, is a big, well, deal.

Excerpts from Jay Mathew's Washington Post essay "Maybe tuition-free community college comes at too high a price."

The free tuition idea, he said, “involves spending hundreds of billions of dollars and flooding public colleges and universities with new students.” Increased spending on tuition to make sure everyone gets a free ride would mean less money to hire more professors and less money to expand room in the most important classes so that students can get what they need to graduate, he said.

Argument #1: Free college means less resources to higher teachers.

Mullane testified before the Connecticut legislature in favor of a bill that would have allowed students to transfer all community college credits to the University of Connecticut and the Connecticut State universities. The two big systems opposed that measure. They said their transfer systems were working fine, despite research showing that only 6 percent of Connecticut community college students are in a degree program that allows them to transfer all their credits to the state universities.

Sixty-one percent of community college students told the Center for Community College Student Engagement at the University of Texas in 2016 that they could get the certificates and degrees they sought. Yet only 39 percent of community college students get a certificate, an associate degree or a bachelor’s degree from a four-year college within six years.

Only 15 percent of students who begin in a community college ever earn a bachelor’s degree. Traditionally, colleges have fought for more students — something free tuition would give them — but have done little to ensure successful student outcomes because state funding has usually been based on enrollment.

Argument #2: Low success rate in transfer and acquiring a bachelors degree makes free college a bad investment.

The numbers for California are worse: 70% of community college students fail.

Argument #3: "Sunk-Cost Effect from Jennifer Walsh's "Why States Should Abandon the 'Free College' Movement"

If they are unregulated, low-cost or no-cost programs will likely experience a type of “tragedy of the commons” in which overconsumption leads to a depletion of resources and subsequent rationing of courses and programs. But it is also likely that students themselves may be a part of the problem. When students are able to register with little or no personal cost, they may find it easier to walk away from a course or program than they would if they had paid for it. Behavioral economists, who refer to this as the “sunk-cost effect,” find that people who have invested a significant amount of time, effort, or money in an endeavor are more likely to finish it, for fear that they will waste what they have invested if they quit before it is completed. While economists might consider this to be irrational behavior — after all, the future benefits of an activity or endeavor are not tied to past investment — its effects are widespread. Moreover, research confirms that a person’s commitment to something increases with its monetary value. Hypothetically, then, the more a student pays for a college course, the more committed she will be to finishing the course so that she can get her “money’s worth.”

Sample Essay Outline for "Should College be Free?"

Paragraph 1, Introduce the crisis of college education costs pricing struggling people out of a necessary education and the proposal by some to offer free community college.

Paragraph 2, Transition to a thesis that argues for or against free community college with 3 supporting reasons.

Paragraphs 3-5 are supporting paragraphs.

Paragraphs 6 and 7 are separate rebuttal-counterargument paragraphs

Paragraph 8: conclusion is powerful restatement of thesis

Sentence Fragments

Sentence fragments are incomplete thoughts presented as dependent clauses or phrases.

A dependent clause or a phrase is never a complete sentence.

Types of dependent clauses:

Whenever I drive up windy mountains,

Because I have craved pizza for 14 months,

Unless you add coffee to your chocolate cake recipe,

,which is currently enjoying a resurgence.

Phrases

Enamored by the music of Tupac Shakur,

Craving pesto linguine with olive-oil based clam sauce,

Flexing his muscles with a braggadocio never seen in modern times,

Lying under the bridge and eating garlic pepper pretzels with a dollop of cream cheese and a jug of chilled apple cider,

To understand the notion of Universal Basic Income and all of its related factors for social change in this disruptive age,

Running into crowded restaurants with garlic and whiskey fuming out of his sweaty pores while brandishing a golden scepter,

Examples

I won't entertain your requests for more money and gifts. Until you show at least a modicum of responsibility at school and with your friends.

I won't consider buying the new BMW sports coupe. Unless of course my uncle gives me that inheritance he keeps talking about whenever he gets a bit tipsy.

I can't imagine ever going to Chuck E. Cheese. Which makes me feel like I'm emotionally arrested.

I am considering the purchase of a new wardrobe. That is, if I'm picked for that job interview at Nordstrom.

Human morals have vanished. To the point at which it was decided that market values would triumph.

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.

Sentence Fragment Exercises

After each sentence, write C for complete or F for fragment sentence. If the sentence is a fragment, correct it so that it is a complete sentence.

One. While hovering over the complexity of a formidable math problem and wondering if he had time to solve the problem before his girlfriend called him to complain about the horrible birthday present he bought her.

Two. In spite of the boyfriend’s growing discontent for his girlfriend, a churlish woman prone to tantrums and grand bouts of petulance.

Three. My BMW 5 series, a serious entry into the luxury car market.

Four. Overcome with nausea from eating ten bowls of angel hair pasta slathered in pine nut garlic pesto.

Five. Winding quickly but safely up the treacherous Palos Verdes hills in the shrouded mist of a lazy June morning, I realized that my BMW gave me feelings of completeness and fulfillment.

Six. To attempt to grasp the profound ignorance of those who deny the compelling truths of science in favor of their pseudo-intellectual ideas about “dangerous” vaccines and the “myths” of global warming.

Seven. The girlfriend whom I lavished with exotic gifts from afar.

Eight. When my cravings for pesto pizza, babaganoush, and triple chocolate cake overcome me during my bouts of acute anxiety.

Nine. Inclined to stop watching sports in the face of my girlfriend’s insistence that I pay more attention to her, I am throwing away my TV.

Ten. At the dance club where I espy my girlfriend flirting with a stranger by the soda machine festooned with party balloons and tinsel.

Eleven. The BMW speeding ahead of me and winding into the misty hills.

Twelve. Before you convert to the religion of veganism in order to impress your vegan girlfriend.

Thirteen. Summoning all my strength to resist the giant chocolate fudge cake sweating on the plate before me.

Identify the Fragments Below

I drank the chalky Soylent meal-replacement drink. Expecting to feel full and satisfied. Only to find that I was still ravenously hungry afterwards. Trying to sate my hunger pangs. I went to HomeTown Buffet. Where I ate several platters of braised oxtail and barbecued short ribs smothered in a honey vinegar sauce. Which reminded me of a sauce where I used to buy groceries from. When I was a kid.

Feeling bloated after my HomeTown Buffet indulgence. I exited the restaurant. After which I hailed an Uber and asked the driver for a night club recommendation. So I could dance off all my calories. The driver recommended a place, Anxiety Wires. I had never heard of it. Though, it was crowded inside. I felt eager to dance and confident about “my swag.” Although, I was still feeling bloated. Wondering if my intestines were on the verge of exploding.

Sweating under the night club’s outdoor canopy. I smelled the cloying gasses of a nearby vape. A serpentine woman was holding the vape. A gold contraption emitting rose-water vapors into my direction. Contemplating my gluttony. I was suddenly feeling low confidence. Though I pushed myself to introduce myself to the vape-smoking stranger with the serpentine features. Her eyes locked on mine.

I decided to play it cool. Instead of overwhelming her with a loud, brash manner. Which she might interpret as neediness on my part.

Keeping a portable fan in my cargo pocket for emergencies. When I feel like I’m overheating. I took the fan out of my pocket, turned it on, and directed it toward the serpentine stranger. Making it so the vapors were blowing back in her face.

“Doesn’t smell so good, does it?” I said. With a sarcastic grin.

She cackled, then said, “Thank you for blowing the vapors in my face. Now I can both enjoy inhaling them and breathing them in. For double the pleasure. You are quite a find. Come home with me and I’ll introduce you to my mother Gertrude and her pitbull Jackson. I’m sure they’ll welcome you into our home. Considering what a well-fed handsome man you are.”

“Thank you for the compliment,” I said. “I would love to meet your mother Gertrude and your mother’s pitbull Jackson. Only one problem. My breath smells like a rotting dead dragon. Right after eating spicy ribs. Which reminds me? Do you have any breath mints?”

“I don’t believe in carrying breath mints. On account of the rose-water vape. That cleanses my palate. Making my breath rosy fresh.”

“Wow. Your constant good breath counteracts my intractable bad breath. Making us a match in heaven.”

“I agree. Totally. You really need to meet my mother. Because she’ll bless us and make our marriage official. Since we really need her blessing. Agreed?”

“Agreed.”

“Now let me smell your breath. So I can identify the hot sauce.”

“Why must you do that?”

“So I can use the same hot sauce on our wedding cake, silly. To celebrate the first night we met. Capisce?”

“Capisce.”

She approached me. Affording me a view of her long, tired face. Covered in scales. Reptilian. Evocative of something primitive. Something precious and indelible from my childhood lost long ago. I wanted to run from her, but I could not. Some mysterious force drew me to her, and we inched closer and closer toward one another. Succumbing to a power neither of us could fathom.

Comma Splice Review

Identify the Comma Splices Below:

It’s not a question of will there be chaos or will there be destruction, it’s a question of how much?

MySpace was disruptive in its time, however, it’s a dated platform and to simply mention it is to make people laugh with a certain derision surely it’s a platform that has seen its time, another example is the meal replacement Soylent, its creator made a drink that says, “You’re too busy to eat,” so drinking this pancake batter-like concoction gives tech people street. I may laugh at its stupidity, instead I should admire it since the product has made millions for its creator. It’s proven to be somewhat disruptive.

To be sure, though, Facebook redefines the word disruptive, it has rapidly accrued over 3 billion users and will soon have half the planet plugged into its site, that is the apotheosis of a greedy person’s fantasy, imagine controlling half the planet on a platform that mines private information and targets ads toward specific personality profiles.

One of the scary disruptions of Facebook is that billions of people have lost their personal agency, what that means that people have unknowingly been manipulated by Facebook’s puppeteers to the point that many Facebook users suffer from social media addiction, moreover, these same users prefer the fake life they curate on social media to the real life they once had, in fact, their previous real life is just a puff of smoke that has faded into the distance, many people no longer even know what it means to be “real” anymore, having lost their agency, having succumbed to their Facebook addiction, they have become zombies waiting for their next rush of social media-fueled dopamine, what a sad state of affairs.

Commas are designed to help writers avoid confusing sentences and to clarify the logic of their sentences.

If you cook Jeff will clean the dishes. (Will you cook Jeff?)

While we were eating a rattlesnake approached us. (Were we eating a rattlesnake?)

Comma Rule 1: Use a comma before a coordinating conjunction (FANBOYS) joining two independent clauses.

Rattlesnakes are high in protein, but I’d rather eat a peanut butter sandwich.

Rattlesnakes are dangerous, and the desert species are even more so.

We are a proud people, for our ancestors passed down these famous delicacies over a period of five thousand years.

The exception to rule 1 is when the two independent clauses are short:

The plane took off and we were on our way.

Comma Rule 2: Use a comma after an introductory clause or phrase.

When Jeff Henderson was in prison, he developed an appetite for reading.

In the nearby room, the TV is blaring full blast.

Tanning in the hot Hermosa Beach sun for over two hours, I realized I had better call it a day.

The exception is when the short adverb clause or phrase is short and doesn’t create the possibility of a misreading:

In no time we were at 2,800 feet.

Comma Rule 3: Use a comma between all items in a series.

Jeff Henderson found redemption through hard work, self-reinvention, and social altruism.

Finding his passion, mastering his craft, and giving back to the community were all part of Jeff Henderson’s self-reinvention.

Comma Rule 4: Use a comma between coordinate adjectives not joined with “and.” Do not use a comma between cumulative adjectives.

The adjectives below are called coordinate because they modify the noun separately:

Jeff Henderson is a passionate, articulate, wise speaker.

The adjectives above are coordinate because they can be joined with “and.” Jeff Henderson is passionate and articulate and wise.

Adjectives that do not modify the noun separately are cumulative.

Three large gray shapes moved slowly toward us.

Chocolate fudge peanut butter swirl coconut cake is divine.

Comma Rule 5: Use commas to set off nonrestrictive (nonessential) elements.

Restrictive or essential information doesn’t have a comma:

For school the students need notebooks that are college-ruled.

Jeff’s cat that just had kittens became very aggressive.

Nonrestrictive:

For school the students need college-ruled notebooks, which are on sale at the bookstore.

Jeff Henderson’s mansion, which is located in Las Vegas, has a state-of-the-art kitchen.

My youngest sister, who plays left wing on the soccer team, now lives at The Sands, a beach house near Los Angeles.

Option C: Read "In admissions scandal, the students should be expelled" by Michael Hiltzik and support or defend the author's assertion. Should rich students whose parents paid their way illegally into top-tier colleges be expelled? Are all these students equal? Some are not even taking classes seriously evidenced by their YouTube videos. Others may be performing well. Should their performance make a difference?

Also see Atlantic essay about "Real Scandal" and how there is no way to prevent the next college scandal.

See Clint Smith essay "Elite Colleges Constantly Tell Low-Income Students That They Don't Belong."