Summarizing Sources
“A summary restates the main idea of a passage in concise terms”
A typical summary is one or two sentences.
A summary does not contain your opinions or analysis.
Paraphrasing Sources
A paraphrase, which is longer than a summary, contains more details and examples. Sometimes you need to be more specific than a summary to make sure your reader understands you.
A paraphrase does not include your opinions or analysis.
Quoting Sources
Quoting sources means you are quoting exactly what you are referring to in the text with no modifications, which might twist the author’s meaning.
You should avoid long quotations as much as possible.
Quote only when necessary. Rely on summary and paraphrase before resorting to direct quotes.
A good time to use a specific quote is when it’s an opposing point that you want to refute.
Using Signal Phrases to Introduce Summary, Paraphrase, and Quoted Material
Examples
According to Jeff McMahon, the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
Jeff McMahon notes that the grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor. They’ll all be the same.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors, Jeff McMahon observes, that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor.
The grading rubric in English classes is used in such a way by instructors that soon there will be no such thing as an “easy” or “hard” professor, Jeff McMahon points out.
The story "Lime Pickle," referring to a spicy Indian condiment that makes the tongue dance with exotic pleasure, focuses on the conflict between a sweet, innocent young couple and debauched father whose introduction of the lime pickle becomes a metaphor for lost innocence. As we read, the narrator's girlfriend, upon realizing her father is an adulterous fop without morals, clings to her boyfriend in horror while watching her fond notions of family innocence "dissolve in some corrosive solution before her eyes." Of course, the lime pickle, that spicy, piquant temptress, is the corrosive Dionysian force that dissolves the nesting instinct that provides family stability. A lime pickle may be a tiny condiment, but beware of its powers, for as we say in Mexico, "Chiquito pero picoso."
Review the 4 Steps of MLA In-Text Citations
You need to do four things when you quote, paraphrase, or summarize from a text.
Step One: The first thing you need to do is introduce the material with a signal phrase. Use the templates:
Make sure to use a variety of signal phrases to introduce quotations and paraphrases.
Verbs in Signal Phrases
According to . . . (very common)
Ha Jin writes . . . (very common)
Panbin laments . . .
Dan rages . . .
Dan seethes . . .
Signal Phrase Templates
In the words of researchers Redelmeier and Tibshirani, “…”
As Matt Sundeen has noted, “…”
Patti Pena, mother of a child killed by a driver distracted by a cell phone, points out that “…”
“…” writes Christine Haughney, “…”
“…” claims wireless spokesperson Annette Jacobs.
Radio hosts Tom and Ray Magliozzi offer a persuasive counterargument: “…”
Step Two: The quote, paraphrase, or summary you use.
Step Three: The parenthetical citation, which comes after the cited material.
Kwon points out that the Fourth Amendment does not give employees any protections from employers’ “unreasonable searches and seizures” (6).
In the cultural website One-Way Street, Richard Prouty observes that Lasdun's "men exist in a fixed point of the universe, but they have no agency" (para. 7).
Step Four: Analyze your cited material. The analysis should be of a greater length than the cited material. Show how the cited material supports your thesis.
Essay One for 150 Points Based on Choosing One of the Following Options
Option 1
In the context of Gottschall’s The Professor in the Cage, develop an argumentative thesis about the relationship between masculinity and ritualized violence. Your essay should be 1,000 words and have a Works Cited page with 3 sources, including one from the El Camino College database.
Same Option Reworded:
Does JG make a convincing case that ritualized violence enhances masculinity, manhood, and male social bonding?
Sample Thesis Against JG
While JG makes the strong case for male aggression needing social capital through ritualized violence, his argument that these ritualized honor codes are the cure for unhappy males collapses when we consider he is too narrowly focused on the "Bro Code," he makes a one-size-fits-all "cure" for depressed men, he makes the error of trying to make his own personal journey a universal principle for all men, and he encourages dangerous gender stereotypes.
Sample Defense of JG
While JG's personal journey cannot be a universal application for most men and while at times his gender analysis veers into dangerous gender stereotype territory, his overall thesis about men needing to channel their aggression through honor codes is well supported and firmly positioned in his convincing research and analysis of biology, anthropology, history, and popular culture.
Option 2
Support, refute, or complicate the assertion that Steve Almond's "The NFL Is Morally Reprehensible" is a compelling argument against Gottschall's case that ritualized violence is a natural and essential part of masculinity.
Sample Thesis That Agrees with Steve Almond
While some types of ritualized violence can contribute to men's sense of honor and social capital, the big business of NFL is a moral abomination evidenced by the NFL's pattern of misogynistic behavior, the NFL's financial exploitation of its players, the game's bloodlust appeal, and the game's high risk of shortening life, and inflicting PTSD and Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy.
Sample Refutation of Steve Almond
Steve Almond's shrill and alarmist rebuke of the NFL is based on several fallacies including his failure to recognize that adults can decide what is acceptable risk, his exaggeration of the NFL's so-called misogyny, his refusal to acknowledge that the NFL provides high pay to men who otherwise could not enjoy such a high salary, and his dismissal of the NFL's healthy job creation.
One. What is one of the central controversies of the book?
Here lies the debate in Gottschall’s book. A lot of sociologists, such as Allan G. Johnson, criticize the biology model of gender differences, arguing that the biology model is false and born out of the need to service patriarchy, a male-dominated society. Critics such as Johnson argue that gender differences and gender roles are social constructions.
Gottschall would disagree. He argues that masculinity, the need to fight and to pump up in the gym, is a biological need in order to obtain power. If we don’t obtain this power, he argues, we get pushed around.
At one point, Gottschall (JG) argues with “the poet” about masculinity. He says to the poet: “Can you name a single society in world history where physical strength wasn’t part of the masculine ideal?”
He continues: “We didn’t invent masculinity. It’s not a cultural thing. It’s not even a people thing. Watch an alpha chimp or a silverback gorilla strut around. They’re macho!”
And then ironically, JG and the poet had a “masculine ritual” of arguing back and forth to see who’s right rather than come to a mutual understanding, a point JG makes to prove his argument.
JG argues all males seek masculine power: “The big get their way, while the small give way.” This is the Law of the Jungle. To call this law a product of socialization or cultural patriarchy or media brainwashing is too ignore the evidence.
Two. How is prison a microcosm of society at large?
JG writes: “As in prison, strength equals respect in its most basic dimension: when you are strong, guys don’t f*** with you. . . . Bullies and criminals aren’t looking to test themselves in fair fights. So young men bulk up on the weights for many reasons. They want to look good. They may want to improve in sports. But they are also building up an arsenal of deterrence. Muscle is a bold advertisement: I am not a rabbit. I am not food.”
Three. What school of thought disagrees with JG’s argument that masculinity is biological?
We read that “For about a half a century academic thinking about gender has been guided by the theory of the ‘sex/gender system.’”
Sex is biological, but gender is learned, according to this theory. In other words, there is a strong dividing line between sex and gender.
As we read: “But gender—all of the attributes we typically describe as ‘masculine’ or ‘feminine’—is purely cultural. We all emerge into the world as genderless blobs that parents, media, and teachers torture into culturally appropriate shapes. The act of taking the soggy mass of human raw material and mashing it into a rigid gender mold has been called ‘boying’ and ‘girling.”
JG rejects the above notion, mainly because science shows that males are more hardwired than females in two ways: “competitive and violent behavior.”
You can talk to parents, and they will tell you boy toddlers are more aggressive than female toddlers, for example.
Much of JG’s book is a rejection of the sex/gender dichotomy. He writes: “the basic masculine and feminine traits—male more competitive and aggressive, females more peaceable and nurturing—extend across diverse animal species. Over the past few decades biologists have determined that masculinity and femininity are rooted in something very simple: how fast the two sexes can reproduce. . . .”
Men are in competition with other men for reproductive success, and this competition starts early.
We read: “This competition to attract mates and defeat rivals is what Darwin called sexual selection. And in males the suite of features shaped by generations of consistent high-risk, high-reward competition for mates is what we call masculinity. As Darwin indicated, these features consist of being bigger, stronger, more bellicose, more willing to take risks, and more sexually eager” (72).
Masculinity has a biological purpose. We read: “Put baldly, this means that masculinity has an overriding purpose. Whether in men or musk oxen, masculinity is for prevailing in the competition for mates. It’s about being big and fierce enough to win fights, or to intimidate a rival into yielding without a fight.”
Four. What intellectual traps must we avoid when contemplating biological explanations for gender?
We must not equate the biological template of a male—aggressive, ruthlessly competitive, risk-taking—with an ideal of behavior. Nor must we equate this behavior with morality.
One man could embody masculine behavior and be a complete jackass. In contrast, another man could embody masculine behavior and be honorable and noble.
One thing is clear: Unleashing our male animal does not make us ideal or moral. Cultivating our masculinity with the harness of morality and honor is the only way.
Lots of “bros” or macho men or he-men are obnoxious braggarts, reckless troglodytes, and are on the road to self-destruction.
We must not read JG’s argument as an argument in favor of “jackass masculinity.”
There’s another danger. Not all women are attracted to macho bros. Some are, to be sure. But some women are attracted to shy bookish nerds. Some shy bookish nerds didn’t date in high school while the macho bros “got all the girls.” But ten, fifteen years down the road, the macho bros are working dead-end jobs, are unemployed, are in prison, are possibly dead. Some of the bookish nerds on the other hand might be in healthy relationships and running computer companies.
In other words, let us not glorify the unbridled macho bro.
Having masculine traits is good to a certain degree, but not if we become inconsiderate, rude, belligerent beasts.
We are not gorillas. Male gorillas are twice as big as female gorillas because they are “a harem-holding species.” Men do not hold harems in modern American society, last I checked.
Five. How does JG chronicle his own conflict with community and isolation?
JG makes a connection between masculinity and community: Men are judged by communal standards and enter rites of passages to be held in esteem and find belonging in their communities.
As a suburbanite living isolated in the suburbs, teaching college course, writing in isolation, and haunted by demons of masculine self-doubt, JG lives a lot in his head, isolated from those communal bonds that would him a sense of belonging, acceptance, and validation.
In this state of self-doubt, he longs for a way to prove his masculinity to himself and to others.
His crisis of self-worth is universal.
Many men find escape from their sense of domestic and masculine ineptitude by watching sports.
Television dramatizes men trying to regain their self-worth. Most famously, Breaking Bad, featuring Walter White, is about an effete chemistry teacher who becomes “The Danger.”
JG feels “soulless and emasculated” in his adjunct professor office. He’s been “man-dumped” by his friend.
He wants to get fired as a professor. He observes that the English Department is a feminized environment.
He wants to be a bad boy MMA fighter. He thinks being a bad boy will afford him the masculinity he craves.
He punches his poet friend Nobu, a long-time martial arts practitioner, at a party.
Six. What “man crisis” does JG chronicle in his book?
Perhaps American society offers too few healthy rituals to affirm masculinity. On page 82, we read that men are hungry for masculine qualities: “bravery, toughness, stoicism” and “we invent our own dragons” like Don Quixote to test ourselves.
The “dragon” could be an MMA fight, a bodybuilding competition, saving up for a Mustang GT, finding some trophy or other, getting a UCLA degree, getting a six-pack of abs, developing a hand-crushing handshake by exercising the hands with Captains of Crush Hand Crushers.
JG points out that YouTube is rife with crazy videos of men doing dares.
Men crave high-risk activities and simulated combat, so that they are drawn to wrestling and “combat” games. In contrast, JG observes that women are drawn to different, non-physical warfare, battles of cunning, deceit, and other Machiavellian methods. For JG, this difference is biological, not social.
Arguments against JG's book to consider:
One. His book may have some truth in genetic hardwiring of males, but it's too extreme. Socialization is a factor also. For example, it used to be essential to one's manliness and honor to engage in a duel, but this suicidal ritual is now extinct due to socialization. Manly codes don't require that men engage in duels.
Two. JG's book encourages stereotypes. Males and females break out of rigid role expectations all the time. JG's book desires to reinforce gender stereotypes.
Three. JG is too emotionally involved in the subject to see that his own masculine insecurity drives his argument, not facts. In other words, JG should not take an individual crisis and try to make a general principle about it. Perhaps another man with an identity or self-worth crisis would empower himself, not through MMA training, but by playing piano, guitar, or working on his tennis serve.
Four. JG draws on a lot of truth but perhaps exaggerates his claims. Perhaps he's not wrong absolutely but by degree.
Five. JG's book is a misreading of his life. He's not suffering a masculinity crisis, as he likes to believe. Rather, he is suffering from a meaning of life crisis--a crisis about a man who lacks purpose.
Reviews:
Critique posted on Kung Fu Tea blog.
Rebuttal to the Above
JG has never dismissed socialization. Nor has he endorsed dueling. He is simply stating that society is in denial about the significant role biology plays in gender roles.
Two. JG's book encourages stereotypes. Males and females break out of rigid role expectations all the time. JG's book desires to reinforce gender stereotypes.
Rebuttal to the Above
JG has never attempted to tell individual men or women how to behave. He is simply observing patterns of behavior recorded throughout history. He acknowledges that gender roles will always have outliers or exceptions, and never does he criticize these exceptions.
Three. JG is too emotionally involved in the subject to see that his own masculine insecurity drives his argument, not facts. In other words, JG should not take an individual crisis and try to make a general principle about it. Perhaps another man with an identity or self-worth crisis would empower himself, not through MMA training, but by playing piano, guitar, or working on his tennis serve.
Rebuttal to the Above
This book is part memoir. By its very nature, then, this book must be passionate if it is to be successful. No one wants to read a perfunctory memoir. That JG can combine passion with astute scholarship attests to the intellectual rigor of his writing and reinforces the claim that his book is a cogent look at the biological role of masculinity.
Four. JG draws on a lot of truth but perhaps exaggerates his claims. Perhaps he's not wrong absolutely but by degree.
Rebuttal to the Above
I cannot rebut any claims to exaggeration unless the writer be more specific. Next criticism, please.
Five. JG's book is a misreading of his life. He's not suffering a masculinity crisis, as he likes to believe. Rather, he is suffering from a meaning of life crisis--a crisis about a man who lacks purpose.
Rebuttal to the Above
The above criticism is an egregious example of the either/or fallacy. We do not have the either/or proposition that JG has either a masculinity crisis OR a meaning of life crisis. In fact, he may have both and there may be a connection between the two. Only a reader with a superficial grasp of JG’s book would make such a fallacious comment.
Six. While a masculinity crisis affects JGs journey, JG doesn’t focus enough on his purpose quest and instead does a “book stunt” or a book gimmick perhaps based on misguided ambition. As a result, his thesis is only half convincing and his book has a lot of padding. The book could have been at least 50 pages shorter.
Rebuttal to the Above
JG admits he uses a gimmick. Perhaps his book is a mix of ambition and sincere curiosity about the role of biology in masculinity. We shouldn’t fault him. None of us are pure. All of us have complicated “impure” motives even behind the best things we do.
Study Questions
One. Why do men fight both for real and for play?
JG cites 10 reasons:
- Men fight to test themselves.
- Men fight to pin each other on a hierarchy scale, what some might call the Man Points scale.
- Men have natural, testosterone-fueled aggression.
- Men fight to cultivate courage, what men call “heart.” By fighting, men acclimate to the pain and this acclimation, to be able to “take a hit,” allows one to “be a man.”
- Men fight to bond with other men by affirming their shared courage.
- Men fight to win the esteem of others.
- Men fight to feel alive and feel freed from civilization’s numbing prison. See the movie Fight Club or read the novel.
- Men fight to prepare for the real world of competition. See page 136.
- Men fight to form alliances with other men. See page 135.
- Men fight in ritualized combat as form of the “monkey dance,” a dance that leads to peace and prevents men from killing each other.
Two. Do boys and girls play the same?
No, their playing styles clash. Boys and girls engage in same-gender play 11 times more than mixed gender by their time their six (137).
Three. How can we explain the appeal of female MMA? Doesn’t it shatter JG’s thesis that violent sports belong to men?
People, regardless of gender, have similar basic drives that can be explained by the spike in interest in women’s MMA:
- The craving for attention
- The craving for relevance
- The craving for validation
- The craving for dominance
- The desire to master a craft
- The desire to be distinct
Four. Why do men become fanatics for their sports teams?
- They want to belong to a gang, a primal expression of male bonding. Don’t doubt it. Rooting for “your team” is similar to gang affiliation.
- Rooting for your team can be a form of power compensation for people who feel powerless in their real lives.
- Rooting for a team can be a vicarious or fantasy existence for someone whose real world is sullied by boredom and a lack of purpose.
- Rooting for a team can be a man’s escape from his domestic ineptitude and general feelings of worthlessness and irrelevance.
- Rooting for a team can be about fashion. As Seinfeld says, “You’re rooting for clothes.”
- Football can be a form of “sham warfare,” a sort of preparation for real war. See George Carlin video.
Five. What is an early example of sham warfare?
We see that English football originated over one thousand years ago and used a pig bladder. As an aside, my twin girls, 6 as of writing, like to play keep-away with me and this keep-away game, usually involving a blanket or a toy, has many parallels to football. I mention this because the game requires a certain amount of aggression and my twins, of course, are girls.
Six. What hypocrisy and delusion does JGs’ research reveal about spectator sports?
We pretend to hate violence when in fact we have an insatiable appetite for sadistic, cruel all-out violent spectacle. We always have since recorded history. See page 187.
Violence sells. Of all the Real Housewives shows, what’s number one? Atlanta. Why? It’s the most violent.
Looking at recorded history is a laundry list of shamefully violent entertainments:
Gladiator fights
Bull baiting
Bull fights
Lions vs. tigers vs. bears, etc.
Animal sadism
Public torture of humans
Public executions
Understanding Toulmin Logic
The Claim
The claim is the thesis or the central argument of the Toulmin essay.
Grounds
Evidence, reasons, and support comprise the grounds of the Toulmin essay.
Warrants
Warrants answer this question: Exactly how do the reasons offered in support of the conclusion work together?
In other words, what kind of guarantee—or warrant—is provided to demonstrate that the reasons proffered actually do support the claim or lead to the conclusion?
Perhaps the most simple way to explain this is to say that the warrants are the logic used to connect the grounds to the claim.
Example:
Claim: We need harsher fines and possible jail time for texting while driving.
Grounds: In spite of current texting-while-driving laws, the offense is on the rise. In fact, it’s up 50% from last year.
Warrant: Making people dig deeper into their pockets and scaring them with the possibility with heavy jail time will be a more effective deterrent than the current penalties.
Backing
Backing is using further logic to convince reader that you have chosen compelling and appropriate reasons for supporting your claim.
Modal Qualifiers
Modal qualifiers define the character and scope of the proposition or claim.
Unless there is evidence that the current laws are discouraging texting while driving . . .
In most cases, drivers who know that the penalties for texting while driving can be up to $3,000 and 2 years of jail time . . .
Rebuttals
At this point in your essay, you ask what are the possible objections to my argument? And what are the most compelling objections?
Can I state these counterarguments and rebuttal them effectively?
Recognizing Logical Fallacies
Begging the Question
Begging the question assumes that a statement is self-evident when it actually requires proof.
Major Premise: Fulfilling all my major desires is the only way I can be happy.
Minor Premise: I can’t afford when of my greatest desires in life, a Lexus GS350.
Conclusion: Therefore, I can never be happy.
Circular Reasoning
Circular reasoning occurs when we support a statement by restating it in different terms.
Stealing is wrong because it is illegal.
Admitting women into the men’s club is wrong because it’s an invalid policy.
Your essay is woeful because of its egregious construction.
Your boyfriend is hideous because of his heinous characteristics.
I have to sell my car because I’m ready to sell it.
I can’t spend time with my kids because it’s too time consuming.
I need to spend more money on my presents than my family’s presents because I need bigger and better presents.
I’m a great father because I’m the best father my children have ever had.
Weak Analogy or Faulty Comparison
Analogies are never perfect but they can be powerful. The question is do they have a degree of validity to make them worth the effort.
A toxic relationship is like a cancer that gets worse and worse (fine).
Sugar is high-octane fuel to use before your workout (weak because there is nothing high-octane about a substance that causes you to crash and converts into fat and creates other problems)
Free education is a great flame and the masses are moths flying into the flames of destruction. (horribly false analogy)
Ad Hominem Fallacy (Personal Attack)
“Who are you to be a marriage counselor? You’ve been divorced six times?”
A lot of people give great advice and present sound arguments even if they don’t apply their principles to their lives, so we should focus on the argument, not personal attack.
“So you believe in universal health care, do you? I suppose you’re a communist and you hate America as well.”
Making someone you disagree with an American-hating communist is invalid and doesn’t address the actual argument.
“What do you mean you don’t believe in marriage? What are you, a crazed nihilist, an unrepentant anarchist, an immoral misanthrope, a craven miscreant?”
Straw Man Fallacy
You twist and misconstrue your opponent’s argument to make it look weaker than it is when you refute it. Instead of attacking the real issue, you aim for a weaker issue based on your deliberate misinterpretation of your opponent’s argument.
“Those who are against universal health care are heartless. They obviously don’t care if innocent children die.”
Hasty Generalization (Jumping to a Conclusion)
“I’ve had three English instructors who are middle-aged bald men. Therefore, all English instructors are middle-aged bald men.”
“I’ve met three Americans with false British accents and they were all annoying. Therefore, all Americans, such as Madonna, who contrive British accents are annoying.” Perhaps some Americans do so ironically and as a result are more funny than annoying.
Either/Or Fallacy
There are only two choices to an issue is an over simplification and an either/or fallacy.
“Either you be my girlfriend or you don’t like real men.”
“Either you be my boyfriend or you’re not a real American.”
“Either you play football for me or you’re not a real man.”
“Either you’re for us or against us.” (The enemy of our enemy is our friend is every day foreign policy.)
“Either you agree with me about increasing the minimum wage, or you’re okay with letting children starve to death.”
“Either you get a 4.0 and get admitted into USC, or you’re only half a man.”
Equivocation
Equivocation occurs when you deliberately twist the meaning of something in order to justify your position.
“You told me the used car you just sold me was in ‘good working condition.’”
“I said ‘good,’ not perfect.”
The seller is equivocating.
“I told you to be in bed by ten.”
“I thought you meant be home by ten.”
“You told me you were going to pay me the money you owe me on Friday.”
“I didn’t know you meant the whole sum.”
“You told me you were going to take me out on my birthday.”
“Technically speaking, the picnic I made for us in the backyard was a form of ‘going out.’”
Red Herring Fallacy
This fallacy is to throw a distraction in your opponent’s face because you know a distraction may help you win the argument.
“Barack Obama wants us to support him but his father was a Muslim. How can we trust the President on the war against terrorism when he has terrorist ties?”
“You said you were going to pay me my thousand dollars today. Where is it?”
“Dear friend, I’ve been diagnosed with a very serious medical condition. Can we talk about our money issue some other time?”
Slippery Slope Fallacy
We go down a rabbit hole of exaggerated consequences to make our point sound convincing.
“If we allow gay marriage, we’ll have to allow people to marry gorillas.”
“If we allow gay marriage, my marriage to my wife will be disrespected and dishonored.”
Appeal to Authority
Using a celebrity to promote an energy drink doesn’t make this drink effective in increasing performance.
Listening to an actor play a doctor on TV doesn’t make the pharmaceutical he’s promoting safe or effective.
Tradition Fallacy
“We’ve never allowed women into our country club. Why should we start now?”
“Women have always served men. That’s the way it’s been and that’s the way it always should be.”
Misuse of Statistics
Using stats to show causality when it’s a condition of correlation or omitting other facts.
“Ninety-nine percent of people who take this remedy see their cold go away in ten days.” (Colds go away on their own).
“Violent crime from home intruders goes down twenty percent in home equipped with guns.” (more people in those homes die of accidental shootings or suicides)
Post Hoc, Confusing Causality with Correlation
Taking cold medicine makes your cold go away. Really?
The rooster crows and makes the sun go up. Really?
You drink on a Thursday night and on Friday morning you get an A on your calculus exam. Really?
You stop drinking milk and you feel stronger. Really? (or is it placebo effect?)
Non Sequitur (It Does Not Follow)
The conclusion in an argument is not relevant to the premises.
Megan drives a BMW, so she must be rich.
McMahon understands the difference between a phrase and a dependent clause; therefore, he must be a genius.
Whenever I eat chocolate cake, I feel good. Therefore, chocolate cake must be good for me.
Bandwagon Fallacy
Because everyone believes something, it must be right.
“You can steal a little at work. Everyone else does.”
“In Paris, ninety-nine percent of all husbands have a secret mistress. Therefore adultery is not immoral.”
Comments