Building Block #1 Worth 25 points and due on May 25
Writing Your Introduction Paragraph as an Extended Definition of the Sunken Place
Purpose of Formative Assessment: To build your Essay 4 with your introductory paragraph.
Objectives:
- Write an introductory paragraph with a single-sentence definition followed by an extended definition to show a clear understanding of The Sunken Place.
- Two. Use appropriate signal phrases and in-text citations.
- Three. Use this paragraph as a building block for your Get Out essay.
Building Block #1
Assignment Description
Writing Your Introduction Paragraph as an Extended Definition of The Sunken Place
In your introductory paragraph, define The Sunken Place from the provided research materials above.
Give a one-sentence definition of The Sunken Place and expound on your definition by giving distinguishing characteristics examples from the sources given on the previous modules. Your distinguishing characteristics will be gathered by quoting, paraphrasing, or summarizing major points.
The Purpose of this Assignment
All of my assignments are “building blocks” toward your finished essay, which in online education circles is referred to as your Summative Assessment. By fulfilling the requirements of this assignment, you will have a first paragraph completed toward your essay.
Sources for The Sunken Place:
The Wrap’s Ross A. Lincoln article “‘Get Out’ Director Jordan Peele Explains ‘The Sunken Place’”
The Guardian’s Alex Rayner article “Trapped in the Sunken Place: how Get Out’s purgatory engulfed pop culture”
The Atlantic’s David Sims article “What Made That Hypnosis Scene in Get Out So Terrifying”
YouTube video: “The Philosophy of Get Out--Wisecrack Edition.”
Jet Fuel Review Blog’s Michael Lane article “Living in the Sunken Place: An Analysis of ‘Get Out’”
McMahon’s Breakdown of The Sunken Place
In a previous module, I broke down some of the key ingredients of The Sunken Place. Here is a review:
One, it is a state of hypnosis in which we lose our sense of free will and self-agency as we feel we are succumbing to overwhelming forces that strip us of all control and dignity.
Two, this hypnosis comes from a force that bullies and gaslights us, persuades us that there is no hope for a better life, that the “best thing to do” is to surrender to make the process of losing our freedom as painless as possible.
Three, The Sunken Place suppresses our scream for help. As observed in Ross A. Lincoln’s “‘Get Out’ Director Jordan Peele Explains ‘The Sunken Place,’” Peele discussed The Sunken Place on Twitter as a state of hopelessness and despair: “We’re all marginalized. No matter how hard we scream, the system silences us.” The Sunken Place is to be marginalized by systemic racism and injustice and to have one’s cries ignored and silenced over and over until one is despondent.
Four, The Sunken Place is the result of a raw power play. When Missy Armitage hypnotizes Chris Washington, she lets him know that she has complete power over him by gloating, “You cannot move.” This power play is both psychological and physical.
Five, The Sunken Place is powerful because in part the victim internalizes helplessness. Such internalization is called learned helplessness in which the victim, even if given options to go free, stays imprisoned because the victim has been brainwashed to believe that helplessness is indefinite and therefore there is no such thing as hope. Even if freedom exists, the person who internalizes learned helplessness does not know what to do with freedom. Therefore, freedom becomes useless.
Six, The Sunken Place triggers a fight-flight response. Triggered by terror, people get a spike in adrenaline, rapid heart rate, dilation of pupils, shaking and trembling, and paralysis. We see this fight-flight response at the end of Childish Gambino’s “This Is America” video.
Seven, The Sunken Place is to be humiliated and abused yet to be told that you’re the one who’s crazy because the perpetrator of your humiliation is innocent. As Jake Skubish writes in his article “Get Out, Ta-Nehisi Coates, and the stories we tell ourselves,” the movie Get Out is about narratives that exalt whiteness and marginalize black people. Whites are part of a grand narrative that “weaponizes the lie of white innocence.” Blacks, on the other hand, are not part of the narrative. Pushed aside, they’re pawns and spectators, told to watch the white narrative obediently from their Sunken Place.
Writing Your Extended Definition Requires Knowing the 3 Elements of an Extended Definition
Remember that when you provide an extended definition, you provide three things:
- single-sentence definition of the term you’re defining
- the class or category that the term belongs to
- the term’s distinguishing characteristics.
Instructions:
Step One. Begin Paragraph 1 with a single-sentence definition of The Sunken Place.
For an extended definition, begin with a single-sentence definition. By doing this, you are helping the reader understand the meaning of The Sunken Place.
As we discussed earlier, when you provide an extended definition, you provide three things: a single-sentence definition of the term you’re defining, the class that the term belongs to, and the term’s distinguishing characteristics.
Some of you may be asking, what class does The Sunken Place belong to?
While there is no single right answer, here some suggestions:
- Altered state of mind
- State of learned helplessness
- Primordial fear
Helping your reader have a clear grasp of a central term in your essay makes your writing more clear and effective. The Purdue Writing Lab has an effective description of extended definitions with the link here.
Step Two. Expand your definition with distinguishing characteristics and examples of The Sunken Place.
See the above breakdown for the different characteristics and flesh those out in your paragraph.
Step Three: Use signal phrases for your summary, paraphrase, and quoted content.
It is important that you show your ability to summarize, paraphrase, and quote your source material by using signal phrases, which are short phrases you use to introduce quotes, paraphrased, or summarized content. Here are 6 important components to consider when writing signal phrases:
Review Complete 6 Components of Signal Phrases
- Vary your transitions so you're not only using "say" and "write."
- Transition from your own writing to quoted or paraphrased material.
- Vary your location of the signal phrase, beginning, middle, or end.
- Provide credentials of the person being cited in your signal phrase.
- Provide correct in-text citations for MLA format, as provided by Purdue Owl.
- Return to what you just cited and analyze its significance to your argument.
This YouTube video “Using Signal Phrases to Incorporate Sources into Your Paper” is helpful.
I also recommend “The Basics of MLA In-Text Citations.”
For a fuller explanation of signal phrases, I would refer to my Breakthrough Writer blog post, “Mastering the 6 Components of Signal Phrases.”
List of Requirements for This Assignment
- You must include an extended definition of The Sunken Place for your introductory paragraph.
- Your distinguishing characteristics of Jim Crow will come from the provided sources in these Modules
- As you quote, paraphrase, and summarize major points about The Sunken Place, you will use signal phrases.
- In addition to signal phrases, you will use in-text citations. The Purdue Owl MLA in-text citations is helpful.
- The length of your paragraph should be between 150-200 words.
- You must upload an attachment of your paragraph to Canvas.
How I Break Down Your Grade for This Assignment of 25 Points
- Clarity and usefulness of your single-sentence definition of The Sunken Place, 5 points.
- Clarity and usefulness of examples you use to flesh out your definition of The Sunken Place: 5 points.
- Use of signal phrases and in-text citations to transition from your explanation of The Sunken Place to your quoted, paraphrased, and summarized material: 5 points.
- The authenticity of your writing and the degree of meaning you give your subject matter. A writer never wants to just “go through the motions,” that is to say, deliver a perfunctory effort. Deliver the degree of authenticity and meaning this subject deserves: 10 points.
Building Block #2
Building Block Assignment #2: Does Get Out avoid the pitfalls of excessive victimization?
Worth 25 points and due on June 3
Building Block #2 is two paragraphs, which will be used in your essay before your conclusion paragraph.
In your first building block paragraph, you will summarize the criticism exacted against the TV series Them, which has been accused of using excessive victimization and “trauma porn” for entertainment purposes.
For this source material, you will use the following:
- Vanity Fair’s Cassie Da Costa and Sonia Saraiya article “Who Is the Racism Horror Anthology Them Really For?”
- Harvard Crimson’s Annie Harrigan article “‘Them’ Season One Review: An Accurate Depiction of Racism or Trauma Porn?”
- The Vulture’s Angelica Jade Bastien essay “Them Is Pure Degradation Porn”
In your second building block paragraph, you’ll answer the question: Does Get Out avoid the pitfalls and artistic flaws that are charged against Them? Explain in a paragraph.
Essay Outline for The Sunken Place in Get Out
Defining The Sunken Place in Get Out and Making an Essay Outline
We can break down The Sunken Place in Get Out by understanding the following terms:
Paragraph 1:Defining the Sunken Place as Learned Helplessness
Learned Helplessness
When people are brainwashed into believing that they have no free will or free agency to assert effective action against a problem, they become apathetic, feel helpless, and create a self-fulfilling prophecy by which their negative outcomes reinforce their sense of helplessness so that they are trapped in a feedback loop.
There is a point in the movie where Chris stops believing in his senses, and he develops a helpless passivity to Rose’s gaslighting, but when he sees the evil that is around him, he rejects Rose and he begins to fight for his life, using cotton to plug his ears, and deer antlers to destroy his enemy.
Jim Hudson is about to steal Chris’ body and he says, “You’ll live as a passenger, an audience, in The Sunken Place. I’ll control the functions.”
Thesis Structure Example:
Sample #1
In Get Out, the psychological state known as The Sunken Place is effectively illustrated by Chris’ hellish journey, which consists of ___________________, ________________, __________________, _____________________, and _____________________.
Sample #2
Get Out is a microcosm of systemic racism in America that shows racism from a black man’s perspective and how that racism creates a traumatic state of mind known as The Sunken Place evidenced by ______________, _______________, ________________, ____________________, and ________________________.
Sample #3
In the masterpiece Get Out, the protagonist Chris Washington goes deep into the bowels of white liberal America where he descends into The Sunken Place characterized by _________________, __________________, __________________, _______________, and ___________________________.
Body Paragraphs
Two. Code-Switching is a cause and symptom of The Sunken Place:
When black people try to make white people more comfortable or try to pass as white, black people will code-switch, assuming the body language, vocal intonations, and mannerisms associated with whiteness.
The implicit message in code-switching is “White is good. Black is bad. I will try to win you over by being white.”
The motivation for code-switching is shame, self-rejection, and self-apology.
Code-switching teaches us that racism is not merely a bias against people of color; it is a bias against the culture of black people.
There is a cruel irony to code-switching: A lot of people want to act black, be cool, and be down, so they’ll appropriate black mannerisms and speech as their whims dictate; however, these same white people will expect black people to code-switch white to make them more comfortable.
Some other examples of code-switching are in the movie Sorry to Bother You and in the Atlanta episode 9 of season 3.
Three. Microaggressions are a cause of The Sunken Place:
Microaggressions are “small racist acts or comments” done in a spirit of ignorance, condescending patronization, discomfort, or all of the above.
Microaggressions are caused by the following personality traits:
bull-headed ignorance
arrogance
insensitivity
presumptuousness
crassness (social nincompoop who blunders in human relations)
laziness
narcissistic entitlement
Buzzfeed has a good list to get acquainted with some common examples.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/hnigatu/racial-microagressions-you-hear-on-a-daily-basis
Get Out is full of microaggressions with white people trying to hard to ingratiate themselves, using excessive flattery toward Chris, talking about the great physical wonders that Chris must possess.
Jeremy says that with Chris’ “genetic makeup,” he’d be a great MMA fighter.
Microaggressions can also be expressed as unintentional racism from the privilege of systemic racism. This, too, is a cause of The Sunken Place.
In Get Out, we see intentional racism, a willful attempt to steal black bodies as a metaphor for cultural appropriation.
But we also see unintentional racism. For example, when the cop asks for Chris’ driver's license, Rose becomes self-righteous and hostile, acting like she is sticking up for Chris when her white privilege fails to see she is putting Chris in even more danger.
Dean Armitage is another example. He tries too hard to be nonracist, bringing up his love for Obama every chance he can get. His saccharine manner is condescending and fake. He is a man with something to hide.
When people lard you with their friendly manner like Dean does, they are afflicting you with toxic positivity.
Then there is Jeremy, Rose’s brother, who says to Chris, “With your genetic makeup, you could be a great fighter.”
Four. Gaslighting is a cause of The Sunken Place:
“Don’t trust your senses. I’ll tell you what the reality is.”
Gaslighting is when the bully makes the victim feel like the culprit by turning reality upside down. The gaslighter is so incessant in his gaslighting that he wears down his victim through sheer fatigue.
See “Gaslighting, Explained”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eN4la0xOBdM
See “How to Spot the Hidden Signs Someone Is Gaslighting”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FISZshe9L3s
See “10 Examples of What Gaslighting Sounds Like”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y3t-Jvrr2OY
In Get Out, we see examples of Gaslighting when Chris is worried that Rose’s white parents will be uncomfortable that she is bringing a black boyfriend to their house.
“Do they know I’m black?” he asks.
But Rose repeatedly dismisses his concern as a non-issue. He’s crazy for being so worried even when his past experiences tell him otherwise.
Five. Cultural Appropriation is a cause of The Sunken Place:
When people of the dominant or privileged culture steal the culture of the less privileged for their own desires, they are committing what is called cultural appropriation.
In Get Out, the stealing of black bodies is a metaphor for cultural appropriation.
See the video “What Is Cultural Appropriation?”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VQgF1f557YY
Paragraphs 7 and 8:
Counterargument-rebuttal paragraphs in which you address the possible criticism that Get Out, like the Amazon Prime series Them, is making a spectacle of black suffering, helplessness, and victimization for consumer entertainment and as such displaying this racism in such a flagrant form is exploitive. Do the journeys of Chris Washington and his friend Rod Williams have enough dignity, self-agency, courage, mental toughness, and resistance to avoid the same charges exacted upon the TV series Them? Explain.
In paragraph 7, you might summarize the criticism exacted upon the Amazon Prime series Them.
In paragraph 8, you might then argue whether or not Jordan Peele’s Get Out falls into the same pitfalls as Them.
Paragraph 9: Your conclusion is a short dramatic restatement of your thesis.
Works Cited with a minimum of 5 sources in MLA format follow on the last page.
Sources for The Sunken Place:
The Wrap’s Ross A. Lincoln article “‘Get Out’ Director Jordan Peele Explains ‘The Sunken Place’”
The Guardian’s Alex Rayner article “Trapped in the Sunken Place: how Get Out’s purgatory engulfed pop culture”
The Atlantic’s David Sims article “What Made That Hypnosis Scene in Get Out So Terrifying”
YouTube video: “The Philosophy of Get Out--Wisecrack Edition.”
Jet Fuel Review Blog’s Michael Lane article “Living in the Sunken Place: An Analysis of ‘Get Out’”
Sources for Part 2, which is one page of your essay:
For this source material, you will use the following:
- Vanity Fair’s Cassie Da Costa and Sonia Saraiya article “Who Is the Racism Horror Anthology Them Really For?”
- Harvard Crimson’s Annie Harrigan article “‘Them’ Season One Review: An Accurate Depiction of Racism or Trauma Porn?”
- The Vulture’s Angelica Jade Bastien essay “Them Is Pure Degradation Porn”
Writing Effective Paragraphs
Since paragraphs are the building blocks of our essays, we should ask ourselves: What makes a strong, effective paragraph?
Salience
First, a paragraph should be salient, meaning the writer is addressing a topic that is remarkable, meaningful, relevant, and timely. When writers are salient and relevant by addressing the needs of the time, they achieve the principle of Kairos, meaning that you are impressing your reader with ideas that are timely and are relevant to “the times we live in”--zeitgeist.
Main Idea or Topic Sentence
Second, a paragraph must have a single topic, often stated in a topic sentence but sometimes states through implication or suggestion. Whether or not there is a topic sentence, the paragraph will be governed by a controlling idea or what is called the main idea.
Unity
Third, a paragraph must achieve unity by consisting of supporting details that all point to the topic sentence or main topic.
Coherence
Fourth, a paragraph must have coherence, the state of being clear from the logical flow of one sentence to the other, often enhanced by appropriate transitions.
To summarize, paragraphs must have salience, a controlling idea, unity, and coherence.
Example #1 An argument in a thesis paragraph
The proposal to make community college parking lots into homeless shelters is a salient example of good intentions ushering us into the bowels of hell. The misguided plan to make parking lots into a homeless sanctuary will curdle into chaos, stench, and criminality. For one, colleges cannot afford enough law enforcement officers to patrol a vast area rife with assault, thievery, and other criminality, resulting in bankrupting the college with lawsuits. Second, the college cannot afford enough bathrooms to accommodate the thousands of people, which will in turn make the college a giant sewer that contaminates the entire community with infectious diseases. Third, the majority of people will look at the college as a cesspool of criminality and disease and avoid attending this lame excuse for a college, resulting in enrollment numbers so low that the college will soon cease to exist.
Example #2: A rebuttal to an argument
The above rebuttal against the proposal to turn community college parking lots into homeless shelters is a classic use of the slippery slope fallacy in which someone cries Chicken Little and all worst-case scenarios while assuming the parking lot plan won’t have any specific contingencies designed to prevent the panic-based emotionally-charged scenarios that have been hysterically described above. The above hysterics are in truth a smokescreen designed to make a selfish excuse for ignoring those students for whom horrible life circumstances beyond their control have put them in a homeless situation. Regarding the Hysterical Critic’s contention that there will be criminality in the parking lot, obviously colleges will have a maximum occupancy at the level of which its law enforcement feels comfortable creating a secure place for the students. Regarding the Hysterical Critic’s claim the college will “become a giant sewer,” obviously campus engineers will put enough bathrooms on the premises in proportion to the maximum occupancy allowed. Regarding the fear tactic that non-homeless students won’t enroll in the college, this is a paranoid scenario based on the irrational premise that the college won’t have any limits on the amount of homeless people it accommodates and under what restrictions those accommodations will be based. Let us, therefore, address the needs of our homeless population and leave the selfish Chicken Little arguments in the argumentative dustbin where they deserve.
Example #3: An argument with a topic sentence
Sure, Universal Basic Income sucks. It’s hardly enough money to create economic justice. It’s surely a pacifier for the masses who are getting punk-fed the bare minimum to live a half-decent existence. I’m also certain that UBI will relegate most of us to some sweaty, dank room where we’ll intoxicate ourselves with a myriad of unsavory substances while looking on with bloodshot eyes at some entertainment or other on YouTube or Netflix. We will grow fat, complacent, brain-dead. We’ll become less than human. We’ll become more like zombies, slogging through life without an ounce of pride or dignity as we live a sedentary life without individual goals, responsibility, or life purpose. We will be soulless pods hooked up to our private entertainment centers while the 1%, the real people, pull the strings, create technology that advances civilization and enjoy the spoils of their efforts as full human beings flourishing in some opulent environment while the rest of us poor UBI-receiving bots live like crammed sardines in shared housing with our equally depressed, brain-dead zombie roommates. So am I arguing against UBI? Hell no. Even if our lives are as crappy as the one I described above, the life without UBI as we head for the Great Unemployment Age presents an even greater hellish existence, one with starvation, a lack of basic medical supplies and treatment, and abject homelessness. Yeah, UBI sucks, but not getting UBI sucks even more. Don’t count on the government to share the 1%’s wealth with the rest of us. The 1% will only share as much as they have to, and they have calculated that giving us just enough UBI so that we don’t become a raging, lawless mob is worth the 4-trillion UBI annual price tag. We should just admit we lost the class war. We are now in the unenviable position where we can either take our UBI pittance, which sucks, or not take our UBI table scraps, which sucks even more. That is our dilemma. We must take this painful truth on the chin and move on with our crappy lives. The alternative is certain death.
Example #4: A counterargument with a topic sentence
The above argument, which essentially paints us as starving dogs that should be grateful for the table scraps of UBI is so full of grotesque logical fallacies that the person who wrote this specious argument should be thrown into Logical Fallacy Prison. For one, the writer gives us a false dilemma of only two choices: A crappy life with UBI or an even crappier life without UBI. There are other possibilities that the writer does not address because those possibilities present an inconvenience to his argument. For example, some people will continue to work and use UBI to supplement their income. Others will use UBI to fund their higher education, but the above writer is too busy enjoying his despair to consider these possibilities. Secondly, the writer presents a pessimism that is unfounded on evidence. He seems to think dehumanization from UBI is inevitable, yet he presents no facts to back up his claim. Rather, he indulges in his personal crapulent attitude and wishes to impose it on the rest of us, as if he’s doing us a favor by lavishing us with some universal truth, yet he is not. He is merely a Minister of Darkness contaminating us with his gospel of despair. Finally, he assumes the worst-case scenario of UBI and paints a broad brush over the human reaction to receiving guaranteed income to fulfill our basic life needs without addressing the complexities and unknowable, tentative outcomes. In short, the above writer is a grotesque nihilist who is hell-bent on infecting us with his anguish and despair. For the truth about UBI, I suggest we look elsewhere.
Example #5: A personal narrative with a topic sentence
We need stories to explain to us our ever-changing role in this world. Otherwise, we are doomed to be forever infantile. As an example, when I was a toddler, I had assigned the name Geekee to my favorite blanket, a white silken prized possession that became inseparable to me like one of my appendages. Tattered and mottled with yellowish spots, Geekee was my cocoon of silvery spun silk, which I carried with me everywhere I went. At night, I rubbed the blanket’s corners on my cheek, the pleasant tickling sensation lulling me to sleep. To my consternation, my parents were not as enamored with Geekee as I was. They complained that Geekee smelled. It was threadbare. It had visible stains that I paraded to the public who must have believed that my parents were too cheap to buy me a new blanket. At four years of age I had outgrown Geekee, they said, and it was time Geekee and I part ways, a suggestion that sent me into a rage. This battle between my parents and me continued until one day, as we were moving across the country from Florida to California my father slyly opened his window and told me to look out the window opposite his, for he said there was a baby alligator on the side of the road. As I looked in vain to spot the alligator, my father ripped Geekee from my hands and threw it out his open window. It all happened so fast that I didn’t know my father had grabbed my blanket. Instead, I believed his lie that the powerful wind had sucked Geekee from my grasp and had flung the blanket out of the window. I told my father to stop the car at once. We had to retrieve Geekee. But my father said we had to keep on going. Besides, he said, Geekee was now keeping the baby alligator warm. With no mother to fend for him, the little reptile needed the blanket’s warmth far more than I did. Imagining the baby alligator swathed in my blanket helped me part ways with Geekee, for I was now convinced that there was a creature on this planet who needed Geekee more than I did. When I was 15, I worked out at Walt’s Gym with a 25-year old bodybuilder, Bull, who had his own Geekee--Gilligan’s Island. When the local station took his favorite TV show off the air, he was so overcome with rage that he kicked his mother’s TV screen with his combat boots. He remained inconsolable, and I was sad that I could not share a story with him that might wean himself off Gilligan’s Island forever.
Example #6 Personal narrative with a topic sentence
As a thirteen-year-old in 1974, I had reached the conclusion that adult life was a loathsome existence and therefore not for me. I had started my training at Walt’s Gym in Hayward, California. Converted from a chicken coop in the 1950s, the gym was a swamp of fungus and bacteria. Members complained of incurable athlete’s foot and some claimed there were strains of fungus and mold that had not yet been identified in scientific journals. Quite at home in the fungal shower stalls was an oversized frog. The pro wrestlers had nicknamed the old-timer frog Charlie. The locker always had a bankrupt divorcee or other in a velour top and gold chain hogging the payphone while having a two-hour-long talk with his attorney about his bleak life choices. There was an unused outdoor swimming pool in the back with murky water black with plague and dead rats. A lonely octogenarian named Wally, who claimed to be a model for human anatomy textbooks, worked out for several hours before spending an equal time in the sauna and shower, completing his grooming with a complete-body talcum powder treatment so that when he spoke to you, he did so embalmed in a giant talcum cloud. The radio played the same hits over and over: Elvin Bishop’s “Fooled Around and Fell in Love” and The Eagles’ “New Kid in Town.” What stood out to me was that I was just a kid navigating in an adult world, and the gym, like the barbershop, was a public square that allowed me to hear adult conversations about divorces, hangovers, financial ruin, the cost of sending kids to college, the burdens of taking care of elderly parents. I realized then that I was at the perfect age: Old enough to grow big and strong but young enough to be saved from the drudgery and tedium of adult life. It became clear to me then that I never wanted to grow up.
Example #7: Brief Movie Critique with a lack of unity due to some rambling:
White Hot: The Rise & Fall of Abercrombie & Fitch, a documentary currently running on Netflix about a clothing company that sold its clothes by hyping chiseled bodies and “exclusive” beauty status in the late 90s to early 2000s before its collapse, is a decent, not great, documentary, but it’s worth watching for the pleasure of watching such an immoral business fall flat on its butt. It gives you a taste of the pre-social media zeitgeist and makes you wonder if all those chiseled “hot bods” might get lost in the mix in the age of Instagram and social influencers. My favorite line from the documentary is when a culture critic says the genius of Abercrombie & Fitch is not in delivering consumer goods to what the market dictates, but rather telling the consumers what they wanted, essentially implanting desires in their heads that they never had had before. Now that’s genius. On a personal note, I’ve never been inside an Abercrombie & Fitch store, but I have had students over the years tell me how cheap the clothing is, how they’ll find tears in the armpit of their shirts and loose threads within just a few days. The company was all smoke and mirrors, selling the chimera of exclusive beauty and status. It did so in part by exploiting racist mythology. Good riddance to its demise.
Example #8: Thesis paragraph
In Jordan Peele's masterpiece Get Out, the hero Chris Washington must survive and resist The Sunken Place, which is evident through Chris' pressure to code-switch at the Armitage home, his confrontation of numerous microaggressions, which erode his psyche and question his humanity; Rose's gaslighting of Chris, which makes him not only question his reality but his sanity; and the stealing of black bodies, which is a metaphor for cultural appropriation and exploitation of African-Americans in a rigged system.
Successful College Students Master the 6 Components of Signal Phrases
Review Complete 6 Components of Signal Phrases
One. Vary your transitions so you're not only using "say" and "write."
Two. Transition from your own writing to quoted or paraphrased material.
Three. Vary your location of the signal phrase, beginning, middle, or end.
McMahon writes, "Jeff Henderson's life out of prison was harder than life in prison."
"Jeff Henderson's life out of prison," McMahon observes, "was harder out of prison than in it."
"Jeff Henderson's life was harder out of prison," McMahon claims.
Four. Provide credentials of the person being cited in your signal phrase.
Five. Provide correct in-text citations for MLA format, as provided by Purdue Owl.
Six. Return to what you just cited and analyze its significance to your argument.
Signal Phrases
Purpose to Make Smooth Transition
We use signal phrases to signal to the reader that we are going to cite research material in the form of direct quotes, paraphrase or summary.
You can also call a signal phrase a lead-in because it leads in the quotation or paraphrase.
Grammarian Diana Hacker writes that signal phrases make smooth transitions from your own writing voice to the quoted material without making the reader feel a "jolt."
For students, signal phrases are an announcement to your professor that you've "elevated your game" to college-level writing by accessing the approved college writing toolbox.
Nothing is going to make your essay more impressive to college professors than the correct use of signal phrases.
Purpose to Provide Context
Signal phrases not only establish authority and credibility. They provide context or explain why you're using the sourced material.
Example:
As a counterpoint to Yuval Noah Harari's contention that Foragers lived superior lives to Farmers, we read in culture critic Will Day Brosnan: "Elsewhere, I wondered the extent to which Harari was projecting an idealistic (even Rousseauian) vision of a noble savage on pre-state peoples. His depiction of a foraging lifestyle (‘A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve’) unencumbered by the complexities and worries of civilisational living could be read as reactionary atavism."
Same Example with Different Context:
Concurring with my assertion that Harari is misguided in his Noble Savage mythology, we read in culture critic Will Day Brosnan: "Elsewhere, I wondered the extent to which Harari was projecting an idealistic (even Rousseauian) vision of a noble savage on pre-state peoples. His depiction of a foraging lifestyle (‘A Day in the Life of Adam and Eve’) unencumbered by the complexities and worries of civilisational living could be read as reactionary atavism."
Different Example for Supporting Paragraph
Further supporting my contention that not all calories are equal, we find in science writer Gary Taubes' Good Calories, Bad Calories that there are statistics that show . . ."
Signal Phrase Comprised of Two Sentences
English instructor Jeff McMahon chronicles in his personal blog Obsession Matters that his opinion toward comedian and podcaster Nate Nadblock changed over a decade. As McMahon observes: "Since 2010, I had found a brilliant curmudgeonly podcaster Nate Nadblock a source of great comfort & entertainment, but recently his navel-gazing toxicity, lack of personal growth, and overall repetitiveness has made him off-putting. Alas, a 10-year podcast friendship has come to an end."
Use the above templates and don't worry: you're not committing plagiarism.
As a counterpoint to X,
As a counterargument to my claim that X,
Giving support to my rebuttal that Writer A makes an erroneous contention, Writer B observes that . . .
Concurring with my assertion that X,
Further supporting my contention that X,
Writer X chronicles in her book. . . . As she observes:
Purpose of Credentials: Establishing Authority and Ethos
We often include credentials with the signal phrase to give more credibility for our sourced material.
The acclaimed best-selling writer, history professor, and futurist Yuval Noah Harari excoriates the Agricultural Revolution as "the greatest crime against humanity."
Lamenting that his students don't enjoy his music playlist in the writing lab, college English instructor Jeff McMahon observes in his blog Obsession Matters: "Two-thirds of my students in writing lab don't hear my chill playlist over classroom speakers because they are hermetically sealed in their private earbud universe content to be masters of their own musical domain."
You don't have to put the signal phrase at the beginning. You can put it at the end:
"The Agricultural Revolution is the greatest crime against humanity," claims celebrated author and futurist Yuval Noah Harari.
You can also put the signal phrase in the middle of a sentence:
Racism, sexism, worker exploitation, and pestilence afflicted the human race during the Agricultural Revolution, claims celebrated futurist Yuval Noah Harari, who goes on to make the bold claim that "the Agricultural Revolution was the greatest crime perpetrated against humanity."
"Covid-19 fears make me recall Don Delillo's novel White Noise," writes Jeff McMahon in his blog Obsession Matters, " especially the Airborne Toxic Event chapter in which pestilence affords us a rehearsal for our own mortality."
Varying placement and types of signal phrases helps you avoid monotony, makes you a more impressive writer, and gives you more ethos.
Partial List of Signal Phrases
acknowledges adds admits affirms agrees answers argues asserts claims comments concedes confirms contends counters counterattacks declares defines denies disputes echoes endorses estimates finds grants illustrates implies insists mentions notes observes predicts proposes reasons recognizes recommends refutes rejects reports responds reveals speculates states suggests surmises warns writes
Examples of a signal phrases:
We are fools if we think we were put on Planet Earth to be happy. That is the fantasy of a four-year-old child. Ironically, this infantile pursuit of happiness makes us unhappy. In the words of John Mellencamp: “I don’t think we’re put on this earth to live happy lives. I think we’re put here to challenge ourselves physically, emotionally, intellectually.”
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. As we read in Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits' essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Variation of the above:
The idea of a meritocracy is that a healthy society allows people with merits, regardless of their economic privilege, to rise to the top of the power hierarchy. However, such a meritocracy does not exist as privilege, not merit, is the dominant force of acquiring power. According to Yale Law School professor Daniel Markovits in his essay "How Life Became an Endless Terrible Competition": "Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, and Yale collectively enroll more students from households in the top 1 percent of the income distribution than from households in the bottom 60 percent. Legacy preferences, nepotism, and outright fraud continue to give rich applicants corrupt advantages. But the dominant causes of this skew toward wealth can be traced to meritocracy. On average, children whose parents make more than $200,000 a year score about 250 points higher on the SAT than children whose parents make $40,000 to $60,000. Only about one in 200 children from the poorest third of households achieves SAT scores at Yale’s median. Meanwhile, the top banks and law firms, along with other high-paying employers, recruit almost exclusively from a few elite colleges."
Toolbox of Explaining Transitions
After you present the signal phrase and quoted, summarized, or paraphrased material, what do you write?
You explain what you just cited.
To do so, you need a toolbox of transitions:
Writer X is essentially saying that
In other words, X is arguing that
By using these statistics, X is making the point that
X is trying to make the point that
X makes the cogent observation that
X is essentially rebutting the philosophical movement that embraces the position that
X's main point is that
The essence of X's claim is that
Here is a good college link for in-text citations.
Here is a good Purdue Owl link for in-text citations.
Review Complete Package of Signal Phrases
One. Vary your transitions so you're not only using "say" and "write."
Two. Transition from your own writing to quoted or paraphrased material.
Three. Vary your location of the signal phrase, beginning, middle, or end.
Four. Provide credentials of the person being cited in your signal phrase.
Five. Provide correct in-text citations for MLA format, as provided by Purdue Owl.
Six. Return to what you just cited and analyze its significance to your argument.
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