Lecture 3: Formatting, Looking Stuff Up, 1/3

mla-9 formatting

In English we use MLA-9 (or 8; they are much the same thing) formatting. This is not an option. Papers NOT in MLA-8 format will not be accepted, read, or graded. Yes, this is something you should have learned in high school English, but, hey, I am a realist. I know a lot of you just didn't. And I certainly don't blame you; your teachers may not have shown it to you. I can't turn back time (too bad, no?).

I am not going to waste a lot of your time here in the lecture on this. It is something you could look up on YouTube or read at the Purdue OWL site, but I've made it even simpler for the class. In this week's Readings (go to the Files section of Canvas and check out the Week 3 Readings folder), there is a file called MLA Sample. PRINT THAT OUT. READ IT BEFORE YOU DO YOUR FIRST ASSIGNMENT. USE IT IN EVERY ENGLISH CLASS AS A REFERENCE. It is very short, just a handful of pages, and it takes the place of a long, expensive textbook I am not making you buy. Please do not ignore this step.

Also in this week's readings there is a video that actually shows you how to set up the document and the Works Cited page in MLA-8 format using Microsoft Word. You are using Word, aren't you; that was explained in the Oriention; don't try to get by with Google Docs, especially since you can download Word for free from the LAHC website. PLEASE WATCH THE SET-UP VIDEO AS YOU SET UP YOUR FIRST WRITING ASSIGNMENT. DO NOT GUESS. Now, if you have a different version of Word or are using different software "just because," well, you will have to do a Google search: "How do I set up an essay in MLA-8 format using ________?" and another: "How do I set up an MLA-8 Works Cited page using _______?"

That's it for formatting. I said it would be brief. That does not mean that it is not important. It is the format required in colleges/universities; you need to do it correctly. It also demonstrates that you can follow directions exactly, and that is a huge part of college. Remember those students who say, "I'm just not good at English"? Often they are just not very good at carefully following directions. It's just a thought.

looking stuff up

You already know that one purpose of college is learning. That does not mean re-treading things you already know. It is not about opinions you already have or interests you are already passionate about. You do not need to learn those things; you already have them. No, college is about discovering new things. That often involves having to search out informtion from the internet, from books and journals, in podcasts and videos, and so on.

I'm not going to go too much into how to search for information. I have a little video on it in the Radings (yes, it is assigned), but most of you search for all sorts of things every day on phones, laptops, desktops.

So what sorts of things are we likely to need to look up and why?

The practical answer is when we need specialized information for something we are doing (buying a car, building a deck, learning to sail, analyzing a difficult poem that has us stumped, preparing for a debate on whether or not the FDA should approve a new medication for asthma, trying to understand what the Schroedinger's Cat thought experiment really means).

Let's get back to that debate. We may not want to debate about medication (which we will call Breathe-EZ), but our speech teacher assigned it, and we are stuck with it; we do not want to fail speech.

Big Pharma assures the public they absolutely need this stuff. It is going to revolutionize asthma treatments, and it is just a fraction of the cost of Flovent, Asmanex, Serevent, Brovana, ProAir, Spiriva, and a whole bunch of other medications (can you tell I JUST had to do some research to find specialized knowledge?). The FDA is not so sure, and they are looking at the clinical trial results, the potential risks-versus-rewards, the actual costs, and so on.

Vinny (on the left) gets assigned the "This is a great medication" side of the debate, and Lily (on the right) gets assigned the "We should not approve this medication" side.

Here are Vinny and Lily, prepping for the debate:

  

The day of the debate, both are about as prepared as could be reasonably expected. Neither is that thrilled with the topic, and both waited close to the day of the debate to begin, but away they go. First Vinny makes an empassioned and emotional plea for helping asthma sufferers. He shows a YouTube clip of someone short of breath using an inhaler. He states some marketing stats and very attractive costs from the pharmaceutical company, and he wraps up with a hearty, "Breathe-EZ must be approved."

Vinny's done a pretty good job, and Lily is feeling worried. She can't really counter that YouTube video, and she doesn't have much evidence relating to the stats. But she starts gamely. She talks about the need for caution and lots of trials, and just then, the door opens; a scientific looking (?) man in a lab coat strides across and stands next to Lily at the lectern. He shows his credentials. He was a clinical trials researcher for two decades for Harvard Medical School, later moved into a research position for the Center for Disease Control for twelve years, and has recently been contracted independently to do investigative research specifically on asthma medications, including Breathe-EZ. He takes over the microphone (I forgot to mention there is a microphone). "Yes, I am very familiar with Breathe-EZ. In over sixty clinical trials involving nearly eight-thousand asthma sufferers, the medication has proven to work in less than 1% of the cases. Also, the side effects, which are alarmingly common, include greater difficulty breathing, heart and liver problems, and, frequently, death." He shakes Lily's hand (paw), and he exits.

Wow! Lily is feeling a whole lot better, and she continues on. She is not sure how to handle the cost issue. She mentions that these are really just projected costs and is sort of waving her hands (paws) when the door opens, and in strides a professional-looking woman in a business suit. She takes the mic and shares her credentials: she has worked in marketing, accounting, finance for twenty-seven years, and she is currently hired independently to investigate the cost claims made by the people who make Breathe-EZ. "The costs cited in their reports are costs to manufacture the medication. The numbers do not include the delivery system, packaging, marketing, distribution. They also do not include mark-up." She gives a knowing smile and continues, "The actual cost to the consumer will be in the neighborhood of seven to eight times more than other common medications on the market." She shakes Lily's hand (paw) and strides purposefullly back out of the room.

so who is going to win the debate and why?

Lily blew Vinny away, not because she knew much more about her subject and not because she is a better speaker (writer). She will win this debate because she has credible, authoritative, expert testimony (evidence) backing her up.

In much of your writing (such as your discussions and your papers for this class) your job is to find credible, authoritative, expert evidence (that you quote directly…more on that in a moment) to support your general claims, ideaws, and observations (remember we do not write just opinions) because you are not an expert and because you do not have enough in-depth, concrete, specialized information about the subject.

credible, authoriwhatsis, blahblahblah?

Most teachers will not let you use un-vetted, genedric websites for sources such as Wikipedia, Ask, Snopes, (though they make a great starting spot for doing searches; they often have loads of other sources in them). If the site is a reputable news site (say, New York Times online), or if you search a library database for acaademic journals, that is generally considered fine. But whacko.com, biased.net, fanaticnut.org, and justanopinion.edu are not going to be acceptable. By the way, reputable print sources are good; print sources are good; print sources are good.... Also short, non-specialized sources are usually NOT good; they do not offer enough depth or detail to support and illustrate your claims.

so how do we get the experts to come up to the microphone?

Well, we don't. But we can search out what experts say on the subject we are writing or speaking about, and we use their evidence/examples to back us up. We do that by finding specialized examples (things we would not know if we did not do the reading as in the clinical trial numbers and cost figures above); we quote the examples directly, word-for-word; we credit the source.

The "P" Word

Crediting the sources we quote from is incredibly important; if we do not, we are plagiarizing (stealing another's ideas and presenting them as our own), and that (alongside being boring) is one of the worst things we can do in writing. It often leads to a FAIL.

But there is another important reason to credit (or "cite") our sources: if we do not, then our reader does not know we are using evidence from experts. In fact, we could just be making it up, AND that expert did not come forward to help us win the debate. Think about it, if you have three credible, meaty sources that you quote in your paper, you now have three experts backng you up. BIG WIN!

How do we Cite

There are two ways:

1. in the paper itself, after every direct quotations or specialized piece of information such as a statistic, we must follow it with a parentheical citation

2. at the end of the paper, we must include a Works Cited page that gives us complete informtion about all of our sources that we cite

Here is an example of a correcctly-cited bit of source information:

And here is what that looks like in an excerpt from an actual essay:

excerpt from an essay with parenthetical citations and a Works Cited page

So the student writes a number of statements about Beanie Babies in that paper (the entire paper is about six pages); the paper is dotted with direct quotations containing specialized information from several sources. Each of those direct quotations (in quotation marks) is followed by a parenthetical citation (explained in the MLA Sample file you printed out; if you didn't, please do so, or you will not know how to do this), and then the student wrote more using her own voice (words).

Do you know what that sort of looks like? It looks a lot like the observation / quotation / explanation model I shared with you in the first lecture. Coincidence?

Forseeing a Couple of Questions, Starting with a Biggie

Q: Are there other ways to do this? What about summarizing and paraphrasing?

A: Both of those are real things, and, yes, when you use them, if the information is specialized information from a source, you do still need to cite the source (parenthetically and on the Works Cited page). However, for our class I require that you use direct quotations, not summary or paraphrase. There are a few reasons

• a lot of teachers look for the direct quotations, so I need you to get into the habit
• when you summarize or paraphrase, you risk getting it wrong and mis-representing your source (that's not good)
• when you summarize or paraphrase, the teacher cannot tell what you wrote and what came from your sources (maybe none of the ideas are yours)

There is another purely practical reason: they make your paper longer, and many of you are not used to writing four+ page papers yet.

Q: Must I use parenthetical citations? Can't I introduce the quotation with the author's name?

A: For this class, you ABSOLUTELY MUST use parenthetical citations. I need you to get into that habit because teachers expect to see them. So do not do this (even though it is technically correct):

In "Beanies Forever" Marjorie Smythe says, "Blah blah blah."

Instead do this:

In "Beanies Forever" the author says, "Blah blah blah" (Smythe).

Q: You mentioned citing statistics and other specialized facts; how dop we do that?

A: If you are just dropping, say, a very specialized number from a source into a paper, that should be cited even if it is not part of a direct quottion, like this:

The average cost of a single-family home in San Diego is now over $700,000 (Santarelli).

Then you would need a Works Cited entry for Marco Santarelli's article on your Works Cited page. Note that you could have included a direct quotation from his article there instead.

when in doubt

Look at the Sample Student papers that have been shared with you in the Files section on Canvas. That is what they are there for, to serve as models for you.

Copyright © John Corbally