MbShea@PWP@English@UMCP

You will need to use signal phases as way to be professional, ethical, precise, and careful in your citation. Read this brief guide, noting carefully the table of words and phrases at the end. The signal phrases ANNOUNCES where your cited information begins.  Then, you complete the announcement by placing the author, date--parenthetical cite.  Example,

According to Hocking's 1994 analysis (INSERT, SAY FIVE SENTENCES)

(Hocking, 1994)

Bottom line:  When you place a cite in a paragraph, the location can be ambiguous in at least three ways:

1. do you mean to cite on the information in THAT ONE SENTENCE?
2. do you mean the cite to encompass or surround all the information that PRECEDES the citation?
   1. to the beginning of the paragraph?
   2. just select sentences?
3. if you place the citation at end of paragraph, do you mean to cite
   1. ONLY THE LAST SENTENCE?
   2. the ENTIRE PARAGRAPH?

Sentence bank for the coffee cup memo: 

Hocking's work, though dated, is strong support for the styrofoam cup choice.  We should, however, acknowledge that if you weight the fate of ocean plastic as more important than climate change, you would reach another recommendation. Oceanographer Charles Moore.......

Overall, I recommend paper cups for our office.  I based my analysis on two criteria:

• fate of ocean plastic as the primary environmental problem, and,
• LCA to examine the existing peer-reviewed evidence.

Having described both our office problem and reviewed the way we use and dispose of hot beverage cups, let's turn now to life cycle analysis (LCA).  LCA is.......The EPA provides this useful definition  THREE OR FOUR SUMMARY SENTENCES THAT YOU PARAPHRASE.....then, (EPA, n.d.) 

Now, some humility sentences that address fairly the counter-argument: 

I want to acknowledge the reasonableness of the other recommendation.

Clearly, this recommendation is limited in several ways. First, we begin with the environmental problem in our analysis.  

The problems of the fate of ocean plastic and climate change are incommensurate, or without common measure.  

These two problems resist a direct and definitive comparison. In other words, you cannot declare which environmental problem is worse.  Both problems poet sustainability problems for us.

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Lesson on Oxford comma, in science style: Consider these examples from Sarah Lichter.  Here is one from my writing practice recently:

Conservation biologists look at two approaches to biodiversity losses, species counts in the tropics and changing distribution maps.

What about this one that the "protodoctors" among us might say to a patient:

Your cancer can be treated with chemotherapy, surgery or immunotherapy.

Now, what about paragraph transitions: like pearls on a string .Here is an exhibit on paragraph transitions, in this Google doc.  The beauty of these two documents is that they were written by friends of mine.  I simply marked the strong transitions.

How is your coffee cup memo arranged?  Here is a good but rough pattern for you to use:

Polite first person opening, where you 1) preview the recommendation and 2) reveal your bias about the environmental problem 

Description para with quantifiers about office problem

Review briefly the three choices in two categories -- Use one or two short paragraphs 1) compare contrast of paper/styrofoam 2) description of ceramic option as main reuse-able

Define LCA (needs source) and explain this is your main decision criteria

Hocking's work OPTIONAL PLACEMENT FOR THIS PARA

Moore' s work OPTIONAL PLACEMENT FOR THIS PARA 

Recommendation paragraph (use bold title to flag this part of the memo)

Restatement of Moore or Hocking's work BUT
Acknowledgement of other readings of the options

You CAN add the reusable concept, too.

Example paragraph (people like concrete examples)

Polite closing