In class writing session on directions
SPRING BREAK: Directions due on the WEDNESDAY when you return, in HARD COPY. Hold off on the WikiHow/extra credit portion until then. TO BE DISCUSSED. When you come back, we write the two-article review, which will take about two weeks. In April, we start your final projects.......
We will focus on establishing ethos with reference and attribution and acknowledgement.
Reading your articles: Here is a grid to keep track of what you are reading. Reading technical literature is an art and skill you need to master. You can skim, effectively, with rhetoric skills supporting this activity.
When you come back from spring break, I will ask you to present two AND/BUT/THEREFORE (Randy Olson's technique) statements on your articles. From the Andrew Revkin piece posted yesterday (that you read and enjoyed, because Trey Parker is channeling Aristotle): BEGIN QUOTE
______ and _____, but _____, therefore ______.
Every story can be reduced to this single structure. I can tell you the story of a little girl living on a farm in Kansas AND her life is boring, BUT one day a tornado sweeps her away to the land of Oz, THEREFORE she must undertake a journey to find her way home. END QUOTE.
Ok, now the grammar convention lesson of the day on dangling modifiers. This point reflects the wonder of our brains to figure out stuff and the limitations of language and YET, we can pay attention to these problems and revise them. Why? Because science wants to be precise and accurate and clear. Watch out! Opening clauses of sentences MUST MAKE SENSE with the subject. Consider the cognitive silliness of these examples:
Come on! Pianos DON'T WALK, ESPECIALLY ON STREETS.
TRY: While walking down the street, BUFFY was hit by a piano that fell from the third floor apartment at 314156 Pie Street.
Note: use the passive construction here, so that the opening clause FITS or MODIFIES the subject of the sentence. Writing requires a balance of principles. Don't apply the rules like a young lawyer on steriods.
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Using standard flu innoculations measures, infected hamsters developed pneumonia anyway. Hamsters wielding syringes? I don't think so.
Flushing the birds out, the hunter turned to thank his trusty dog. Dogs flush birds and other prey out of brush. Hunters and other people flush in delicate situations.
Watch out for empty subjects in your directions.
Marybeth Shea
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