Grammar-Quizzes.com

Before your pen touches the paper do the foundation work:  (or fingers touch the keyboard)

• brainstorm
• organize thoughts
• write a rough draft
• edit 1
• redraft
• edit 2
• write a final draft

Focusing Steps  

1. Take a broad subject and narrow it.
2. Determine your research question (controlling idea)
3. Create your thesis sentence (topic + controlling idea)

Your thesis sentence:  

• focuses and directs the essay
• includes the topic and your attitude or opinion about it
• includes a statement (not a question)
• appears at the end of the introduction (usually, but may be anywhere within the introduction)

It never:  

• announces itself:  "I'm going to talk about . . ."
• personalizes:  "I think…" 
• questions:   "Is English hard to learn?"

An introductions should:   

• introduce the topic
• indicate how the topic is going to be developed.  (cause-effect, reasons, examples -- Will it classify, describe, narrate or explain?)
• contain a thesis statement
• be inviting and entice the reader to continue after reading the first sentence

Add entertainment to your writing by considering:  

• how you will reveal details,
• the order in which you will reveal them
• the amount of descriptive details you will use

Strategies:  

• generate your own work whenever possible
• if you need to use work, ask for permission to use it
• give credit to the source with a citation

Which are examples of work protected by copyright?  

• grafitti
• phone conversations
• notes
• interview
• fonts

Plagiarism is using the ideas and writings of others and representing them as your own.

Strategies for avoiding plagiarism:

• Quote it.
• Paraphrase it.
• Cite it.
   

Identifying plagiarized work isn't so hard. See if you can "smell a rat".

Remember:

• Your instructor does not expect you to be the genius who creates all original ideas.
• When putting together (synthesizing) other people's ideas in your work, give the people credit by citing their work.
• Choose a style (MLA, Chicago Manual of Style, Associated Press, etc.)  and consistently use it.

Publisher     Year     Author     Title    Location  

Drag and drop the images into the correct order.

Requires a Flash Player (not available to iphone or ipad.)

Apply critical thinking skills.

Determine the following for the page:

• coverage
• authority
• objectivity
• accuracy
• currency

Evaluate three web sites as resources:

"The True but Little Known Facts about Women and AIDS"

World Health Organization. "HIV/AIDS."

VirusMyth "A Rethinking AIDS Web Site"