Thursday, March 2: Integrating and Evaluating Quotations

Hello all!

It was good to see all your smiling faces in person today. Here's the link to today's lesson: Lesson 7.

This week is about finding some support for your paper and thinking about how to integrate that support into your writing. Although you have picked out rhetorical choices and examples of them(BA3), here you are looking to begin analyzing (i.e. how does the author effectively reach his/her audience through his/her use of these rhetorical choices?).

Remember, your thesis is saying that the writer is making rhetorical choices in order to make an argument. Therefore, your included quotations should be based on showing *HOW* these rhetorical choices are working on a specific audience, so avoid picking a quote just because it "sounds good" or "it shows the author's message/main idea really well."  Instead, look to find quotations that truly represent the rhetorical choice you're going to analyze. Then, show how these rhetorical choices are working to leverage the audience toward the author's purpose.

You can always look at the student samples in the back of the FYW textbook if you need some guidance.

Your homework this week is BA5:

*This post has been updated with new information*

Description:  Begin by writing your working thesis (the one from Brief Assignment 4 or a revision of it) at the top of your assignment.
Then, consider which rhetorical choices you’ve identified in this text represent some of the most significant choices made by the author.
Select a minimum of five examples from the article that exemplify the two or three choices you plan to analyze in your upcoming draft. Write a brief assessment (minimum of 100 words) of why each example would be useful to you in composing your draft. Your assessment of each example should include your answers to the following questions:

• Are you quoting the author directly, or referring to a source that the author quoted in the text?
• Where will this example fit in your draft’s organization? Consider whether it will be part of an early or late body paragraph? Part of the introduction? Part of the conclusion? Why?
• How does it demonstrate the points you are trying to make about the author's writing?

Your analysis, not counting the quotations, should be 500-650 words.

NOTE: You may find that in identifying and evaluating your quotations, you will modify and improve your working thesis statement.  In other words, you may find quotes for rhetorical devices that are stronger than the devices you previously chose to use.

That should be all for now! Have a good week!