Writing 3 Class Notes -- November 15

Greetings!

We began class with a 10-minute Quick Write.  I gave the students 4 options: write about a current event, a global issue, a historical figure, or a personal passion.  They could either write about one, or come up with thesis statements for each topic.

For Vocabulary Building, we used flashcards from an SAT list and used them to build a "Scrabble" game on the whiteboard.  We took some time to share ideas about best ways to learn and memorize new words.

After this, we spent most of our time going over the rough drafts that they had handed in last week (or over the e-mail).  I spent a lot of time going over each each paper, sentence by sentence.  These students had put a lot of work into their papers.  I'm really very proud of them.  I cautioned them about being overwhelmed with the marks and corrections that I had made.  My primary goal is that they learn about writing and the process.  I want them to be good writers and to learn from their mistakes.  I gave each student typed notes addressing mechanics, content and organization.  Please take time to go over papers and notes.  I'll e-mail notes separately.

We've adjusted the timeline for the paper. We don't have classes next week, and I decided to add another step in the process.  For next week, I'd like them to write a "reverse outline."  In this outline, they write a fresh outline from the work they'd already done.  This will help them to get a fresh perspective on their organization.  They are to go over the papers paragraph by paragraph.

Change in class timeline
11/22 -- no CHAT classes
11/29 -- Old plan --final draft; new plan -- reverse outline
12/06 -- Final Drafts and Presentation
12/13 -- Last day -- Finish Presentations & Party

Assignments:
-- Reverse Outline
-- Outline or plan for Presentation.

I'll be sending individual e-mails to each student and parent with my notes about their papers.  Again -- they're a great, hard-working group kids!

Have a great week and Happy Thanksgiving!
Mrs. Prichard

Some More Citation Helps

I'm still looking for helpful sites for writing footnotes.

An Oberlin professor has written a good chart.
I also found a youtube video
Son of Citation website (for building a bibliography)

Someone asked about noting information from the same source.  Below is some information:

Use of ibid. and op. cit.:

Gibaldi (313) does NOT recommend the use of these old-fashioned abbreviations: ibid. (from the Latin ibidem meaning "in the same place") and op. cit. (from the Latin opere citato meaning "in the work cited.")
For Footnote or Endnote citations, if you should see the term ibid. being used, it just means that the citation is for the second mention of the same work with no intervening entries:

³ Ibid. 12-15.

More commonly, author and page number or numbers are now used instead of ibid., e.g.:

⁴ Miller 12-15.

For second or later mention of the same work with intervening entries, where previously op. cit. was used, now only the author and page number or numbers are used:

⁵ Miller 198.

Writing 3 Class Notes -- November 8

Greetings!

We are coming into the home stretch!  The students handed in their second rough drafts for me to go over and edit.  With the first rough drafts, I looked primarily at content and organization.  This time I'll go over grammar, mechanics, content and organization with the proverbial fine-toothed comb.  We took some time to talk over problems with the papers.  I'll hand the rough drafts back next week and they will have 2 weeks to finish and have their final copies ready. 

Our last few weeks will look like this:
November 15 (Week 12) -- Hand back rough drafts and discuss problem areas
November 22 -- No Class for Thanksgiving Break
November 29 (Week 13) -- Final Papers Due! Along with Final Presentation plan
December 6 (Week 14) -- Presentations
December 13 (Week 15) -- Presentations & Party

We worked as a group with one of the SAT essay prompts.  The best scores for these tests are on ones that are well-organized and insightful.  My hope is that these exercises will serve them well not only with the SAT and ACT but with essay exams.

As a class we worked through common word usage problems.  These are problems that occur in tests AND in freshman writing classes.  One student commented that she had discovered a grammar error on a sign at a store.  Way to go!!

Have a great week!  If you haven't e-mailed me your paper, get it in as soon as possible.
Mrs. Prichard

Endnotes Page

IV. Endnotes: (English, Social Studies)

Literary and historical writing requires sources to be acknowledged in the text with a reference number and the complete information about the source used listed on a separate page at the end of the paper. This is done primarily to avoid disrupting the narrative and where the source information is not important to the narrative. It is information that can be looked up later.

A. Directions for Endnote Numbers in Papers:

1. Number endnotes consecutively from beginning to end of paper.

2 . In the text of your paper, place the endnote number 1/2 space above the line at the end of the material acknowledged. NO PERIOD follows the number. Many word processing programs today have a function called superscript that will place the numbers correctly above the line. Numbers should look like this in your text.[i]

B. Directions for Endnote Page Format.

1. Number endnotes consecutively just as they appear in your paper.

2. Indent the first line 5 spaces, second and following lines start on the left margin.

C. Endnote Samples, first citation:

1. Book, one author:

     1Edward Shorter, The Health Century (New York:Doubleday, 1987)

22.

2. Book, two authors:

     2James F. Fries and Lawrence M. Crapo, Vitality and Aging (San Francisco: 

W.H. Freeman and Company, 1981) 59.

3. Book, more than two authors:

     3Hoyt Gimlin, Sandra Stencel, Laurie De Maris, and Elizabeth Furbush, eds., 

Staying Healthy: Nutrition, Lifestyle and Medicine, (Washington, D.C.: Congressional Quarterly Inc.,

1984)188. 

4 . Book, no author named:

     4The Incredible Machine (Washington, D.C.: National Geographic Society,

1986) 321.

5. Reference book article, unsigned:

     5"Health," The New Encyclopedia Britannica, 1993 ed.: 556.

6 . Magazine article, signed:

     6Philip Elmer-Dewitt, "Fat Times," Time 16 Jan. 1995: 58.

7. Magazine article, unsigned:

     7"Why Your Head Hurts and How to Make It Stop," Health Jan./Feb. 

1995: 95.

8. Piece from an anthology:

     8Thomas Lux, "Hospital View," Articulations: The Body and Illness

in Poetry, ed. Jon Mukand (Iowa City, IA: University of Iowa Press, 1994)117-119.

9. Newspaper article:

     9Bruce Ramsey, "Changing the Formula", Seattle Post-Intelligencer,

11 September 1995: B3.

10 . Pamphlet, signed:

     10Mavis Millstone, Strengthening Your Back (San Jose, CA: Kramer 

Publishing Co, 1992) 12.

11 . Pamphlet, unsigned :

     11Smoking, Chewing and Cancer (Boston: Davis and Sons, 1995) 2-3.

12. Personal interview:

     12Thomas Johnson, health administrator City of Bellevue, interview 

by author, Bellevue, Washington, 15 October1994.

13 . Lectures, speeches, and addresses:

     13Tammy Flynn, address, Eureka Summer Science Camp, Wenatchee, 

Washington, 7 July 1992.

14 . Audiovisual materials:

     14The Champion Within, videocassette, Metropolitan Pittsburgh Public Broadcasting Inc., 1988 (60 min.).

15 . Article from an electronic database, ex.: CD-ROM:

     15Ramunas Kondratas, "Public Health", The New Grolier Multimedia 

Encyclopedia, [CD-ROM], Windows, (Grolier Publishing, Inc., 1993).
 

16 . Internet article - World Wide Web site:

     6Joe R. Momma, "Onocology for Beginners," [Internet - WWW, URL],

http://cancer.med.upe.edu/, 13 March 1995.

17. Internet article - Gopher or FTP site:

     17Austin Hospital, "Pet Scan Image Database," [Internet - Gopher],

gopher.austin.unimelb.edu.au, Digital Image Library|Austin Hospital PET Centre Image 

Database|Image 1.3, 3 September 1994.

18 . Internet or other online communication article - Email or Newsgroup:

     18Kurt Grosshans, "Ask Mr. Science", [Internet - E-mail],

apscichs@radford.vaked.edu., 12 November 1994.

D. Endnote Samples, previously cited sources:

After the first complete reference to a particular source, later endnotes may be shortened as follows:

1 . For a source which has been cited in the immediately preceding endnote:

¹Ibid., 136.

2 . For source which has been cited before, but not in the immediately preceding endnote:

²Shorter, 22.

³Shorter, Health, 28.
(Include title of source if using more than one source by the same author)

⁴Corbin, Newsweek, 54.
(use for newspapers, magazines and other periodicals)

---

Endnotes and Microsoft Word

In class we talked a lot about writing a bibliography for our papers.  When you understand the basics and have a good handbook for reference, it's not a difficult process.

Footnotes and Endnotes are more challenging.  In the old days of manual typewriters, we sat with rulers and pencils in order to appropriately place footnotes.  I've spent some time on my older version of Microsoft Word today today in order to familiarize myself with endnotes.  If you are using some other software, you may have to someone who knows it.

You can add endnotes even after you've typed in the bulk of you paper.  When you insert the first note, you can set the format for the rest of the paper.  Follow these steps:

• Insert your cursor at the point you want a note.  It should be right after the end punctuation without any spaces in between.  
• At the top of the toolbar, click on Insert then Reference then Footnote.
• When the Footnote and Endnote box opens, set the following formats:  Endnotes, Number format (1, 2, 3 ...), Start at 1, Numbering Continuous, Apply changes to Whole document.  Once you've set the formatting, select Apply.
• After you've set the format for the endnotes, you can use the shortcut keys for inserting the rest of the note numbers:  CTRL + ALT + D.  This will insert the next number.
• When you insert the numbers, the numbering starts at the end of the document.  These you'll have type in yourselves according to the MLA format.
• Word wants to add a line above the notes.  You need go through a couple steps to do that.  First, change the view from Print Layout to Normal.  Go back to View and click on Footnotes.  
• A pane will open at the bottom of the page.  This pane (box) has a dropdown menu, click on Endnote Separator and then delete the line.  Click Close and the box will close.  You can then go back to Print Layout.
• When you add or delete any notes, the numbers are automatically re-numbered.
• You will now have numbers in the body of your paper and the numbers at the end of the document.  You'll need to move the notes to its own page and title it "Endnotes."

Other helpful websites:
Microsoft Office

MVP Microsoft Helps

Writing 3 Class Notes -- November 1

Greetings!

A brief recap of today's class:

We didn't write our regular test prep exams or vocabulary builders.  Rather, we started with a couple light-hearted rounds of "Man Bites Dog," a headline-building game. Writing a research paper requires a lot of analytical thinking; sometimes it's good to use our brains for a little fun.

We discussed plans for the presentations, trouble spots in the papers, and the format for endnotes and bibliography.  We took quite a bit of time going over correct formatting for bibliographies.  Working with some handbooks and worksheets, we put some examples on the board of bibliography entries for various types of resources.

Formatting the papers and working with word processing software may be a bit of a challenge.  If any parents are experts, be sure to help your students.  I'm not familiar with programs other than the 97 version of Word. Let me know if this area (word processing) is your forte.  We might be able to use you!

Assignments for Next Week:
-- Rough Draft #2
-- Rough Draft of bibliography
-- Plan for presentation  (something to hand in)

Students, feel free to e-mail me regarding any questions or editing help.

Have a great week,
Mrs. Prichard