One Polished Paragraph

Today in class we'll be practicing the art of integrating secondary sources into your writing using MLA parenthetical format.

Here is a link to recent award-winning papers written by undergraduates, just like you.  

Each student will have 45 minutes to write, revise, edit, and upload one paragraph that demonstrates the effective integration of a predetermined secondary source available on JSTOR in MLA format:

Directions:

1) Find the essay on JSTOR. Easy, right?

2) Read the essay and transcribe three excerpts that you might use in your paragraph. You can cut-n-paste these excerpts or write them by hand. Do not forget the page number, you will need that information.

3) The topic of your paragraph is simple: Do you agree or not agree with Michael Greer's ideas? Do you agree or disagree in certain ways but not others? Why or why not?

4) Draft a paragraph that has at least 6 and no more than 10 sentences.

5) The third or fourth sentence must introduce the verbatim (Latin for exactly) quotation from Greer's essay with a signal phrase and be punctuated according to MLA parenthetical format (see link here).

6) The end of the paragraph (at least two or three additional sentences after the quotation) should be your voice's contribution to the discussion. Avoid the first-person voice: no I, me, my, etc. 

7) Proofread carefully. Proofread again. If you have a question, ask. 

8) Use the JSTOR citation generator to find the correct MLA citation for Greer's essay. Fix the hanging indents, fix the capitalization, and center the words "Work Cited" above the citation. Place this under your paragraph.

9) Proofread everything one last time.

10) Upload to our Populi discussion board.