Research Opportunities: Fulbright Grants

If you have found that you enjoy research, you might want to consider applying for a Fulbright Grant after you complete your four-year degree. After I graduated from Fairfield University, I spent a year in South Korea on a Fulbright Grant (mine was a teaching grant, but many grants are for research). The grant paid for a lot of things—my salary, housing, and cell phone—and provided me with a lot of opportunities that I might not have had otherwise.

To see a sample of different fields of study and countries, check out this list of grantees from my university (scroll down to “Fulbright Scholars”).

The Fulbright website describes the different kinds of grants that are available. Click on different regions and countries to find out what kinds of grants are available.

When You Get to Class: Deposit Papers in Digication Database

The college requires students who take ENG103 to deposit their papers in the Digication database. You will not be evaluated based on your paper; the school is using these papers to compile information about students’ skills within different courses. Please deposit your paper by following these instructions.

Some Final Checklists to Consider

The writers of our textbook were kind enough to provide us with a number of checklists to use for reviewing the final draft of your research paper. I would suggest tackling these one at a time to avoid getting overwhelmed.

Voice and Tone

The language used in your essay, your “voice,” is another facet of your paper that is determined by your audience and purpose. (See pages 266–267.) Following are some things to ask yourself when you revise your paper:

❐ Does the tone that I use relate to the audience and purpose of this paper?

❐ Did I use active voice?

❐ Did I eliminate the use of slang, jargon, or inflated, overly formal language?

❐ Do I explain the use of all specific terminology or subject-specific references?

❐ Do I write with authority?

❐ Do I eliminate the use of sexist or other discriminatory language?

Introduction

Good introductions set the tone for your paper. Unfairly or not, since they are the first your reader sees of your writing, they may influence your reader more than anything else you say in the paper. Many readers, you, I am sure, included, have put aside reading very worthy essays because the introduction didn’t interest them or misinformed them about the content of the paper. Thus, it is especially important that you now review your introduction and ask yourself some questions about it. For more information about introductions, see page 203 and page 268.

❐ Is my introduction clearly written?

❐ Does my introduction serve to interest or excite my reader?

❐ Is my introduction written in a lively style?

❐ Does my introduction give the reader an accurate idea of what I will be doing?

❐ Does my introduction end with a clearly focused thesis?

Conclusion

Conclusions are your last moment alone with your reader, be he or she your teacher, a stranger, or your best friend. Thus, you want the conclusion to leave the reader thinking about your essay and the points you have made. Don’t introduce any new material in your conclusion. You have no space to develop it, and you will just confuse your reader. Use the conclusion to sum up and put what you have written in a larger context—for example, if you have written about your school, the conclusion may take the reader to the city’s schools, to the nations, and so on. For more information, see pages 207 and 271.

❐ Is the main idea of your essay clear in the conclusion?

❐ Have you succeeded in summarizing your main points?

❐ Is there a sense of completion in your conclusion?

❐ Have you checked to see that there is not any new information in your conclusion?

Evaluating Sources

As we discussed in Chapters 5 and 7, it is not enough to locate and copy sources. They must be used appropriately, punctuated correctly, and linked to the topic sentence of the paragraph through the use of transitional introductions (“sandwiching”). Check over your quotations by asking yourself the following questions:

❐ Is there a topic sentence in the paragraph?

❐ Does the writer introduce the quotation and blend it into the paragraph?

❐ Is the direct quotation put in quotation marks and punctuated correctly?

❐ Is there a clear paraphrase of the quotation?

❐ Has the writer analyzed the quoted passage and connected it to the topic sentence?

❐ Does the source have authority?

Documenting Your Sources Using MLA Style

Documenting your sources shouldn’t be difficult if you understand what you are citing and copy the form accurately. See Chapters 8 and 9 for more information on doing a Works Cited list. Ask yourself the following questions to help you check your in-text documentation:

❐ Does your documentation follow all of the MLA guidelines exactly?

❐ Are the sources listed alphabetically?

❐ Are all titles correctly identified by italics or quotation marks, as shown in the appropriate model?

❐ Do you have in-text citations for all references to sources?

❐ Are all of the sources in the in-text citations listed in the Works Cited list at the end of the paper?

❐ Is everything spelled correctly?

Also, consider using these proofreading strategies.

Proofreading Strategies

Here are some ways to proofread. Pick one or more when you read over your paper.

 

1. Take a blank piece of paper and move it slowly down the paper, from beginning to end.

2. Take a blank piece of paper and move it slowly up the paper, from the end to the beginning.

3. Read your paper aloud, slowly.

4. Read through your paper again, focusing on those areas that you know you have trouble with.

5. Read your paper to a friend.

6. Do all of the above, put your paper aside, and proofread it again a day later.

When You Get to Class: Reviewing MLA Style Citation

While your textbook is very helpful in explaining MLA style, it was written before the latest edition of the MLA style guide came out. If you bought the textbook, it came with a small laminated pamphlet explaining these changes, but if you borrowed the book from the library or photocopied the chapter from elsewhere, you might not have gotten this information. However, both the LaGuardia library website and the Purdue OWL (Online Writing Lab) website contain most of the information you will need for your papers.

Today we are going to review MLA Style citation for different kinds of books. You may want to copy this information into your notes, but it's more important that you read it over and try to understand the different versions of citation. We will be practicing writing these entries later in class.

Book with One Author

Fiedler, Leslie. Freaks: Myths and Images of the Secret Self. New York: Simon, 1978. Print.

Author (last, first.)

Title (in italics, include subtitles after colons, period at the end)
City of Publication (followed by colon)
Publisher (followed by comma, abbreviated)
Date of Publication (followed by period)
Medium of Publication (“Print.” for book, “Web.” for online book (slightly different format), CD, Film, DVD, Performance, etc.)

Any line after the first line is double-spaced and indented one-half inch or five spaces. This is called a “hanging indent.”

Book with Two or Three Authors or Editors

Doane, Janie, and Devon Hodges. Nostalgia and Sexual Difference: The Resistance to Contemporary Feminism. New York: Methuen, 1987. Print.

Notice that any authors’ names after the first author are written with the first name before the last name.

Two or More Books by the Same Author(s)

Lamott, Anne. All New People. New York: Doubleday, 1991. Print.

---. Bird by Bird: Some Instruction on Writing and Life. New York: Doubleday, 1994. Print.

Give the author’s name for the first entry only. After that, type three hyphens in place of the name, followed by a period and one space and then the next title. The three hyphens always stand for exactly the same name as in the preceding entry. The titles of the author’s works should be listed alphabetically.

Book with Translator

Marquez, Gabriel García. Love in the Time of Cholera. Trans. Edith Grossman. New York: Penguin, 1988. Print.

If a book has been translated, after the title of the book, include the abbreviation “Trans.” and the translator’s name (written regularly), followed by a period. The rest of the entry is written in the same way as we learned for a regular book with one author.

Selection from an Anthology or Collection

Mabry, Marcus. “Living in Two Worlds.” Between Worlds: A Reader, Rhetoric, and Handbook. Ed. Susan Bachmann and Melinda Barth. 6th ed. New York: Longman, 2010. 109-111. Print.

Give the author and title of the selection, using quotation marks around the title. Then give the title of the anthology, in italics. If the anthology has an editor, note the name or names after the “Ed.” Give the page numbers for the entire selection as shown.

Meb Keflezighi: Outlining to Organize Your Thoughts

Read this brief article on Meb Keflezighi. Create a running outline of the information you learn from the article. Then, use only the information necessary to create a brief formal outline to compare and contrast Meb Keflezighi and Alberto Salazar. The two main topics should be "Meb Keflezighi" and "Alberto Salazar"; the subtopics should be based upon the ways in which the article compares and contrasts them.

Evaluating Quotations: When Should I Quote? When Should I Paraphrase?

Examine the following quotations. If you were using them in your own papers, would you maintain the quotations or paraphrase them? Explain why.

1. “On Thursday morning, August 4, 1892, Mr. and Mrs. Borden and John Morse, a visiting relative, ate an early breakfast together. Around 9:00 A.M. Mrs. Borden left to run errands and Mr. Borden went downtown, as was his custom, to take care of small business matters.”

Marcia Carlisle, “What Made Lizzie Borden Kill?” from Research Papers, p. 7.

2. “Medical Examiner Dolan, assisted by other physicians, held an autopsy this afternoon on the two bodies. It was found that Borden sustained twelve cuts in the face and skull, varying in length 4 to 8 inches. He also suffered a fracture of the skull 2 by 4 inches and 3 inches deep. His wife’s head and face was battered all out of shape.”

New York Times, 5 August 1892, from Research Papers, p. 4.

3. “The descent through the steep tunneled streets gave one the sense of being lowered into the shaft of a mine. At each step the strip of sky grew narrower, and was more often obscured by the low vaulted passages into which we plunged. The noises of the Bazaar had died out, and only the sound of fountains behind garden walls and the clatter of our mules’ hoofs on the stones went with us. Then fountains and gardens ceased also, the towering masonry closed in, and we entered an almost subterranean labyrinth which sun and air never reach.”

Edith Wharton, In Morocco, from Research Papers, p. 81.

4. “The problems with the Christians start, said Father, as with women, when the hudad, or sacred frontier, is not respected. I was born in the midst of chaos, since neither Christians nor women accepted the frontiers. Right on our threshold, you could see women of the harem contesting and fighting with Ahmed the doorkeeper as the foreign armies from the North kept arriving all over the city. In fact, foreigners were standing right at the end of our street, which lay just between the old city and the Ville Nouvelle, a new city that they were building for themselves.”

Fatima Mernissi, Dreams of Trespass, from Research Papers, p. 87.

When You Get to Class: Write Me a Letter

Please write me an informal letter telling me how your research is going. Let me know what is going well, what is not going well, how you might need help, etc. I'm not grading this; this is just a way for me to check in and see what is happening with you and your research before you start writing your rough draft.