Thursday, Feb. 14th, 7:30 pm

Greetings.

Below you will find two items:

1. Packet #3 assignment, due Monday, Feb. 18

2. Copy of handout distributed on Wed. Feb. 13 in class (editing guidelines)

Packet #3 Assignment
This packet consists of  one TED Talk video. Approximate running time is 23 minutes.
"Philip Zimbardo/The Psychology of Evil"
http://www.ted.com/talks/philip_zimbardo_on_the_psychology_of_evil.html

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English 20--C. Fraga

Reminders as you conduct final editing

& proofreading of out of class essays:

• No ‘you’ and ‘your’ in formal essay writing.

• No contractions in formal essay writing.

• More than a few mechanical and sentence level errors seriously affects the success and readability of your essay. How to avoid careless errors? PROOFREAD.

• Use interesting and vivid verbs.

• Learn the difference between then & than, effect & affect, past & passed.

• Proofread v. carefully for unacceptable errors.

• SPELLCHECK IS NOT ALWAYS YOUR FRIEND.

• Avoid commonly used words such as nice, good, bad, great, wonderful, etc.

• Proofread to catch errors in tense (tense shifts).

• Read your essay aloud, slowly, to hear errors often not detected when reading silently. (in particular, errors in repetitiveness become distracting and irritating quite quickly)

• Vary sentence beginnings and sentence lengths.

• Write in present tense as much as possible. (ex.  In this movie, Ariel, the youngest princess under the sea, was unhappy with her life. Should be IS unhappy with her life.)

• Do not write in the manner that you speak.

COMMA SPLICE (the two sentences below have comma splices and need to be corrected)

·      Home does not always have to be a place, it can be the memories that a person experiences that define their childhood.

·      Home for these men all signifies something different, for the father it’s a place of stability where he has control.

WORDINESS

On the other hand, we have songwriters who through their song lyrics showcase battery, fear and strength within the home.

Better:

On the other hand, some songwriters showcase battery, fear and strength within the home.

I feel that families have a great impact on our experiences of home.

Better:

Families have a monumental impact on our experiences of home.

These country-western songs about home reveal many of the various aspects of home. These songs reveal that home is somewhere we feel a sense of belonging, familiarity, and ownership.

Better:

These country-western songs define home as a place where we feel a sense of belonging, familiarity and ownership.

About Conclusions:

Do NOT simply re-word and/or re-phrase what you wrote in your introduction paragraph. It is an insult to the reader. In a short essay, the reader will not forget the overall premise of your essay.

You do, of course, want to refer to your thesis but your remarks should be more complex and qualified than the version in your introduction. In the end, readers may not agree with you, but they should know why the issue and your argument matter.

You are addressing the question, “so what?” What was the purpose for writing the essay? Why is it significant?