POST: Week 4, Day 1, Monday, September 15, 2008

Today we did some with two projects and spent class time working on all three.

Project 1: We discussed some common problems I saw in many of the drafts. The biggest issue is citation.

Suggestion: Put your reference to your source into the overview section of the paper. For example, you could say something such as: The information in this paper is taken exclusively from the Venezuela and Antigua pages of the CIA World FactBook (www.cia.gov).

HOWEVER, it was pointed out that this is NOT enough. It's good to alert readers at the beginning of a paper about what your source is -- but as you present statistics, you must also do that as well. So we looked at different ways to do this:

One is to say:

According to the CIA World FactBook, the population of Venezuela is 15,000,000.

NOTE: Do not use"In the CIA World FactBook" as your phrase.

You could also use a subject phrase:

The CIA World FactBook states the population of Venezuela as 15,000,000.

A third way is to create an end citation.

The population of Venezuela is 15,000,000 (CIA World FactBook: Venezuela: People).

As I stated in class, I'll be commenting on drafts over the next few days -- but go ahead and make corrections now and I'll keep looking at them.

Project 2: We looked at 2 new questions:

1. What would your colleagues say about you? (Strategy: Start by defining your colleages. "Most of my colleagues are people I collaborated with on various projects at the university." Then use the conditional: "If they were to be asked what they thought of me, they might say. . ." State two or three good points and elaborate. )

2. What have you done in the last year to improve your knowledge? (Strategy: Start by answering the question using language from the question. "Over the last year I've done a number of things to improve my knowledge in the field of X." List a few things you've done. Be specific.. However, do not expand on this question. For example, don't say how you felt about those things. "I attended a conference by NCICA in Houston. The subject was fractural ceramics and I attended a number of workshops.")