Academic Writing II

AW2: Week 7, November 15th, 2019

Homework

  1. Re-write draft #2. Save as “AW2 Essay4 Draft3 Lastname”. Email it to me (subject line should be the same) by next Friday. I will email those students whom I did not get a chance to speak to in class today (Nov. 15th).
    1. Print out and bring your draft #3 to the next class.
  2. If you have not yet done so, please read the essay by Bastiat entitled “The Broken Window Fallacy” 
  3. I suggest you read the Japanese explanation first, then the English. Here’s a link to the Japanese one (Wikipedia).
    1. We will discuss this essay in class next week (Nov. 22nd).
  4. Watch these videos about citations:
    1. Video 1 is here: http://bit.ly/2BvWN6d
    2. Video 2 is here: http://bit.ly/2BliTpw 
    3. Video 3 is here: http://bit.ly/aw2citationsjpns 
  5. Read section 3 below on citations and references.

Today’s class

  1. The difference between “uninterested” and “disinterested”. Small differences but important. Academic writers and students (that means you!) are interested in such small differences and understand their importance.
  2. Rights: positive and negative. Group discussions and individual answers in writing.
    1. Right to life (negative)
      1. Who has the right to life?
      2. Where does life come from?
      3. What does “right to life” mean?
      4. Why is the right to life a human right?
    2. Right to an education (positive)
      1. Who has the right to an education?
      2. Where does education come from?
      3. What does “right to an education” mean?
      4. Why is it considered (by many but not by all) as a human right? (see Article 16 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; but not everyone agrees it is a right: for example, French lawyer Bastiat wrote, “

        The most urgent necessity is, not that the State should teach, but that it should allow education. All [legal] monopolies are detestable, but the worst of all is the monopoly of education.

        — By. Frédéric Bastiat

    3. Citations and references. At KPU, Academic Writing students are supposed to use the MLA style. There are two parts to citations:
      1. the in-text citations which are in the main body of your essay, and
      2. the “Works Cited” section which comes after your conclusion at the end of your essay.
      3. Every work cited, that means every website, newspaper and magazine or journal article or book that you use in your essay should be referred to both in the body of your essay and listed in the “Works Cited” section at the end of your essay. The list should be in alphabetical order of authors’ names.
      4. Why should you include citations in your academic essay?
        1. You need to show that you have done some reading about your topic. 
        2. You need to support the points that you are making, i.e. you must give evidence to support your claims.
          1. You must show where you got your information from – not just “the Internet”,
          2. you must give enough information for your reader to find the same article or website or book that you found:
            1. the title of the article or website or book;
            2. the author;
            3. the publisher (Wikipedia is a publisher, for example);
            4. the date of the article, web page or book;
            5. the URL if it’s a website or web page;
            6. the date you accessed it (if it’s a website or web page).
      5. 2 videos (in English) on how to write citations and a bibliography:
          1. Video 1 is here: http://bit.ly/2BvWN6d
          2. Video 2 is here: http://bit.ly/2BliTpw 
            1. This screenshot from video 2 shows the relationship between the in-text citation and the Works Cited (or References) section (click on the picture below to see a bigger one): screenshot
          3. The examples in the video do not use the MLA style but you should.
            1. Overall guide: http://bit.ly/OWL_MLA4aw2  
            2. MLA in-text citations: http://bit.ly/OWLMLAin-text
            3. MLA Works Cited page basic format: http://bit.ly/MLA4awworkscited
          4. And here is a video in Japanese on how to make citations and a Works Cited page using Microsoft Word. The style used in this video is the APA style (see 1:30 in the video; click the picture below to see a bigger one) but you should choose “MLA” from the drop-down list instead of APA. Screenshot