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What She Really Wants,

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Some tips for producing a wonderful final project:

Focus on identifying a question to answer, a problem to solve, an inconsistency to understand, some knowledge you don’t possess but would like to. Successful final projects aren’t book reports, or recitations of what the source(s) y ou consulted have to say. Successful final projects help you answer a question, and take you into the realm of the previously-unknown. How to tell if you’re on the right track: fill in the rest of the sentence "I’m writing a paper about __________________ ." If you filled in a noun phrase (e.g., I’m writing about southern English." you’re not there yet. You should be able to phrase your topic in terms of a question or problem (e.g. why do northerners like the sounds of southern English but still think it’s not a prestige variety? or what difference does it make that some people draw different boundaries around the South?).

For this project, I don’t have many particular expectations about the form of your work (other than general expectations for neatness, 1" margins, typed work, correctly-spelled work, etc.). But I expect that there will be a wide ran ge of formats used in the whole collection of your final projects--and this is something you can see even in the project handout. Some of you may write dictionaries, for instance; others of you may write something approaching a scientific experiment repor t; others of you may write in narrative form; others of you may use very formal elements, etc. The form of your project should fit the purpose of your project. It should display what you’ve learned, and it should display how you learned it. The sources th at informed your work should be evident in some portion of your project. If you’re working up lesson plans, the sources might appear in annotations attached to each lesson plan. If you’re writing a more conventional essay, the sources will appear in paren thetical citations. The most important thing to remember: make an active decision about the form of your work, one that is in keeping with its audience and purpose.

In general, use MLA conventions for documenting sources (although some of you may wish to use APA instead). Consult a recent handbook for these conventions; footnotes should be used sparingly, and only for additional explanations. P arenthetical citations are much easier to use and to read. If you’ve used electronic sources (articles from full-text databases such as the Expanded Academic Index; web sites; CD-ROMs) cite them appropriately. Any recent handbook will have information on this; see me if you need some help.

Documenting sources is important for several reasons. One, it lets readers know what information you’ve based your analysis and conclusions on. Two, it lets readers who which people and texts have influenced you, and helped you form your ideas. Accordingly, it’s essential that your works cited page(s) and acknowledgments explain who helped bring your work to fruition. Many books and articles contain an acknowledgment footnote at the start, or a whole page of acknowledgments that all ow the author to note people who have provided a wide array of assistance, from people who helped with child care to people whose texts provided fundamental insight. If you’ve received help from others-- with proof-reading, with revising, with identifying sources, with anything of substance-- acknowledge it in some form (for example: "I’d like to thank Jane Smith for helping me revise this essay, and Karen Jones for helping to keep me sane in the library. Charles Johnson was especially helpful in locating the text I analyze in this project.").

When you use written sources in your work, think of them as something to discuss and analyze, not something you’re inserting into the essay merely to support what you’re saying or to demonstrate that you’ve fulfilled the requirement tha t you do some research. When you have a quotation, you should analyze it. Explain it, quarrel with it; elaborate on it; do something with it. Don’t just leave it sitting there! Use it.

Use transition words to help introduce a quotation, and explain the credentials of your source. These issues are treated at great length in Lester’s guide to research papers (the text for English W132), as well as in any English handboo k. If you need a handbook, see me. Introducing a quotation is part of working with it.

The proper attribution of sources is a key dimension of academic integrity. The IUPUI Code of Student Ethics lays out in great detail the disciplinary penalties that can be applied to students who plagiarize or cheat. Needless to say, h anding in an essay which someone else has written is cheating, which will result in failing at least the assignment and perhaps the course. But the proper documentation of sources is a much more complicated area. This involves knowing when to use document ation. Some guidelines (refer to Sir Randolph Quirk’s essay (reading 1C, pg. 37 ff.):

If you use a striking word or phrase from a source, use quotation marks and provide page references and a works-cited entry. For example, Quirk’s term "half-baked quackery" (pg. 39) is striking, and if you use it in an essay, you should credit him with coining it. You might do this in different ways: Some methods of teaching English abroad involve what linguist Randolph Quirk calls "half-baked quackery" (39). or The teaching of English abroad sometimes turns into "half-baked q uackery" (Quirk 39).

If you paraphrase a source, use parenthetical citations, as well as signal phrases to help indicate what you’re borrowing: Because students of English in non-English speaking countries are not in an English-speaking environment, teacher s don’t have the luxury of exposing students to many varieties of English in everyday use (Quirk 38) this is sentences 3-4 in paragraph 1)

If you draw from a source consistently, use signal phrases to indicate that you’re still paraphrasing from it: Quirk notes that many teachers of English are so eager to teach English language variety that they are ignoring issues of sta ndard English. He offers the example of a New York City teacher who argued that Spanish-speaking students should be taught Black English , and then he explains that current linguistic scholarship on national varieties of English has stimulated these attit udes (37-38).

If you have questions about how to cite, or when to cite, please see me. Documenting your sources is a way of indicating what you’ve read; it’s also a way to help you engage in dialogue with what you’ve read. If you’re not clearly marki ng what you’ve read, you’ll be less likely to engage with it, to challenge it, to apply it to other situations. If you’re not clearly documenting, readers of your work won’t understand the context for your work, since they won’t know what influenced you. Documentation is also a way to bring credibility to your work.

At this point, you know best what work habits work best for you. Generally speaking, start early. Give yourself time to read closely, and give yourself time to write.

The most important thing you can do in this assignment is to generate a good question, and then answer that question based on good information you’ve identified. If you have a good question, and good data to help you answer it, you’ re on the right track. Documentation is also important to me; I want to see what you’ve read, how you’ve informed yourself. And I have a thing about works cited lists. Use your handbook, and follow its guidelines slavishly. I’m very flexible about the for mat of your work, and very inflexible about the format of the works cited list.

If I can help you, I will. You know how to contact me--by phone, by e-mail, by fax, even by appointment. If you’re having difficulties, let me know, and I’ll do my best to help you.

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