Formal and other issues

Last time, you'll remember,  everyone read at least three of the "position papers" on Swift, and made whatever helpful suggestions they thought appropriate, looking especially for issues like these:

• Is there a clear statement of a thesis or argument? Does there need to be?
• Tone that's inappropriate for a formal essay
• Organizational issues -- especially where the organization isn't made clear to the reader
• Problems of diction (wrong or inappropriate words)
• Mechanical issues in the prose -- spelling, punctuation, etc.
• Consistency of referencing (is everything cited also listed in the references?)
• Consistency of document style (is it consistent with what you understand to be MLA practice?)

We'll discuss all this (or as much of it as we can) in class today. If there seem to be questions we don't get to, or which take more time than we have, or which I can't answer, I'll create an editing forum and we'll continue the discussion there.

When we're done, please get the annotated copies of your paper back to me.

When your position is paper is final, from your point of view, and when it is formatted according to MLA,  a title, references in the text, and a reference list at the end, send me an email saying so and asking one or two specific questions about your paper, or indicating issues you'd particularly like me to attend to, and I will read it and offer my feedback.

Back to our exploration of the nonfiction prose of the Restoration and 18th century

We need to select a limited number of writers to focus our work on for the next few weeks. Over the next week, go back to the list of useful texts we began with, select two or maybe three, and see what you can find that would help us decide on one, or two, writers you think, on the basis of the sources you've consulted, would be most important for us to know about if we're going to understand the nonfiction prose of our period. It is my expectation, or hope, at least, that you will find these reference works much more useful than you did in September, and that you'll find it much easier to locate writers whose importance is generally accepted, and who are primarily known as writers of nonfiction prose.

For each writer you want to recommend, assemble a quote or two from a source or two, and create a recommendation (about a page) of that writer to the rest of us. Format your text using "Why we should study ________" as your title, and include a reference list of the texts you're citing at the bottom (there may, of course, be only one, but it should be listed under a heading: Works Cited).  If you recommend more than one writer, create separate recommendations.

Posting your work

Go to the "Important Nonfiction Writers" wiki (it's linked from the main Web site). If you're the first person to recommend your writer, type her name in the editing field, in [square brackets], and save the page. Now the name will appear with a question mark after it; click that and you will open a new editing window, and a new page. Type your name, again in [square brackets], and save that. Now, when you click the ? next to your name, you have a space to save your recommendation.

If someone's already done this, you should post your recommendation as a link from the same page. Click the writer's name (it will be a link), type your name in [square brackets], and save it; now you have a space for your own recommendation.

We'll do this in two stages: I'll expect everyone to have posted at least one recommendation by class time next Monday, and there'll be time to add to them before class time a week from now.

Feedback on feedback

All the anonymous feedback that people offered about the various learning strategies I'm using in this course is still available for comments.