Hello all! I hope you all are well and coming along with your essay. Today, May 21, 2022, I want to leave notes to those who have created text in their shared Word document in Teams. Our classes will resume on May 27, 2022 (I return to the office on May 26, 2022), a couple of days later than originally planned. I understand for some (perhaps not all 🙂), that my absence may have caused some unexpected stress. I am going to move the due dates back one week for the first draft and the final draft (if you need it). That is, when I return, I will provide assistance to anyone who wishes to complete the essay as originally scheduled (by the last day of class) and those who want an additional week to complete the essay. I know that my absence was last minute and unavoidable, but we'll continue wherever you happen to be in your writing process once I return. A lot will depend on the initiative you take in doing what you can on your own. The feedback below is in no particular order.
Feedback
- What's the purpose of your essay? State the purpose and target audience on the title page.
- Remove all extraneous information: problem statement, a thesis statement (unless part of the instruction and conclusion paragraphs), notes, outline, highlighted text, Word comments (unless pending), headings (except for the title of the essay and "References"), etc.
- Begin writing your essay. Begin with one of the body paragraphs, preferably the body paragraph easiest to write.
- Check how to format your Word document when writing an academic essay (See How to format Word when writing an academic text...).
- Check how to cite sources according to APA (See APA Guide to Academic Writing).
- Make sure to include at least five citations throughout your essay - at least one citation in each paragraph except for the conclusion paragraph. This requirement does not include a citation that supports the hook (i.e., the first sentence of the introduction paragraph).
- Make sure to include a minimum of three references that come from peer-reviewed journal articles.
- Avoid contractions ("do not" instead of "don't", etc.) when writing an academic text.
- Check format for the title of your essay: title case capitalization, 6-12 words, centered to the page, and in bold.
- Review the five elements of a thesis statement as discussed in class (See Writing Workshop: Thesis Statement and Skeleton Outline_bls128).
- Avoid compound sentences as a topic sentence. Write a complex sentence instead. I consider a complex sentence to have a dependent clause such as a subordinating clause and/or relative clause) - compound vs. complex sentences.
- Words to avoid: "important", "very",
- Avoid websites as references.
- Begin each topic sentence with a main clause.
- Avoid the forward slash.
Audio Gear & Attribution
Microphone: Shure SM7B; Yamaha AG03 Mixing Console ; Screen recorder/streaming software: OBS; Video/audio editor and normalization (14 LUFS): Kdenlive; Music attribution - https://youtu.be/mfN6mzrkxws; Website - https://www.benjaminlstewart.net/