Class Papers

Plagiarism

Using someone else's words - or the words of a website -- without citation is plagiarism.

Paragraphs

Paragraphs without evidence really aren't college paragraphs. Paragraphs should contain evidence from the text that supports the thesis. Paragraphs without evidence are basically naked. 

Introductions

It's always smart to begin with a reflection upon the text and theme you're going to discuss, from sentence one forward. Beginning with banal generalizations about the terms involved actually makes the student's writing seem less original, less idiosyncratic to them, and slavish to the obvious. It can be avoided easily by consider one's audience, and focusing on the text at hand.

Assertions

Assertions that make general claims for all people for all time are absurd, on their face. All passing assertions that students make must consider other points of view, as well as, say, history. Much more modest assertions are generally the ones that provable. There is nothing one can say that is "true" about marriage, for example, either now or in the past, save, except maybe, people have gotten married and continue to get married. 

 Critical Thinking

Critical thinking comes from the play; students sentences discuss what the text means, and the sentences try and connect moments in the text to any "ideas" that come out of the text (this is what we practice in our class discussions everyday). Critical thinking doesn't over-simplify or generalize.