ENG 481G, Fall 2007
The texts I’ve selected for our course merely scratch the surface of writing about style. Hundreds of books and articles, in English studies and other disciplines, have approached the subject. This assignment will expose you to some of them, while we develop a bibliography which will be useful for everyone enrolled in the course—both in Macomb and the Quad Cities.
The assignment can be broken down into six steps:
These steps map onto two graded milestones—a draft, due September 13 or 14, and a final bibliography entry, due October 25 or 26. (Quad Cities dates first; Macomb second.)
Ideally, your texts should compliment the questions about style which interest you—consider this assignment the first step towards building a list of sources for your semester project. Find your texts using the usual academic research tools, or see Dr. Rebecca Moore Howard’s bibliography of style: http://wrt-howard.syr.edu/Bibs/Style.bib.html
Graduate students must select at least one book. Undergraduates can select a book or three articles—two if they are very intense or very long. (I’ll let you know if you can drop one.)
You don’t have to work exclusively with academic texts—any substantive writing about style is acceptable. That rules out Us Weekly and PerezHilton.com, but not some content from Rolling Stone or Salon.com. But please include at least one traditional academic piece.
Avoid texts which are obviously out of date—those which offer neither relevant commentary nor which have historical value. Many textbooks fall into this category. (If you’re having trouble judge, I’ll help at “approval” time.)
Each entry should:
Avoid reactingto the piece. You, as a budding expert on style, are summarizing and analyzing a text for the benefit of others, and your reaction has limited value.
If you’ve never used a wiki before, no worries; you can learn it quickly. Log in using the username and password for "Write" I have emailed to you--the username should be your first and last name together, like this: JanaSmith. Navigate to the list page:
http://wrecking.org/write/index.php?title=Style_bibliography
Then follow the directions on the page itself. If you like, open the sample entry in a separate window and hit “Edit” to get a handle on the formatting. Save your edits often; if something doesn’t look right, or you have problems, just email me a link with the name of the page, and I can help. (Since anyone can edit in my wiki, I might even be able to fix your problem!)
You can save and edit as many times as you want, so start early to allow time for me to help if needed. You can also type your entry in a word processor and paste it in after you’re done.
I’m happy to look at your review any time. At the least, I want to see two milestones:
Draft: a brief summary of your text(s); full citations; preliminary thoughts about the content of your entry; direct address of any problems you note with the text. I will comment on this draft using the Discussion feature of the wiki.
Final: the completed entry, published on the course wiki, polished and ready for use by your fellow students. Due October 25 or 26.
I have integrated a model entry into the bibliography on the wiki. Please ask if you have questions about its form or content. You aren’t required to duplicate it exactly, of course, but it should help you get started.
The pinnacle of models for this assignment is the academic review; I expect graduate students enrolled in the class to meet or come near a publishable-quality academic review while preparing their annotated bibliography. (Recall the definition of “publishable” on the project assignment; that applies here as well.)
As always, I welcome your comments, questions, and other concerns, in class or otherwise.