READ: A Going Away Present From ENGL. 122.

Reading is important. Books are our connection with our literature, our language. They civilize us. They make our brains stronger. They h

And if/when you have kids, READ TO THEM. Their future English teachers will thank you. (Seriously, if kids don’t acquire language skills before the age of three…)

Here are some of your selections:

David Sedaris.
The Lost Symbol Dan Brown
Life After Life
Twilight (by far the most often recommended.)
Confessions of an Economic Hit Man
Thirteen Senses
Cormac McCarthy, Blood Meridian (arguably one of the best American novels in the last 50 years); and Outer Dark
Phillip Roth, Human Animal (or Human Stain?)
Jack London, Jon Barleycorn
Upton Sinclair, Cup of Fury
A Math Book (Boo!)
Susan Jacoby, The Age Of American Unreason
The Secret
Mark Danieleweski, House of Leaves
Marching Powder and I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell
Lucky
Amityville Horror

Here are my suggestions:

David Mitchell, Cloud Atlas and Number 9 Dream
Chris Bachelder, Bear v. Shark
David Foster Wallace, A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again
Robert Boswell, The Heyday of the Insensitive Bastards
Amy Bloom, Away
Tobias Wolf
Junot Diaz, Drown
Alain De Boton
Denis Johnson, Jesus Son
Larry McMurtry, The Last Picture Show
The Soul of A Chef
Antonya Nelson
Lorrie Moore
Andre Dubus (Sr)
Michael Ondaatje, Stuart Dybek The Coast of Chicago, Richard Yates…

Read my friends. And be merry.

No Class. 12/1

We are having optional conferences tomorrow and thus will not meet for class. Have a nice day off and study for your final.

You will get your final papers back on 12/3.

The Last Step

The final step to any writing process is proofreading. Many of us don’t wait for the paper to be finished to begin proofing and editing our work, but no matter how much we have done along the way, it is often helpful to spend one last moment with your paper focusing on its sentences.

There are a few key points to make:
1. Be realistic. You have to turn this paper in on Thursday. You cannot start proofreading and then decide you want to change your topic, nor can you rewrite the entire thing. You are stuck with this. But you can make significant changes that might dramatically improve your grade.
2. If your proofing process leads to a lot of new writing, be sure to go back and proof it again. Spend one LAST pass through the paper skimming for typos, fragments, missing apostrophes and such.
3. Understand the difference between revision and editing. Revision means you are making big, significant changes to your paper. Editing means you are fine tuning the language. Revision is installing the engine, editing is running it through the car wash and vacuuming the seats.

Here’s a 10-step process for this.
1. Take a break between when you stop writing and begin editing. Let your brain recharge. Let the muse find its way back to your shoulder.
2. Understand your purpose, according to Murray, “Editing helps you to have a fresh and objective look at your essay and do away with its weak points. Editing is a careful process of going through your essay paragraph by paragraph, sentence by sentence, word by word.”
3. Start editing your essay with the spellchecker and grammar checker option on your computer. But don’t stop here. Most spell checkers are valuable. Most grammar-checkers are not. NEVER hit change all.
4. Next print out your essay and edit it manually. Read the thesis and see if it:

* is clear, argumentative and easy to grasp? I should know what you are trying to communicate
* reflects the content of the essay? If not, rewrite it. It is okay to change your thesis to fit your paper.

5. Then go on to editing the introduction. Is it interesting? What last second changes might you make to bolster its ability to catch our attention?

6. From, www.bestessaytips.com: “Check if each paragraph contains relevant information and is free of meaningless sentences. There should be transition sentences linking the paragraphs. Otherwise your writing will look jerky without a clear transition from one point into the next. Try reading backwards, a sentence at a time. You will be able to focus on the sentences, rather than on the content of your essay. Refine your sentences and make them smooth and clear. Get rid of too long sentences. Pay attention to the rhythm of your writing: vary sentence lengths and patterns.”


7. The conclusion is the last thing the professors read and the first thing they remember. So make sure it takes the next step. Explain why this topic is important. What it reflects in society. What further measures should be taken. Etc.

8. Read it out loud. There is no substitution for this. Manually check for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors. Proofread for one type of error at a time. If commas are your weak point, look through your paper checking only that problem. Then proofread again for the next most frequent problem. Be especially attentive when checking your references. Make sure all the cited and paraphrased material is properly referenced.

9. Ask somebody to read through your paper and offer suggestions for polishing it.

10. Make the changes. Spell check. If time permits, read through it once more before submitting it. Save it on your hard drive, your jump drive and email it to yourself.

Grammar Check

A Twenty-Minute Lesson in Grammar

Fragments

A sentence consists of a subject and a predicate. Period. The subject announces what the sentence is about and the predicate tells us something about the subject.
Subject Predicate
I like bacon.
Hulk Hogan was a great body slammer.
The book is on the shelf.

Fragments are incomplete sentences because they lack a subject or a predicate.
Like: “And then went to Michigan.”
To fix them: Incorporate the fragment into an adjoining, and related sentence.
Like: “I went to Ohio State, and then went to Mighican. Football rules!”

Run-ons
Jamming together two or more sentences or independent ideas.

I do not recall what kind of wrestler he was all I remember is the Hulkster had a red face and blonde hair and always fought Rowdy Roddy Piper.

If you have sentences that are very long and your name is not A) James Joyce or B) William Faulkner then: Woah. Slow down and put some periods in there.

Comma splices
Run-ons, now with commas!

The concept of nature depends on the concept of human “culture,” the problem is that “culture” is itself shaped by “nature.”

Overwriting
Using more words than you need to. Remember, don’t write beyond your capabilities. Complex ideas are best present in clear language. These are some of the most valuable lessons I’ve been taught by two of my favorite professors.
Balancing the budget by Friday is an impossibility without some kind of extra help.
Boo.
Balancing the budget by Friday will be difficult without extra help.
Yea.
Eliminate redundancies. Ie: Cooperate together, close proximity, basic essentials, true fact (Hacker, 137)
Don’t repeat the same word in a sentence. The ball player was the best player ever to play.
Cut out inflated phrases.
Along the lines of = like
As a matter of fact = in fact
At the present time = now, currently, presently
Because of the fact that = because

Also, always delete “really.”



Active verbs
Passive: The coolant pumps were destroyed by a surge of power
Active: A surge of power destroyed the coolant pumps.
Do this by limiting your To Be verbs; ie; be am is was were being been.

Homonyms
Know I really have to know a lot to do well on my history test.
No I am going to study until I have no time left.

Affect Changing the way you eat will affect your health.
Effect I can’t see what effect these new laws will have on me.

Accept My insurance will accept the charges for the accident.
Except I like all vegetables, except for asparagus.

To We went to the store.
Too I am going, too. I have too much sand in my mouth.
Two There are two birds and they are looking at me.

There You can put the dinner in the trash. You’ve ruined everything.
Their Their house was full of people, so they remained outside.
They’re They’re just walking around barefoot right now.

Your Your dog is bigger than my dog.
You’re You’re going to have to keep him on a leash.

Whose Whose scarf is this?
Who’s Who’s going to the movie with us?

Than I am tanner than her.
Then We were both on the beach, but then she went inside.

Apostrophes.

The ‘ mark, as in “Jeff’s class” marks a possessive. Ie: The teacher’s lounge. The driver’s side. The children’s money. It marks ownership, even if it is loosely implied.
They also mark contractions. Don’t, can’t, won’t, should’ve, It’s, etc.
They are NOT used to make a word plural.
There are a few exceptions: It’s = It is.

Semi-colons.

You get one. In your entire career. Use it wisely. Otherwise, try to avoid them. The semi-colon is a strange misunderstood piece of punctuation and it is best to keep your distance.

The English language is complicated. There is so much more to writing than mere grammatical rules. However, you must know them before your can break them.

Workshop Assignment

You traded drafts. Here's what to do now:

1. Read each draft twice. First, to get the meaning. Second, to analyze it.
2. Edit one section, list common mistakes
3. Mark up the draft.
4. Write a letter to the author, detailing:

A. 3 aspects of the paper that you like and what you think the author is doing well.

B. 3 suggestions, based on the grade sheet I passed out yesterday, for how this paper needs to improve.

C. Give it a mock grade. Explain why. Be honest.

One letter for every author in your group, due tomorrow.

Parts and Paragraphs in Your Paper.

First. What is a paragraph?

Definition: They develop a single main idea…
Maybe it is better to say what they are NOT:
Confusing paragraphs are often confusing because the author is out of control. He doesn’t know what he is doing here, so he merely smashes several points of evidence together. This reveals poor planning, development of the main idea, and is REALLY hard to read.

Try using topic sentences. Sentences that state what the following paragraph will be about. They should not be called insecticides. They should be called biocides. Then you would have to prove why, with evidence.
One of the first examples of X is ________.
Another instance in which X is being threatened by Y is _______.

Try using transitional paragraphs.

The paragraphs combine to make up the larger parts of your papers.


Introduction: Introduce your paper, yes. But introduce each new turn in the text, too. You are the guide here. The reader is the wide-eyed follower. Don’t lead them into a Croc nest without first telling them why you are heading there.

Context/Background. It helps, in a lot of situations, to discuss the history of your topic, the various positions held, the posed solutions, the failed plans, etc, as a lead-in to your idea on the matter.

Narration: These are parts of your paper that narrate (tell the story of) certain events or circumstances so that the reader will agree with you. In addition to citing a law, it also helps to narrate what that means (by showing how it is enforced).

Evidence/Proof Paragraphs: This is where you really make your argument. A good model to follow is this:
i. topic sentence / support thesis
ii. lead-in to concrete detail
iii. quotation/concrete detail
iv. warrant/commentary
v. transition and lead-in to next quotation/concrete detail
vi. quotation/concrete detail
vii. warrant/commentary
viii. concluding or clincher sentence (From Google Docs. )

Signal Phrases:
X States”_____”
As the prominent philosopher (list specialty) puts it “
According to X, “ “
Writing in her book _________, X maintains that “ “
X disagrees when he writes “ “

Counter Arguments and Responses to Counter Arguments: Where you consider and rebut opposing views.
Of course, many will probably disagree with this assertion that ___________. However, (your refutation of their points)

While it is true that _________, it does not necessarily follow that ________>

On the one hand, it seems logical that ___________. But on the other hand, it must be pointed out that _______________.

Disagreeing with others:
X’s claim that ____________ is mistaken because, as recent research (or whatever) suggests, ________.
By focusing on _______________, X overlooks the deeper issue of ____________.


Warrants: These are a collection of sentences at the beginning and end of a proof paragraph that explains the logical connection this proof has to your claim, and why it is important. Focus on writing warrants to explain the assumptions that make you think the information you have given reinforces your case. Remember, quotes don’t speak for themselves; if you want a reader to accept a quote as evidence that proves a claim, you must spell out how or why the quote you’ve selected supports your argument. (Helpfulhint: In your body paragraph, you should have twice as much commentary as concrete detail. In other words, for every sentence of concrete detail, you should have at least two sentences of commentary.) (

As this shows, (describe relationship/proof of thesis).
Recent studies like these shed new light on _______, which help show how __link to thesis.

Conclusion. This IN NOT merely restating your thesis. It is drawing conclusions. It is saying, “therefore, then this.” It is expanding the ramifications or consequences of your argument. If what you are saying is right, good thinking, then what. Conclusions are very hard to write. It is that final line that is so often the hardest to pen because, well, it’s the FINAL LINE. However, you also have to conclude each idea in your paper. Use words like “Therefore…,” “Thus…,” “As a result…” “This shows that…” Etc. This reconnects your evidence to your thesis.
Although X may seem trivial, it is important because
Ultimately what is at stake here is
These conclusions/This discovery will have significant applications/consequences for the broader domain of ______.

Example: From writing.csu.edu
Section One: An analysis of the weaknesses of current curricular approaches to writing

Transitional Paragraph tying analysis to thesis and next section: As the analysis above shows, none of the available curricular models address multiculturalism except in the most cursory manner. Worse, their very superficiality does more damage than good. By introducing the topic of writing for multiple communities, the pedagogies make an attempt to bring diversity into the classroom; yet their focus remains on teaching academic writing with standard usage and grammar. Although they admit that such teaching is only for this context, putting such emphasis on standard forms introduces the issue: which forms of writing have more power in society, something none of the pedagogies address. By putting forth the academic model as the one which must be taught and learned in schools, they implicitly devalue other forms. The failure to foreground these power issues, then, leads students of difference to conclude that although their language and forms of writing might be acceptable in certain places, they are not welcome in the places which count in society. The effect of such an implicit message can be devastating to maintaining cultural values and difference.

Section Two: Discussion of research on multicultural student reactions' to writing classes.

Sources:
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/arguedraft/examplecombined.cfm
http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:DZ-lMMO41VUJ:rhsweb.org/assignments/Blaber/Essay%2520Exposition/Brave%2520New%2520World/Essay%2520Outline%2520and%2520Claim%2520Evidence%2520Warrant%2520Model.pdf+sample+warrants+essays&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESiRXnp_rjfp4HhFgsAICqS8vA4x3oSU4xCQV8XejoaTxrhHX0eF5uOodTe4Q0z_aq8XFnMpcPn5Q5oi0eNXtKYFUXHtSNC202HVhsYrcoZf-7Qn9HB-jlsblEdrFUM241XGOF4X&sig=AFQjCNFO4ncCaBlgGTzEsoXUvBK4OL5EQw

Sample Paper

An Analysis of the War on Drugs

The term “War on Drugs” was first used by Richard Nixon after signing the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act into law in 1970, to emphasize the problem of drug use and characterize the action being taken against it. This act, which includes the Controlled Substances Act, codified the patchwork of existing anti-drug laws and forms the legal basis for the federal government’s anti-drug efforts. As the defining point of the beginning of the War on Drugs the act consolidated drug laws, which had before been enacted based on many different rationales, as a system of laws based on a central set of conclusions.
On signing the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, President Nixon stated that drugs are a national problem and major cause of street crime in the U.S. He links drug use to crime several times and makes the statement that a program against drug abuse can “save the lives of hundreds of thousands of young people who otherwise would become hooked on drugs and be physically, mentally, and morally destroyed” (Woolley and Peters 1).” Several conclusions underlying these statements have formed the basis for the War on Drugs since, and in order to define the War on

Drugs is it necessary to understand those ideas.
The basic premise supporting any conclusion in favor of battling drug use is the relatively uncontroversial assumption that drugs can be harmful, not only to the user but to the people around them and by extension, society. This premise alone does not support the War on Drugs, because in order to build a case for criminalizing drugs two conclusions need to be drawn on that basis. The first of these is the conclusion that people need to be protected from drugs, and the second is the conclusion that a criminal prohibition will accomplish this goal.

These conclusions formed the basis for the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act and any laws passed since that rest on these ideas can also be considered part of the War on Drugs, as can the enforcement actions thereof, because they are rooted in the same ideology. Although an exact and unanimously agreeable definition of the War on Drugs may be impossible, a usable definition can be reached by stating that the War on Drugs is comprised of any and all actions based on both of those conclusions. This definition of the War on Drugs serves to refer to the vast system of laws, rhetoric, and enforcement actions that treat drugs as a criminal problem.
By classifying the War on Drugs as any application of that concrete set of ideas, any argument that attacks either of them attacks the entire War on Drugs as defined here. Therefore, the common argument against the criminalization of a specific drug based on the failure of that specific prohibition is an argument against the War on Drugs as a whole, because it refutes the conclusion that the criminal prohibition of a drug will protect people from it.

Arguments supporting the War on Drugs tend to take its supporting conclusions as axioms and focus on supporting the basis for that conclusion, that being the assertion that drugs are harmful. Although arguments are sometimes made by attacking that claim, especially in the case of marijuana, it is not necessary to refute the idea that drugs are harmful in order to make an argument against their criminalization. All that is necessary to accomplish that goal is to refute, as history has already done for alcohol, the conclusions that form the case for criminally prohibiting a substance.
That refutation can be seen in the history of American alcohol prohibition, which began in 1920 when the 18th amendment to the U.S. constitution went into effect. The 18th amendment prohibited alcohol nationwide until its repeal in 1933 with the goals, as noted by economist Mark Thornton, of reducing crime, social problems, government expenditures on prisons, and health problems. With legal supplies of alcohol gone tens of thousands of speakeasies sprang up in major cities, supplied with alcohol by organized crime. The huge profits led to police corruption on a massive scale, and violence as criminal groups organized around the steady income source provided by prohibition. Thornton summarizes the results of alcohol prohibition by stating that it not only failed to reduce drinking and the problems it was intended to address but made them worse, with bootleggers and crime bosses being prohibition’s primary beneficiaries (Thornton 9-11).

These results can be explained by considering the economic effects of prohibiting a substance. As a study of drug market economics by Jonathan Caulkins and Peter Reuter published in Journal of Drug Issues explains, criminally prohibiting a substance artificially increases its value. This is dramatically illustrated by the cost of marijuana, which despite being one of the less expensive drugs by weight, is worth its weight in gold. The study goes on to state that while higher prices do provide some deterrent to consumption of the prohibited substance, in the case of drug prohibition it seems that the effect of law enforcement on price encounters a point of diminishing returns. When this is reached, increased drug prohibition enforcement produces smaller and smaller increases in the price of those drugs (Caulkins and Reuter 593-594, 601).
As Mark Thornton concluded, rates of drinking actually rose during prohibition, and if alcohol prohibition can be used as a model, one would expect an increase in drug use. This expectation is realized according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, which reports 41.7 percent of the population over age 12 reporting lifetime drug use in 2001, compared to 31.3 percent in 1979 (United States- Office of Nation Drug Control Policy 1). In addition, in 2007 the Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported roughly eight percent of the population over age 12 having used an illicit drug in the past month (United States- Center for Disease Control 271). Clearly, tens of millions of Americans are continuing to use drugs despite massive and increasing expenditures on the enforcement of their prohibition.

This suggests that that in the case of drug prohibition the point of diminishing returns suggested by Caulkins and Reuter has already been reached, and increasing enforcement is failing to drive prices up enough to strongly discourage use. Furthermore, as economist David Sollars of Auburn University explains in his analysis of the War on Drugs, prison space is a finite resource; therefore as more people are incarcerated, the terms of incarceration must become shorter. Sollars presents data showing this happening in Florida where prison space constraints have resulted in shorter and shorter sentences served (Sollars 31). The result is a situation where increasing enforcement of drug laws provides a disincentive to break them via a higher arrest rate, but this disincentive is balanced by the reduction of the severity of punishment. With increasing enforcement already unable to significantly discourage drug use by further driving up the cost of the drugs, and the incentive power of higher arrest rates neutralized, it is unlikely that additional enforcement of drug prohibition would significantly reduce use.

With a demand that is accordingly very difficult to reduce via law enforcement and extremely high prices for prohibited substances, a powerful economic incentive to break the law exists. The resulting black market is inherently problematic because it exists outside the structures and regulations that apply to legal businesses. Not only is consumer protection non-existent, but the profits go to whomever is willing to break the law, providing a ready funding source for organized crime or terrorism. Also, lacking legal recourse, business disputes arising in the black market tend to be settled with violence. This conclusion is illustrated in “An Economic Analysis of Alcohol Prohibition”, a study by Harvard economist Jeffery Miron published in Journal of Drug Issues, by looking at the homicide rate during alcohol prohibition (Miron 741).
Ultimately the economics of prohibiting substances like alcohol or drugs, both of which can be addictive and harmful, explains why despite strict enforcement of those prohibitions fails to stamp out their availability. Not only does a criminal prohibition fail at this, but also produces unforeseen negative consequences. Given that the reason to stamp out availability of drugs is to protect individuals and the public, and the fact that these drugs are still widely and increasingly used with no reason to believe that additional law enforcement can change this, the idea that a criminal prohibition will protect people from drugs shown to be false. Furthermore, considering that this strategy incurs serious negative consequences while failing to accomplish its stated goals, the strategy of criminally prohibiting a substance is seen to be seriously and fundamentally flawed.

The failure of the criminalization strategy of protecting people from drugs begs the question of why people are unwilling to accept that prohibition of drugs should be followed, on the grounds that these laws are in place to protect them. This is a question without a simple definitive answer, because medical, economic, social, cultural, and even religious issues can all play a role in why someone may choose to break drug laws. However, for this question to be relevant it would need to be established whether protecting people from their own choices regarding drugs is necessary, and to do this one can examine the history of another highly addictive and dangerous substance.

Where the War on Drugs makes the assumption that drugs are too dangerous to allow people to make their own decisions regarding use, and therefore attempts to deny people the choice to use drugs, tobacco users have never been denied that choice. If one takes the results of modern anti-smoking efforts which are based on presenting evidence to people faced with the choice to smoke, compared to anti-drug efforts, which are based on denying potential users the corresponding choice, the results clearly show the superiority of a strategy allowing that choice. According to the 2000 Surgeon General’s report “Reducing Tobacco Use” smoking has been declining since 1965, whereas the government statistics already presented show overall drug use increasing. The reasons for that decline in smoking are clear and highlight a problem with parallel efforts to reduce drug use.

In “Reducing Tobacco Use”, the surgeon general shows that for many years smoking rates steadily rose despite numerous efforts to stop tobacco use based on moralistic and hygienic concerns, and even evidence linking smoking to health problems. This report gives a detailed analysis of the history of tobacco reduction efforts, concluding that these efforts were largely ignored because they were seen as moralistic and based on biased evidence. The report goes on to conclude that the turning point for efforts to reduce tobacco use was the 1964 surgeon general’s report which codified the evidence and made a nearly indisputable case linking tobacco to health problems. “Reducing Tobacco Use” concludes in no uncertain terms that the success of following anti-smoking efforts has been based on this more solid platform (United States-
Department of Health and Human Services 38-40).

In parallel efforts to reduce drug use, the strategy of criminalization purports to deny people the opportunity, and therefore the choice, to use drugs. However, because of the flaws in that strategy, drugs are still widely available and nearly everyone is faced with the opportunity to make the choice to use drugs. Drawing the parallel with tobacco it becomes clear that in order to influence that choice, it is necessary to present evidence that leads to the desired conclusion, and that this evidence must be free of the perception of bias.

One problem with the attempt to protect people from drugs by purporting to deny them their own choice is the de-emphasis of the need to present them with credible evidence to base that choice on. If we assume that people will respond to evidence regarding drugs the same way they have with tobacco, this means the single greatest factor in the success of reducing tobacco use has been ignored where it could be applied to drugs.

As with pre-surgeon general’s report on tobacco, the case against drugs can be seen as moralistic or biased, and attempting to deny people the choice to make their own decisions on the matter is insulting. It implies that their conclusion would not be valid, an insult compounded by the fact that the government positions on drugs can be highly questionable. For examples, certain government positions will be detailed including positions on MDMA that cite the studies of the highly controversial Dr. Ricaurte, and positions that refuse to acknowledge the conclusions of the existing research on medical marijuana issue. The issues with positions such as these can result in people, with good reason, seeing government positions on drug use as biased and therefore untrustworthy.

Due to perceptions of bias all around, the validity of the evidence supporting nearly every claim regarding drugs is a contentious subject on its own. These controversies however, invalidate that evidence for the purposes of persuading people to make the choice to not use drugs. It is not the validity of the claims that people will act on but rather their perception of that validity, suggesting that anti-drug efforts that exaggerate the dangers of drug use may actually be counterproductive. This is once again exemplified by the history of anti-tobacco efforts, where evidence of very real health problems was ignored due to lack of consensus and perceived or actual bias of the platform presenting it.

MDMA is a perfect example of a drug where the rationale behind its prohibition can be seen as biased. When the DEA placed MDMA into schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act in 1985, members of the medical community took legal action. Schedule I is the most restrictive schedule under the Controlled Substances Act, defined as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, and these doctors felt that MDMA did not meet either criteria. In 1986 Judge Francis Young ruled that MDMA could not be placed into schedules I or II, because it did have an accepted medical use, and the DEA failed to demonstrate that it had a high potential for abuse relative to other scheduled substances (Young 65-66).

After this ruling, attorneys for the DEA filed a statement accusing Judge Young of bias, accusations they later retracted (Stone and Charlotte 2-3). The United States Court of Appeals eventually agreed with Judge Young in Lester Grinspoon, M.D. vs. DEA that the DEA’s interpretation of “accepted medical use” was incorrect (Justices Coffin, Pettine, and Toruella 39). This resulted in MDMA briefly becoming legal and convictions based on its improper scheduling were overturned. In 1988 the DEA once again placed MDMA in schedule I, a decision based on a re-interpretation by the DEA of “accepted medical use” that stands today and ignores Judge Young’s earlier ruling that MDMA does have an accepted medical use (United States: DEA- Schedules of… 1).

This leaves a situation where both making the law by scheduling MDMA, and the interpretation of the law has been delegated to law enforcement rather than being made by our elected representatives and interpreted by the courts. That delegation is significant, because as will be shown, law enforcement has a vested economic interest in keeping drugs illegal and arrest rates high. Furthermore, the perception of bias behind the DEA’s actions can be inflamed by the fact that if they had followed Judge Young’s ruling they could still have placed MDMA in schedule III. Schedule III drugs are available only with a doctor’s prescription, and the primary result for the recreational user would have been that enforcement efforts would be a lower priority.
The scheduling procedures are not the only controversial aspect of the prohibition of MDMA, the research itself showing MDMA to be unsafe is questionable. The National Institute on Drug Abuse’s info sheet on MDMA, which is itself cited on the DEA’s website, cites a study by Dr. George Ricaurte showing brain damage in animals (National Institute on Drug Abuse 4). Dr. Ricaurte has been widely criticized for his studies on MDMA, with one study being retracted because by his own admission the wrong drug was administered to the study’s subjects (Ricaurte- retraction 1429). The study in question was supposed to show the effects of the equivalent of a common recreation dose of MDMA in primates, but after two of the ten animals died from the drug Dr. Ricaurte went ahead and published the results showing brain damage in the remaining subjects (Ricaurte- Severe Dopaminergic… 2260-2263). With a one in five death rate among two different species of primate in a study designed to examine the effects of a common recreational dose, Dr. Ricaurte’s failure to examine the obvious fact that his study did not model common human use suggests either bias or incompetence.
At least one other study on MDMA co-authored by Dr. Ricaurte, “MDMA- and p-chlorophenylalanine-induced reduction in 5-HT concentration: effects on serotonin transporter densities”, published in the European Journal of Pharmacology also found evidence of MDMA causing brain damage and has been retracted (Boot and Mechan, et al 239-244). A 2006 study published in the Medical Journal of Australia examined every study indexed by Medline to be retracted over a 20 year period, finding a total of 395 out of over nine million and specifically mentioning Ricaurte’s study (Nath, Marcus, and Druss 152-154). With a retraction rate of less than one article in 20,000, two retracted studies by the same author on MDMA severely undermines the credibility of his work. The fact that the government stands by his work hardly inspires confidence in their credibility.

Another area where government positions are seen as highly biased is the issue of medical marijuana. The DEA posted a position statement on their website that in every way exemplifies why a strong perception of government bias regarding drugs exists (United States: DEA- DEA Position on Marijuana 1-2). Once again, the DEA states their case that marijuana has no medical use based on the lack of FDA approval, the very definition ruled invalid twice in the MDMA scheduling proceedings. They go on to cite medical organizations as supporting the assertion that marijuana has “no documented medical value”, but none of those sources explicitly state this. In fact, the American Cancer Society’s statement explicitly acknowledges that marijuana can help some cancer patients and only discourages it as “not the best choice” for treating chemo side effects (American Cancer Society 1-2).

The government position on medical marijuana, as found on the FDA website and cited by the DEA, cites several government agencies in concluding that “no sound scientific studies supported medical use of marijuana for treatment in the United States” (United States- Food and Drug Administration 1). This is simply false; there is no justification for refusing to acknowledge the numerous studies published in peer-reviewed journals here in the U.S. Kevin Zeese, a notable activist for drug law reform, has compiled a long list of studies on the subject highlighting five studies published in scientific journals and six state health department studies concluding that marijuana has useful effects. (Zeese 1-9) Although one can accuse medical marijuana activists of bias, these studies are valid and simply ignoring them without providing a reason while accepting Dr. Ricaurte’s work hardly shows a lack of bias.
Given these examples of anti-drug zealotry, it is easy to discount all anti-drug efforts as propaganda, and as the history of smoking reduction efforts clearly tells us; in order to succeed at reducing drug use efforts need to be based on clear and unbiased evidence. Therefore, unbiased and conclusive research is sorely needed to put the questions regarding just how harmful and potentially useful each drug can be to rest. This needs to be done whether or not drugs are penalized criminally, both because the success of other methods of reducing drug use depends on this evidence, and it is a serious injustice to imprison people for activities that may not cause the harm that those who support and enforce the laws claim.

Punishing people who violate laws which are based on flimsy rationales is a serious injustice, but it is far from the only injustice perpetrated in the War on Drugs. Justice is by its nature a nebulous concept, but an excellent definition of justice as it applies to a law is laid out by Martin Luther King Jr. in his “Letter from Birmingham Jail”. King defines an unjust law as a code out of harmony with moral law, and states that any law that degrades human personality is unjust (King 3-4). This supports the need to base our laws on sound facts rather than opinions because imprisoning a person for an activity that they believe is morally sound, an opinion solidly based on evidence more credible than that opposing it, degrades this person. Our current laws are degrading because they deny a person’s free will to judge right from wrong simply because they may not reach the desired conclusion, simply holding a different opinion rather than committing a clear moral misdeed, and therefore are unjust.

This position can be attacked because those people that choose to use drugs break the law. That argument holds the view that one is obligated to obey the law, and that punishing someone for breaking that obligation is just. This is, however, an erroneous argument because it assumes that the authority to morally obligate one to obey the law rests with the government that passes the law.

A government does not have the power to impart a moral authority to its laws, a fact exemplified by the segregation laws Martin Luther King Jr. argued against, but rather a laws moral authority comes from a higher, natural law. To borrow a quote from King, “A just law is a man-made code that squares with the moral law or law of God” (King 3). The lack of consensus regarding the basis for drug prohibition laws could by itself leave the moral authority of those laws in doubt. When one faces that doubt and also considers that prohibitions fail due to intrinsic problems, and that drug prohibition in fact causes injustice, it is clear that these laws are neither natural nor moral and therefore have no moral authority.

That is not to say that government does not impart any authority to its laws, merely that the authority imparted is not necessarily moral, and that in the case of drug prohibition it is not. With prohibition laws lacking the backing of moral law, abiding by them is not an obligation, but rather an exercise of reason. The argument that one still has an obligation to follow these laws is refuted by a significant number of circumstances under which using choosing to use drugs is reasonable despite prohibition, and that prosecuting someone who follows both moral law and reason is in fact an injustice.

Without suggesting every drug law violation is reasonable, and that every prosecution under drug prohibition laws is by definition unjust, people are prosecuted unjustly in many different circumstances. Probably the first of these to come to mind occurs when a person is punished for using or helping others to use marijuana medicinally as recommended by a doctor. Another injustice arises in religious traditions including but not limited to the Native American Church and Uniao do Vegetal, which include practices that have forced members to choose between following the law or their religion. Both religions only won their freedom to practice after lengthy and probably expensive court battles that in both cases reached the Supreme Court (Supreme Court of the U.S. 1-19). Although these injustices of the War on Drugs may not be pressing enough to break its laws on principle as Dr. King urged people to break segregation laws, drug prohibition and the enforcement thereof also includes a component of racial injustice.

Some of those opposed to the War on Drugs claim that the first anti-drug laws in this country were based on racial bias, and as the War on Drugs can be seen as a descendant of these earlier prohibition laws they see it as a fundamentally racist set of laws (Drug Policy Alliance 1-3). Today school zone laws, which primarily act to increase penalties, as shown in a study by Boston University disproportionately impact poor inner city areas (Brownsberger and Aromaa 22-26). The Massachusetts school zone law is similar to those in other states, in that it disproportionally affects inner cities and therefore minorities, but school zone laws are not the only type of law to disproportionately target minorities for violations of drugs laws. Another example is the crack vs. powder cocaine sentencing disparity, where harsh sentences for crack as opposed to powder cocaine are disproportionately applied to minorities (Human Rights Watch- Cracked Justice 1-5).

These racial disparities only highlight the problem of racial discrimination in the War on Drugs as the direct effect of its laws, however perhaps an even larger issue is the racial effects of the enforcement of laws in the War on Drugs. A 2008 report by Human Rights Watch examines these effects, showing that minorities are represented at a far higher rate than whites in U.S. prisons for drug offenses. This disproportion arises mostly in a higher rate of arrest for minorities compared to whites who commit the same offenses rather than a higher rate of lawbreaking among minorities, which would have to be enormous to explain the different rates of arrest. The report suggests that this arrest rate is partly a result of enforcement of drug offenses in inner-city neighborhoods being more common, but that race neutral factors are incapable of causing the racial differences seen in the war on drugs (Human Rights Watch- Targeting Blacks 42-47).

In addition to adding another reason for the perception of bias, supported once again by very real evidence, racist trends in the enforcement of the War on Drugs are just one facet of another problem underlying the criminal prohibition of drugs. That problem is the negative effects of the War on Drugs on law enforcement itself, which has resulted in abuses such as the Tulia, TX scandal. Tulia is a rural town where drug laws were used by police to round up and imprison mostly black residents based on false testimony and, as CBS news noted in an interview with former undercover officer Tom Coleman, they received additional federal funding for doing so (Targeted in Tulia, TX 1-6). Tom Coleman was later convicted of perjury for his testimony in the Tulia cases.

Without suggesting that corruption on this scale is common, it is still necessary to recognize that the economic incentives that lead to police corruption are universal and because the scope of the War on Drugs is so vast police corruption is inevitable. Going back to David Sollar’s study, we see that enforcement of drug prohibition may be the most profitable law enforcement activity; therefore it is hardly surprising that his data shows the percentage of arrests for drugs vs. other crimes rising. This creates a problem when as Sollar’s economic model predicts, property crimes rise as police divert more and more resources to more profitable drug enforcement, an effect also seen in his data from Florida. Furthermore police not only lack incentive to reduce drug use, but because their funding for drug enforcement is based on arrests an incentive exists to keep drug arrests high, and under heavy enforcement conditions where the price of drugs rises, the huge profits realized by drug dealers provide a ready incentive to further police corruption (Sollars 29-34).

Having shown that a strategy of criminally prohibiting a substance is inherently problematic, the use of that strategy could only be justified by a benefit outweighing the problems. Examining the economics and history of substance prohibitions, the primary economic beneficiaries are lawbreakers and the police whose jobs depend on the existence of those lawbreakers. Economics aside, the idea that drug prohibition benefits society by preventing the harm caused by drugs is questionable in a pros-and-cons analysis. Due to the continuing availability of drugs, the choice whether to use drugs still lies with every individual, and a prohibition law causes significant problems while only adding one more reason to abstain. Comparing drug prohibition with the history of tobacco use reduction efforts clearly shows that this legal incentive to abstain from drugs lacks the same deterrent power as the health problems posed by tobacco.

Also relevant is the severity of the injustices accepted to achieve this disincentive to drug use, injustices including racism and interference with religious and medical practice. Additionally, the reasoning used to justify the War on Drugs is refuted by an examination of the economics of a prohibition strategy, which suggests that its costs and consequences are incurred without hope of success. Most importantly however, if drugs are truly as harmful as claimed, there exists a proven alternative strategy that does not incur these problems. There is no reason to believe that simply providing proof of the harm caused by drugs would not produce a deterrent effect commensurate with that harm, as illustrated by smoking reduction efforts. Clearly the War on Drugs ignores the lessons of history: not only is a criminal prohibition intrinsically flawed and ineffective, but denying people their own choice in a matter lacking consensus results in injustice.

Introductions

Introductions

Often, it is easier to write your introduction after you’ve compiled all your research and written the body sections of your paper. However, at the same time it is also helpful to get started, somewhere, and this is an obvious place (which can be helpful because it can allow you to get your thesis down).

Like most writing, there isn’t necessarily one way to write an introduction, but many different styles. It is important to find one that works for you. There is one myth, however, that must be dispelled once and for all and that is that your introduction must be one paragraph long and end with your statement of thesis. Wrong. Your introduction can be a page long, it can be made of multiple paragraphs, and sometimes, in the case of inductive or Rogerian arguments, the thesis is withheld until the end of the paper.

For ideas, here are four types of introductions.
1. Statement and description of a problem that affects writer and audience alike.

The problem of healthcare in the United States is at the forefront of a great debate. However, this is hardly a recent issue. Each president, dating back as far as _____ has attempted to expand coverage while controlling costs. Each president, in turn, has failed to avert the problems facing the United States. At present, 25 millions are uninsured. In 2009, the national health costs are expected to reach more than $2.5 trillion (“Health Insurance Costs” para. 2). In addition, the rising costs, which are expected to outpace US GDP, put undo strain on American businesses, which find themselves unable to afford rising health insurance premiums, and American families, which often cut back on necessities, such as food and utilities when burdened with large health costs ((“Health Insurance Costs” para. 4).

2. A brief anecdote or story that highlights the subject and puts a face on this problem.
John D is a fat man. He’ll tell you that, and chuckle so hard his gut will bounce to and fro. However, what John will also tell you is that he, due to his weight, is uninsurable. On May 22nd, 2008 John had a heart attack. At the time he was working as a nurse in the emergency room when he…

3. Open with a description of important, startling facts or findings.
According to a recent study, 62 percent of all bankruptcies filed in 2007 were linked to medical expenses. Of those who filed for bankruptcy, nearly 80 percent had health insurance (“Health” Para. 4). What is revealing about this statistic is…

4. Pose an interesting question or definition.
Many argue that healthcare is a fundamental human right. Those same people, it is safe to assume, know that this right is simply not available in much of the world. What, exactly, is healtcare? Is everyone afforded the “right” to the newest imaging devices, butting edge medicines and treatments just because they are human? Is healthcare really a service or is it, and has it always been, a business that reacts to the person with money, not the underserved? Is it safe to say that in the U.S. healthcare is a social problem before all else?

Good ideas for introductions: (From http://writing2.richmond.edu/WRITING/wweb/intros.html)

Types of introductions to avoid:

The Dictionary Definition: Many papers begin "Webster's defines X as..." and then continue to discuss the topic. This type of introduction has become very stale with faculty, who have seen it thousands of times.

The "Cinema scope" Intro: These often crop up in introductory history classes. Avoid sweeping panoramas such as "Throughout the march of history, one thing has been true..." or "Many novels have considered the ways in which good people become corrupted by money."

Cutting to the Chase too Quickly: It is too easy to go too far while avoiding overly general introductions. Avoid jumping right into a thesis statement and do not try to cover every topic in the first paragraph. It is difficult to say how specific to be in an introduction, but consider the idea that this part of a paper provides "the lay of the land" for a reader who will then know why the paper is worth finishing.

Memorable Quotations: Some faculty do not like papers to start with another's words. This overused strategy may be acceptable if a direct quotation sets the stage for what follows and its relevance is discussed in the introduction.

[I am adding: Statement of Purpose: Do not announce what you are going to do, just do it. Ie: “This paper will examine the different proposals for health care reform. I will start by looking at …” Similarly, avoid these missteps in the rest of your paper, ie “Now I am going to tell you about this other guy’s argument. “ In short, in an academic paper, these make the reader question your ethos and they waste the reader’s time by describing the paper and the writer’s process, instead of making an argumentative point.

These are called "telegraphic" sentences: Here a writer uses the first person to tell a reader what is going to happen. We have all seen this pattern:

"This essay will consider the development of humor in American Naturalism. My thesis is. . . "

Academic writing tends to adopt a more subtle approach, as in the revised example:

"The Naturalist writers in America, like their European counterparts, rarely flinched in depicting humans as brutal creatures driven by desires venal, animal, and primordial. Forbidden sexuality, gluttony, disease. . . "

Not a cheerful topic, but the tone is correct for these readers.

In addition, there are a number of other styles here: http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/argueparts/introduction.cfm
Such as
*Provide Context for the Argument
* Establish Credible Authority
* Compel the Audience to Listen
* Establish Common Ground
* Clarify a Problem

Go here. Click around, read some examples and use it, with the examples and advice above to write your intro. Due: Tues. 11/10..

WRITING PROCESS 1

Writing is easy. This is the truth. Anyone with five words at his command can slap together a sentence. It may be a grammarless and guttural burp, but it is writing.

Writing well, however, is hard. Unfortunately, it is made even harder when we stop to consider how hard it really is. When we are scared, when we sit there, pen in hand, and consider Shakespeare. And Hemingway. And Fitzgerald. And Tolstoy. And Baldwin... When we think about all the stuff of language—tone, voice, syntax and all the decisions we must make regarding how and in what order to take all the words of the English languages and lay them down on a sheet of paper so that they mean something—we hesitate. We over think it. We stall. We see that brilliant shining essay at the end of the rainbow. We see its perfections, its charming smile and bright eyes. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?

Surely, that can’t come from this pukey thing before us, we think. We seize up. We stop. We wait for inspiration that never comes.

Our problem: Most of us don’t want to start with the ugliness. I won’t lie to you. Writing is hard work. It is walking forty miles only find you have forty more to go. It stings. But my friends, if you want to write a good paper, you have to start here, in the trenches of the mud field where the sloppy first drafts grow.

How do we get out of here? Write To Discover.

Myth: The first draft is the best draft.
Reality: This way of thinking will cause you to stall. If you strive too hard for perfection in your first draft, you will no doubt come up short and you won’t get a very good grade. A better strategy is to sit down and get started knowing full well you will come back to fix and redo part of it later. This relieves the pressure of having to be perfect. It also allows you the freedom to go back and improve your thinking and your writing after you’ve had a shot at it once or twice. Writing is exploring. Your first draft is are the first crunchy footfalls and there’s a white out up ahead.

Myth: You have to have a clear organized outline before you sit down to write.
Reality: While some people are into outlines and fill one out before they ever write a word, it is more helpful to most of us to build some kind of plan, a flow chart of sorts, that helps keep us on topic without restricting our exploratory process. Not knowing exactly how you are going to pull it off shouldn’t be a reason to stop writing.

Myth: Write your introduction first, then your body, then your conclusion.
Reality. Many good writers write their introduction last. We might even change the thesis after they have written out the rest of the paper. Often, we write entire sections of the paper independently from others. The place we start might turn out to be paragraph 28 in your final draft. There are no global rules for how to do this. You have to develop your own strategies. I use sticky pads. I compose in my head. I compose freehand. I compose outside the constraints of order, keeping faith in the idea I am hunting. Sometimes it works. Sometimes I have to revise a lot.

Myth: You should write an entire draft in one sitting. Don’t stop until it’s done.
Reality: We usually do better if we break the business of writing into bite-sized chunks. If we come back to the paper often, after a break, we are giving ourselves the opportunity to re-read what we have written, to rewrite and revise it, and rediscover what we are up to. It is a process, remember. Make it one.

Reality: You might not be done with your research. You might be unsure of where to go, how to argue, what your point is, and even what your thesis is. It’s okay. Just start. Once you get going, it gets easier. In the end, it is our writing that guides us. We have to trust in it to show us where we are going. We have to have the courage to follow.

Sample Flow Charts

You should have taken notes today during the presentation. For a few of my favorites, see the following.

In a rhetorical, argumentative paper you have to be persuasive, which means you must include and present information to your audience that will encourage your audience to agree with you. This tension—created between an author (you) that wishes to persuade and the audience who must be persuaded—must be at the forefront of what/how you put your argument together. The common ground we (the persuaders and persuaded) share is reason. (Duffin, 1998).

What kinds of examples you include, style of language you use and when and how you get your reader to embrace your reasons are all chief concerns of the argument writer. How do we arrange this information? I’ve said that I don’t believe a concrete outline helps many of us. However, knowing some common rhetorical methods will help and employing a general flow chart will help (1998, Kathy Duffin, The Writing Center at Harvard University, http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/Overvu.html).

FLOW CHART 1 Building common ground.

In the Rogerian method of argumentation. You build the common ground between you readers and yourself, never giving away your thesis until the very end. Tricky, yes. Useful, probably. This was developed by Carl Rogers, a psychologist, and is useful for emotionally charged topics.

The purpose of a Rogerian argument is to find the common ground held by the author and audience regarding an issue or problem. The authors explores the audience’s POV and must present the audience's perspective clearly, accurately, and fairly before asking them to consider an alternative position or solution.

This method downplays emotional appeals is a must for emotionally charged, highly divisive issues and allows for people of good will on different sides of an issue to find, or agree upon, solutions together.

Here’s a sample flow chart (taken from writing.colostate.edu):

Introduction: A problem is presented, typically pointing out how both writer and reader are affected by the problem. Rather than presenting an issue that divides reader and writer, or a thesis that demands agreement the Rogerian argument does not begin with the writer's position at all. The thesis is withheld.

Then: The Audience Perspective. Described as clearly and accurately as possible-typically in neutral language-the author acknowledges their point of view and the circumstances and contexts in which their perspective or position is valid. Done well, the author builds good will and credibility with the audience, a crucial step leading toward potential compromise. Honest, heartfelt sincerity is the key here: if the audience perceives an attempt at manipulation, the Rogerian argument strategy generally backfires. This segment depends, again, on neutral but clear language so that the reader perceives the fair-mindedness of the writer's description.

Then: The author's perspective comes in the next chunk of the argument. For the audience to give it a listen it must be presented in as fair-minded a way as was theirs, in language as equally neutral and clear. To be convincing, besides describing the circumstances or contexts in which the position is valid, it must contain the evidence that supports the claim

Conclusion: The Rogerian essay closes not by asking readers to give up their own positions on the problem but by showing how the reader would benefit from moving toward the writer's position. In other words, the final section of the Rogerian argument lays out possible ways to compromise. (fromwriting.colostate.edu/guides/documents/arguedraft)

FLOW CHART 2
Deductive Reasoning
This is a direct quote of a page at:
http://writing.colostate.edu/guides/documents/arguedraft/deductive.cfm

The traditional academic argument is deductive, placing the author's position in the introduction and devoting the rest of the argument to presenting the evidence. Unless you are in a field where inductive reasoning is the norm, you can hardly go wrong with this method.

In some cases, all the evidence may be directed at proving the main point; in others, each piece may lead to a sub-point that needs proving before a convincing argument for the main point can be made. Depending on how directly each piece of evidence relates to the position, a deductive argument can be organized in a variety of ways.

* Introduction establishing the context of the argument as well as the author's position.
* Body of Evidence presented, depending on the audience analysis, from most to least, or least to most convincing.
* Conclusion summarizing the argument, presenting a call to action, or suggesting further research.

An argument supporting a ban on logging in rain forests might first need to establish and provide evidence regarding five other environmental premises, each supporting the author's position, regarding the effects of logging. For instance:

• It causes soil erosion
• It affects global warming
• It destroys native species
• It alters water routes and levels
• It destroys indigenous lifestyles

Each premise is a debatable issue in and of itself. Therefore, some measure of the supportive evidence behind each-at least enough to connect them as reasonably evidentiary links-must be given before they can be used to collectively support the author's main position. In these cases, arguments are typically arranged as follows:

• Introduction establishing the context of the argument as well as the author's position.
• Brief Preview outlining each premise, or reason, to be used as evidence supporting the claim.
• Body of Evidence presented, depending on audience analysis, in an order that will make the most sense to the audience.
• Conclusion summarizing the argument and demonstrating how each premise leads logically to the author's position, presents a call to action, or suggests further research.

When opposing arguments are particularly strong and readily accepted, discrediting them point-by-point may be the best strategy for convincing an audience to consider alternative points or support a different position.

• Introduction
• Rebut first opposing argument followed by first counter-argument
• Rebut next opposing arguments, followed by further counter-arguments as you go along
• Conclusion

FLOW CHART 3
Inductive Reasoning

This is a direct quote from: CSU Writing Center at writing.colostate.edu/guides/index.cfm?guides_active=argument&category1=31
Inductive Reasoning

When an audience completely disagrees with your position convincing them that their reasons for disagreeing are faulty before presenting your own position may be the best strategy.

Introduction: States the issue to be addressed and why it is important.

Body of Argument: Examines positions already proposed and refutes each one, showing why they are inadequate. Typically organized like this.

• Position 1
• Your refutation of position 1
• Position 2
• Your refutation of position 2

Alternatively, all positions might be examined first and then refuted second.

• Position 1
• Position 2
• Your refutation of position 1
• Your refutation of position 2

Conclusion/Position Statement: Once all other positions are shown to be inadequate, conclude with your position as the only logical choice. This is where you argue your point. At the end. Hah. See I told you sometimes you hold off on your thesis until the audience is good and ready to hear it.

When an audience partially disagrees with your position, the best strategy still looks a great deal like when they completely disagree: convincing them that their reasoning is faulty before presenting your own position.

Introduction: States the issue to be addressed and why it is important.

Body of Argument: Examines positions already proposed and refutes each one, showing why they are inadequate. Typically organized like this.

* Position 1
* Your refutation of position 1
* Position 2
* Your refutation of position 2

Alternatively, all positions might be examined first and then refuted second.

* Position 1
* Position 2
* Your refutation of position 1
* Your refutation of position 2

Position Statement: Introduced as the only logical choice after the positions your audience finds most persuasive are shown to be inadequate.

Presentation of Evidence: Supports your position as not only reasonable, but the best one available as well.

Detailed Summary

Assignment: Based on the material you have reviewed on the blog, types of arguments, etc, and on the CSU writing center site, develop a detailed outline wherein you plan out your arguments, both what will go where, but also paying attention to how it will function as a piece of persuasive writing. This should map all the parts of your paper, while paying attention to how you want to construct it. It should a)state your purpose b) state your thesis and c) reveal how you plan to organize your argument and evidence.

Step One: Define Your Writing Purpose
What are your goals in this paper. Your goals may be to pass this class, or to learn to write so you can use it in your future place of employment, but those aren’t the goals of THIS paper. The purpose of a persuasive essay is to convince the audience to change their views on an important issue or to take action to change something. Here describe what your purpose is in this writing situation. What are you trying to do. If we were performing a Precis of your paper, what would we put for sentence 3?

Ex. “In this essay, I want to present the problem of health care, or lack there of, in the United States and explore several possible methods of reforming this problem, at which point I will present my reasons for what is called Guaranteed Issue, where everyone must get insurance.”


Step Two: Develop a Statement of Thesis
First, read the “Thesis Statements” handout.
Second, go here: http://writing.colostate.edu/activities/index.cfm?activities_active=argument&category1=5 and click:
a. Narrowing from Topic to Thesis for an Argumentative Essay
b. Unpacking an Argumentative Thesis Statement
c. Writing Argumentative Claims
d. Supporting Argumentative Claims
e. Revising Your Argumentative Claim
Go through each exercise to arrive at a workable statement of thesis, or main idea, that will guide how you write your paper. The purpose and thesis should guide how you write your paper. These are what you are trying to do, what you are trying to convince readers to consider. Please use the “Thesis Statements” handout from ISU to help you do this.

Ex. Health care reform, no matter how skewed it has become in the cable news media, should remain a priority of the Obama administration because it is the top domestic threat to our well being as a nation. Our current healthcare system is unworkable because it injures American industry’s ability to compete overseas, because it allows insurance companies to make medical decisions, and because it leaves many people uninsured. However, plans for this reform must include Guaranteed Issue, or a plan that mandates universal coverage so that the insurance industry remains viable, and the government does not grow too large, thus creating even more problems.

Third, Write your thesis

Step Three: Developing a Plan
First, review the styles of argument we presented in class. Which works best for your argument? I strongly encourage you to try the Rogerian or Toulmin Methods for their more rational/conciliatory styles of argumentation.
What style are you using? List it and explain why?
Go Back to: http://writing.colostate.edu/activities/index.cfm?activities_active=argument&category1=5
Click the following to develop how you will incorporate proof into your essay.
a. Reviewing How You've Incorporated Proof into An Argument
b. Revising Coherence in the Argumentative Essay
c. Working with Claim/Proof/Warrant--Toulmin Method
Now arrange this info. and WRITE A WARRANT for each. A warrant is a sentence or two that state why your evidence supports your claim. It links, through reasoning, the evidence to the claim.
Ie (from RRW):
Claim: Pete Sampras is a better tennis player than Agassi.
Evidence: He was ranked number one for a longer period of time. He won more tournaments. He won more majors. He didn’t take meth.

Warrant: It is appropriate to judge and rank tennis players on these kinds of statistics. That is, the better player is one who has held the number one ranking for longer, and has one more major and minor tournaments.

Now: Outline Your Evidence. Should look like this:

Purpose: This paper will make a conciliatory argument with the purpose of exposing the real complications of censorship versus First Amendment rights in order to help the reader see why even such ludicrous and offensive publications, such as hate speech, are entitled to these rights.

1. INTRO & STATEMENT OF THESIS [Don’t just put “introduction” but describe what you will do to capture the audience attention. A boring introduction sets your grader up to be extra hard on you. Studies show that the more interesting/entertaining the writing, the fewer mistakes we find.]
1. Introduce the controversy
1. Intro will include a real illustration to gain reader interest, preferably culled from an interview or a recent article. [better than just a hypothetical]
2. Net provides easy access. Easy for the intolerant to spew hatred. [develop this]
3. Exposure causes problems for many (expand here about other civil rights). But it's protected in real space. Is cyberspace different? which right should trump the other? discuss the public interest.
2. Statement of Thesis
1. Hate speech published on the Internet, no matter how egregious, should continue to enjoy the same first amendment protections as the print media. Anything less puts censorship in the hands of government instead of adults and/or parents, goes against the principle of tolerance of opinion so highly valued blah blah blah, marketplace of ideas blah blah, and puts us on a very slippery slope. [please don’t use blah, blah, blah in yours]

2. ANALYSIS AND EXPLANATION OF THESIS; SOME BACKGROUND INFO
1. Internet censorship continues to be debated in Congress, in higher courts, and in the global forum. Add specific examples from both sides of the fence.
2. Risk of no government censorship.
3. Briefly discuss basic principles that restrict government censorship, and WHY.
1. No false ideas; restrictions must be precise; advocacy cannot be outlawed, etc.
2. Briefly mention three-part test (when speech can be curtailed) & why it was made so tough.
4. First Amendment text; highlight parts that are important to this paper.
5. United Nations Declaration of Human rights (discusses dignity and rights to express opinions, etc.)
1. How these relate.


Continue to build the skeleton of your paper now. Do you see how this is building your argument for you? Since you have taken a moment to plan this, now you can focus on the writing and rhetoric of the piece.

Post-Snow Schedule

We have to move forward despite the interference from the snow last week. Here's the agenda for this week.

Tomorrow, 11/3: Rescheduled Presentations on Styles of Argument. Please have your Power Point pres. ready and know what/how you will present your argument. In-class: Detailed Outline draft; Introductions
Due: Research Summary (50)

Thurs. 11/5 Workshop: Intro/Outline/Evidence (to be explained) Drafting: The body.
Due: Read They Say, I Say handouts, RRW Ch. 11; Detailed Outline Final Draft; Introduction rough draft.

Tues: 11/10: Sample Essays in class.
Due: The Body rough draft workshop; Analysis Sent. Corrections

Thurs: 11/12: Rough Drafts Due. Check grade, RE: drop date

Tues: 11/17 Workshop: Rough Draft: Due: Revision Ideas to Peer Group
Thurs: 11/19 Proofreading in class. Final Draft Packet Due By 5:00

No class until 12/3--Final Exam.

Cross your fingers we don't have any more cancellations!

Campus Closed: No Class 10/29

No Class. I will update the schedule and post what I want you to do for tues. here.

Styles of Argument--Presentations

On Thurs. your group will give a presentation on a specific type of (or aspect of) argument.

For this, your presentation needs to be broken down into three distinct parts, which MUST be related in an Power Point presentation.

1) Define and describe your type of argument. What is it? When is it used?
2) Draft a flow chart that breaks this type of argument into its parts. Describe what each part does, how it works, what goes into it, etc.
3) Provide a good example, in flow chart style, that applies a certain topic (ex death penalty, or food safety, etc) to this style of argument.

In class today, you will be developing your presentation. If you don't finish, it is homework.

Use:

This to find good info about arguments and examples of various flow charts
Use your book pages, too.
Use google, by entering your style of argument and looking for results that come from .edu sites.

Please turn in your logic assignment today, as well as your focused topic handouts (if you didn't hand them in already). EMAIL ME YOUR PRESENTATIONS BY TOMORROW.

Research Summary: Due 11/3

The Research Summary should be a list of all of your sources (including citation) with a Rhetorical Precis of each source. Minimum sources: 10. Typed. Double spaced.

INCLUDE the sources you have used for your Analysis paper, and any other sources you have turned to when building your expertise in this topic. In addition, add all the new sources you found for your new focused topic. If the source doesn't fit the Precis format, summarize it using the guidelines we discussed when you summarized the Frontline episode.



For Example,

1. In "Our Decrepit Food Factories," Michael Pollan argues that the industrial food production system is dangerous and unhealthy. He gives examples of the nation's slaughter houses, he offers testimonials of farmers that can't survive economically in a "corn-mad" world, and finally he assesses the cost, in dollars, of transporting our food from farms (often in other countries) to our tables. His purpose is to highlight the unsusstainable food production system in order to call for a local producers to replace it. His audience in the New York Times Magazine is a general, liberal audeince and he appeals to them by highlighting how much of the food we buy in supermarkets is unsafe.

Pollan, Michael. "Our Decrepit Food Factories." New York Times Magazine (16 Dec.
2007): 25. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State
abbreviation]. 1 Apr. 2009
search.ebscohost.com.skyline.cudenver.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=aph&AN=28004760
&site=ehost-live>.

2. Wendell Barry, In "Being Kind to the Land" argues that local farmers, or farmers that produce food and distribute it within a 150 mile radius, are the future of farming. He cites the persistent problems with industrial food production, giving examples of how this system treats food as a commodity, but fails to recognize quality, and offers the example of Jon Doe as how local, sustainable farming can and should work. His purpose is to debunk the myth that local farming is "pie in the sky" dreaming in order to call for a change in our food production infrastructure. His audience is liberal leaning and he appeals to them primarily with his use of pathos, in the story of Doe, but many of his claims rely on logos to be persuasive as he points to the inherent flaws that affect everyone.

Berry, Wendell. "Being Kind to the Land." Progressive 73.2 (Feb. 2009): 21-23.
Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. [Library name], [City], [State abbreviation]. 1
Apr. 2009
direct=true&db=aph&AN=36318145&site=ehost-live>.

Continue your list like this until you have summarized all of your source material. Note the Precis and the citation of each source.

Focussing Your Topic

The Research Process Part 2
(General Guidelines For Building a Good Paper)

Focusing Your Topic

By this point you know a lot about what you will be writing about. You’ve done background research—reading about the history of the topics, discovering who some key players are in this debate and mapping out the various positions held in the controversy. You have developed your understanding of debate. Now it is time to figure out what aspect of that debate you will examine in greater detail in order to form your argument. First, you must focus your topic.

But why?

Failing to focus a topic is a common mistake students make. When the topic is too broad, there is too much to cover, which results in a paper that feels superficial or shallow. If you topics is too narrow—i.e. “what are the psychological effects of 7 am classes on CCD students with brown, well kept hair…” you won’t be able to find enough evidence to support your points.

What does this mean?

Focusing a research topic (or occasionally broadening it) is narrowing your topic (and choosing to focus on specific parts of it) so that you can demonstrate your expertise on a subject and effectively argue a position in that debate.

Let’s say you like animals. Developing a focus for your paper (and your research) means you start here:
Animals have feelings
And go here:
The use of dogs in the United States Military is useful, but at what cost?

This isn’t necessarily your thesis, but it has narrowed your interests into something you can work with. The point is with the later you have specific research needs; you are working with a specific type of animal in a specific situation—something you can tackle in 10-15 pages.


Note: You will not immediately know what your focus should be. It will come to you, most likely, through trial and error, through reading a lot articles and other literature that you will not ultimately use. Realize, you are shaping your thinking on this topic and as you learn more, your thoughts will change.



Start by defining your terms. How can your terms be broken down?
Example:
War is wrong

Defining the terms:
"War": What type (self-defense, aggressive preemptive strikes, rooted in ideology…)? By whom? What commonalities do you see in the wars you think are wrong?
"Wrong": How so? Results in unnecessary bloodshed? Has a drastic effect on the economy? Fail to foresee and plan for the complexities on the ground?
Focused:
In American history, wars that are rooted in ideology often have dire consequences for the economy.
You can always define again, and again, if need be. Do you see how this is putting the proper restraint on the topic? How you can now find specific examples and evidence to support this idea?


Try focusing on:

A specific location: Colorado’s community colleges have the best students.
Age group: Violence on television begets violence among pre-Kinder kids.
Species: While testing cosmetic products must be done, Chimpanzees should be spared because…
Ethnicity: What are the effects of our current immigration laws on Mexican-American families in the US?

Do Not Merely Restate Terms. War is bad because it’s war. No. Don’t do it.


Most of all, this is the moment to consider your approach to the subject. Are you writing about a specific element of smoking (marketing to children in Third World Countries) or about its more general elements (Smoking is still a big problem among today’s youth). You have to figure out where to go and how to get there.

Test your topic early. The night before a draft is due is a poor time to discover your topic is still too broad. The research process is a recursive one. You will need to come back to your topic time and time again if it isn’t working out. A lot of this is Goldilocks and porridge. You have to try a lot to find what is just right. Remember—Writing takes time.

In addition, try this, from (http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~wricntr/documents/Topic.html):

“Narrowing the Topic

The topic of an academic essay must be sufficiently focused and specific in order for a coherent argument to be made about it. For instance, "The Role of Such-and-Such in the Case of So-and-So v. So-and-So" is a topic that is somewhat narrowed. But if "Such-and-Such" is extremely general, it too will require further narrowing. "The Role of Societal Pressures in the Case of Jones v. Smith" is an example—it's too general. "Alleged Jury Tampering in the Case of Jones v. Smith" narrows those societal pressures, and begins to suggest a persuasive argument. (Of course, even this topic could be further narrowed.)

Going through the following steps will help you focus your subject, find a topic, and narrow it.

* Carefully read your primary source(s) and then, with the assignment in mind, go through them again, searching for passages that relate directly to the assignment and to your own curiosities and interests. When you find a passage that interests you, write down the reason for its significance. If you don't, you might forget its importance later.
* Annotate some of the most intriguing passages—write down your ideas, opinions and notes about particular words, phrases, sentences. Don't censor your thoughts! Just write, even if you think that what you're writing doesn't add up to much. For now, get your impressions on paper; later, you'll begin to order and unify them.
* Group passages and ideas into categories. Try to eliminate ideas that don't fit anywhere. Ask yourself if any of the emerging categories relate to any others. Do any of the categories connect, contradict, echo, prove, disprove, any others? The category with the most connections to others is probably your topic.
* Look at some relevant secondary sources—at what other scholars have said—in order to get a sense of potential counter-arguments to your developing topic. Remember: While taking notes, make sure to cite all information fully. This is a lot easier than having to go back later and figure out where you got a particular quote, or, worse, being unable to find it.” (Maxine Rodburg and The Tutors of the Writing Center at Harvard University, 1999).

Analysis Workshop

Workshop: The Analysis Paper

First: Read the paper through to get a feel for what it is about.
Second: Read it again. This time, comment in the text.

To do so:
First: Block out a section of the paper (from a paragraph to a page) and edit it heavily. In the margin the paper, identify any repeating grammatical or syntactical errors (ie run-ons, prepositions, etc).

Second: Examine the following.

Evaluate the way the issue is presented. Does the writer include information about the history of this debate, current relevance or its importance, the various positions in the debate and who the main players are. On the back--List any questions you have that were unanswered. List any information that the essay doesn’t include.

Are the opposing position clearly and accurately identified? Do you know enough about the various sides to this debate? Is the essay too biased (it is clear what the author thinks)? If so, on the back, tell the writer to take a more neutral tone and explore the “other” side in more depth to more fully understand it.

Here are some common problems:
The essay does not focus on the topics developed in the debate.
What topics need further explanation?
Is the issue clear?
The essay seems to be taking a position in the debate or evaluating one or both of the position essays.

Look at the Sources. Here are some issues with them:
The sources are not clearly identified, in part because of vague pronoun reference errors.
Quotes are used too much or not enough from the two position essays.
Citations are not smoothly incorporated into the writer’s text.
Sources are not paraphrased or quoted accurately
Omissions are evident on the works-cited page.
The writer needs to do more research.

Lastly, list the items in bold that the writer needs to focus on for his revision of this essay before he hands it in on Weds.:

Organization. Look at the beginning. Is it engaging? Does it forecast the direction of the essay to come? Does it have a thesis? Are there transitions that guide you through the paper—ie intro’s to each section that link it back to the main idea? Does the conclusion close the paper well, or should it do further.

Look at the transitions from section to section. Do you logically understand how the paper moves from point to point
Requirements: Paper is 2-5 pages, typed and double-spaced. Source material is cited.

Background: The paper presents adequate background information. Key events are identified, and the history of this controversy including how it became a controversy is evident. It is apparent the author has done ample research and uses that expertise to put this topic in context for the reader.

Mapping the Controversy: The paper adequately explores the various positions held in this debate. It presents the arguments from both sides (and in between) to give the reader an idea of what and how this topic is disagreed upon.

Consequences: This paper weighs what’s at stake in this controversy (ie why one side believes what they do, how they benefit from those beliefs, etc.).

Insight : The paper shows insight into the topic. The author explores this subject in all its complexity and reveals and examines the nature of that complexity in his/her essay. Such insights should not be implied but revealed and developed through good examples from the texts.

Grammar/Syntax: Your essay's prose is written in grammatically correct English; it has no spelling or grammatical errors; it shows a sound understanding of the structure of a good sentence and paragraph.

Now: rejoin your group and discuss what you:
A. Liked most about the draft
And B. Discuss how and where the draft needs to improve. Offer suggestions.

Sample Analysis Paper (#2)

ENG 122-002
October 20, 2008
Jeff Becker
Analysis Paper

Analysis of the Male Body Image Controversy


Introduction:
No one argues that male body image has become prevalent in American society today. All one has to do is observe a magazine rack in a local grocery store and see the titles that pertain to how men should look and feel, like “Men’s Health,” and “Men’s Fitness.” Society demands that men focus on their appearance more than ever today. Harrison G. Pope, Jr., Katherine A. Phillips, and Robert Olivardia are doctors who have studied male body issues for years and are authors of the book, The Adonis Complex. These and other experts agree that body image issues have become as much of a concern for men in the last thirty years as women (Pope, Phillips, Olivardia 17). However, because of the recalcitrant nature of men in general and their fear of being labeled as feminine for talking about their feelings, these issues have remained on the back-burner for years. Experts agree that male body issues exist and are becoming more apparent every day. The controversy, therefore, comes from the causes of these issues. Some experts believe that feminism is to blame, others steroids, others the post-industrial nation and the death of the self-made man, and still others believe that the media should ultimately be held responsible for the negative feelings men have toward their bodies.

Male Body Image and Feminism:
The book, The Adonis Complex, and the study, “Competition and Male Body Image: Increased Drive for Muscularity Following Failure to a Female,” both postulate that male body issues stem from the hypothesis that women can now compete with men in the workforce. Women can now work in pretty much any field that in the past was almost exclusively male. Women can join the military, become police chiefs, or interview football players in the locker room. According to Pope et al, “women have increasingly approached parity with men in many aspects of life, leaving men with primarily their bodies as a defining source of masculinity” (48). Since men can no longer justify their masculinity through the work they do to earn a living, they use their bodies instead. Women can work and run companies; however, women cannot build muscle like men can. Men’s muscles are their way to ensure that they remain noticeably masculine. According Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia, this can become an emotional problem which they call “threatened masculinity,” in which men try to establish their maleness within a societal group yet feel like they cannot do so (23). Jennifer Mills and Sante D’Alfonso ran a study that concluded that after perceiving losing to a female, men felt worse about themselves and wanted to increase their musculature (514). This becomes an issue because men are not only in competition with women, men are in competition with other males. This leads to a drive to increase muscle beyond natural means, which leads us to the next argument.

Male Body Image and Steroids:
According to Pope et al, the drive for muscularity and negative male body image come mainly from the availability of steroids. Steroids allow men to bulk up to levels unattainable by natural means alone, and “it’s impossible to extremely lean and muscular with chemical assistance” (Pope et al 35). Steroids are easy to obtain through the black market and have very little short-term side effects, yet provide immediate and profound results (Pope et al 105). Society seems to be under the impression that steroid use is maybe reserved for professional wrestlers and not those regular guys working out in the gym. However, regular men do use steroids on a regular basis. It is estimated that 2 to 3 million men have used anabolic steroids (Pope et al 104). Steroid use, according to Pope, Phillips, and Olivardia, contributes to a condition called “muscle dysmorphia” (Pope et al 87). Muscle dysmorphia is a condition in which men become preoccupied with how their muscles look and feel that they are always too “small” regardless of their actual size.


Male Body Image and the Post-Industrial Nation:
Some experts argue that male body image issues have stemmed back farther than the feminist movement in the 1960’s. Lynne Luciano, author of Looking Good, argues that since America turned industrial, the nature of how men looked and perceived their looks changed. In the 19th century, for example, most men were self-employed and worked from their hands. A man’s work became the focal point of his masculinity, not his looks. To be concerned about one’s looks would be the hallmark of femininity, and anathema to men. However, when the nature of work moved from individual production to factory production, and then from factory production to corporations and the global marketplace, men and male body image shifted. Identity became based on others’ perceptions and not handiwork any longer. According to Luciano, “the fate of the white-collar employee depended on his ability to please others, forcing him to develop a whole new social character in which his personality and appearance mattered most”(40). Grooming became essential, and bald, fat, or old men, once considered desirable because of their expertise and character, were deemed undesirable because of their looks. Outward pleasantness replaced inward character and loyalty—traits no longer desired by mega-corporations all too willing to replace old men with fresh-faced young ones.

Male Body Image and the Media:
Blaming male body image issues on the media is a touchy subject, since no one can be sure what came first. Did people demand what they see on television, which obligingly supplies, or did the media dictate to men and women what they want? No one can be sure, but some experts do believe that the media at least perpetuates the ideas of male body image. Studies have been done that show the relationship between viewing media images and feelings of dissatisfaction. For example, Daniel Agliata and Stacey Tantleff-Dunn, in “The Impact of Media Exposure on Males’ Body Image,” conclude that men feel dissatisfied with their bodies after viewing media images of the ideal male body (16). Not only do media images play a role in how men feel about their bodies, but action toys as well. Like Barbie for girls, G.I. Joe for boys has increasingly grown more muscular over the years, to the point where if he were life-sized he would have a 36.5” waist, a 54.8” chest, and a 26.8” bicep(Pope, Olivardia, Gruber, Borowiecki 69). After they play with toys in elementary school, children graduate to more grown-up ventures like World Wrestling Entertainment, or the WWE, where wrestlers bulk up to girths unattainable by natural means alone(Pope et. al 45). Even if men do not play with toys or watch WWE, many magazines and movies exist that perpetuate male body image ideals that are simply unnatural without steroids (Pope et al 46).


Implications of Male Body Image: Winners and Losers
Many benefactors exist from men being insecure about their body image and wanting to enhance their muscularity. For examples, the dozens of magazines that line grocery store shelves, the hundreds of gyms with expensive memberships, the countless pricey supplements that promise to enhance musculature all promote insecurity to men and signal that the natural male form is just not good enough. One of the priciest benefactors of men’s insecurities is cosmetic surgeons. In 1996, men spent several million dollars and had 690,361 cosmetic procedures performed (Pope et al 31). Besides the countless millions spent on legal means to attain body satisfaction, men also spend thousands of dollars on anabolic steroids and other medications in order to improve their bodies.

Conclusion:
So what if men seem to overly care about their bodies? Health and fitness are important and necessary, but some men become so overwrought about the state of their bodies that their thoughts become obsessions, and they end up hurting themselves. No one can deny that men have become more focused on their bodies and they image they project on society. However, experts disagree on the causes of why this occurs. Some think the cause stems as far back as the industrial revolution; while others seem to think the problem comes from feminism or the abundance of steroids. No one can agree whether the media begets male body image concerns or simply perpetuates them. However, no expert can deny that male body image issues exist and cause problems for the men who fall prey to their insecurities.

Analysis Research #!

On Tuesday, you will be meeting with me individually for a mid-term conference. On this occasion, I will hand back a pile of your work, talk to you about your writing, and discuss your topic and current work on your Analysis paper.

For that conference, please print out and bring a list of:

A. At least ONE source that relate to the background of your subject. Background can mean history, a summary of the current problem (that the debate rages over), etc. Please annotate the source.

B. At least TWO sources that relate to the differing points of view on this topic, one from each side. Please annotate the sources.

C. An introduction to your Analysis paper that highlights the problem. Notice how the Frontline episode uses narrative to introduce the problem...how can you creatively introduce your subject?

This must be typed, and turned in to me on the day of your conference. Please use the Frontline example to consider different sections to include in your analysis.