Nature vs. Nurture

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Nature vs. Nurture
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Preliminary Reading

• Having read Frank OConnors autobiographical
  short story A Study of History and the article
  Were You Born That Way, you have already begun
  to form some opinions on an issue which will be
  very important in your lifetime.
• How do you personally feel about the Nature vs.
  Nurture debate? What are your opinions about the
  role of genetics in shaping our future lives?

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Science of Genetic Engineering

• The field of genetic science has grown enormously
  within our current generation. Plants and
  vegetables have been genetically engineered and
  sent into our grocery stores to be consumed by us
  without a thought as to their origins. The
  reasons for this?

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The Attack of the Killer Tomato?

• 1. Superior seed means greater yield.
• 2. Plants that are biologically resistant to
  pests means less dependence on pesticides that
  contaminate soil and environment.
• 3. Less need for fertilizers means healthier
  soil for future growth of crops.

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Fast Food Nation?

• Animals and livestock are similarly affected by
  genetic experimentation. Such advances make their
  way into our lives with a benign automaticity
  after all, if its in the supermarket, what harm
  could there be?
• The biotech industry is about to become one of
  the most massive entities on Wall Street.

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• With experimentation in the genetic structure of
  animals increasing at breakneck speed, many
  ethicists are asking these questions
• What of the pain inflicted on various species in
  these experiments?
• What of the notion of the sanctity of species?
  that creatures have the right to live and
  breathe just as they are.
• What about the small farms who will not be able
  to compete against such advancements? New animals
  will be patented and controlled by large
  corporations and doled out only to farmers who
  can pay large sums of money. The family farm is
  already in crisis.
• Does it make a difference to us that we will be
  eating genetically modified foods? How will these
  changes affect our total health? Do we have a say
  in the matter?

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• One biotech firm is investigating the possibility
  of creating human milk from cows. Another has
  figured out how to make a female goat lactate
  spiders web material instead of milk (for
  surgical suturing material).
• And this next picture shows that geneticists have
  gone beyond thinking about what is possible but
  to executing the practical.

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But what is the next step.?And who decides when
and how such a step will be taken?

• If life on our planet is capable of being
  altered, modified, spliced, re-sectioned,
  grafted, etc its only a matter or time before we
  are confronted with the very real prospect of
  human cloning.

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Too many Sci Fi books?

• Perhaps geneticists are giving us what we have
  always wanted. Perhaps they can be trusted with
  investigating such things as gene-line therapy
  which could once and for all eliminate the
  diseases or problems which have too long
  afflicted mankind heart disease, cancer, Downs
  Syndrome, sickle cell anemia, addictions, etc.
• Left to perform their work, geneticists may be
  able to prolong our lives or safeguard us against
  these afflictions

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Time for a little experiment Fine-tuning nature
or playing God?

• Over the next few weeks, you will be
  investigating the topic of genetic engineering.
  You will be required to write a 5 paragraph
  research paper. Each day we will examine a
  specific stage in the research process and you
  will be expected to complete each stage the
  culmination of the work will be the research
  paper itself.

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Genetic engineering Cloning?

• Genetic engineering refers to the scientific
  method of changing the DNA of living organisms.
• Cloning refers to the scientific method of making
  an exact genetic replica of lifeforms.

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1.Establishing focus and direction

• You have already begun to form your first
  thoughts on the subject of human cloning in your
  journal writing / discussion from class. Can you
  state in a single sentence what your stance is on
  the issue of human cloning? On a sheet of
  composition paper, place that sentence, next to
  the word THESIS.

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Subject to change

• As you read up on the topic, you may feel the tug
  of expert opinions and new facts or ideas
  emerging that cause you to re-think or strengthen
  your position. Thats OK good research is based
  on an organic process. Ideas come and go, but you
  need to develop a questioning attitude toward the
  ideas you encounter.

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For or Against ????Fine tuning nature or playing
God?

• You may be in favor of cloning for very good
  reasons. The direction of your argument is
  entirely up to you. And this is PERSUASIVE OR
  ARGUMENTATIVE writing writing that seeks to
  convince an audience of your point of view
  however, we need to cultivate a tone which is
  less personal so there will be no first person
  I in this paper. Instead use we or one or
  some other means to develop your ideas while
  avoiding first person. Research requires an
  objective, impartial tone even if the topic is
  open to debate.

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2. Reading

• Once you have established a direction for your
  writing, you need to begin to read up on the
  topic. Find one source in OVRS that represents
  your views on this topic. Remember to keep a
  critical mind at this stage QUESTION the biases
  of the author. Is his or her argument
  strengthened by verifiable facts or is the
  argument based on unsubstantiated opinion?

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• In this case the topic is a given and we are all
  going to share similar sources of information.
  You will be allowed to choose from two more
  additional sources from The Opposing Viewpoints
  Resource Series to help you write your paper. In
  the future you will be completely in charge of
  narrowing a topic, collecting sources of
  information, compiling a working bibliography,
  constructing outlines. For this year, there is a
  little more quality control, but by the time
  you get to college, youre entirely on your own.

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Make a working bibliography

• Colt, George Howe. Were You Born
  That Way? Life. April 1998.
• pp. 23-24.
• Freudenrich, Craig C, Ph. D. How Cloning
  Works. How Stuff Works. March 9, 2004.
  http//science.howstuff works.com.
• Mander, Jerry. In the Absence of the
  Sacred The Failure of Technology
  and the Survival of the Indian Nations. San
  Francisco Sierra Club
  Books, 1991.
• Note the use of reverse indentation for
  bibliographies. Note too the use of proper
  punctuation in between each bit of the entry.
  All entries end with a period.
• Each kind of source you use has its own required
  method of entering bibliographical data. You will
  be using the MLA style and should refer to Write
  for College, Writers INC, or use online
  references for getting your bibs right. You
  need bib cards for the purposes of notetaking
  (your notecards will track the exact source for
  ideas by means of a source number in the upper
  right hand corner of the card. Also, once all the
  bibs are collected, youll type them up on your
  Works Cited page.
• What is similar in looking at the two entries
  above? What is different?

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Sifting and selecting from a variety of sources

• One of the big challenges of any research paper
  is to determine the kind and quality of
  information that will produce the best results
  for you. A good research paper will mix and merge
  information from a variety of sources and we
  live in an age information overkill.

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Primary and Secondary

• Primary sources are the direct, uninterpreted
  records of the subject for your research paper
  or a firsthand testimony or direct evidence
  concerning a topic under investigation.
  (Wesleyan University Library, Yale University
  Library n.p)
• e.g. Elie Wiesels Night is a primary
  account of his experience as a Holocaust
  survivor. Ian Wilmuts accounts of cloning Dolly
  the sheep would be primary since he was the
  scientist in charge of the experiment. Primary
  sources come in a variety of forms books,
  serials (newspapers, periodicals, magazines or
  scholarly journals, archived materials,
  facsimiles)
• Secondary sources contain information which
  interpret a work or idea.
• e.g. A critique of Elie Wiesels Night would
  be a secondary source an ethicists opinion
  article on Wilmuts experiments in cloning Dolly
  would be secondary source.

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Notetaking

• There are 3 kinds of notes to use during
  research. You will use at least 5 of each kind
• Direct Quote
• Summary
• Paraphrase
• See pp 482-483 in LOL

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Sample Notecard (format)Your notecards contain 4
bits of information

• SLUG and/ or HEADING
  SOURCE
• INFORMATION ITSELF
• (Last Name Page )

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Something like this..

• I. A (Torturing of Wolves) 2
• - poisoned
• - drawn and quartered
• - doused with gasoline and set on fire
• - mouths wired shut
• (Begley 53)

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Direct Quote

• Use a direct quote when the authors or the
  thinkers exact wording is essential to the idea
  you need to develop. Quotes longer than 4 typed
  lines will be set up with an introductory
  statement followed by a colon and indented 10
  spaces. No quotation marks are necessary for
  these longer quotes. Quotes that are less than 4
  lines should be incorporated within the sentence
  or paragraph and will require quotation marks.

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Example of Direct Quote (card)

• I. A 4
• The other side of the story is that such
  testing could be used by insurance companies to
  refuse coverage, or by employers to deny work, or
  by the government to intervene in life
  decisions.
• 
  (168)

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Development of Direct Quote

• Should gene-line therapy go forward, society
  might be partitioned into haves and have-nots.
  Those who could not afford such procedures, since
  its initial appeal could only be to the wealthy,
  might be forced to undergo testing to be used by
  insurance companies to refuse coverage, or by
  employers to deny work, or by the government to
  intervene in life decisions (Mander 168).

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Continued

• Should gene-line therapy go forward, society
  might be partitioned into haves and have-nots.
  Those who could not afford such procedures, since
  its initial appeal could only be to the wealthy,
  might be forced to undergo testing to be used by
  insurance companies to refuse coverage, or by
  employers to deny work, or by the government to
  intervene in life decisions (Mander 168).
• Note how the last sentence is structured. The
  quote at the end flows from the structure that
  comes before it. Also, the source from which the
  quote comes is cited in the form of parenthetical
  notation at the end. Finally, note the placement
  of the period for the sentence OUTSIDE the
  parentheses.

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Another sort of direct quote

• As you read articles, youll notice that authors
  lean heavily on the ideas of writers/thinkers who
  support or oppose their views. Good writers rely
  on other writers to help them advance their
  cause. Within your articles, find times when
  other writers are being quoted or have been
  interviewed. You may use these as well, but they
  will require a slight change in parenthetical
  notation in your actual paper. Lets have a look.

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Direct Quote (part deaux)

• III. B 4
• A new era has begun.science is now the craft
  of the manipulation, modification, substitution,
  and deflection of the forces of nature.human
  husbandry. What I see coming is a gigantic
  slaughterhouse, a molecular Auschwitz in which
  valuable enzymes, hormones, and so on will be
  extracted instead of teeth.
• (qtd. In Mander
  172)
• (Dr. Edwin Chargoff, professor of
  biochemistry, Columbia University Medical School)
  

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Summary

• This is a note in which you take the idea
  expressed in a paragraph and abbreviate the
  information while still retaining its factual
  accuracy. When youre finished condensing the
  info, the summarized version has been truncated
  down to about a third of its original length.
  (Practice p. 483 in LOL- see the paragraph
  labeled with the number 4). You want to retain
  all the factual information, borrowing the hard
  facts in brief phrases. Some students find it
  helpful to create a kind of topic heading for
  each card that will help them when its time to
  shift from notetaking to drafting sentences
  paragraphs.

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Example of Summary (page 483 LOL)

• I. A (Human Genome) 1
• - 100 trillion cells in us human beans
• - each cell has complete DNA spread over 23
  pairs of chromosomes
• - each cells DNA consists of 3 billion nucleic
  components, 3 percent (roughly 80,000) of which
  are the critically human or working genes
• - if scientists can isolate the 1 in 3 billion
  bit in the human genome, the chances of altering
  or modifying heritable traits behaviors
  increases.
• (Colt 24)

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Paraphrase

• This is a note where you take an idea expressed
  in a source and interpret it by putting it into
  your own words.

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Example of Paraphrase

• Heres an original A new era has begun.science
  is now the craft of the manipulation,
  modification, substitution, and deflection of the
  forces of nature.human husbandry. What I see
  coming is a gigantic slaughterhouse, a molecular
  Auschwitz in which valuable enzymes, hormones,
  and so on will be extracted instead of teeth.
• Heres the development of the same idea, but this
  time it is paraphrased as the writer explains the
  powerful analogy drawn between GE / The
  Holocaust.
• Dr. Edwin Chargoff, a professor of
  biochemistry at Columbia University, is
• deeply troubled by the prospect of
  scientists being able to harness the minutiae of
  molecular life for the purposes of altering the
  nature of our existence. He likens the process of
  mining the processes of life to a molecular
  Auschwitz in which scientists will take the most
  precious or desirable of human traits and collect
  them for the supposed betterment of our lives
  (Mander 172).
• Note the use of the quoted phrase molecular
  Auschwitz. Its OK to borrow short quotes and
  place them among your paraphrased writing.

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Creating a gameplan

• Before the big game coaches will get together and
  construct a strategy that will allow a team to
  start and finish the contest strong. If the team
  executes the gameplan, chances are good that the
  tema will experience success. So to with an
  outline in a research paper.

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Outlining ideas

• The outline is the game-plan for the entire
  research paper. Initially, you can construct a
  preliminary outline that allows you to rough
  sketch your ideas (another analogy that might be
  helpful to see what happens in the outline the
  pencil drawings that precede the full-color
  creation of an artistic work). Placing all your
  notecards in a deck, re-categorize them based on
  the topic heading that qualifies the idea on the
  card. Once youve cut the deck into smaller
  stacks, devise a scheme that lets you create a
  logical progression of ideas over the course of
  your entire writing.

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Format of a Topical Outline

• I. Cloning 101
• A. Definition of cloning
• B. Plant cloning
• 1. Vegetative propagation
• 2. Dedifferentiated cells
• 3. Tissue culture propagation
• 4. Parthogenesis
• C. Animal Cloning
• Rules Use Roman numerals for all main topics (I,
  II, III, IV, V) no A without a B no 1 without a
  2 capitalize ALL first words in each part of the
  outline (italicized above) note spacing of
  subtopics determined by the capital letter of the
  term above it this helps with the uniformity
  and neatness of the outline.

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Pardon me, Prometheus, but would you have some
grey poupon?
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What makes a good lead?

• Just because you are writing a research paper
  does not mean you throw away the tried and true
  techniques of good writing. Your aim in the
  introduction remains the same to hook the reader
  and focus the topic so that he or she wants to
  continue reading. Lets review what those
  techniques are.

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Structure of introductory paragraphRemember the
rule of 3?

• If you need a formula or visual diagram of the
  way your opening paragraph would be structured it
  would look like this
• (1) Lead (with your scene, portrait, or story)?
• (2) Transitional sentence?
• (3) Thesis statement (the last sentence in the
  introductory paragraph)
• Important note Even though this information
  about improving leads is most relevant to your
  current research project, dont forget the same
  principles will apply in the writing of essays as
  well. If you work to apply these writing skills
  in other classes or on your PSSA or SAT tests,
  you will achieve better results.

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Scene, Portrait, Story (Types of Leads)

• Scene Describe a place or situation that is
  relevant to your topic. The scenario you create
  can be factual or can merge factual or
  theoretical.
• Portrait Give a human face to the topic you
  wish to explore. Humanizing an abstract or remote
  topic makes it real for your reader and if done
  carefully will elicit the kind of emotional
  response that shows you care and so should we.
• Story retell an actual story, legend, myth or
  anecdote that acts as a valid connection to your
  topic.
• In each of these you are in effect making an
  analogy between the S, P, or S you create and the
  actual topic you will explore in greater detail.

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Scene (type of lead)

• Food coloring can save lives that
  is, if life is like that of a harp seal rounding
  a snow bank and coming face to face with a hunter
  in waiting. The hunter has tradition on his side.
  For years, the pure white pelt of the harp seal
  has fetched a princely sum. But the hunter has
  been taught to be careful with his prey the pelt
  can not be punctured with bullets or torn with
  savage traps. It must retain a soft, flowing,
  natural smoothness, a condition that can only be
  maintained if the hunter uses the weapon of our
  most brutal past a club. Death by battery is
  the only way that the harp seal can give up its
  life for human commerce. This seals only fault
  is that it was born with the kind of white fur
  that cloaks the wearer in assumed innocence.
  Fortunately, for the seal, there are other
  warriors on the lookout for them (the youngest of
  the species possess the whitest furs). These
  warriors are armed with different weapons
  supersoaker water pistols filled with food
  coloring. With a few well-aimed streams of
  purple, blue, orange, and fuschia, they tie
  die their prey into next year. The hunter with
  his club is powerless. The rarest of furs has
  been rendered worthless with the cheapest
  projectile on the planet. ? TRANSITION ? THESIS
• The arrows indicate that there is a lead
  there, but you need to create a transitional
  sentence plus a thesis sentence
• (rule of 3 lead transition thesis) You
  could literally use this lead for a multitude of
  topics.
• What would be a good transitional and
  thesis statement based on this lead?

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Flavorful formula for thesis statement

• Verbal phrase pattern of organization
• relevance of topic THESIS
• By looking at various cases of child abuse
  in the U.S. within the last five years and the
  opinions of professionals who deal with these
  children, we will see that the keys to decreasing
  this problem are early intervention and stiffer
  legal penalties for those found guilty of abuse.
• Verbs to use explaining, investigating,
  exploring, examining, analyzing
• Pattern of organization utilize development of
  outline
• Relevance Ask yourself Why is this topic
  important?
• Tips Be sure you weed out all Is or
  YOUS use WE or OUR instead.
• By examining the most current discoveries
  in genetic science along with the view of
  scientists and ethicists, we will see that human
  cloning, while offering the promise of medical
  benefits, may in fact unleash unforeseen horrors
  upon mankind.

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How might this story be re-told in connection to
the topic of genetic engineering or cloning?

• According to Edith Hamilton in Mythology the
  source of all misfortune was Pandora's curiosity.
  "The gods presented her with a box into which
  each had put something harmful, and forbade her
  ever to open it. Then they sent her to
  Epimetheus, who took her gladly although
  Prometheus had warned him never to accept
  anything from Zeus. He took her, and afterward
  when that dangerous thing, a woman, was his, he
  understood how good his brother's advice had
  been. For Pandora, like all women, was possessed
  of a lively curiosity. She had to know what was
  in the box. One day she lifted the lid and out
  flew plagues innumerable, sorrow and mischief for
  mankind. In terror, Pandora clapped the lid
  down, but too late. One good thing, however, was
  there Hope. It was the only good the casket had
  held among the many evils, and it remains to this
  day mankind's sole comfort in misfortune."

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Time to tighten up the thesis

• As we have already learned, a thesis is a
  necessary component of any essay- whether it be a
  single paragraph or multi-paragraph writing. The
  thesis statement is the single, controlling idea
  of any writing.
• You already have a preliminary thesis that
  established a focus and direction for your
  reading and not-taking, but now we are ready to
  write the paper. So a preliminary thesis that
  sound like this
• I dont like scientists messing around with
  genetic engineering because they should not be
  trying to play God. is perfectly good to
  start however, we need a finished thesis that is
  more formal, and states the ideas that will
  actually help the writer advance an argument more
  convincingly.

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Portrait (type of lead) with transitional and
thesis sentence

• In Olivers Sacks collection of clinical tales
  he describes an older man who is so
  neurologically impaired that he can not tell the
  difference between his wife and his hat. This
  fact seems utterly incredulous and yet people we
  see as leading normal lives behind closed doors
  are engaged in the complete de-personing of
  children. In his memoirs entitled A Child Called
  It, David Pelzer tells us what he experienced at
  the hands of his alcoholic mother. Pelzers
  earliest memories of his mother are those of a
  very loving and nurturing woman. But something in
  her world collapses, and rather than seek a means
  to heal her own wounds, she turns David into a
  scapegoat for all of lifes disappointments. She
  starves him, stabs him, smashes his face into a
  mirror. She forces him to eat the contents of his
  baby brothers diapers. She spoon feeds him
  ammonia when he is thirsty. Dave survives and his
  story, like so many others, is proof that our
  society has not properly dealt with the silent
  suffering of children at the hands of their
  parents. By looking at various cases of child
  abuse in the U.S. within the last five years and
  the opinions of professionals who deal with these
  children, we will see that the keys to decreasing
  this problem are early intervention and stiffer
  legal penalties for those found guilty of abuse.
• Note Transitional sentence is in italics and the
  thesis is boldfaced.

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Drafting the research paper

• Now the fun stuff begins. Arrange your notes into
  the order of your completed topical outline.
  Adjust slugs as necessary if you see that one
  idea might be better placed within your scheme.
  Each last card in a Roman numeraled topic
  should provide you with an idea that will connect
  to the first card of the next main topic. This
  will help you draft paragraphs that are more
  coherent. In the drafting phase you have a number
  of tasks to perform and all of them are
  important.

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Formulate a topic sentence.

• Once you have all of your cards organized by
  slugs, write a sentence that will allow for
  maximum coverage of all points (As Bs, 1s 2s)
  from notecards.
• Example The process of cloning is a fascinating
  glimpse into the miraculous and mysterious basis
  for the creation and propagation of life itself.
• A sentence like this keeps the reader interested
  in the topic since he or she will be led to
  discover why the writer finds the process of
  cloning so darn fascinating. More importantly, it
  sets up the rest of the paragraph each sentence,
  each fact that follows will be connected to that
  controlling topic sentence.

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Interest, fluency, detail

• Select a few short quotes and work to merge it
  into your sentences ("HALF and HALF technique).
  You must develop your writing both before and
  after to make effective use of the quote. In
  this example, the writer explores the problems
  that poverty thrusts on the McCourts, an
  Irish-American family, who find themselves in
  desperate straits because of their alcoholic
  father. The paragraph is based on Angelas Ashes
  by Frank McCourt.
•  
• LOOK
•  
• The poverty of the Mc Courts increases with each
  new mouth they have to feed. The twins and the
  newborn Margaret are continually suckled on sugar
  water despite their mother's knowledge that the
  children could develop rickets. Overburdened
  with the care of the youngest children, their
  mother Angela sends Frankie, the eldest child,
  out to the Brooklyn playground with Malachy and
  the twins. Hopefully, play might make them
  forget their hunger. However, Frankie can no
  longer bear to hear his brothers and sisters
  cries and he's hungry himself. Despite his
  awareness that his family is already in debt to
  the Italian grocer, Frankie decides to "grab a
  bunch of bananas... and run down Myrtle Avenue"
  (32). He wheels the pram to a "dark corner" far
  from the playground where they can all cram down
  the stolen feast in secret. For one day at least,
  Frankies act has staved off the starvation which
  jeopardizes the health of the children. Was
  Frankies theft an immoral act or simply one
  driven by dire necessity?
• There are three interpretive sentences
  after the half and half quote which helps to
  develop information key to the writers purpose.
  The first indicates the shame and fear Frankie
  may have felt after pilfering the grocers
  goods. The second shows just how desperate their
  situation may remain. Finally, the question that
  closes the paragaph could lead the writer into a
  new paragraph which explores the conditions that
  caused Frankie to act the way that he did. So a
  formula for use of quotes can be expressed
•  
• SET-UP QUOTE THE QUOTE ITSELF
  COMMENTARY/INTERPRETATION DEVELOPMENT

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Setting up the long quote

• Though his work is exhilarating, Steinmetz is
  not paragliding to audition for the next Mountain
  Dew or X-games commercials. Sometimes soaring at
  heights of up to 7500 feet above the Sahara
  desert, he begins to take pictures that reveal
  his true purpose
• As my partners and I drift high and slow, the
  desert is stranger and more beautiful than I
  imagined. It seems as if the Earth has had its
  living skin peeled away, revealing something
  more akin to Mars. From on high we find things to
  explore later on foot dry river channels that
  once watered dinosaurs, ceremonial sites of
  prehistoric peoples, and traces of camel caravan
  routes not noticeable from the ground.
• (36)
• Again, there would be at least three of four
  sentences following this quote which would serve
  to explain its importance to the writers
  purpose. However, as above, note that we DO NOT
  use this kind of phrasing this quote shows
  that or I picked this quote because or
  ....is a quote which proves. Basically, we can
  see that you have quoted something. Were more
  interested in the ideas and meanings you are
  able to draw from the quote. Too many times
  students have well-selected quotes but lack
  adequate follow-up to show the importance of the
  quoted material to the stated thesis all the way
  back in the introduction. Never lose sight of
  this as it helps your writing maintain coherence
  and unity.

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Writing a conclusion

• Dont Gump It And thats all I have to say
  about that

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