1. CLASS 11
EWRT 1A

2. AGENDA
 Discussion:
 Reviewing The Focus
 Writing the Thesis
 Outside sources/research
 Presentation:
 Appositives: Explaining the concept 178-79
 In-text citations
 Works Cited page
In-Class Writing: Drafting the Concept Essay

3. Focusing your Concept
Remember, choose your concept, and then limit it. For example, if you
are writing your essay about the concept of games, focus on one kind of
game, like playground games.
Then split your limited concept into two or three categories: Using the
games example, we might say games with a ball and games without a
ball.
Then identify two or three types that fall under each of the categories.
For example, you might use kids games with a ball, teenager‟s games
with a ball, and adult games with a ball. You could use the same three
type for “games without a ball.”

4. Concept: Games
Limiter: Playground Games
Category 1: Category 2:
Games with a ball Games without a ball
Types Types
 Kids‟ games with a ball  Kids‟ games without a ball
 Teenagers‟ games with a  Teenagers‟ games without
ball a ball
 Adults‟ games with a ball.  Adults‟ games without a
ball.

5. Then provide an example of each kind.
.
Games: Playground games:
With a ball (kids, teens, adults);
Without a ball (kids, teens, adults)
Find examples of each type:
 a kids game played
 a kids game played with a without a ball (tag, hide
ball (kick ball; four square; and go seek)
tether ball)
 a teen game played
 a teen game played with a without a ball (kick the
ball can, red rover)
(basketball, soccer, baseball
or fast pitch)  an adult game played
without a ball
 and an adult game with a (cribbage, chess, checkers
ball (slo-pitch or lawn at the park)
bowling).

6. How will you
focus your
essay?
Take a look at what you have so far: do you
have a Concept? A focus for your concept?
Categories? Types?

7. Formulating a Tentative
Thesis Statement
 Anastasia Toufexis begins her essay with this thesis statement: O.K., let‟s cut out all
this nonsense about romantic love. Let‟s bring some scientific precision to the party.
Let‟s put love under a microscope. When rigorous people with Ph.D.'s after their
names do that, what they see is not some silly, senseless thing. No, their probe
reveals that love rests firmly on the foundations of evolution, biology and chemistry.
 Toufexis‟s concept is love, and her focus is the scientific explanation of love—specifically the
evolution, biology, and chemistry of love. In announcing her focus, she forecasts the order in
which she will present information from the three most relevant academic disciplines—
anthropology (which includes the study of human evolution), biology, and chemistry. These
discipline names become her topics.
 In his essay on cannibalism, Linh Kieu Ngo offers his thesis statement in paragraph 6:
 Cannibalism can be broken down into two main categories: exocannibalism, the eat-ing of
outsiders or foreigners, and endocannibalism, the eating of members of one‟s own social
group (Shipman 70). Within these categories are several functional types of
cannibalism, three of the most common being survival cannibalism, dietary
cannibalism, and religious and ritual cannibalism.
 Ngo‟s concept is cannibalism, and his focus is on three common types of
cannibalism. He carefully forecasts how he will divide the information to create
topics and the order in which he will explain each of the topics

8. Write your Thesis
 As you draft your own tentative thesis statement, take care to make
the language clear. Although you may want to revise your thesis
statement as you draft your essay, trying to state it now will give your
planning and drafting more focus and direction. Keep in mind that
the thesis in an explanatory essay merely announces the subject; it
never asserts a position that requires an argument to defend it.
 Write one or more sentences, stating your focused concept, that
could serve as a thesis statement Forecast the topics you will use to
explain the concept.

9. A Sentence Strategy: Appositives
177-79
 As you draft an essay explaining a concept, you
have a lot of information to present, such as
definitions of terms and credentials of experts.
Appositives provide an efficient, clear way to
integrate these kinds of information into your
sentences. An appositive is a noun or pronoun
that, along with modifiers, gives more information
about another noun or pronoun. Here is an
example from Ngo‟s concept essay (the appositive
is in italics and the noun it refers to is underlined):
 Cannibalism, the act of human beings eating
human flesh(Sagan 2), has a long history and
continues to hold interest and create controversy.
(Ngo paragraph 5)

10. By placing the definition in an appositive phrase
right after the word it defines, this sentence locates
the definition exactly where readers need it. Writers
explaining concepts rely on appositives because
they serve many different purposes needed in
concept essays, as the following examples
demonstrate. (Again, the appositive is in italics and
the noun it refers to is underlined.)
Defining a New Term
 Some researchers believe hyperthymics may be at
increased risk of depression or hypomania, a mild
variant of mania (Friedman, Paragraph 5).
 Cannibalism can be broken down into two main
categories: exocannibalism, the eating of outsiders
of foreigners, and endocannibalism, the eating of
members of one’s own social group (Shipman 70).
(Ngo paragraph, 6)

11. Introducing a New Term
 Each person carries in his or her mind a
unique subliminal guide to the ideal
partner, a “love map.”
(Toufexis, paragraph 17)
Giving Credentials of Experts
• “Love is a natural high,” observes Anthony
Walsh, author of The Science of Love:
Understanding Love and Its Effects on Mind and
Body. (Toufexis, paragraph 10)

12. Identifying People and Things
When I was in high school I read the Robert Browning
Poem „My Last Duchess.‟ In it, the narrator said he
killed is wife, the duchess, because . .
.(Friedman, Paragraph 2).
Giving Examples or Specifics
Some 2,400 years ago, Hippocrates proposed that a
mixture of four basic humors—blood, phlegm, yellow
bile, and black bile—determined human
temperament…(Friedman, paragraph 6)

13. How and When to
Cite Sources
Avoiding Plagiarism

14.  Avoiding Plagiarism: Writers — students and professionals alike —
occasionally fail to acknowledge sources properly. The word
plagiarism, which derives from the Latin word for “kidnapping, ”refers to
the unacknowledged use of another‟s words, ideas, or information.
Students sometimes mistakenly assume that plagiarizing occurs only when
another writer‟s exact words are used without acknowledgment. In
fact, plagiarism also applies to such diverse forms of expression as musical
compositions and visual images as well as ideas and statistics.
Therefore, keep in mind that you must indicate the source of
any borrowed information or ideas you use in your essay, whether you
have paraphrased, summarized, or quoted directly from the source or
have reproduced it or referred to it in some other way. Remember
especially the need to document electronic sources fully and accurately.
Information, ideas, and images from electronic sources require
acknowledgment in even more detail than those from print sources (and
are often easier to detect as plagiarism if they are not acknowledged).
Some people plagiarize simply because they do not know the
conventions for using and acknowledging sources. Others plagiarize
because they keep sloppy notes and thus fail to distinguish between their
own and their sources‟ ideas. If you keep careful notes, you will not make
this serious mistake. Another reason some people plagiarize is that they
feel intimidated by the writing task or the deadline. If you experience this
anxiety about your work, speak to me. Do not run the risk of failing the
course or being expelled from school because of plagiarism. If you are
confused about what is and what is not plagiarism, be sure to ask me.

15. Quoting and Summarizing:
Writers use sources by quoting directly and by summarizing.
Deciding Whether to Quote or Summarize
As a general rule, quote only in these situations:
(1) when the wording of the source is particularly memorable or vivid
or expresses a point so well that you cannot improve it.
(2) when the words of reliable and respected authorities would lend
support to your position.
(3) when you wish to cite an author whose opinions challenge or
vary greatly from those of other experts.
(4) when you are going to discuss the source‟s choice of words.
• Summarize any long passages whose main points you wish to
record as support for a point you are making.

16. Integrating Quotations
Depending on its length, a quotation may be incorporated into your text by
being enclosed in quotation marks or set off from your text in a block without
quotation marks. In either case, be sure to integrate the quotation into the
language of your essay.
In-Text Quotations: Incorporate brief quotations (no more than four typed
lines of prose or three lines of poetry) into your text. You may place the
quotation virtually anywhere in your sentence:
 At the Beginning:
 “To live a life is not to cross a field,” Sutherland writes at the beginning of her
narrative (11).
 In the Middle
 Woolf begins and ends by speaking of the need of the woman writer to have
“money and a room of her own” (4)--an idea that certainly spoke to Plath‟s
condition.
 At the End
 In The Second Sex, Simone de Beauvoir describes such an experience as
one in which the girl “becomes an object, and she sees herself as object”
(378).

17. Integrating Quotations
Divided by Your Own Words
 “Science usually prefers the literal to the nonliteral term,”
Kinneavy writes, “--that is, figures of speech are often out
of place in science” (177).
When you quote poetry within your text, use a slash ( / )
with spaces before and after to signal the end of each line
of verse:
 Alluding to St. Augustine‟s distinction between the City of
God and the Earthly City, Lowell writes that “much
against my will / I left the City of God where it belongs”
(4-5)

20. MLA System of
Documentation
In-Text Citations

27. Tips for writing your essay
 Begin with a long anecdote to draw the reader
into your essay.
 Write a thesis that includes all of the categories
you will discuss.
 Use examples and definitions to make your point.
 Use appositives to describe nouns and eliminate
wordiness.
 Introduce and cite your in-text quotations.
 Enter your sources on your Works Cited list.

28. Homework
 Read: HG through chapter 24
 Write: Work on Concept essay. Post a list of five
appositive phrases you have included in your
essay.
 Study: Vocab (1-24)
 Bring: Working draft of Concept essay