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The concept of percentage difference is elusive, and I believe that you are misusing it here. Let me provide an example that may shed light on what you have done and why it is incorrect. Assume that you have surveyed a group of 100 people, and 20% of them [20 people] favor capital punishment. [This must be a group of bleeding heart liberals!] Some time later the same 100 people are resurveyed and 40% of them [40 people] favor capital punishment. If you use the numbers as you have in your paper, you will say that the group favoring capital punishment on the second survey was 20% larger that the group favoring capital punishment on the first survey. Actually the second group is twice as large or 100% greater than the first. It is proper to talk about "a 20 point increase" in the percentage supporting capital punishment. I hope that helps! Avoid abbreviations in formal prose. Where they are necessary to avoid overly long or repetitive constructions, make sure that they are formally introduced. Acronyms and initialisms are examples. "The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) . . ." or "according to the Federal Lands Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA) . . . ." [By the way, both of the preceding examples are acronyms because each of the resulting abbreviations is pronounced as if it were a new word: NAY-TOE and FLIP-MUH respectively. FBI and MIT are initialisms because you pronounce the letters individually.] This advice about avoiding abbreviations does not apply to notes and bibliography where abbreviations are customary. See sections 308-309 of Ellsworth for a list of abbreviations and a discussion of their use. An ad hominem (literally, "to the man") argument is one that attacks the source rather than attacking the argument. You might say, "according to Sarah Palin…" And I might respond "I can see Russia from my house." Rather than responding to her argument, I'm just defaming Palin — in this case by repeating a quotation which she never uttered. (The quotation is from Tina Fey playing Sarah Palin on Saturday Night Live.) Ad hominem argument is a logical fallacy and has no place in serious scholarship. Adverbs, often words ending in -ly, are used to modify verbs, adjectives, and other adverbs. Averse means reluctant or opposed. Adverse mean unfavorable or harmful. Example of correct usage: "She is averse to smoking because of its adverse effect on health." Affect and effect are frequently confused. When used as a verb, affect means to influence or, less commonly, to pretend. ("The loud music affected her ability to concentrate." "He affected a limp to appear older.") When used as a verb, effect means to bring about or to accomplish. ("The change in policy was effected by royal decree.") Effect is generally used as a noun meaning a result. ("The effect was sudden weakness in my knees.") Psychologists use affect as a noun meaning feeling or emotion. Nouns and verbs must agree as to number. Singular nouns take singular
forms of the verb, plural nouns take plural forms of the verb. The same
is true of the relationship between pronouns and verbs. In a sentence,
two or more singular nouns and/or pronouns connected by and are
logically and grammatical plural. E.g., Billy and Bob are
coming home today. Two or more singular nouns connected by or
remain logically and grammatically singular. E.g., Is Billy or
Bob the better driver? Each of the three systems of documentation approved for this course (APSA/Chicago/Turabian, APA, & MLA) requires that the bibliography or reference list be alphabetized. Between and among are both prepositions. Between indicates a relationship involving two persons or things; among indicates more than two. Things that are characterized as discrete units or quanta--and which logically take plural forms--are measured in terms of number. In short, they are counted. Things that are characterized as part of a continuum--and which logically take singular forms--are measured in terms of amount or degree. Thus one says "a large number of dollars" but "a large amount of money." You have "a small number of leaders" but "a small degree of leadership." You'll notice that the adjectives large and small can be used with both number and amount/degree. Some adjectives are not so flexible. Few works only with number; less works only with amount/degree. E.g.: "Few leaders," but never "less leaders." "Less leadership," but never "few leadership." Much works only with amount/degree. Much money," but never "much dollars." The proper use of a and an depends on the pronunciation of the word that follows, not on its spelling. If the word following sounds as if it begins with a vowel, use an: e.g., "an honorary degree." If the word that follows sounds as if it begins with a consonant, use a: e.g., "a unanimous vote," "a history class." You may very well see British texts that include phrases like "an historical event." That makes sense in Britain because they would pronounce that phrase, "an istorical event." You, however, would not! Anonymous actors and anonymous sources have no place in a scholarly paper that is supposed to rely on evidence duly documented. See EXPERTS. Anthropomorphize is a verb meaning "to ascribe human characteristics to things not human." You should avoid the kind of anthropomorphizing contained in the examples below.
Your system of citations does not conform with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. A citation to a general idea or to an entire work must include the last name(s) of the author(s) and the year of publication. For more specific facts and all quotations, the page number must be included. According to the APA Manual, "For a direct quotation in the text, give the author, year, and page number in parentheses . . . . When paraphrasing or referring to an idea contained in another work, authors are not required to provide a page number. Nevertheless authors are encouraged to do so, especially when it would help interested readers locate the relevant passage in a long or complex text." [§ 3.39] As your syllabus makes clear, page numbers are required by me in situations where they would merely be recommended by the APA. Information contained in the body of the sentence is not repeated in the citation. Consult the examples below, the APA Manual, or § B-3 in Ellsworth. David M. O'Brien (1990) discusses the role of the Supreme Court in American society. An important treatise has recently been published on the role of the Supreme Court in American society (O'Brien, 1990). According to David M. O'Brien (1990), "the Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (p. 105). "The Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (O'Brien, 1990, p. 105). Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. See § 508A in Ellsworth. You may not arbitrarily mix different forms of documentation. Since you have adopted APA model parenthetical citations in the text, you must complement them with APA model references at the end. You haven't done that here. Your list of references does not consistently conform with the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association. A reference to a book must include the name(s) of the author(s) (last names and initials), year of publication (in parentheses), full title (underlined or in italics with sentence-style capitalization), place of publication, and publisher. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent is used.* [*There is no hanging indent in the examples here, because Craig does not know how to do a hanging indent in HTML.] O'Brien, D. M. (1990). Storm center: The Supreme Court in American politics. (2nd ed.). New York: W.W. Norton & Co. A reference to a journal article must include the name(s) of the author(s) (last names and initials), date of publication (in parentheses), full title (no quotation marks and with sentence-style capitalization), name of periodical (underlined or in italics), volume number (underlined or in italics), issue number (in parentheses), and inclusive page numbers. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent is used.* Allin, C. W. (1987, Winter). Park Service v. Forest Service: Exploring the differences in wilderness management. Policy Studies Review 7 (2), 385-94. There are also specific styles for popular magazines, newspapers, government documents, and other sources. Consult the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association or Ellsworth for the details. Under the APA style the preferred heading for this section of your paper is "References." Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. See § 509B in Ellsworth. Apostrophes are used to form possessives (Craig's office), contractions (can't), and - when required for clarity - plurals of letters and symbols (Check your paper for +'s and -'s). See sections 122F & 211-213 in Ellsworth. To be useful an appendix must support the purpose of the paper. It must also be a self-contained unit capable of being understood on its own by a reader. Your system of citations does not conform with The Style Manual for Political Science by the American Political Science Association. A citation to a general idea or to an entire work must include the last name(s) of the author(s) and the date of publication. For more specific facts and all quotations, the page number must be included. Information contained in the body of the sentence is not repeated in the citation. Consult the examples below. David M. O'Brien (1990) discusses the role of the Supreme Court in American society. An important treatise has recently been published on the role of the Supreme Court in American society (O'Brien 1990). According to David M. O'Brien (1990), "the Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (105). "The Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (O'Brien 1990, 105). Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. You may not arbitrarily mix different forms of documentation. Since you have adopted APSA-model parenthetical citations in the text, you must complement them with an APSA-model reference list at the end. Your list of references does not conform with The Style Manual for Political Science by the American Political Science Association. A reference to a book must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title in italics with title-style capitalization, place of publication, and publisher. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. O'Brien, David M. 1990. Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. A reference to a journal article must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title in quotation marks and with title-style capitalization, name of periodical in italics, volume number, date (in parentheses), and inclusive page numbers. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. Allin, Craig W. 1987. "Park Service v. Forest Service: Exploring the Differences in Wilderness Management. Policy Studies Review 7 (Winter): 385-94. Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. An assertion of this sort clearly goes beyond common knowledge. You are obligated to support it with some sort of evidence and proper documentation. Documentation by itself does not constitute evidence. You can't average percentages because you don't know how many cases were included in the calculation of the each percentage. Lack of attention frequently leads to constructions that are awkward, ungrammatical, or without style. Very frequently what you need to do to address the problem is to think in terms of shorter, tighter sentences. This is political science, not propaganda. You should strive to avoid the use of biased language. House and Senate bills are often referred to by number: HR 39, S 262, etc. Bills receive numbers as they are introduced, and numbering begins again at 1 with the commencement of each new Congress in January of odd-numbered years. It follows that, absent some sort of dating, a bill number can refer to more than 100 different pieces of proposed legislation. Square brackets are used for a parenthesis within a parenthesis, to enclose interpolations in quotations, and to indicate missing or unverified data in documentation. See §§ 215G & 225 in Ellsworth. There is a major continuity break here. Words--perhaps even lines or paragraphs--appear to be missing. I believe the technical term for this is "B.S." It is wordy and pretentious, and it really communicates very little of substance. Write tight! Your calculations are in error. When direct quotations are incorporated into sentences of your own composition, the capitalization of the first word quoted is adjusted so as to be appropriate for your sentence. It is appropriate to capitalize the first word of the quotation when it begins your sentence or is preceded by a colon. The first word of the quotation should not be capitalized when the quotation simply continues your sentence. Note the examples below. The Fourteenth Amendment declares: "The Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." The Fourteenth Amendment declares that "the Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all Privileges and Immunities of Citizens in the several States." Note that the framers of the U.S. Constitution capitalized many words you would not. If you're going to quote them, don't try to correct them. The following require capitalization: the first word in any sentence; proper nouns (names) and adjectives made from proper nouns like "American"; the first word and all main words in titles of books, plays, articles, papers, etc.; and titles of rank or honor when attached to a proper name like "President Clinton." Note that "main words" in titles are a function of usage, not length. If in doubt, capitalize everything except articles, conjunctions, and prepositions. Refer to §§ 301-303 of Ellsworth for a much more detailed consideration of capitalization. When a case study is used to prove a general point, you must take special care to demonstrate that the lessons of the specific case are applicable to the more general situation. Your system of citations does not conform with the Chicago Manual of Style. A citation to a general idea or to an entire work must include the last name(s) of the author(s) and the date of publication. For more specific facts and all quotations, the page number must be included. Information contained in the body of the sentence is not repeated in the citation. Consult the examples below. David M. O'Brien (1990) discusses the role of the Supreme Court in American society. An important treatise has recently been published on the role of the Supreme Court in American society (O'Brien 1990). According to David M. O'Brien (1990), "the Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (105). "The Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (O'Brien 1990, 105). Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. Your list of references does not conform with the Chicago Manual of Style. A reference to a book must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title in italics with title-style capitalization, place of publication, and publisher. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. O'Brien, David M. 1990. Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. A reference to a journal article must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title in quotation marks and with title-style capitalization, name of periodical in italics, volume number, date (in parentheses), and inclusive page numbers. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. Allin, Craig W. 1987. "Park Service v. Forest Service: Exploring the Differences in Wilderness Management. Policy Studies Review 7 (Winter): 385-94. Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. You have a mismatch between your citation (the parenthetical note in the text) and your reference (the bibliographical entry at the end of the paper). Citations usually contain author, date and specific page(s). An abbreviated title is substituted when there is no author. References contain author, date, title, and publication data. No citation should appear in the text without a full reference at the end. The first word(s) of the citation and the reference must be identical, and the references must be in alphabetical order. Avoid colloquialisms in formal writing. There is always an appropriate word or phrase that won't brand you as uneducated. A colon indicates that what follows will be an example, explanation, or elaboration of what has just been said. A colon is also used to introduce quotations and to separate titles from subtitles. There are additional uses in bibliographical citations. In typescript a colon is generally followed by one blank space, not two. See also Ellsworth, §§ 220-221. Your probably need a comma here, just because the text is likely to be confusing without it. You have commas lying about littering the literary landscape. Most commas are used according to specific rules. You need to learn them. §§ 201-203 of Ellsworth would be a good place to start. Commas are used to set off the elements in a list which concludes with an and or an or. The final comma is often optional. E.g., "Medicaid benefits were judged best in Minnesota, Wisconsin[,] and New York." The final comma is not optional when its absence renders the sentence ambiguous or difficult to read. E.g., "individual characteristics such as impaired daily functioning, low resilience to stress, and socially unacceptable forms of behavior." Note that without the comma one might reasonably read "low resilience to stress and socially unacceptable forms of behavior" as one thing rather than two. See § 201C of Ellsworth The result of taking two or more complete sentences and stringing them together with one or more commas is called a "comma splice." It is an error in sentence construction. See § 129.B in Ellsworth. If you do it with a dash, it's still wrong. Forms of the adjective ending in "er" and indicating "more," e.g. greater, higher, dumber, are said to be comparative. Forms of the adjective ending in "est" and indicating "most," e.g. greatest, highest, dumbest, are said to be superlative. Comparative forms are appropriate when two cases are involved. (She was taller than he was.) Superlative forms are appropriate when three or more cases are involved. (She was the tallest of the bunch.) You can't logically mix the two. See § 119D in Ellsworth. Adopting a proposal of this complexity insures that your discussion will be inadequate. Each part of the proposal raises somewhat different issues and requires the presentation of somewhat difference evidence. Each part will elicit somewhat different arguments from your detractors. No one could make an effective case for so complex a proposal in the space available. It is always tempting to solve all the world's problems at once, but it is naive to think you can succeed. The noun/verb "compliment" has to do with praise or congratulation. The noun/verb "complement" has to do with completeness. You have chosen the wrong one here. Compound sentences, consisting of two independent clauses joined by a coordinate conjunction (and, but, or, nor, for, yet, so) require a comma preceding the conjunction unless the clauses are exceedingly short. (He cooks and she cleans.) When independent clauses are joined together without a coordinate conjunction, a semi-colon is appropriate. See Ellsworth, §§ 103B, 128B & 210A. Comprise is a wonderful verb in the process of being destroyed by barbarians who would confuse it with compose. Iowa comprises 99 counties; 99 counties compose Iowa. Just as a good introduction should set the stage for the paper by providing the reader with a road map of what is to follow, so also the final paragraphs must pull together the themes developed in the body of the paper and present a substantive conclusion relevant to the topic of the paper. Congressional publications are generally hearings, reports, or documents. Titles tend to be repetitive, and title alone may not allow another researcher to locate the document you reference. Be sure you have the complete citation in every case including the institutional author in detail (i.e., committee and subcommittee), full title, other relevant descriptive information such as report and document numbers, and complete date. Here, for your assistance, are sample references to each type of publication using the Turabian/Chicago/APSA style sheet. Minor adjustment in the order of elements, capitalization and punctuation would need to be made for MLA or APA. [Note: All three standards call for hanging indents in references, but your humble webmaster can't figure out how to make a hanging indent in HTML.] Hearings U.S. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation. 1971. Hells Canyon - Snake National River, Hearings on S. 717 and S. 448. 92nd Congress, 1st Session. September 16, 17 and 30. U.S. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation. 1971. Hells Canyon - Snake National River, Hearings on S. 717 and S. 448. 92nd Congress, 1st Session. September 16, 17 and 30. [Note: It simplifies your parenthetical citations to organize references to individual testimony as follows:] Lee, Robert R. 1971. Testimony, p. 143. In U.S. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation. 1971. Hells Canyon - Snake National River, Hearings on S. 717 and S. 448. 92nd Congress, 1st Session. September 16, 17 and 30. Reports U.S. Senate. Committee on Interior and Insular Affairs. Subcommittee on Parks and Recreation. 1971. Hells Canyon - Snake National River. Report to Accompany S. 245. Senate Report No. 92-124. July 3. Documents Report of the President on the conduct of the Gulf War. 1991. Senate Document No. 103-26. July 26. By convention, "Congress" is capitalized when you mean the Congress of the United States. When you mean the President of the United States, "president" may be capitalized or not at your discretion. Of course, you should be consistent in whatever you choose. Some experts believe contractions, like abbreviations, should be avoided in formal writing. Others argue that contractions are a normal part of speech and that they contribute to lucid prose. Make your own choice, but remember, when a contraction is used, an apostrophe must be inserted to indicate the missing letters or numbers. Common examples include "it's" (when you mean "it is"), and "'84" (when you mean 1984). See § 212A in Ellsworth. These statements appear to be mutually contradictory. return to indexCOORDINATE ADJECTIVES Coordinate adjectives are adjectives of equal importance listed in series and modifying the same noun: "desirable, negotiated settlement." Generally, you are required to separate them by commas. The exceptions involve common combinations of adjectives that sound weird if their order is changed: "five little old men." Each of the three adjectives modifies men, but nobody familiar with English would say, "old little five men." See § 201D of Ellsworth for details. To confuse correlation with causation is to argue for (or assume) a cause-and-effect relationship where no such relationship exists. I often feel hungry about the time the sun is going down, so there is a correlation between my hunger and the sunset. It should be apparent, however, that my getting hungry is not causing the sun to set. Avoid this logical fallacy. Council means assembly, conference, convention, or meeting. Counsel means advice, recommendation, or lawyer. Counsel is also a verb meaning to advise or to recommend. "Criterion" is the singular form; "criteria" is plural. The dash is a form of punctuation used between words to signal a fairly abrupt break in the flow of the sentence. Don't use dashes when commas, semicolons, or colons would be more appropriate. Don't confuse the dash with the hyphen, which is always used within a word, generally to form a compound word (e.g., anti-American, twenty-one, president-elect), or to divide a word between syllables at the end of a line. In printed text, the dash and the hyphen are two different symbols, the former longer than the later. There was no dash key on typewriters, and that artifact of a bygone age has carried over to computer keyboards. In typescript the dash was represented by back-to-back hyphens with no spaces--thus. Most modern word processors will insert a proper dash symbol if you type two hyphens back to back. See § 222 in Ellsworth. A dash is a super comma. The result of taking two or more complete sentences and stringing them together with one or more dashes is a form of "comma splice." See § 129.B in Ellsworth. Although some authorities allow the use of "data" with a singular verb, technically "data" is plural; "datum"" is singular. I think of this as the "dates and states" rule: the year in a month-date-year sequence, the state in a city-state sequence, and the country in a city-country sequence should be set off with commas as though they were parenthetical, which, in fact, they are. E.g.: Craig Allin was born October 3, 1998, in Two Harbors, Minnesota, on the north shore of Lake Superior. See Ellsworth, § 202E. You appear to have already picked your side. By the time you formulate your policy proposal you will need to have done that. Between now and then, I hope you will read and research with an open mind. Increasing your level of knowledge might change your view. Indeed, if that did not occasionally happen, there would not be much reason to learn the facts. This argument needs to be developed. You have not provided the information required to understand or evaluate this contention. There is serious discontinuity between these adjacent sentences. This violates logic as well as the rules of sound prose construction. Expert use of paragraphs is a subjective business, but there are two principles which should be observed. (1) Each paragraph should be organized around one main idea expressed in a thesis sentence or topic sentence. The thesis sentence is often, but not always, the first sentence of the paragraph. (2) To assure the unity of your paragraph every other sentence in that paragraph should bear a close and supportive relationship to the thesis sentence. See §§ 502-503 in Ellsworth. Words may be divided at the end of a line only between syllables. Even divisions between syllables should be avoided if the division is likely to confuse pronunciation or readability. Today, many style sheets recommend against dividing any word. In any event, words should never be divided at the end of a page. See § 304 of Ellsworth. Documentation as to source is required for all direct quotations and specific facts beyond the realm of common knowledge. Except when your reference is to a book or article generally, that documentation must lead the reader to the specific page on which you found the quotation or facts cited. Documentation is important for both ethical and practical reasons. Ethically, documentation gives credit where credit is due. Practically, documentation enhances the credibility of your work by demonstrating its reliance on and relationship with credible sources of information. Furthermore, others may need to follow up your research. Without good documentation, they'll waste a lot of time. For general guidance on documentation, consult your syllabus. You were required to give notice of your system of documentation following the title of your paper. Your system of documentation does not conform to any standard approved for this course. Please refer to the documentation section of your course syllabus. This is a so-called "dropped quotation." It is not properly integrated into your text. It is bad form simply to substitute someone else's words for your own. You should identify the author or speaker and inform the reader why his or her words carry weight. E.g.: Michael Malarkey, the student's Head Resident Advisor, later told police, "I knew Jerry was a little demented, but I never dreamed he would do anything like that." Failure to integrate your quotations deprives your text of authority as well as style. There is no need to submit both a list of works actually cited and a list of works consulted. Submit whichever your instructor or publisher has required. For this class the answer to what is required is found in the section of your syllabus that deals with documentation: Taken literally, a list of "Works Cited" (the preferred heading in the M.L.A. and Turabian styles) appended to your paper ought to contain only those sources for which there are actual citations in the text. The headings "Bibliography," "References," and "Reference List" are somewhat more ambiguous. Regardless of the heading you use, include all works upon which you relied whether or not they are formally cited in the text. Do not include works that you located but that proved not to be helpful. Language purists argue that due to can be used only as an adjective and that it is incorrect when used as a preposition. See § 402C in Ellsworth. However, the The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition advises, "since due to is widely used and understood, there seems little reason to avoid using it as a preposition." Always eschew due to the fact that. Use because. The noun ellipsis means something left out. It also names a mark of punctuation, typically written as three spaced periods (" . . . "), indicating the omission of words in a quotation. There are four principles worth remembering regarding its use:
For additional information see § 204D of Ellsworth. Emotional language refers to efforts to incite the reader’s passions rather than to engage the reader’s reason. Avoid it. In formal prose you should generally avoid ending a clause with a preposition. Incorrect form: "The Act established a deadline for the process to be completed by." Correct form: "The Act established a deadline by which the process is to be completed." Or, better yet: "The Act established a deadline for the process to be completed." Note that by contributes nothing to the meaning. See Ellsworth, § 130A. Unfortunately, what appear to be prepositions may not be. No one would suggest that you remove up from the end of this sentence: "I wish she would grow up." "I wish she would grow," conveys a very different meaning, and, "I wish up whom she would grow," makes no sense at all. In this context up is not a preposition at all. It is part of a phrasal verb, grow up. Up as part of a phrasal verb: Children grow up. Up as a preposition: The vines grow up the side of the house. "Etc." is an abbreviation for et cetera meaning "and others," "and so forth," or "and so on." If you cannot substitute one of these phrases for "etc." in your text, your usage is incorrect. "Et al.," meaning "and elsewhere" or "and others," is the customary phrase for designating additional people (e.g., authors, litigants) not named. Phrases such as "experts say," "according to authorities," "researchers report," etc. are very poor substitutes for real evidence. If you are prepared to make such an assertion, you should have the evidence to back it up. If you do have the evidence, don't just assert the conclusion. Present the evidence that supports the conclusion. Sometimes the closest you can get to direct empirical evidence is what amounts to expert testimony. When relying on experts, you should take special care to introduce the experts to your reader and give the reader some sense of why this particular individual ought to be believed on this particular topic. What you need to do is very similar to what an attorney must do when she calls an expert witness to testify at a trial. Before asking the expert for her "expert opinion," the attorney will ask a number of questions about education, training, academic positions held, books written, etc. The point of all these questions is to demonstrate that the expert really is an expert and ought therefore to be believed. Of course, the question and answer format used at trial would be inappropriate in your paper, but the proposition that your experts should be "qualified" before their opinions are presented remains valid. E.g.: "After seven years of clinical research devoted to autistic children, Dr. Richard Pearle, chief of pediatrics at the Sloan Kettering Institute, concluded that ...." . Failure to distinguish is from ought refers to a conflation of facts and values, often in the form of suggesting that because something is the case, it ought to be the case. A common modern example is the claim that because climate change exists in nature, it's "natural" and therefore good. Avoid this fallacious reasoning. Your assertion is simply not true. Perhaps what you wrote is more encompassing that you meant it to be. Perhaps you misread or misinterpreted a source. A false dichotomy is when an author suggests that we must choose between two alternatives when there are really more than two alternatives. "Defeat healthcare reform or face death panels," is an example of a false dichotomy. There are a lot of other possibilities. Avoid this fallacious reasoning. This information is not to be found at the location you cite. This conclusion does not follow clearly and logically from the evidence previously presented. See § 501 of Ellsworth for a general discussion of formatting, but note that I have asked you to submit your work single-spaced rather than double-spaced My job is to set high standards and help you achieve them. If you got a grade lower than B, it's because you have not made a strong argument for a specific policy. You probably don't want to hear that, but better you hear it from me than from the boss who is about to fire you. Great writing cannot be reduced to a formula, but good writing can be. Since you probably have to pass through good to get to great, I will try, once again, to set forth the formula. If you'd like a big increase in your grade on the rewrite, do the following: Abstract: (1) State the policy recommendation with as much specificity as space permits. (2) State each of your arguments in one sentence. Introduction: (1) Tell the reader what the paper is about. (2) Set forth your policy proposal in all its complexity right away. Do not save it for later. Do not dispense it in pieces throughout the paper. Explain clearly what you recommend. (3) When you are through explaining what you recommend, turn your readers' attention to why you recommend it. List the main arguments for the adoption of your policy. Each argument should be in the form of a declarative sentence. E.g.: "The current policy in this issue area is ineffective." "The recommended policy will save the government money." "The recommended policy will enhance biological diversity." "The recommended policy treats all the interested parties fairly." Note that each of the sample arguments is capable of being supported by evidence. The introduction, however, is not the place for that evidence. Argument: (1) Restate the first argument in support of your policy. Organize and present the evidence that supports the first argument. If your opponents challenge this argument, what is their evidence? Why should the reader conclude that your argument is superior to theirs? (2) Restate the second argument in support of your policy. Organize and present the evidence that supports the second argument. If your opponents challenge this argument, what is their evidence? Why should the reader conclude that your argument is superior to theirs? (3) Continue in this fashion until you have restated each argument and presented the relevant evidence. Information that does not support an argument on behalf of your policy is irrelevant to the argument and irrelevant to the paper. Leave it out. Two pages of relevant argument is obviously preferable to two pages of relevant argument hidden among 10 pages of irrelevant information. The goal is "all message, no static." See the section on HIERARCHY. Conclusion: Remind the reader of your policy recommendation and the major lines of argument you have developed on its behalf. This is a sentence fragment, not a sentence. A "legal" sentence must have a subject and a predicate. It must have meaning apart from its context. Fragments are grammatically and logically meaningless. Subordinate clauses can never be sentences by themselves. Be on the lookout for words like "as," "although," and "if" which nearly always introduce subordinate clauses. Sometimes a sentence fragment can be grafted on to the preceding or following sentence. In other cases there is no alternative but to rewrite it. See § 129A in Ellsworth. Note, however that some nonsentences are legitimate. See § 204E in Ellsworth. Full justification--where the left and right margins are both justified--makes a text difficult to read by introducing inappropriate spaces in the middle of the line. Avoid it. The result of taking two or more complete sentences and stringing them together without any punctuation is called a "fused sentence." Ellsworth refers to it as one of the "big three" sentence errors. See § 129B in Ellsworth. Most style manuals now recommend that unnecessarily gender-specific language should be avoided. Attempting to generalize using singular, third-person pronouns (he and she [subjective case], him and her [objective case], his and her [possessive case]) is the major problem. E.g.: "Anyone who believes the world is flat, should have his/her head examined." Writing "his or her" (or "her or his") is perfectly grammatical, but it can get tedious. Frequently, the simplest solution is to generalize in the plural. E.g.: "People who believe the world is flat should have their heads examined." See §§ 121A & 403B in Ellsworth. Your citations to what I take to be the hearings are incomplete. In general a citation to Congressional hearings should approximate the following form: May, Bill. Testimony. Pp. 70-73. U.S. Congress. House. Committee on Interior. Subcommittee on Public Lands. Additions to the National Wilderness Preservation System. (Serial No. 96-11, Part V). 96th Congress, 1st & 2nd sessions. October 18-19, 1979, and February 11, 1980. Washington: GPO, 1980. As noted in your syllabus, a complex argument is always a hierarchy of contentions. Visually your hierarchy is a pyramid. At the top of the pyramid. is your policy recommendation. Your policy recommendation is supported directly by a number of primary supporting contentions. Those, in turn, are supported by secondary supporting contentions. The structure of the pyramid. is up to you. Only you can decide how many primary arguments there are for your policy. Only you can decide how many secondary arguments are required for each primary argument. At the base of your pyramid. you must supply the empirical evidence upon which the whole edifice is built. Textually your hierarchy is an outline. One example might look like this:
The hyphen is used to join the parts of a compound word, to join certain prefixes and suffixes to a root word, and to divide a word between syllables in order to carry a part of it over to the next line of text. Do not guess about the proper break between syllables. Either look up each case in the dictionary or don't divide the word. In typescript a hyphen is printed with no spaces. E.g.: Manuscripts should be single-spaced. The hyphen and the dash are different marks of punctuation--the former shorter than the latter--and have different uses. Be careful not to confuse the two. There was no dash key on typewriters, and that artifact of a bygone age has carried over to computer keyboards. In typescript the dash was represented by back-to-back hyphens with no spaces--thus. Most modern word processors will insert a proper dash symbol if you type two hyphens back to back. Refer to §§ 222 & 226 in Ellsworth. Ibid. is an abbreviation for ibidem, Latin for "there the same." It is used in footnotes and endnotes--but not in parenthetical citations--to indicate that the source is exactly the same as the source of the previous note. When a page number is appended--e.g., ibid., p. 36--it means that the source is exactly the same except for the page. In modern usage ibid. is not underlined or italicized. The abbreviations "i.e." and "e.g." are frequently confused. One way to avoid the confusion is to speak English. If you want to use them, please be aware of the distinction. "I.e." is short for the Latin "id est" and means "that is." "E.g." is short for the Latin "exempli gratia" and means "for example." Note that proper spelling of each of these abbreviations requires two periods. This expression is considered to be "nonstandard" (that's the polite word) or "illiterate." Its use would be acceptable only in dialogue where you intend to portray a nonstandard dialect. Accuracy is always important, but it is vital when you are quoting another author. Either your source is illiterate or you have misquoted. Either way, the problem this passage creates is your responsibility. You can indicate that an unexpected or inappropriate use of language actually appears in the quotation by following it with "[sic]." Sic is Latin for "thus" or "so." In this context it means, "I know it's hard to believe, but that's what the author wrote." E.g.: "He who pays the piper, plays [sic] the tune." On the other hand, why would a good author want to use an illiterate quotation at all? Imply means to indicate without saying openly or directly, to suggest, to hint, or to intimate. Infer means to conclude or to deduce. Example of correct usage: "She implied she would vote for my proposal. At least that is what I inferred from her comments." This is pretty incomprehensible. You are lost in a grammatical and stylistic maze of your own creation. The first task in good writing is knowing what you want to say. The second task is communicating your message with as much precision as you can muster. For most of us that means writing and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting and rewriting. Although there are no glaring grammatical errors and the meaning is clear enough, this passage lacks the elegance associated with good idiomatic English. Clauses which introduce quotations are sometimes separated from the quotation proper by a comma or a colon. "Whether set off from the text or run into it, quoted material is usually preceded by a colon if the quotation is formally introduced and by a comma or no punctuation if the quotation is an integral part of the sentence structure" (MLA Handbook § 2.7.7). When the quotation is a complete sentence, punctuation should be used. See §§ 201K & 220B-C of Ellsworth. Introductory subordinate clauses should be set off from the main body of the sentence with a comma. See § 201B in Ellsworth. Every paper needs some sort of introduction to prepare the reader for what follows. A good introduction will state the paper's thesis or the question is it supposed to investigate. It will describe the plan of the paper so as to provide a kind of road map for the reader. See FORMULA. This is irrelevant. It might be true, and it might be interesting. However, it is not advancing your thesis. "Is" or "are" play the role of equals signs in this kind of subject complement construction. If the noun that precedes the equals sign is singular, the one that follows must be too. If the first is plural, the second must be as well. Correct: "The protesters were hoodlums." Incorrect: "The protesters were a hoodlum." See § 112B in Ellsworth. Italic (literally meaning of ancient Italy) is a slanted variant of your customary typeface used to designate (a) titles of separate publications, such as books, magazines, newspapers, court decisions, plays, films, and TV shows; (b) titles of works of art; (c) names of ships, including airships, and spaceships; and (d) foreign words. Italic is also used for emphasis including when needed to call attention to words as such. E.g.: "You use however too frequently in your prose." Other uses of italic are probably inappropriate. Underlining is the traditional way to indicate italic in typewritten documents and handwriting where italic text is impossible or difficult. Some style sheets call for underlining in manuscripts submitted for publication. The reason, however, is to assist the typesetter, who will convert it to italic. Since publications almost always use italic rather than underlined type, you probably should too, unless you are specifically asked to underline. It follows that underlining may be substituted for italics if your printer or typewriter does not have an italic font. See § 214 in Ellsworth. The word its is the possessive version of the pronoun it. Like other possessive personal pronouns (his, hers, ours, yours, theirs, and whose), it has no apostrophe. The word it's is a contraction of "it is." The apostrophe is required. Since contractions are generally eschewed in formal writing, one way to avoid making mistakes is to avoid using the apostrophe. I hate to penalize anyone for handing in late papers, but at Cornell no one seems to hand in work on time unless a penalty is enforced. And, of course, I can't be selective about enforcement. If there is a legitimate need for an extension, it is your obligation to communicate that request and the facts supporting it in advance of the paper's deadline. Modern federal statute laws are referenced in one of three ways as follows:
Bibliographic citations to a federal law will usually give the name of the statute followed by a reference to either Statutes at Large or U.S. Code and date. The order depends on your style sheet. Administrative Procedure Act. Statutes at large. 1946. Vol. 60, sec. 10, 243. [Turabian format] Lawyers use a shorter format: Administrative Procedure Act. 60 Stat. 243 (1946). References to court cases should include the full title of the case followed by the year in which the decision was made enclosed in parentheses and the page reference to the official court reporter. For example: Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka (1954) 347 U.S. 483 Note that "347 U.S. 483" is the recognized shorthand for "United States Supreme Court Reports, volume 347, page 483." Works that follow A Uniform System of Citation (Cambridge: Harvard Law Review Association, 1981) don't italicize or underline names of court cases and books when they appear in notes and references. Most other works do. Names of court cases and books must always be italicized or underlined when they appear in text. One can conceptualize excellence in this type of endeavor as involving three levels, each of which requires success at the lower level(s). Level 1 involves the clear articulation of the policy proposal or recommendation. Level 2 involves the use of selective evidence to support one's case. Level 3 involves the fair presentation of your adversaries' best case and the attempted demolition of that case. In most instances, the most effective presentation will proceed from Level 1 to Level 2 to Level 3. Don't use like [preposition] when you really mean as or as if [subordinate conjunctions]. Prepositions show how a noun or pronoun (the object of the preposition) is related to the rest of the sentence. E.g.: "The letter was delivered to him." "The letter was delivered by him." Subordinate conjunctions begin subordinate clauses and join them to independent clauses. The most publicized error of this sort was a famous advertising campaign for Winston cigarettes. It included the slogan, "Winston tastes good, like a cigarette should." The like should have been as. "Winston tastes good, as a cigarette should." "As a cigarette should" is a subordinate clause linked by the conjunction as to the independent clause, "Winston tastes good." If the promoters of Winston cigarettes wanted to use like, they should have followed it with a noun. E.g.: "Winston tastes like sh*t." Quotations of more than four lines length should use a long quotation format. Quotation marks are not used in long quotations which are set apart by changes in margin, line spacing, print size, or type face. The exception would be a quotation within the larger quotation. See §§ 215D & 501B of Ellsworth. This description of the methodology is too general to be of any use to a reader. Your have misquoted your source. Something appears to have been left out here. Your system of citations does not conform with the MLA Handbook. A citation to a general idea or to an entire work must include the last name(s) of the author(s). For more specific facts and all quotations, the page number must be included. Information contained in the body of the sentence is not repeated in the citation. Consult the examples below and the on-line guide at Purdue University. David M. O'Brien discusses the role of the Supreme Court in American society. [Note: No parenthetical citation is necessary because all the required information is in the sentence.] An important treatise has recently been published on the role of the Supreme Court in American society (O'Brien). [Note: MLA recommends including the author's name in the text.] According to David M. O'Brien, "the Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (105). Scalia's nomination was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee (O'Brien 105). [Note: A quotation should be introduced. See DROPQ. So this form of the citation is more appropriate for facts beyond common knowledge than for quotations.] The basic MLA citation contains no internal punctuation and no abbreviations. If you have more than one author, the names are separated as follows: two authors (Beavis and Butthead 36); three authors (Beavis, Braindead and Butthead 36); four or more authors (Beavis et al. 36) If you have more than one reference by the same author(s), insert an abbreviated title between the author name and the page number: (O'Brien, Storm Center 105). If you have works without authors, use an abbreviated title and page number: ("Allin Resigns" 35). The abbreviated title should be punctuated as it is in Works Cited: books are in italics; articles are in quotation marks. Note: except for long quotations, identified by formatting changes rather than quotation marks, the parenthetical citation is considered part of the sentence and is followed by a period. Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. See § 508A in Ellsworth. You may not arbitrarily mix different forms of documentation. Since you have adopted MLA model parenthetical citations in the text, you must complement them with MLA model list of "Works Cited" at the end. You haven't done that here. Your list of references does not conform with the MLA Handbook for Writers of Research Papers. A reference to a book must include the full name(s) of the author(s), full title (in italics with full formal capitalization), city of publication (accompanied by state or country only when city alone is ambiguous), publisher, year of publication, and medium of publication. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. The list must be in alphabetical order. Numbers are inappropriate. O'Brien, David M. Storm Center: The Supreme Court in American Politics. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1990. Print. [Limitations of HTML prevent showing the hanging indent.] A reference to a scholarly journal article must include the full name(s) of the author(s), full title (in quotation marks with full formal capitalization), name of periodical (in italics), volume number, issue number, date (in parentheses), and inclusive page numbers. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. The issue number follows the volume number and is separated from the volume number by a decimal point with no intervening spaces. E.g., "7.2" means "volume 7, number 2." Allin, Craig W. "Park Service v. Forest Service: Exploring the Differences in Wilderness Management." Policy Studies Review 7 (Winter 1987): 385-94. Print. [Limitations of HTML prevent showing the hanging indent.] Newspaper articles, popular magazine articles, government documents, etc. have their own specialized formats. Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. See § 509A in Ellsworth. Think about the proximity of the modifier and the modified when you write. Failure to do so can cause serious ambiguity, as in the headline: "House filled with teens hit by bullets." See § 130B of Ellsworth. When all the specific facts requiring documentation in a particular paragraph come from a single source, one citation to that source at the end of the paragraph is sufficient. If you have several paragraphs of information from a single source, consider acknowledging your dependence on that source in the text. E.g.: In the pages that follow information on the behavior of arctic wildlife is from Ralph Hickenlooper's 1987 book (36-43). [Note: the parenthetical citation included page numbers only because author and date are in the body of the sentence.] It is good practice to give the full name of every person, place, or thing at its first appearance in your manuscript. In subsequent references shortened versions of the name are perfectly appropriate. E.g.:
Note: When the subsequent use is an acronym, it should be "introduced" at the time of the first use. The major problem in this paper is organizational: it is a policy paper without a policy. Well, OK, maybe there is a policy there somewhere, but it's not easy to find. You have presented a history of your research: This is the topic I explored. This is what I learned. This is the current policy situation. Maybe we should do adopt this new policy. It stands to reason that you will adopt your policy recommendation only after a thorough consideration of the facts. The paper itself, however, is meant to be persuasive. The policy is the paper's thesis, and the bulk of the text must concern itself with arguments in support of that thesis. For more information on how to organize your policy paper consult the sections on HIERARCHY and FORMULA. This is certainly not what you mean to say. Your description of where you are headed does not sound like a policy paper. Please review the requirements for a policy paper before you research or write things that might not prove helpful. Don't use nouns as adjectives when there are accepted adjectival forms available. You are confusing nouns with verbs here. Nonessential (nonrestrictive) clauses, phrases, and appositives should be set off from the rest of the sentence, generally by commas. A nonessential element can be identified by the following test: Does the sentence still convey its essential message when the clause is eliminated? If the answer is "yes," the clause is nonessential and should be set off. If the answer is "no," the clause is essential (restrictive), and no punctuation is used. An example: "Men who rape women should be shot." Note that the entire meaning of the sentence is changed if the underlined clause is removed. It follows that this clause is essential and that no punctuation is used to set it off. See § 201F in Ellsworth. Nonessential clauses are a subcategory of PARENTHETICAL EXPRESSIONS. Your citation or reference does not conform to any of the approved styles. It is precisely because there are many styles in use that students must accept the discipline of adhering to a specified style manual. As noted in your syllabus, for the purposes of this class you are required to use one of three standards: Chicago/APSA/Turabian, APA, or MLA. The official source books for each of the three approved standards is listed in the documentation section of your syllabus. For further information on the style you are using, click on the appropriate
link.
There are four situations when numbers should be written out in words: (1) when the number can be written in two or fewer words; (2) when the number is part of a compound adjective, e.g. three-year-old child; (3) when the number is a fraction unaccompanied by a whole number; and (4) when the number begins a sentence. Except in these situations, it is generally preferable to use figures. Use of figures is mandatory in dates, times, addresses, percentages, decimal fractions, statistics, and precise measurements unless they begin a sentence. Furthermore, convention dictates that numerals and words not be mixed when they are presented together and refer to similar things, as in the case of comparisons, for example. Therefore, if the conventions require any of your numbers to be expressed as numerals, all related numbers should be expressed as numerals. For a more complete discussion of this topic and unique features of the style you are using see Sections 305-307 of Ellsworth, § 2.5 of the MLA Handbook, sections 3..42-3.49 in the APA Publication Manual, or sections 2.29-2.73 in Turabian. Being offensive to your adversaries is not generally an effective approach. I am pleased to see you using some of the data sources rapidly proliferating on line. Although formal rules for citing such sources will inevitably lag behind the changing technology, all the principles of documentation still apply. It is still your job to provide the reader with the information required to retrieve the exact information you used. Most on-line documents have some sort of author and some sort of title. Many are dated. All on-line documents have a specific on-line address. Please consult the syllabus page on Documenting Digital Sources. This appears to be unsupported opinion. It might be right, but you have made no argument and offered no evidence in its support. You should endeavor to provide a citation to the original source whenever you can.
Much of what you have written here seems disorganized. Outlining is a good technique for avoiding this problem. Outlining can be formal or informal, but to be effective it must help you understand your major points and how they are related to one another. For more information consult § 504 of Ellsworth or § 1.9 of the MLA Handbook. For more information on how to outline an argument, see the section on HIERARCHY. Expert use of paragraphs is a subjective business, but there are general principles which ought to be observed. (1) Every paragraph needs to focus around a single main topic or idea, usually stated in one sentence called the topic sentence. Most of the time that topic sentence comes first. (2) That main idea needs to be developed with examples, reasons, descriptions, definitions, explanations, comparisons, etc. (3) Furthermore, the ideas developed within the paragraph need to cohere. You need to signal clearly how the ideas relate to one another so that the reader can follow the flow of thought easily from the first sentence through the last. Finally, (4) paragraphs need unity, which means that no sentence strays away from the topic. See §§ 502-503 in Ellsworth. When all the information in one paragraph comes from a single source and there are no direct quotations to complicate the documentation, then one citation at the end of the paragraph is sufficient. The items in any formal list should be grammatically parallel. A list may consist of nouns, verbs, adjectives, phrases, clauses, or complete sentences, but it should not mix the types together. See § 128F of Ellsworth. You should use parentheses sparingly. They tend to be a crutch to avoid the necessity of a sound prose construction. Properly used, parentheses, like dashes, enclose parenthetical remarks that break too sharply with the surrounding text to be enclosed in commas. Parentheses are also correctly used in several forms of documentation. For a more detailed discussion refer to §§ 223-224 in Ellsworth. Parenthetical expressions have two characteristics. They interrupt the main flow of a sentence, and they are not essential to the meaning of the sentence. They should be set off from the rest of the sentence with commas or, if more emphasis is desired, with dashes. Examples include general parenthetical expressions (on the other hand, moreover); nonrestrictive, i.e., nonessential, clauses (Thomas Jefferson, who was elected president in 1800, designed and built Monticello); and most appositives (Monticello, the Jefferson family estate, was designed and built by Thomas Jefferson). Notice that in every case the parenthetical expression could be removed without changing the meaning of the sentence. See § 201E-G of Ellsworth for an extended discussion. Voice is a grammatical term which tells whether the subject of the sentence is acting or the recipient of action. In active voice the subject of the sentence is doing something. In passive voice something is being done to the subject. Active voice is generally clearer and more to the point than passive voice. For that reason, it is wise to avoid passive voice except when you want to emphasize the recipient of action rather than the actor. For example: "The Constitution was approved in Philadelphia." (passive) "They approved the Constitution in Philadelphia." (active) Here the emphasis is intended to be on the Constitution. If we wanted to emphasize the role of those doing the approving, we would use active voice and avoid the indefinite pronoun. "The framers approved the Constitution in Philadelphia." (active) In the case in your paper, your sentence would certainly be improved by use of active rather than passive voice. See § 18C in Ellsworth. A period is required to terminate every sentence except a direct question or an exclamation; the exceptions noted are terminated by question mark and exclamation point respectively. Periods are also required after an abbreviation or an initial. Exceptions include postal abbreviations for states (e.g., IA, IL, MN, NY), names of broadcast stations (e.g., KGAN, WGN, KCBS) and certain acronyms (e.g., IBM, CBS, FBI). See §§ 204-205 in Ellsworth. Failure to achieve an appropriate level of documentation may constitute plagiarism. According to the MLA Handbook, plagiarism is "intellectual theft. . . . Forms of plagiarism include the failure to give appropriate acknowledgment when repeating another's wording or particularly apt phrase, when paraphrasing another's argument, or when presenting another's line of thinking" (§1.8). For further information, please refer to § 508B of Ellsworth or § 1.8 of the MLA Handbook. Your research logically precedes your conclusion about what policy to recommend, but research-first, policy-second is not an outline for a policy paper. Once you have concluded your research and made your own judgment, you must state that judgment in the form of a lucid policy recommendation and do all you can to build a compelling case for it. In a policy paper, the policy recommendation is the thesis to be supported, not some opinion attached to the end of a research presentation. Think about it this way. If you have a lucid policy, the reader can easily remember it as the arguments and evidence are presented. The reader sees how each argument and each piece of evidence does in fact support your proposed policy and probably comes to agree with you. By contrast, the reader cannot possibly remember all the evidence and arguments you make long enough to see how they relate to the policy when it is finally revealed at the end of the paper. For more information on how to do this right, see the entries on HIERARCHY and FORMULA. An apostrophe followed by an "s" is used to designate the possessive form of most nouns. If the noun ends in an "s," the possessive is generally indicated by adding only the apostrophe. Possessive forms of the personal and interrogative pronouns (yours, ours, hers, his, theirs, its and whose) never use the apostrophe. Possessive indefinite pronouns follow the normal rule: anybody's, someone's, each other's, someone else's, everybody else's, etc. For further information consult § 122F of Ellsworth. Not a reference to workplace shootings by disgruntled workers. Postal abbreviations for states are always expressed as two capital letters with no period. Save postal abbreviations for addresses and other specialized uses. E.g.: Representative Barney Frank (D-MA). Eschew their use in sentences. If you are going to paraphrase, please use your own words. Occasional slight variations in what is otherwise a direct quotation do not constitute original writing. See §§ 507F & 508 in Ellsworth. Like many student attorneys--you tend to leave your precedents with less than optimal development. It is important not merely to cite the case but to quote the exact language of the holding and to articulate the similarity between the precedent case and the present case. Much legal reasoning is reasoning by analogy. Unless you provide the court the tools with which to analogize, it will be loath to extend the holding of a precedent case to the case at bar. P.S., don't confuse "precedents" with "precedence." If you don't know the difference, look them up. Prepositions and prepositional phrases are difficult, because they frequently follow tradition or convention rather than logic. The best choice here would probably be as indicated. Pronouns must agree in number with the nouns they replace. Thus, a plural noun is replaced by a plural pronoun, a singular noun by a singular pronoun. If your pronoun has no antecedent (the noun it replaces), it may be misused. If the antecedent is ambiguous, your pronoun is certainly misused. See §§ 121-123, 126B, F & M in Ellsworth. Your paper would have profited from a more careful proofreading than you gave it. See § 506B in Ellsworth. A good prospectus should: (1) clearly identify the nature and scope of the inquiry, (2) describe the relationship of your study to previous work that has been done in this area, and (3) describe the sources and methods to be used, indicating by means of a working bibliography or plan of research that the goals of the study can be accomplished. I always get nervous when students talk about proving a hypothesis. A hypothesis is a statement put forward for the purpose of an empirical test. A good scientist is an objective observer of the facts. The goal of science is to find the truth, not to support some preexisting bias. When you talk about proving a hypothesis, it sounds as if you have already decided it is true. A scientist should never do that. Even if the the data are consistent with the hypothesis, the hypothesis is not proven; it is only supported by the available data. Here's an example: I hypothesize that there are no Asian men at Cornell. I take a random sample of 100 students and find no Asian men. The data support my hypothesis, but they do not prove my hypothesis. I take another random sample of 100 students. This time I find one or more Asian men in the sample. I have refuted the hypothesis. Thus, a hypothesis that is supported by the data might be true. A hypothesis that is refuted by the data is false. Periods, commas, colons, semicolons, question marks, exclamation points, closing quotation marks, closing parentheses, and closing brackets are never preceded by a blank space. They are almost always followed by a blank space or another mark of punctuation. The only exceptions I can think of involve use of commas and decimal points in numbers, certain abbreviations, and sometimes initials, e.g. 689,000 acres, $1,000.00, 9.45 billion, i.e., Ph.D., B.A., and K.D. Lang. Opening quotation marks, opening parentheses, and opening brackets are always preceded by a space and never followed by one. Hyphens and dashes are never preceded by a space. They are followed by a space only when they fall at the end of a line. In typescript you may double space after the punctuation that ends a sentence, but it it no longer recommended by most authorities.. Quotations must be integrated into the sentence of which they are a part without destroying the substantive or grammatical integrity of either the quotation or the sentence. You haven't done that here. Quotation marks are used to enclose direct quotations, the titles of short written works, the definitions of words, and words used in special sense. Quotation marks are not used for emphasis or to enclose the title of your own paper (unless the title is itself a quotation). Except when a parenthetical note intervenes, final quotes always follow commas and periods and precede semicolons and colons. This is a case where correctness is a matter of convention and bears no relationship to logic. Position with respect to question marks, exclamation points, and dashes is a function of whether that punctuation is a part of the quotation or of the sentence. For further information see §§ 215-219 of Ellsworth. The quoted passage is partial and sufficiently out of context so as to misrepresent the author's views to the reader. Except when a parenthetical note intervenes, final quotes always follow commas and periods and precede semicolons and colons. Position with respect to question marks, exclamation points, and dashes is a function of whether that punctuation is a part of the quotation or of the sentence. This is a case where correctness is a matter of convention and bears no relationship to logic. For further information see § 218 in Ellsworth. You are rambling here. By that, I mean that you are presenting a series of sentences or ideas which are not linked by a clear logical structure or which do not serve to advance the argument you are attempting to make. See § 503C in Ellsworth. Just as it is impermissible to quote without attribution, it is impermissible to attribute a quotation to an author unless there really is a quotation. The general rule is that what appears between your quotation marks must be exactly what appears in the original source. See §215 in Ellsworth. There are five exceptions to the general rule. They concern ellipses, brackets, quotation marks, capitalization of the first word quoted, and terminal punctuation.
Your text is redundant. You repeat yourself using slightly different words or differing sentence structure. You need to edit your prose ruthlessly. There is nothing wrong with trying various ways to say what you have on your mind, but in the end you must choose the best and discard the rest. See § 401A in Ellsworth. Proposals that call for "reform" or "change" in the abstract are not really policy proposals at all. To be capable of being enacted, a policy proposal must have some measure of specific content. Precisely articulated recommendations are typically the occasion of more effective arguments. Think about it. How could you possibly make a clear argument for a proposal that was itself unclear or lacking in substance? Most of the elements of a good policy paper are here, but you have written the classic "history of my research": Here's what I learned about the situation; this is what I think we should do. You need to craft a policy paper: Here's what we should do; here's why. The things you learned about the situation presumably caused you to reach the conclusion you did. It follows that this information ought to be persuasive if recast in the active role of supporting your policy recommendation. For a more detailed discussion on how to do it right, see the sections on HIERARCHY and FORMULA. There is no reason to be repeating yourself in a paper of this length. If you find yourself doing it, there is something wrong with the organization of your paper. I hope that you will choose to rewrite this paper as the rules allow. There is much here that could be improved, and I would prefer to grade a paper that better represents your capability. You should be careful about asserting "rights" in a generic way. Is the right you assert Constitutional? legal? moral? natural? Without more, a mere assertion of "rights" is the intellectual equivalent of "because I say so." Your paper could profit from more care and attention to the details of grammar, style, spelling, and punctuation. In general it gives the impression of being a rough draft rather than a finished manuscript. See § 506B in Ellsworth. Semicolons are used between independent clauses without a coordinating conjunction (and, or, but), between independent clauses joined by a conjunctive adverb (therefore, however), or between elements in a series where one or more of the individual elements contain commas. For further information see § 210 of Ellsworth. Your concept of sentence is deficient. At the minimum a sentence requires a subject and a verb. It must sound complete and make grammatical sense apart from its context. See §§ 101-103 in Ellsworth. I am committed to the legal, political, and social equality of the sexes, but I believe that the problem of generalizing in a world of gender specific pronouns can and should be achieved without destroying the English language. Say "she or he" when you must, but also consider: (a) using the pronoun one; (b) using plural pronouns, which are not gender specific; (c) using passive voice, which gets rid of the pronouns altogether; or (d) using the second-person pronoun, when your text is meant to provide instruction to the reader. See § 403A in Ellsworth. When used in legal settings, shall indicates command as opposed to prediction: "He shall take care that the laws be faithfully executed." When you quote, you must quote exactly. If the quotation contains an error in grammar, spelling, or usage, you must accurately reproduce the error inserting the word sic (Latin for thus or so) in brackets to signal the reader the error is in the original and not in your copying. See § 225B in Ellsworth. It's almost always a mistake to use complex constructions and a multitude of words when a simpler construction will express the idea with greater clarity. The slash (or virgule [/]) should never be used in place of a hyphen. Properly used, it expresses ratios such as 2/3 or $3/person. It is also used to indicate words that may be substituted for each other in the text such as and/or or he/she. See § 227 in Ellsworth. return to indexSPLIT INFINITIVE An infinitive is composed of the word to followed by a verb. It is used in sentences as a noun, an adjective, or an adverb. When you put one or more words between the to and the verb, you have "split" the infinitive. Star Trek is responsible for America's most famous split infinitives: "to boldly go where no man has gone before" (James T. Kirk); "to boldly go where no one has gone before" (Jean-Luc Picard). The "next generation" commander, Picard, adopted nonsexist language but continued to split the infinitive. At the end of the movie Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country James T. Kirk managed to dodge the issue by avoiding the infinitive altogether: "boldly going where no man--no one--has gone before." Contrary to what you may have heard, there is no Galactic Law against splitting infinitives in English, but the two words are part of one thing (the infinitive), and they need to be quite close to each other to avoid confusion. "To boldly go" is not a problem, but you could as easily have written "to go boldly" or "boldly to go." But you sure wouldn't want to write "to boldly to Uranus and back go." See § 130A in Ellsworth. The convention in the United States is that a quotation within a quotation is set off by single quotes when double quotes are used to set off the larger quotation. The professor continued, "We must remain true to the liberal ideals of the American Revolution so proudly proclaimed by Thomas Jefferson in the Declaration of Independence: `We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.'" If single and double quotes mark exactly the same passage, there is no quotation within a quotation, and the single quotes are redundant. The text, the citation, or some combination of the text and the citation should provide the reader both with the name of the original author and with the name of the source upon which you relied. Single quotes are not used for emphasis. See § 217 in Ellsworth. To set up a straw man is to caricature or misrepresent an opponent’s argument in order to make it easy to refute. A common example is to characterize "affirmative action" as "racial quotas." Most forms of affirmative action do not involve racial quotas, but describing affirmative action that way makes it easier to argue against it. Avoid this logical fallacy. Unless there is a strong reason not to do so, it makes sense to keep the subject of your sentence (the actor) in close proximity to the predicate (the action). Subject followed by predicate is the conventional word order in English sentences. Variety is desirable, but too much creativity regarding word order may make your sentence needlessly difficult for the reader to understand. See "Needless Separation of Related Parts of a Sentence," § 130A in Ellsworth. The subjunctive mood "expresses doubt, uncertainty, wish, or supposition, or signals a condition contrary to fact" (Ellsworth, § 118D). In the subjunctive mood, am, is, and are become be; was becomes were; has becomes have; and -s endings are dropped from other verbs. Be on the lookout for clauses that begin with if, suggesting that what follows is uncertain, doubtful, hypothetical, etc. The late mathematician Preston Nichols provided me the following example of the increasingly rare subjunctive mood used in the present tense: "If any p rows of a determinant be selected and every possible minor of the pth order be formed from them, and if each be multiplied by its complementary and the sign + or - be affixed to the product according as the sum of the numbers indicating the rows and columns from which the minor is formed be even or odd, the aggregate of the products thus obtained is equal to the original determinant" (Thomas Muir, A Treatise on the Theory of Determinants. London: Macmillan and Co., 1882). Note that the conclusion--"the product thus obtained is equal to the original determinant"--is not counter-factual, doubtful or hypothetical, and accordingly is not expressed in the subjunctive mood. Repetitive information, especially repetitive quantitative information is best presented in tables. Remember, your goal is to communicate information clearly, not to fill pages. Tables and figures should appear in the text in as close proximity as is practical to the point where they are discussed. They should be carefully designed so as to provide a large amount of information in a compact and readily understandable form. Each table or figure should have a title and be understandable in its own right independent of the text. The text should call attention to each table or figure and explain its importance to the purposes of the manuscript. If a table or figure merely repeats information already contained in the text, it is superfluous and should be excised. Each table or figure must contain a full bibliographic reference, typically following the word "Source:" If such a source note is already part of the table or figure, you must still supply full bibliographic information indicating where you found it. Your use of verb tense in this situation is inappropriate. Verbs are action words, and verb tenses provide important information about the timing of actions. Tenses tell us "when." English verbs have six tenses:
A shift of tense should always have a reason. For much more information, see §§ 115-116 in Ellsworth. Your text leads the reader to believe you are quoting one source while your citation suggests another. Many experts, including the grammar program built into Microsoft Word, have a strong preference for that when introducing essential (restrictive) clauses and which when introducing nonessential (nonrestrictive) clauses. Because it introduces clauses of the restrictive variety, that should be not preceded by a comma . Because it introduces clauses of the nonrestrictive variety, which should be preceded by a comma. See § 201F in Ellsworth. The major problem in this paper is organizational: it is a policy paper without a policy. Well, OK, maybe there is a policy there somewhere, but it's not easy to find. You have presented a history of your research: This is the topic I explored. This is what I learned. This is the current policy situation. Maybe we should do adopt this new policy. It stands to reason that you will adopt your policy recommendation only after a thorough consideration of the facts. The paper itself, however, is meant to be persuasive. The policy is the paper's thesis, and the bulk of the text must concern itself with arguments in support of that thesis. According to the MLA Handbook, writing a thesis statement is a way of making sure that you know where you are headed. It will help keep you on the right track as you plan and write (§ 1.9.2). For the reader, your thesis statement serves as a kind of road map providing information about where the paper is headed. Without it the reader's task in following the argument is more difficult, and the probability that the reader will find your argument convincing is reduced. See § 505C & E in Ellsworth. This is a throw-away sentence. What you have said doesn't make much sense, and there seems little reason to have said it at all. The title you choose is your first opportunity to communicate something to your reader. A catchy title may improve the reader's attitude, suggesting that what follows may be enjoyable. A descriptive title may suggest that what follows will be informative. Your title is neither catchy nor descriptive. Titles of periodicals, books, court cases, and ships, among other things, are printed in italics or underlined when they appear in text. See § 214A-C in Ellsworth. You will note that periodicals, books, court cases, and ships are each independent entities rather than parts of something else. Titles of chapters, magazine articles, and other parts of larger documents are enclosed in quotation marks when they appear in text. See § 216A in Ellsworth. Please note that your paper's title should not be underlined, italicized, enclosed in quotation marks, or ended with a period. See §§ 205 & 219A in Ellsworth. In citations and references these rules may not apply. Refer to your style manual. English is full of "2s." Make sure you select the right one for the purpose. To is a preposition with many meanings. To is also found in infinitives (the word to plus a verb). Infinitives may be used in sentences as nouns (To recline is divine.), adjectives (She is the woman to beat.), or adverbs (He came to help.). Too is an adverb meaning in addition (I think so too.) or to an excessive degree (too pooped to party). Two is the sum of one plus one. See § 404 in Ellsworth. Transitions are important. When you move from one major idea to another, you should begin a new paragraph and provide a sentence designed to make the transition gracefully. Headings within your paper can be very helpful, but they should supplement not substitute for good transitions sentences. See § 503C in Ellsworth. Your system of citations does not conform with A Manual for Writers by Kate Turabian. A citation to a general idea or to an entire work must include the last name(s) of the author(s) and the date of publication. For more specific facts and all quotations, the page number must be included. Information contained in the body of the sentence is not repeated in the citation. Consult the examples below. David M. O'Brien (1990) discusses the role of the Supreme Court in American society. An important treatise has recently been published on the role of the Supreme Court in American society (O'Brien 1990). According to David M. O'Brien (1990), "the Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (105). "The Senate Judiciary Committee spent little time on Scalia" (O'Brien 1990, 105). Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. You may not arbitrarily mix different forms of documentation. Since you have adopted Turabian-model parenthetical citations in the text, you must complement them with a Turabian-model reference list at the end. You haven't done that here. Your list of references does not conform with A Manual for Writers by Kate Turabian. A reference to a book must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title (underlined or in italics with sentence-style capitalization), place of publication, and publisher. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. O'Brien, David M. 1990. Storm center: The Supreme Court in American politics. 2d ed. New York: W. W. Norton & Co. A reference to a journal article must include the full name(s) of the author(s), year of publication, full title (no quotation marks and with sentence-style capitalization), name of periodical (underlined or in italics), volume number, date (in parentheses), and inclusive page numbers. The major elements are separated by periods, and a hanging indent format is used. Allin, Craig W. 1987. Park Service v. Forest Service: Exploring the differences in wilderness management. Policy Studies Review 7 (Winter): 385-94. Consult Guidance on Documentation in your course syllabus for links to this style on line. Unbalanced quotation marks suggest that there may be a quotation lurking around here somewhere. Where does it begin? Where does it end? Is it appropriately documented as to source? Your meaning here is very unclear. Often lack of clarity results from poor syntax. A good strategy to avoid these kinds of problems is to read your paper out loud to yourself. Listening to your own writing being read may reveal areas of confusion of which you were unaware. If it somehow "sounds wrong," chances are quite good that it is wrong. This seems extremely unlikely. If you want a reader to believe that you know what you're talking about, you had better provide some evidence or documentation. An appeal to unqualified authority means being deferential to sources that have no apparent claim to appropriate expertise. It's a weak argument and one to be avoided. A former student of mine once told me that she planned to transfer to Pepperdine University so that it would be easier to be admitted to Pepperdine Law School. When I inquired why that would be a good idea, she told me that it was the recommendation of her dentist. Fortunately this true story has a happy ending. The student in question did not transfer to Pepperdine University. She graduated from Cornell College, earned her law degree from Georgetown University, was selected to be attorney to the governor of the state of Minnesota, and eventually became the youngest judge ever appointed in that state. The URL or Uniform Resource Locator is a key to finding information on the World Wide Web. It is also an indispensable component of many bibliographic references to on-line sources. Go to Documenting Digital Sources in your syllabus and review what you missed. To have maximum reference value, URLs must be accurate, complete, and stable.
Your usage is incorrect. Look up this word in your dictionary. Certain proper nouns are difficult to classify with regard to number. Is "United States" singular or plural? To be precise, "United States" is plural in form but ordinarily singular in meaning. In the words of the Pledge of Allegiance it is, "one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all." It follows that you would normally construe "United States" as singular. Other examples of this problem include "United Nations" and "Centers for Disease Control." For a more complete discussion of the problem of collective nouns see also AGREE. The language used here is vague or subject to multiple interpretations. It needs to be rewritten with greater precision. See § 401B in Ellsworth. Anytime words can be removed from your text with no loss or change of meaning, they are superfluous and ought to be removed. Anytime a sentence can be simplified without losing precision, it ought to be simplified. Anytime clarity can be achieved with fewer words, it ought to be. See § 401A in Ellsworth. Your use of this specific combination of verb and preposition strikes me as outside the realm of good idiomatic English. I've supplied a combination that works better. Most wordiness and a lot of awkwardness in sentences results from substituting nouns combined with wishy-washy verbs for more powerful and direct verbs.
E.g.: "I believe we should rely on secrecy and refuse to disclose the information," is clearly preferable to, "I am of the belief that we should place reliance on secrecy and make a refusal to make a disclosure of the information." See § 401A in Ellsworth. You have one or more Internet references that provide no information about authorship or responsibility for publication. Many on-line sources do not list authors, but someone or some organization is always responsible for the contents of any given web site. Unless you can ascertain that responsibility, you have no way to judge the credibility of the source. Information for which no one claims responsibility is the Internet equivalent of gossip and should be avoided. See § 507E in Ellsworth. The information from your syllabus should be your guide in web references. Your usage is not incorrect, but at its core, the word while has to do with time. Sophisticated authors would probably avoid using while as a substitute for though, although, or whereas. See § 404 in Ellsworth. Who and whom are pronouns analogous to he and him. Who and he are correct when used as a subject: Whom and him are correct when the pronoun is used as an
object: Whoever and whomever work the same way. See §§ 122D-E in Ellsworth. I can't think of any reason for the quotation marks. Quotation marks are used to denote quotations, the titles of certain published works, and occasionally an odd or unusual use of the language. None of the above apply here; you should lose the quotation marks. See §§ 215-219 in Ellsworth. This word is used contrary to its dictionary definition or as a substitute for a similar word that would be much more appropriate. Check your dictionary. An important part of learning to use a word processor is remembering that it is not a typewriter. That should be easy for a generation of students who have never seen a typewriter. All modern word processors have explicit commands for justifying text, changing margins, starting new pages, numbering pages, setting tabs, and creating headers, footers, columns, tables, indents or hanging indents. You should never attempt to accomplish any of these tasks using the enter key or the space bar. Your paper also demonstrates a serious weakness in prose skills that cannot be remedied in a single course. Writing problems of this sort are serious. I hope you will make an appointment with Shawn Doyle or Laura Farmer at the Writing Studio in the Library. I know you don't really want to be told that you need remedial work, but there is a smart person in there trying to get out. Let's give that person a hand. Doing what you need to do will take some time and effort--perhaps even a little pain--but it will pay dividends for the rest of your life! |
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