Week 1: Course Introduction

MOOC - UC Irvine - Advanced WritingWeek 1: Course Introduction

“Course Introduction Video…Using Sources Video Lecture…Writing Longer Essays Video Lecture…”
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Summaries

  • Course Introduction Video
  • Using Sources Video Lecture
  • Writing Longer Essays Video Lecture

Course Introduction Video

  • In course three of the academic writing English specialization, you’ll continue learning about writing academic essays.
  • The essays you’ll write in this course will be a little more advanced and will require you to start using outside sources in your writing.

Using Sources Video Lecture

  • In the previous course we learned that a body paragraph should have a topic sentence.
  • These are my own words, and this part is the quoted part, the borrowed part, and I put quotation marks around the words to show that those are not my words.
  • This is the last name of the author that wrote these words.
  • I used it for the third supporting idea, and again the quote is blended with my own words.
  • I put brackets around one word because I had to change the pronoun.
  • I needed to change the pronoun from the original source so that the grammar made sense.
  • If you change any words inside the quote, you have put brackets around them.
  • Any time you borrow words or ideas from another source, you have to say where you got that from.
  • Later, we’re going to learn some other ways that you can cite your sources.
  • Just make sure that you put the author’s last name in parentheses at the end of the sentence that has the borrowed words.
  • You should have three supporting ideas and a couple of details or examples for each support before you have your conclusion sentence or transition sentence.
  • One thing to remember is that we use source material to support our ideas, not to make the ideas for us.
  • Your topic sentence is always going to be your point.
  • After you make your point, then you can use a source to help support you.
  • This is further down the page, and here’s where the sentence came from in the original source.
  • Here’s the other sentence from my paragraph where I quoted something.
  • Remember, these are my words and this is the quoted part.
  • If we looked further down the page, here’s where the sentence came from.
  • This is the original source, and this is the exact sentence in that source.
  • You can see that I changed it, I changed this word here, I changed the word my to his, remember, because I needed the grammar to make sense.
  • Notice the last name of the author is at the end of the sentence.
  • Again it follows an okay structure, but it’s not very academic because it doesn’t use sources.
  • If you want, you can pause the video and think about what kind of source you might use what kind of quotation you might add.
  • You could add the quote for all three supporting ideas.
  • If you have kind of a weak support, you probably want to use a quotation to add to that to make it stronger.
  • Part of the sentence is my own words, the other part is the quotation.
  • Again, I have the citation at the end of the sentence.
  • Down here with have the second quote, so notice how it’s nicely blended with my own words.
  • I’m making a point and I’m using words from another source to help support my point and this is the author’s last name.
  • Remember, any time you borrow words from another source, you have to give your source.
  • So that’s just an introduction to using sources in your writing.

Writing Longer Essays Video Lecture

  • A five paragraph essay is really only useful for writing a couple of pages.
  • In college classes, students are asked to write much longer essays, so a five paragraph essay won’t do.
  • One type of body paragraph that you can use is a cause and effect paragraph.
  • In a cause and effect paragraph, you would have three causes or three effects.
  • You should already know how to write this kind of paragraph.
  • Another type of paragraph that you could use for a body paragraph is the compare contrast, where you would compare things or you would contrast things.
  • Just like with the cause and effect paragraph, the compare contrast paragraph would have three supports with details and examples, all supporting a topic sentence.
  • So you should start to see that these paragraph types follow the same structure that you already learned for body paragraphs.
  • Then you should have several details and examples that are very specific and help develop the paragraph.
  • The structure of those paragraphs will all be the same.
  • On the right side here, we have 3 other types of body paragraphs.
  • The structure of this kind of paragraph would be maybe geographical, describing a place from left to right or from top to bottom.
  • So the structure of this paragraph is a little bit different.
  • So those three types are a little bit different, but all of these types of body paragraphs can help you to write longer essays.
  • You can use one of these types of paragraph in your argument essay to help develop your thesis statement.
  • A typical five paragraph essay would have an outline like this.
  • In a typical five paragraph essay, you would use three body paragraphs to support that thesis.
  • If I want to write a longer essay, I can use other types of paragraphs.
  • Well before I get to that, I might want to write a paragraph using narrative style, and I could write a narrative paragraph of background information.
  • So that’s one way I could add a different type of paragraph to help make my essay longer.
  • Maybe before I make my third reason, I might want to add a paragraph comparing or contrasting.
  • Because I’m arguing for American universities having free education for everyone, I might make a paragraph that contrasts other countries who do have free college education, and who have better societies.
  • I could show a contrast between those countries and the US. This would also help support my thesis, and it would add another body paragraph.
  • So now I have five body paragraphs for my argument essay.
  • I have my original three reasons, but I’ve added a narrative paragraph for background information, and I’ve added a comparison paragraph to show other countries and how they use free college to have a better society.
  • All of these body paragraphs still support my thesis statement.
  • So when you write your next essay, try to go beyond the traditional five paragraph essay.
  • Every essay will be different, so you might not always be able to use a cause and effect paragraph, or a description paragraph.
  • So think about your topic and use the kind of paragraph that is most useful for that topic.

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