Week Four: Drafting the QRG

Source: https://flic.kr/p/9M2WW4

ENG 109H Week Four

We have a lot to cover this week. You will be composing and peer reviewing your first draft of your QRG. We will be discussing drafts in class Friday, so you should have your first draft ready by then for class discussion!! Keep to the following schedule as much as possible for this week and next:


For Wednesday:


1. Read/Revise/Reflect on Blog Post #12: "QRG: The Genre"

• Use the Blog Directory for your course section to find three classmates without comments or replies on their “QRGs: the Genre” post. Read each post and then leave a reply engaging with the text. Read and engage with their analysis; be sure to leave a reply discussing what you agreed with (or not) and why. Explain anything you think they might have missed about the conventions of writing in this genre. 
• Go back to your own “QRGs: the Genre” post. Go into editing mode and at the bottom of the post, leave a reflection about what you learned from your classmates. 
• Be sure to also list who you replied to and provide hyperlinks to each individual’s “QRGs: the Genre” post (if you don’t provide the links, I can’t assign you full credit for this exercise).

2. Blog Post #13: "Practice Quoting"

• Read Student’s Guide Section 5.4 “Quotation: The Source’s Words” (pages 85-90) and review the section of the style guide for formatting in-text citations in your citation style. 
• Choose a good, long-ish to mid-length quote from TWO DIFFERENT sources that are listed in your Annotated Bibliography that will help flesh out details in your QRG (that means, a quote from each source). The two quotes you choose should be roughly about the same topic: a particular event, situation, person, place, etc. But they should represent two different points of view on this topic. In a blank Google Doc, write a concise but detailed mid-length paragraph (about half a page? I’m flexible on this but it should be long enough to get the job done without being unclear or rambling). 
• Audience: The paragraph should be written for an audience that doesn’t know as much as you know about this topic. Depending on the topic, they might know nothing at all. 
• Purpose: To explain how the two people/sources quoted disagree or have differing opinions about the topic at hand. Integrate these two significant quotations directly into the paragraph, following the guidelines for in-text citations as defined by the style guide for your citation style.
• Be sure to to do the following FOUR things in your paragraph:

1. Use appropriate signal phrases to mark the boundaries between your words and the sources’ words (see the explanation of this in MLA-style on Rules for Writers pages 473-4 and then, if you’re using a different citation style, double-check your style guide to see what, if any, differences there are). 
2. Establish the authority of the people/sources being quoted (see the explanation of this in MLA-style on Rules for Writers pages 474-5 and then, if you’re using a different citation style, double-check your style guide to see what, if any, differences there are). 
3. Put the source material into effective context (see the explanation of this in MLA-style on Rules for Writers pages 476-7 and then, if you’re using a different citation style, double-check your style guide to see what, if any, differences there are) 
4. And EITHER use the ellipsis mark to eliminate unnecessary words from the quote in order and/or force it to conform to your sentence’s grammatical structure OR use the brackets to insert your own words into the quote in order to clarify something and/or force it to conform to your sentence’s grammatical structure (see the explanation of this in MLA-style on Rules for Writers pages 470-71 and then, if you’re using a different citation style, double-check your style guide to see what, if any, differences there are). 

• Use the highlighting function in Google Docs, (familiarize yourself with how to change text and highlight color if you don’t know how) and use four different colors to mark these four things (signal phrases that mark boundaries around direct quotes; your establishment of your sources’ authority; your contextualization of the source material; your use of either the ellipsis or brackets).
• Take a screenshot of the highlighted quote. You don’t need blank space in this screenshot, so use Google Docs’ zoom feature to edit out blank space and make sure your quote is highly legible to the reader. 
• Upload and/or paste in the screenshot of the highlighted quote. Include a legend that explains what each highlight color represents in the screenshot.

By Friday morning in class:

3. Complete a first draft of your QRG in Goggle Docs. Make sure the permission allows anyone with the link to comment.

In your draft, be sure to clearly present and explain the controversy to your audience: 

• Who’s involved 
• Who’s saying what (include a mixture of summary and direct quotation here so that sometimes you’re condensing a lot of information down for your reader and sometimes you’re showing your reader exactly how people are talking) 
• Why people are upset 
• What the facts are vs. what the opinions are 
• What contextual or surrounding information might be influencing the way this controversy is unfolding
• Anything else you feel is relevant for your specific topic 

Try to follow the general guidelines for composing a draft laid out in Student’s Guide Section 3.5. However, be aware that the section is seemingly written with only one genre - the traditional college essay - in mind. We’re writing in a different genre, with some conventions that are extremely different than the essay genre and some conventions that are very similar. Think critically about the book’s advice on: 

• Drafting a Thesis Statement 
• Writing paragraphs in PIE format 
• Writing introductions 
• Organizing information 
• Writing conclusions

What parts of the book’s advice on these topics could be helpful to you while writing in this genre?

4. Blog Post #14: Thoughts on Drafting
Now that you’ve actually started the project, reflect back on the act of working on putting a draft together for your peers. For context, doing this exercise is going to help prepare you to conduct peer review.

In writing your draft, you were asked to think critically about the book’s advice on:

• Drafting a Thesis Statement 
• Writing paragraphs in PIE format 
• Writing introductions 
• Organizing information 
• Writing conclusions 

Review that Student’s Guide reading (pages 49-58), as well as the 5 example QRGs linked on the Project #1 Breakdown.

Title your blog post “Thoughts on Drafting” and in your blog post, provide meaningful and developed answers to the following questions:

1. What parts of the book’s advice on the above bulleted topics are helpful for writing in this genre? 
2. What parts of the book’s advice on these topics might not be so helpful, considering the genre you’re writing in?