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Easy Access: The Reference Handbook for Writers, 3/e

Michael L. Keene, The University of Tennessee, Knoxville
Katherine H. Adams, Loyola University New Orleans

Quick Views

Quick View: The Writing Process

prewriting - deciding on the subject, considering the needs of the reader, gathering information
planning - choosing preliminary thesis and organization
drafting - writing a first draft to develop the main ideas and discover new ones
revising - making changes in the thesis, structure, content, paragraphing, and sentences
finishing - proofreading for grammar, mechanics, and spelling errors and preparing the final copy

Listing these writing activities one by one may imply that writers complete them in chronological order, but the process generally is not so clearly segmented. After you have begun to draft a paper, for example, you may decide that you need more information and return to prewriting. You may need to do more planning after you finish a draft. It is through this recursive process that experienced writers move from a topic to a finished product.

Quick View: The Research-Writing Process

1. Analyze the assignment.
2. Plan a reseach strategy.
3. Do the research.
4. Take good notes and keep good records.
5. Choose a preliminary thesis and outline.
6. Write the first draft
7. Use your sources effectively.
8. Revisit your reseach as necessary.
9. Revise and edit systematically.
10. Document your sources correctly.

Quick View: Research Resources

Library resources: general and specialized reference works; books; journals (scholarly, trade, and popular); newspapers; government and corporate documents; microforms; and special collections that may include primary sources, such as diaries, letters, other rare documents, videos, and maps.

Internet resources: search engines, subject trees, Web sites, reference works (dictionaries, encyclopedias), tutorials, electronic texts, corporate and government documents, news articles, news groups, listservs, multiuser domains (MUDs) and mltiuser domains objet-oriented (MOOs), and e-mail.

Field research resources: personal observations, interviews, laboratory work, opinion surveys, and discussion groups.

Quick View: Questioning Your Web Sources

Ask these five questions about your Web sources:
* What kind of information is on this page?
* What is the source of the information on this page?
* How well done is the design of this page?
* How current is the information on this page?
* How verifiable is the information on this page?

Quick View: MLA Style (http:/www.mla.org)

(See SEE 4, MLA DOCUMENTATION STYLE, pages 146-51)
For Paraphrases and Short Quotations
Enclose short quotations (under five lines of prose or under four lines of poetry) in double quotation marks in your paragraphs. Separate lines of poetry with slashes (/). Cite the author's last names either in your text or in parentheses with the page number (or line numbers of poetry) after the quotation marks and before the period: (Quarles 19).

For Longer Quotations
Double-space longer quotations (over four lines of prose or over three lines of poetry or verse plays) and block-indent them one inch from the left margin, without quotation marks. Each line of poetry should appear on a new line. If the author's name is not given in the text, cite it in parentheses with the page number (or line numbers of poetry) one space after the final punctuation mark.

FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY-ENTITLED "WORKS CITED" (SEE 4, MLA DOCUMENTATION STYLE, pages 151-61)

Book
Junger, Sebastian. The Perfect Storm: A True Story of Men against the Sea. New York: Norton, 2000.

Essay or Article within a Book
Faludi, Susan. "The Backlash against Feminism." Connections: A Multicultural Reader for Writers. Ed. Judith Stanford. 2nd ed. Mountain View, CA: Mayfield, 1997. 391-403.

Periodical Article
Stewart, Doug. "Kudzu: Love It or Run." Smithsonian Magazine Oct. 2000: 64-70.

Newspaper Article
McKinley, James C., Jr. "Performance Enhancers and Baseball." New York Times 11 Oct. 2000: Al.

Electronic Source
Brown, Janelle. "The New, Improved Steve Jobs." Salon.com 11 Oct. 2000. 11 Dec. 2000 http://www.salon.com/tech/books/2000/10/11/deutschman/index.html.

Quick View: APA Style (http://www.apa.org/journals/faq.html)

(See SEE 5, APA DOCUMENTATION STYLE, pages 164-167)
For Paraphrases
Cite the author's last name either in the sentence or with the publication date in parentheses after the first reference to the material. Place a comma between the name and the date: (Carlson, 2001).

For Short Quotations (Less Than Forty Words)
Enclose short quotations in double quotation marks in the text: do not indent them separately. If the author's name is mentioned in the text, place the publication date in parentheses immediately after the quotation marks. If the author's name is not mentioned in the text, include it with the date and the page number in the parentheses: (Harrelson, 2000, p. 32).

For Longer Quotations (More Than Forty Words)
Double-space long quotations and block-indent them five spaces from the left margin, without quotation marks. Place the page reference in parentheses after the final period, along with the author's name and the date if they did not appear in the text.

FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTITLED "REFERENCES" (SEE 5, APA DOCUMENTATION STYLE, pages 167-74)

Book
Holmes, E.R., & Holmes, L.D. (1995). Other cultures, elder years. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.

Essay or Article within a Book
Wilkinson, D. (1997). American families of African descent. In M.K. DeGenova (Ed.), Families in cultural context (pp. 35-51). Mountain View, CA: Mayfield.

Periodical Article
Tuan, M. (1999). Neither real Americans nor real Asians? Qualitative Sociology, 22 (2), 105-125.

Newspaper article
Sydney Olympics cost $3.5 billion. (2000, October 12). Sydney Morning Herald, p. A4.

Electronic Source
Crispell, D. (1996, July). Empty nests are getting fuller. The Numbers News. Retrieved July 17, 2000, from the World Wide Web: http://www.demographics.com/publications/fc/96_nn/9607_nn/9607NN11.htm

Quick View: Council of Science Editors (CSE) Style (http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/)

Print Sources
Document information within the text by introducing it with that name(s) of the author(s) and ending it with a superscript number that corresponds to a single numbered entry at the end of the text: According to Kant and Muurmu,1 Indian patients require about four million units of blood each year; this figure is consistent with WHO's standard2 of seven units per bed.

Electronic Sources
World Wide Web documents are cited the same way as print documents; that is, each is assigned a number, and that number is used every time that document is referred to in the text.

FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTITLED "REFERENCES CITED" The list of sources cited in the text appears at the end of the work, one entry per source, no matter how many times the source is cited in the text. The sources are numbered in order of their first appearance in the text. The list is titled "References Cited."

Book
2. Lapierre, D. The city of joy. New York: Warner; 1985. 221p.

Periodical Article
1. Kant, S, Murmu LR. HIV-positive blood donors: Can India afford to inform? Lancet 1993; 12(8):342-79.

Electronic Sources
Although the CBE Manual does not require the Web address or date of access for electronic sources, adding this information creates a much ore useful entry for readers: 1. Reisinger K, Haslinger C, Herger M, Hofbauer H. Biobib A database for biofuels. Available from: WWW:http://edv1.vt.tuwien.ac.at/AG_HOFBA/Biobib/oxford.htm (Accessed 1999 June 22). This Web document offers no date of "publication" or latest revision, so that information cannot be included in the entry.

Quick View: Chicago Manual of Style (CMS) Footnotes or Endnotes (http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq.html)

Printed Sources
Information documented within the text is signaled with a superscript at the end of the cited material, corresponding to a numbered list of sources at the end of the text (endnotes) or to a numbered reference at the bottom of the page (footnotes). Mussolini and Hitler were "natural bedfellows" because they opposed communism and thought alike about socialism.
1. Harriette Flory and Samuel Jenike, The Modern World (White Plains, N.Y.: Longman, 1992). Subsequent references to the same text need only a partial citation:
2. Flory and Jenike, 381. There is a footnote or an endnote entry for every numbered reference in the text. The bibliography is in addition to the footnotes or endnotes. The footnote or endnote entry may be the same as the entry in the bibliography, or, if it is not the first, it may be somewhat shortened. If it is a shortened version, it should start with the same words as the longer version.

Electronic sources
Web documents are cited in the same way as print sources, only with the addition of the Web address and the date of access.

FOR THE BIBLIOGRAPHY ENTITLED "BIBLIOGRAPHY" The list of sources cited in the notes appears at the end of the work on a separate page.

Book
Deist, Wilhelm. Germany and the Second World War. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.

Periodical Article
Jones, Clarence. "Memories of a Confidant." Journal of Interdisciplinary History (May 1992): 21-34.

Electronic Sources
CMS style for electronic sources is still evolving. The Frequently Asked Questions list on the CMS Web page http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/cmosfaq.html recommends following Kate Turabian's A Manual for Writers of Term Papers, Theses, and Dissertations. Here is Turabian's footnote form for an electronic source, followed by the corresponding Bibliography entry: Citation Number in the Text
According to the Occupational Outlook Handbook, employment opportunities will be good for technical writers at least through the year 2006.1 Therefore students who.... Footnote or Endnote
1. Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Writers and Editors," 1998-99 Occupational Outlook Handbook. Bibliography Bureau of Labor Statistics, "Writers and Editors," 1998-99 Occupational Outlook Handbook (Washington, D.C., 15 January 1998); available from http://stats.bls.gov/oco/ocos089.htm#outlook; Internet; accessed 22 June 1999.

Quick View: Analyzing the Rhetorical Situation

* What is the assignment?
* What would make a good topic for this assignment?
* How can the topic be limited to make it work here?
* What is my purpose in writing about this topic?
* Who are my readers?
* What is my role as a writer in this assignment?

Quick View: Types of Argument

Fact: Exactly what is happening or has happened?
Value: Is something good or bad?
Interpretation: What does something mean?
Policy: What should be done?

Quick View: Three Ways to Convince Readers

Logos: An appeal to the reader's reason, usually based on well-structured assertions and solid evidence. Readers are moved because the facts presented "make sense" in a reasonable way.

Ethos: An appeal based on the writer's own character. Readers may be moved by a thesis or assertion because of the particular qualities of the person who makes it. Readers might believe what a writer says about how to instill teamwork, for example, because she is the coach of a national championship basketball change.

Pathos: An appeal to reader's emotions, such as fear, pity, or greed. This kind of attempt to convince can be tricky. For example, when a local politician sings the praises of "the brave pioneers who crossed the prairies and deserts to open up the West," one person may see that as a perfectly reasonable appeal to patriotism and honor, but another may see it as a thoughtless forgetting of the Native Americans and the effect the "opening up of the West" had on them.

Quick View: Key Design Principles

* The document should be professional in appearance.
* The document should be consistent in the ways it uses important design elements, such as page layout, color, and white space.
* The document should be easy for readers to use.

Quick View: Guidelines for Visuals

* Are you using the right kind of visual for this situation?
* Do the text and the visual work well together?
* Have you adapted the visual both its type and amount of detail to this setting and this audience?
* Does the visual have good production qualities?
* Is each visual bordered generously bordered by white space?
* Does each visual have an appropriate caption?
* Have you cited the source of each visual?

Quick View: Types of Web Pages

Personal: A page that represents one person (sometimes a family).
Entertainment: A page that hopes to make viewers laugh, cry, enjoy.
Informational (including news): A page that, at least on the surface, wants only to transmit information.
Advocacy: A page that openly tries to change its viewers' minds.
Commercial/Marketing/Business: A page that serves as a company's presence on the Web.

Quick View: Tips for Writing About Literature

* Be sure that each claim and example in your essay supports your thesis: the author's biography or your own response to the text is relevant only if it is directly connected to your main point.
* Watch out for "giving in" to summarizing the plot. You might want to describe the action and setting in your introduction, but then you should begin to analyze the text and prove your thesis.
* Avoid overusing direct quotations. Use them sparingly to support the points that you are making about the work.
* Use the present tense to refer to the characters and action because they are timeless: "Hamlet is the prince of Denmark."
* Put titles of books, plays, movies, journals, and other complete works, not published as part of a longer work, in italics. Use quotation marks for titles of short stories, essays, songs, and poems.
* Be careful to properly identify passages, cite sections, and introduce quotations from the text as well as from secondary sources.

Quick View: Tips for Reading About Literature

* What is the thesis of the piece? What question does it seek to answer? What problem does it seek to solve? What argument does it make?
* What are the key terms in the article? Make sure that you understand how the article's author is using these terms.
* What evidence does the author offer for the thesis? Does it constitute sufficient support?
* What parts of the literacy work does that author discuss? What points does the author make about them?
* What fallacies, if any, do you see in the piece?
* How does the author deal with opposing views?
* What are the essay's strongest and weakest points?

Quick View: Questions Starters and Their Meanings

Analyze: separate a topic into its essential parts and discuss each one
Argue: state reasons, evidence, and examples for or against a point of view
Classify: arrange people, things, or concepts into groups
Compare: explain similarities
Contrast: explain differences
Define: give the meaning of, with examples and explanation
Discuss: state key characteristics
Evaluate: examine positives and negatives, strengths and weaknesses
Explain: clarify by offering reasons, defining, comparing, and so on
How: discuss the means or method by which something occurred
Illustrate: give examples
Relate: discuss connections among event or concepts
Why: explain the causes of an occurrence or its purpose

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