Discovering Ideas

Using Your Handbooks

Your handbooks are essential tools for success in this class.  And the ability to use a handbook or other reference work well is an essential skill for success in most work environments.  We will be using two handbooks this semester.  The primary and most complete handbook will be the print book that you will all purchase at the beginning of the semester: The Pocket Wadsworth Handbook (4th edition) by Laurie G. Kirszner and Stephen R. Mandell.  It is very current and provides information not only on writing , correcting, and proofreading essays but on using computers, e-mail, and the Internet.   It is also compact, inexpensive, and easy to use.  It will be a valuable resource for you.  In the Syllabus, I will refer to the handbook by the abbreviation "K&M."  Bring the handbook to every class meeting.  (If you are taking an on-line class, of course, you can ignore that requirement.)  We will refer to it frequently both for review and to find answers to questions.

One of the things you need to learn this semester, if you don't already know it, is how to use a handbook effectively.  There are several reasons for this.   But the most basic is that using a printed source to answer questions about your own writing is something you will be doing for the rest of your life.  Not only in college, but at work, it often happens that someone will toss you a document and say, "Give me a report by next week.  Format it like this."  Most of the time when you have a question about how to prepare a document, the only way you will have to answer it is to imitate the format or structure of a similar document or refer to a style book of some kind. 

In the Syllabus, you will find two kinds of reading assignments from the handbook: "skim" and "read."  When I indicate that you should skim a certain chapter or group of chapters that means that it is material that you might already be familiar with in part.  Review it to see if you are, and read more closely any material that might be new to you.  When I indicate that you should read a chapter or group of chapters, that means that you should read it closely, word for word.  You will see the logic of this distinction if you look, for example, at chapter 33a, the section on citing sources in MLA format.  Most of this section consists of lists of different kinds of examples.  It would be almost impossible to "read" it, in the usual sense.   But it is important that you look through the entire section and see how it is laid out so that you will be able to look in the right place when you need to check your own citations or list of works cited.  (By the way, we will use only MLA citation format in this class, the format given in 34a.  We will never use the APA, Chicago, CBE, or other  formats described in 35a, 36 and 37.  So make sure you are in the right chapter when you do your citations or you will get them all wrong.)  Now look at 33, the chapter on integrating sources and avoiding plagiarism.  This section is written in paragraph form and you will need to read through it carefully, paying attention to the examples, in order to understand the material there.  If you were to skim over the section on plagiarism and how to acknowledge quotations, and then accidentally fail to use quotation marks correctly, the results would be disastrous.  (See the penalties for plagiarism in the FAQ.) 

I will use K&M as a means of communication with you about problems with your essays.  When I read your essays, I will use the chapter and section numbers from the handbook to mark problems I find.  Those are reading assignments.  If I find a comma splice, for example, I will not mark it "CS."  Instead, I will insert "5."  That means that you need to read chapter 5, then apply it to solve the problem with your sentence.   Most of the sections in this handbook are as short as they can be, and they are clearly and straightforwardly written.  Don't just glance at the heading and then guess at the correction.  Read the section assigned, and if necessary look up difficult terms in the glossary or refer to the previous sections.  If you don't understand the handbook, ask me, or ask one of your fellow students, to clarify it.   I'll be happy to help you with any problems you have.  But first read the sections that apply and try to figure it out.  The more you use your handbook, the easier it will be for you to use.

The second handbook we will be using is the Discovering Ideas Handbook, which is available on-line and is linked to our class home page.  This is material I have written specifically for this class,  and it is a work in progress.  It is available only on-line.  I will refer to the on-line Discovering Ideas Handbook by the abbreviation DIH.  For many sections of the handbook, you will find audio links.  These will allow to listen to the section as well as reading it yourself, if you like.  Some students find that it helps them to understand to hear, as well as see, what they are reading.  You are not required to use these audio links; it is just an alternative offered to those students who find it helpful.  But you are required to read the assigned sections of the DIH closely.  Do not skim or skip them.  This is the core advice on how to write an essay and how to revise it.