Welcome to this week’s Discussion Forum (DF). Please post your responses and respond to at least one classmate by 10/31/21. Please note that you must post your own replies before you can see your classmates’ answers.

This week’s DF covers the following module and materials. Use them to answer the questions below:

Reading Module 1

Quoting and Paraphrasing

Reading Module 2

The Importance of Wording

Word Choice

Tone

Diction

The Social Dilemma (Links to an external site.)

Essay 1 assignment

IMPORTANT: You must answer ALL questions for credit. Where indicated, write at least 250 words. Post the word counts for all of your answers.

1. For Essay 1, your narrative essay, you are required to incorporate 3 direct quotes from The Social Dilemma (Links to an external site.). You should also consider that quotes enhance stories (narratives), and plan to include a few from those who participated in the story you’ll be writing about. On this note, do the following exercises based on the “Introducing a Quotation” and “Formatting and Punctuating Quotations” sections of Quoting and Paraphrasing:

A) Work with the following excerpt. It is from The Washington Post newspaper:

Caines spent much of his life stockpiling his paychecks of up to $700 a week to buy a home. Now, the 72-year-old worries that the Category 5 storms that took his roof also blew him and an entire generation of Virgin Islanders out of the middle class.

A1. Quote the excerpt using a signal phrase.

A2. Quote the excerpt by introducing it with a brief explanation. Use your imagination since you haven’t read the whole article. Make up an explanation that sounds suitable.

A3. Quote the excerpt with a formal introduction.

B) Work with the following excerpt from the same Washington Post article:

“I’m now going to die in debt,” said Cains, who expects repairs to his home will cost $100,000, far exceeding his savings or expected insurance payout. “It feels like hell,” he said. “I didn’t get the help I needed, and now I’m out here suffering.”

B1. Introduce the excerpt with a signal phrase, then quote it. Keep in mind that this is a quote-within-a-quote scenario.

B2. Quote the excerpt with an omission, and indicate that omission with an ellipsis mark.

B3. Quote the excerpt and use brackets to either clarify meaning, change verb tense, or explain a word.

C) Quote the following excerpt as a two-paragraph block quotation.

On St. John, where million-dollar villas cling to hillsides overlooking teal ocean waters and coral reefs, business owners estimated that overall revenue is down as much as 70 percent this winter. But second-home owners are returning to high-end restaurants for lobster dinners and $100 bottles of wine. For Livio Leoni, who owns Da Livio Italian Restaurant in Cruz Bay on St. John, the major lingering post-storm inconvenience is that the island’s U.S. Customs and Border Protection office has not reopened. Without it, he said, he cannot import the cheese, cured meats, and bottles of wine bearing his family name directly from Italy. He instead would have to take a 25-minute ferry ride to St. Thomas to pick up those goods. Meanwhile, 25 miles away in Coral Bay, roofs and walls remain crumbled alongside roads. Some residents in this port town, known for sailors and a bohemian culture, sleep in tents on their front porch or in vehicles. A few hundred yards from the bay, Pearlette Lawrence was sweeping the front porch of the house where she had lived with her husband. The house has no roof, and the couple has been living in a shelter, but they return each day to cook meals and hand-wash clothes. Before the hurricanes, Lawrence had worked as a live-in maid and healthcare aid for an elderly woman who owned the house, earning $900 a month. The homeowner died shortly after the storm, the couple said.

2. One of the things student writers often struggle with is maintaining an academic tone. What elements convey tone? How might tone differ in an argument essay versus a narrative essay?

3. Write the first body paragraph for Essay 1. (Write at least 250 words.)

4. Read the body paragraph you wrote for question 3. Look for imprecise, general language. Revise that language to be more specific, being careful to keep the balance mentioned in “Word Choice.” (Write at least 250 words.)

5. Let’s be clear: Essay 1 is the only assignment which will be appropriate to write in 1st person. This is because it’s a narrative essay inviting you to tell a personal story. Essay 2 requires 3rd person, which is more academic. As a reminder:

1st person = subject is I/we

2nd person = subject is you

3rd person = subject is anything else, examples — dog, table, Mary, Jana, Shawn, sky, pencil, it, etc.

Changing from 1st person to 3rd person:

I believe that we should come together and push the government for better legislation while we can.

Everyone must come together and push the government for better legislation while they can.

Now, for practice, write a paragraph in 1st person. Then rewrite it in 3rd person. The topic of the paragraph doesn’t matter. (Write at least 250 words.)

6. Write 5 sentences in the passive voice. Rewrite those sentences using the active voice.

Pay attention: Questions 3, 4, and 5 require at least 250 words each. The rest have no word-count requirement. Again, always post word counts for all answers.

Responding to classmates: It’s up to you to determine whom you’d like to respond to, and which of their answers you address. Peer response is part of your Class Participation grade and must be completed. It’s a good idea to use 250 words as a goal for your peer responses. A response that is just a handful of sentences will not count. The point is to give useful feedback and to gain insight for your own writing