WORD ON THESIS STATEMENTS

The thesis (working or final) is the stement of the main narrow focus of your research. A research question may be reworked and revised in the form of a statement since such a question is often addressing some issue surrounding the general topic.

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COMPLETING ASSIGNMENTS

All of these assignment (1-6) must be handed in sequence for this process to makes sense. For me to accept Assignment 2, for example, Assignment 1 must have been completed.

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Assignment 02

You are required to Assignment #2 to work on providing a narrow focus for your general topic, list questions you would want answered were you to write the paper and then develop a working thesis. One strategy for stating a working thesis (no questions here only a statement) is to work one of your questions into a statement. Remember that this working can be revised if needed as you learn more about the focus of your topic. Concept mapping is a good strategy for those students who like to "graphically" lay out the narrower or related topic to the main general topic. It helps to organize thoughts on the topic. See example in CONTENT.

FINAL THOUGHTS ON MLA

These are the final thoughts on MLA. The suggested MLA citations provided by the vendors (publishers) of these databases such as CQ and other databases are not necessarily INCORRECT for the most part but they do need adjusting at least as far as the instructors of this course are concerned. You may find that other instructors at MCTC will require more - so be flexible and accomodate what is required. Yes, I agree it may be confusing but it seems that even a matter of citing something is not a constant. Remember that to supply citations for your resources is all about information access -suppying enough information so that your readers can easily access the information again. We can assume that this means all readers, even those who are not students or instructors who have an institution subscription to these datbases. If the reader were to click on the URL provided for the article in the citation that is being viewed, the reader would be taken to a login screen FOR THE DATABASE itself. It is NOT asking you for your student login, it is asking you for private username and password (it assumes you have a PRIVATE subscription to the database). So this is the reasons why only the name of the institution is require NOT the URL so that the reader will know that the database is being subscribed to by MCTC. The name of the library will change depending on where you are using the database.

Only FREE websites require the URL.

I am requiring MLA format not APA not Chicago Manual of Style or any other format other than MLA.There are differences in all of these. To cite this information correctly requires that you look carefullyou at what you are doing and adjust according to the handout (which includes changing the fonts). To blindly cut and paste anything is not a good research technique.

I hope this explanation is of further assistance.

Jane Jurgens, Instructor

Additional Thoughts on MLA

One of the important points about all this emphasis on correctly citing your resources using MLA,is that students are demonstrating that they are actually LOOKING at the handout and possibly thinking about the differences/variations that may occur in citing a resource. The handout provided in this course is an ADAPTATION of how WE (as library faculty) of what is the best way to cite these resources using MLA. Other MCTC instructors may differ in their interpretations of how to cite these resources and of course follow what they direct. Be flexible. It is not YOU. You are not going crazy. The reason, of course, for citing these resources is to assist a person, who is reading your paper, can locate the resources again. The rationale for NOT including a URL in the subscription reference resources such as CQ and replacing it with the name of the organization subscribing to it (in this case MCTC) is to show your readers that this IS a database that is not free and that yuou will have to have some connection with MCTC in order to view the articles (with a student i.d andp password). If the URL for CQ for examples IS clicked on and a person does not have a connection with MCTC, she will be taken to a login screen for the database itself (not the login for MCTC). The database now assumes the reader has personally subscribed to the databases and has a PRIVATE not an student institution (MCTC) account to the database.

MLA Citing

This is a reminder to cite correctly your reference resources in MLA. Refer to your MLA handout in CONTENT and cite correctly this resource, CQ and Issues & Controversies in your assignments. Most of these efforts to cite an article in Gale Virtual Reference Library in the discussion were incorrect.

SUBMITTING THE ASSIGNMENTS

Complete these assignments on the forms provided (just save the form and fill it out and then upload to the dropbox). If the rubric is not attached and completed the assignment will be returned for completion.

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