Tutorial: Writing the Essay

 

Study Skill 13.3  Tutorial: Writing the Essay

 

Paragraph Analysis

Click on the tabs below to review the key aspects of writing your essay and answer questions about each.

Choosing Sources

When choosing sources, especially from digital media, it is important to evaluate each source. You can do this by using the TRAAP test.  TRAAP is an acronym that will help you remember what to look for when you find an article you want to use to support your research.  If any source does not meet all of the TRAAP test criteria, then you should not use it.  

T

Timeliness

The article should be current.  The information must be up to date.

R

Relevance

The information must match your topic. The source must provide answers to your research, otherwise, it is not relevant and can’t be used.  

A

Authority

The author of the source should be an expert, not just a blogger or opinion writer.  

A

Accuracy

The information must be reliable and correct.  Gossip and speculation are not accurate sources.

P

Purpose

Look at the reason the source was written.  A source that is trying to persuade you to take a side is probably biased and should not be used.  A source that is selling a product or service may also have an ulterior motive.  Don’t use sources that require you to buy something or sell things on their page.

For each source, you can use the TRAAP method to determine if it is a good fit for your essay.  

Let’s look at a source used in the example essay and apply the TRAAP test. 

Source

Ali, Rasha.  “6 healthy options beyond salad at your favorite fast-food restaurants.”  17 Jan 2019, https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/2019/01/17/healthy-fast-food-mcdonalds-taco-bell-starbucks-chipotle-chickfila-panera/2582149002/ Links to an external site.. Accessed 29 Jan 2020.

We can follow the link in the citation from the Works Cited page and find the article. 

  • Timeliness - It was written in January of 2019, so we know the information is recent.
  • Relevance - The essay topic is fast food and healthy eating.  The topic of this article is healthy options at fast food restaurants.  The topic is relevant to my essay.  
  • Authority - The author is Rasha Ali.  With a little Google search we find out that Rasha Ali has been a journalist with many publications and has a large body of work.  However, he is not a nutritionist.  This story is probably not going to meet the Authority criteria for a research article.  However, the article provides information from restaurant nutritional information and Rasha Ali is simply condensing this information into an article for us to read.  It is okay for an essay, but not for scholarly research.
  • Accuracy - The information is reliable and correct since it is taken from the nutrition information posted by various fast food restaurants.  This information is monitored by the Department of Agriculture, which is a federal entity.  
  • Purpose - The purpose of this article is to inform.  However, there are many ads on the website so it could be biased.  The information is presented from many different restaurants and it doesn’t seem to be ranking them or placing one as better than the others.  While the overall newspaper, USA Today, may be interested in selling subscriptions or get money from advertisers, it appears the article is not biased and only presents information.  Again, it is okay for an essay but not for a research article.  You would need a primary source to support actual scientific research.  

 

You can go through each source from the Works Cited page and use your judgement to practice the TRAAP test.  

Check Your Understanding

Resources

Citing Sources

Would you ever steal a car and tell everyone it was yours?  When your friend does his homework do you take it and submit it as your own?  Of course not!  These are both examples of theft.  

When we don’t cite sources, we are stealing.  We are taking credit for work that is not our own and discrediting the person who has actually done all the work.  

Citing sources is used to give credit to those who do the work and research you use in your essay.  If you do not correctly cite sources, you are breaking the law.  In the United States, citation of sources is very serious and it is stealing to use information from someone else and represent it as your own in your essay.  In other cultures, citing sources is not as important and may even be encouraged.  However, the purpose of Mizzou Academy is to prepare you for American coursework.  These require accurate citation of sources both in the body of the essay and on a separate page called “Works Cited.”  

In your English courses you are required to use MLA format when you write essays.  MLA stands for Modern Language Association.  However, there are other formats as well and you don’t want to confuse which one is required.  APA is another format of citing that is often used in science and math domains. You can learn more about the different methods of documentation at this website Links to an external site..  

Citing sources must be done both in text and in a Works Cited document.  The in text citations look like this:  

Social media began as a way to share information about oneself on the internet.  Sites for this purpose included Six Degrees, Friendster, and LinkedIn, which, with the exception of LinkedIn, are all now defunct (Jones).  LinkedIn is mainly utilized for networking in the employment industry.  You can make contacts within your area of expertise or profession and expand your personal database of users who share your job interests.  They may share information about the companies they work for or other resources and benefits.  Later, sites such as MySpace and Facebook encouraged blogging and interaction between users and this is when social media really began to take off in terms of influence (Hendricks). Today, sites and applications such as Instagram and Snapchat allow users to share, like, and comment on anything posted from a sunset to a video of cats.  In total, there are about 2.62 billion social media users all over the globe with an expected growth to over 3 billion by the year 2021 (Jones). Unfortunately, some of these users are exploiting the exponential access to social media to spread hate and negativity through cyberbullying.  

The citation includes the author’s last name or the name of the website if there is no author.  This information is put into parentheses.  If it is at the end of the sentence, the end punctuation is AFTER the parentheses, not inside of the parentheses.  

For the Jones citation, the Works Cited entry looks like this:

Jones, Matthew.  “The complete history of social media:  From the first online network to today.”  16 Jun 2015,

        https://historycooperative.org/the-history-of-social-media/ Links to an external site.. Accessed 23 Feb 2020.

The structure is as follows:

Author last name, Author first name .  “Title of article.”  Date it was written, link to article, Access date.

 

NOTE* The punctuation AND the order of information is very important to having a correct citation.  

Practice 1 

 

Practice 2 

We said punctuation is important.  Answer these true and false questions to see if you know how to properly punctuate an MLA style citation.

Resources

Paraphrasing from Sources

Paraphrasing is one way to use a text in your own writing without directly quoting source material. Anytime you are taking information from a source that is not your own, you need to specify where you got that information.

A paraphrase is...

  • Your own version of essential information and ideas expressed by someone else, presented in a new form.
  • One appropriate way (including accurate documentation) to borrow from a source.
  • A more detailed restatement than a summary, which focuses concisely on a single main idea.

Paraphrasing is a valuable skill because...

  • It is better than quoting information from an undistinguished passage.
  • It helps you control the temptation to quote too much.
  • The mental process required for successful paraphrasing helps you to grasp the full meaning of the original.

6 Steps to Effective Paraphrasing

  • Reread the original passage until you understand its full meaning.
  • Set the original aside, and write your paraphrase on a note card.
  • Write down a few words below your paraphrase to remind you later about how/where you want to use this material. At the top of the note card, write a key word or phrase to indicate the subject of your paraphrase.
  • Check your version with the original to make sure that your version accurately expresses all the essential information in a new form.
  • Use quotation marks to identify any unique term or phrases you have borrowed exactly from the source.
  • Write down the source (including the page) on your note card so that you can credit it easily if you decide to use the material in your essay.

Adapted from: https://owl.purdue.edu/owl/research_and_citation/using_research/quoting_paraphrasing_and_summarizing/paraphrasing.html Links to an external site.

Practice

Directions: Read the original passage below, then choose the example that represents an appropriate paraphrase.

The original passage

Students frequently overuse direct quotation in taking notes, and as a result they overuse quotations in the final [research] paper. Probably only about 10% of your final manuscript should appear as directly quoted matter. Therefore, you should strive to limit the amount of exact transcribing of source materials while taking notes. Lester, James D. Writing Research Papers. 2nd ed., 1976, pp. 46-47.

*Note that the examples in this section use MLA style for in-text citation.

Quick Check

Now read the paraphrase attempts below and decide which is an example of an appropriate paraphrase. 

Check Answer

Resources 

 

Practice

Directions: Choose the best paraphrase of the statement.  Remember, a paraphrase should change both the vocabulary and the sentence structure.

 

Apply

  • Practice paraphrasing the plots of your favorite books.  Read the summary or review found on the back of a book and try writing it in your own words.  
  • What is your favorite catch phrase or slang statement?  How could you paraphrase it to confuse your friends and make them laugh?  Try using complicated or out of date vocabulary.
  • After class, paraphrase your notes to a friend.  You might even do this as a group activity and compare your paraphrases with each other.  Your teacher might even join in!