Writing Assignment #3

Due Date:

See the course calendar for all due dates.

Like many other disciplines, a good place to learn about writing is to review and criticize someone else's work. This writing assignment will help familiarize you with the reviewing process for writing, helping you find problems of writing and the pitfalls of the kind that you can also expect to find in your own work. We also want you to think about the subject of tolerance itself. Later in this course we will delve a little more deeply into the subject of Tolerance.

The Task (What to do):

This assignment is to:

Read, review, and mark up for editing an article on the web about tolerance (Mere Tolerance is Not Enough by Saul Alinsky).
Write additional comments as specified for the process of reviewing.
Answer some opinion questions about the subject and content of this paper.

Audience:

The audience for your review is mainly the author of the paper on tolerance and the editor who is in charge of the revision process. The audience for your written question answers also includes your instructor and the GTA.

Breaking it down into steps (How to do it):

Here are the details of how to do this assignment:

Locate the article on tolerance in the course website. Print off a copy and read it with a red pencil or pen in hand. Warning: This is a very old article and the language and vocabulary can seem quite dense. Also, remember as you read that the views and vocabulary reflect the period in which it was written and so might not seem "politically correct" in today's context. As you read it, mark it up (with a red marker or pen; please use red) for spelling, word use, and grammatical errors. Consult the editing guidelines from Prentice-Hall to learn about the markup symbols used by professionals. Simple insertions and deletions should suffice for most of it. You are not required to use these symbols, but your markings are expected to be clear and easy to understand so that the audience (the author, the instructor, and the GTA) can easily understand the point you are making or change you are suggesting and the text to which your comments refer. There are 35 "seeded" errors in this article, with no repetitions.
Look over the section of the web-pages on writing which refer to Doing a review for a colleague and follow the links there to Jolliffe's questions that should be asked (and answered) regarding reviews, plus another useful set of questions, originating from the Department of English, Virginia Tech.

Then write answers to these three items mentioned in the Joliffe's "process of reviewing" article:
- Has the writer met the expectations of his intended readers in terms of quality and salience of ideas, organization and support, and usage, mechanics, and punctuation?
- Are the central ideas clear, correct, appropriate, and adequately developed?
- Is the paper organized in some acceptable fashion so that the parts stick together and one part leads to the next?

Supplement your answers to the above questions by giving specific examples on how the paper can be improved.

3. Then answer these opinion questions about the topic and content:

Are there other aspects of the topic (Tolerance) that have been overlooked? Are there better examples that would bring out concerns more appropriately?
How are Tolerance and Diversity related? What do you think about that, and how might that action be incorporated into this paper?

Deliverables:

A cover sheet (grading form with criteria for evaluation ), with top portion (down to the horizontal line) filled out. Print the grading from specific to this assignment from the course web site, by following the link given in this item. Staple grading form {link} as cover sheet to the front of your paper. Papers without cover sheets will get a deduction of 5 points. Fill out the top two lines and get your proofreaders to sign at the bottom.
The marked-up paper copy of the article on tolerance from the WWW.
The detailed answers to the reviewing questions posed in item 2 above.
Written answers to the opinion questions posed in item 3 above.

Honor Code statement:

The Virginia Tech honor code is in effect for all work. This means that this writing assignment is to be done alone, without help from someone else. Exceptions: Getting help in your writing from the Writing center is an important exception, and is always encouraged. Further, this application of the honor code is not intended to interfere with the free exchange of ideas and peer assistance that support learning, including general discussions about the assignment and the type of writing involved with other students, the instructor, and/or the GTA.

Plagiarism Warning:

NOTE about plagiarism: We will be especially zealous in prosecuting Honor Court cases involving plagiarism, especially those where material is taken from other students or from the Web or Internet. Plagiarism of any work from a current or former student in this course is considered to be an honor code violation. Through the use of peer evaluations and collaborative development, and the use of the WWW, there is a strong possibility that you will be exposed to concepts and ideas that you can use in your own work. Getting permission to use those ideas and concepts from the originator (except when it is already in the public domain) and/or giving appropriate acknowledgment in your own work circumvents a charge of plagiarism.