Last week, you had the opportunity to visit the City Tech Library where Ms. Cranshaw showed us how to do research in the library using the computer resources available through the City Tech Library website. Before class on Wednesday, I would like you to add a comment to this post with  your typed works cited list of sources that you found through the library’s website and databases. Order your comment in this way:

Book

Scholarly Periodical (journal article)

Popular Periodical (magazine or newspaper article)

Refer to the notes that you made in class on Monday and section MLA-4b in A Writer’s Reference.

Before class on Wednesday, add a comment to this post with your typed and edited beginning of class writing from our meeting on Monday. When you type up your handwritten beginning of class writing assignment, think about how you can improve the way you express yourself in writing. How can you make your writing better now that you have the opportunity to edit it before you post your comment?

Before class on Monday, add a comment to this post with your day of thoughts.

First, you should type up your day of thoughts in Microsoft Word or another word processor program. You might choose to include the time that you recorded your thoughts or you might not–I will leave this up to you. Save your typed thoughts on your computer/flash drive/cloud storage.

Then, copy-and-paste your list of thoughts into a comment on this post.

On Monday, September 22, we will meet outside the entrance to the library on the 4th floor of the Atrium. Library Instructor Betsy Crenshaw will introduce you to the library and how you can use the library’s resources for research.

For our class, you will rely on the library’s research resources for the second major project, which gives you an opportunity to learn more about your major and plan what contributions that you would like to make in that field.

It’s never too soon to begin thinking about the second major project even though we have just begun working on project one, because if you prime your brain to think about something that you will be engaged in at a later date, you give your brain a “heads-up” that enables it to work on the problem in ways you might not be consciously aware. Priming your brain for a task or a problem has been shown to improve performance.

It is with that in mind that you will do some research during our library visit to help familiarize yourself with the library’s resources and to prime yourself to think about project two. During our visit to the library, I would like you to find three sources–a book, a journal article, and a magazine/newspaper article–related to your major. Using your copy of A Writer’s Reference, write into your notebook the information that you need for an MLA works cited list from each of these sources. Before Monday, look over section 4b beginning on page 398 of A Writer’s Reference to see what general kinds of information that you should record. After writing down this information in your notebooks, bring that to class on next Monday, September 29, when we will spend some time formatting it for a basic MLA Works Cited list. Remember to bring your notes and A Writer’s Reference to class on that day, too.

For today’s class, you began reading John Medina’s Brain Rules. To help you dive into the material that we will discuss in Medina’s nonfiction book, I asked you to read the “Introduction” and chapter one, “Exercise.” During the first ten minutes of class, write a summary of your reading from these two chapters in your notebook. Before our next class, type up your handwritten summaries and post them here as a comment on this blog entry.

After writing your summary of today’s reading in class, type up your summary and copy-and-paste it as a comment to this post. Also, which reading–O’Shea’s or Marcus’–did you find the most persuasive/interesting/engaging, and why?