Kyle D Stedman how slow driving is like sloppy writing I hate slow drivers when I'm driving in the fast lane maintaining the speed limit exactly and I find myself behind someone who thinks the fast lane is for people who drive 10 miles per hour below the speed limit I get an annoyed feeling in my chest like hot water filling a heavy bucket I wave my arms around and yell what what hey oh come on there are at least two explanations for why some slow drivers fail to move out of the way one they don't know that the generally accepted practice of highway driving in the US is to move to the right of an upcoming car wants to pass or two they know the guidelines but don't care but here's the thing writers can forget that their readers are sometimes just as anointed writing that fails to follow conventions as drivers are when stuck behind a car that fails to move over in other words there's something similar between these two people the knowledgeable driver who thinks I thought all drivers knew that the left lane is this work is licensed under the Creative Commons attribution non-commercial sharer like 3.0 United States license and is subject to the writing spaces terms of use for the fastest cars and the reader who thinks I thought all writers knew that outside sources should be introduced punctuated and cited according to a set of Standards one day you may discover that something you've written has just been read by a reader who unfortunately was annoyed at some of the ways you integrated sources she was reading along and then suddenly exclaimed what what hey oh come on if you're lucky this reader will try to imagine why you typed things the way you did giving you the benefit of the doubt but sometimes you'll be slotted into positions that might not really be accurate when this frustrated reader walks away from your work trying to figure out say why you used so many quotations or why you kept starting and ending paragraphs with them she may come to the same conclusions I do about slow drivers one you don't know the generally accepted practices of using sources especially in academic writing in the US or two you know the guidelines but don't care and it will be a lot harder for readers to take you seriously if they think you're ignorant or rude this judgment of course will often be unfair these readers might completely ignore the merits of your insightful stylistically beautiful or revolutionarily important language just as my anger at another driver makes me fail to admire his custom page job but readers and writers don't always see eye to eye on the same text in fact some things I write about in this essay will only bother your pickiest readers some teachers some editors some snobby friends while many other readers might Zoom past how you use sources without blinking but in my experience I find that teachers do disservice when we fail to alert students to the kind of things that some readers might be annoyed at however illogical these things sometimes seem people are often unreasonably picky and writers have to deal with that which they do by trying to anticipate and preemptively fix whatever might annoy a broad range of readers plus the more effectively you anticipate the pickiness the more likely it is that readers will interpret your quota tones and paraphrases in the way you want them to critically or AC settingly depending on your writing context it helps me to remember that the conventions of writing have a fundamentally rhetorical nature that is I follow different conventions depending on the purpose and audience of my writing because I know that I'll come across differently to different people depending on how well I follow the conventions expected in any particular writing space in a blog I cite a source by hyperlinking in an academic essay I use a parenthetical citation that refers to a list of references at the end of the essay one of the fundamental ideas of rhetoric is that speakers slash writers slash composers shape what they say slash right create based on what they wanted to do where they're publishing it and what they know about Their audience readers and those decisions include nitty-gritty things like introducing quotations and citing paraphrases clearly not everyone in the entire world approaches these things the same way but when I strategically learn the expectations of my us academic audience what I really want to say comes across smoothly without little Annoying grips in my reader's experience notice that I'm not saying that there's a particular right or wrong way to use conventions in my writing if the modern U.S academic system had evolved from a primarily African or Asian or Latin American cultural Consciousness instead of a European one conventions for writing would probably be very different that's why their conventions and not rules Tay annoyances because I'm not here to tell you rules decrees or laws it makes sense to call my classifications annoyances in the examples that follow I wrote all of the Annoying examples myself but all the examples I use of good writing come from actual student papers in first year composity on classes at my University I have their permission to quote them armadillo roadkill everyone in the car hears it the driver insists to the passengers but that armadillo I didn't see it it just came out of nowhere armadillo roadkill dropping in a quotation without introducing it first sadly apolly introduced quotation can lead readers to a similar exclamation it just came out of nowhere and though readers probably won't experience the same level of grief and regret when surprised by a quotation as opposed to an armadillo I submit that there's a kinship between experiences both involve a 245 annoying ways people use sources normal present activity driving reading stop suddenly short by an unexpected barrier a sudden armadillo a sudden quotation here's an example of what I'm talking about we should all be prepared with a backup plan if a zombie invasion occurs unlike its human counterparts an army of zombies is completely independent of support Brooks 155 preparations should be made in the following areas did you notice how the quotation is dropped in without any kind of warning the bump the fix the easiest way to effectively massage in quotations is by purposefully returning to each one in your draft to see if you set the stage for your readers Often by signaling that a quote is about to come stating who the quote came from and showing how your readers should interpret it in the above example that could be done by introducing the quotation with something like this new text bolded we should all be prepared with a backup plan if a zombie invasion occurs Mac Brook suggests a number of ways to prepare for zombies particular traits though he underestimates the ability of humans to survive in harsh environments for example he writes unlike its human counterparts an army of zombies is completely independent of support 155 his short-sightedness could have a number of consequences in this version I know a quotation is coming for example I know it's going to be written by Max Brooks and I know I'm being asked to read the quote rather skeptically he underestimates the sentence with the quotation itself also now begins with attack that eases us into it he writes here's an actual example from Alexandra notice the way she builds up to the quotation and then explains it in the first two paragraphs the author takes a defensive party on when explaining the perception that the public has about scientists by saying that there is anxiety that scientists lack both wisdom and social responsibility and are so motivated by ambition and scientists are repeatedly referred to as playing God vulpeper 345 with this last sentence SP celi his tone seems to demonstrate how he uses the ethos appeal to initially set a tone of someone that is tired of being misunderstood Alexandra prepares us for the quotation quotes and then analyzes it I love it this isn't a hard and fast rule I've seen it broken by the best of writers I I admit but it's a wise standard to hold yourself to unless you have a reason not to dating Spider-Man an annoyance that's closely connected to dating Spider-Man armadillo roadkill is the tendency with starting or ending a para Earth sometimes have a starting or ending graph with a quotation paragraphs with quotations this isn't technically wrong and there are situations when the effect of surprise is what you're going for but often beginning or paragraph closing quotation feels rushed unexplained disjointed it's like dating Spider-Man you're walking along with him and he says something remarkably interesting but then he tilts his head hearing something far away and suddenly shoots a web onto the nearest building and zooms away through the air as if you had just read an interesting quotation dangling at the end of the paragraph you wanted to hear more of his opinion but it's too late he's already moved on later he suddenly jumps off a balcony and is by your side again and he starts talking about something you don't understand you're confused because he just dropped in and expected you to understand the context of what was on his mind at that moment much like when readers step into a paragraph that begins with a quotation here's an example therefore the evidence clearly suggests that we should be exceptionally careful about deciding when and where to rest when taking a nap always rest your elbow or your desk and keep your arm perpendicular to your desktop Piven and borgnit 98 after all consider the following scenario there's a perfectly good reason why this feels odd which should feel familiar after reading about the armadillo roadkill annoyance above when you got to the quotation in the second paragraph you didn't 247 annoying ways people use sources know what you were supposed to think about it there was no GUI dance the fix is the same in the majority of situations readers appreciate being guided to and led away from a quotation by the writer doing the quoting readers get a sense of pleasure from the safe flow of hearing how to read an upcoming quotation reading it and then being told one way to interpret it prepare quote analyze I mentioned above that there can be situations where starting a paragraph with a quotation can have a strong effect personally I also all I enjoy this most at the beginning of essays or the beginning of second terms like in this example from the very beginning of Jennifer's essay nothing is ever simple racism and nobility can exist in the same thing instantly her quotation hooks me it doesn't feel thoughtless like it would feel if I continue to be whisked to quotations without Preparatory on throughout the essay but please don't overdo it any quotation that opens an essay or section ought to be integrally related to your topic as is Jennifer's not just a cheap gimmick Uncle Barry and his Uncle Barry and his Encyclopedia of use Encyclopedia of useless less information information using two you probably know someone like this a many quotations in a row person for me my Uncle Barry who constantly tries to impress me with how much he knows about just about everything I might casually bring up something in the news wow these Healthcare debates are getting really heated aren't they and then find myself barrage by all of Uncle Barry's ideas on government sponsored Healthcare which then drifts into a story about how his cousin Maxine died in an underfunded hospice center which had a parking lot that he could have designed better which reminds him of how good he is of fixing things just like the garage door at my parents house which probably only needs a little you get the idea I might W even think to myself wait I want to know more about that topic but you're zooming on before you can textualize your information at all this is something like reading an essay that relies too much on quotations readers get the feeling that they're moving from one quotation to the next without ever quite getting to hear the real point of what the author wants to say Never Getting Any time to form an opinion about the claims in fact this often makes it sound as if the author has almost no Authority at all you may have been annoyed by paragraphs like this before addressing this issue David M Potter comments whether Sue had meant this literally or not it was in fact a singularly accurate forecast for territorial Kansas 199. of course Potter's view is contested even though he claims soon the missourians began to perceive the advantages of operating without publicity 200. interestingly the election was bound to be irregular in any case 201 wait ah this author feels like Uncle Barry to me grabbing right and left for topics or quotes in an effort to sound authoritative the fix is to return to each quotation and decide why it's there and then massage it in accordingly if you just want to use a quote to cite a fact then consider paraphrasing or summarizing the source material which I find is usually harder than it sounds but is usually worth it for the smoothness of my paragraph gains but if you quote it because you want to draw attention to the source's particular phrasing or if you want to respond to something you agree with or disagree within the source then consider taking the time to surround each quotation with guidance to your readers about what you want them to think about that quote in the following passage I think Jessica demonstrates a balance between source and Analysis well notice that she only uses a single quotation even though she surely could have chosen more but instead Jessica relies on her instincts and Remains the primary voice of authority in the passage Robin toner's article feminist pitched by a Democrat named Obama was written a week after the video became public and is partially a response to it she writes the Obama campaign is in some ways subtly marketing its candidate as a post-feminist man a generation beyond the gender conflicts 249 annoying ways people use sources of the Boomers subtly is the key word Obama is a passive character throughout the video Never directly addressing the camera rather he is shown indirectly through speeches intimatic conversations with supporters and candid interaction with family this creates a sense of intimacy which in turn creates a feeling of trust Turner's response to the Obama video is like a diving board that Jessica bounces offer before she gets to the really interesting stuff the pool her own observations a bunch of diving boards lined up without a pool tons of quotes with no analysis wouldn't please anyone except maybe Uncle Barry am I in the right movie am I in the right movie failing to integrate a quota when reading drafts of my writing tea on into the grammar of this is a common experience I start to proceed sentence read a sentence that seems interesting and normal with everything going just the way I expect it to but then the unexpected happens a quotation blurts itself into the sentence in a way that doesn't fit with the grammar that built up to quotation it feels like sitting in a movie theater everything going as expected when suddenly the opening credits start for a movie I didn't plan to see here are two examples of what I'm talking about read them out loud and you'll see how suddenly wrong they feel one therefore the author warns that A Zombie's Vision are no different than those of a normal human Brooks six two Sheila and Barry advises that have you ever wondered what it's like to walk on a tightrope many feet up in the air 50. in the first example the quota's build up to the quotation uses a singular subject A Zombie's Vision which when paired with the quotation is annoyingly matched with the plural verb R it would be much less jolting to write a zombie's vision is which makes the subject and verb agree in the second example the quota builds up to the quotation with the third person declarative independent clause Sheila and Barry advises but then the quotation switches into second person you and unexpectedly asks a question completely different from the expectation that was built up by the first part of the sentence the fix is usually easy you read your essay out loud to someone else and if you stumble as you enter a quotation there's probably something you can adjust in your leading sentence to make the two fit together well maybe you'll need to choose a different subject to make it fit with the quotes verb reader instead of readers each instead of all or maybe you'll have to scrap what you first wrote and start over on occasion you'll even feel the need to transparently modify the quotation by adding into one of its verbs always being certain to use square brackets to show that you adjusted something in the quotation maybe you'll even find a way to cut a shorter part of the quotation and squeeze it into the context of a sentence that is mostly your own a trick that can have a positive effect on readers who like Smooth water slides more than they like bumpy slip and slides Jennifer does this well in the following sentence for example in Crash no character was allowed to escape his own hypocrisy Muller and the film itself emphasized that the reason there is so much racial tension among strangers is because of the personal issues one cannot deal with alone she saw a phrase that she liked in Muller's article so she found a way to work it in smoothly without the need for a major break in her thought let's put ourselves in Jennifer's shoes for a moment it's possible that she started drafting this sentence using the plural subject characters writing in Crash no characters were allowed but then imagine she looked back at the quote from Muller and saw that it said Escape his own hypocrisy which was a clue that she had to change the first part of her sentence to match the singular construction of the quote I can't find the stupid link I can't find the stupid link no connection between the you've been in this situation you're on first letter of a parenthetical a website that seems like it might be citation and the first letter of interesting and you want to learn more works I did entry about it but the home page doesn't tell you much so you look for about us or more information or FAQ link but no matter where you search top of page bottom left menu you can't find the stupid link this is usually the fault of web designers who don't always take the time to test their sites as much as they should with actual users 251 annoying ways people use sources the communication failure here is simple you are used to finding curtain kinds of basic information in the places people usually put it if it's not there you're annoyed similarly a reader might see a citation and have a quick internal question about it what Journal was this published in when was it published is this an article I could find online to skim myself this author has a sexy last name I wonder what his first name is just like when you look for a link to more information this reader has a simple quick question that he or she expects to answer easily and the most basic way for readers to answer those questions when they're reading a work written in apa or MLA style is one to look at the information in the citation and two skim the references or works cited section alphabetically looking for the first letter in the citation there's an assumption that the first letter of a citation will be the letter to look for in the list of works cited in short the following May annoy readers who want to quickly learn more about the citation a respected guide on the subject suggests if possible always take the high ground and hold it the Zombie Survival Guide 135 Brooks Max the Zombie Survival Guide complete protection from the living dead New York Three Rivers 2003 print the reader May wonder when the zombie survival guide was published and flipped back to the works cited page but the parent City on sensor straight to the Zeds in the works cited list because initial A's and these are ignored when alphabetizing however the complete the complete works cited entry is actually with the bees where it belongs the fix is to make sure that the first word of the works cited entry is the word you use in your in-text citation every time if the works cited entry starts with Brooks use Rooks in the essay text citations not including last names may seem to complicate this advice but they all follow the same basic concept for instance you might have a citation that only lists a typo for instance your citation might read gray wolf general information in this case the assumption is that the citation can be found under the G section of the works cited page Lee sites are paraphrase of a source with no author in the following way indicating that I should head to the cheese if I want to learn more about her Source Alaska is the only refuse that has left for the wolves in the United States and once that is gone they will more than likely become extinct in this country gray wolf general information a citation that only lists a page number maybe the city on simply says 25 that implies that somewhere in the surrounding text the essay writer must have made its stupendously clear what name or title to look up in the works cited list this happens a lot since it's common to introduce a quotation by naming the person it came from in which case it would be repetitive to name that author again in the citation a quick without a citation at all this happens when you cite a work that is both a from a web page that doesn't number the pages or paragraphs and B is named in the text surrounding the quotation readers will assume that the author is named nearby Stephanie Wisely leaves off any citation in the example below where it's already clear that I should head to the O's on the works cited page to find information about this Source a web page written by a portal to further this point Upon Our notes don't imagine you'll be unscathed by the methods you use the end May justify the means but there's a price to pay and the price does tend to be oneself I swear I did some research I swear I did some let's look in depth at this potentially in research dropping an annoying passage from a hypothetical student citation without Mac paper any clear what info it's possible that a multi-disciplinary mission came from that approach to understanding the uni Source verse will open new doors of understanding if theories from sociology communication and philosophy joined with physics the possibilities would be boundless this would Inspire new research much like in the 253 annoying ways people use sources 1970s when scientists changed their focus from Grand scale theories of the universe to the small concerns of quantum physics talking 51 in at least two ways this Stellar material first the author is actually voicing a point of view she sounds knowledgeable strong second and more to the point of this chapter the author includes a citation showing that she knows that ethical citation standards ask authors to cite paraphrases and summaries not just quotations but on the other hand which of these three sentences exactly came from Hawking's book did Hawking claim that physics experts should join up with folks in other academic disciplines or is that the student writer in other words at which point does the author's point of view meld into material taken specifically from Hawking I recognize that they're often unclean answers to a question like that what we read and what we know sometimes meld together so unnoticeably that we don't know which ideas and pieces of informative on are ours and which aren't discussing patchwriting a term used to describe writing that blends words and phrases from sources with words and phrases we came up with ourselves scholar Rebecca Moore Howard writes when I believe I am not Pat writing I'm simply doing it so expertly that the scenes are no longer visible or I am doing it so unwittingly that I cannot cite my sources 91. in other words all the moves we make when writing came from somewhere else at some point whether we realize it or not yikes but remember our main purpose here to not look annoying when using sources and most of your instructor aren't going to say I understand that I couldn't tell the difference between your ideas and your sources because we quite naturally patch right all the time that's fine with me party on they're much more likely to imagine that you plopped in a few extra citations as a way of defensively saying I swear I did some research see here's a citation right here doesn't that prove I worked really hard the fix write the sentences preceding the citation with specific words and phrases that will tell readers what information came from where like this bolded words are new it's possible that a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding the universe will open new doors of understanding I believe that if theories from sociology communication and philosophy joined with physics the possibilities would be boundless this would Inspire new research much like the changes Stephen Hawking describes happening in the 1970s when scientists changed their focus from Grand scale theories of the universe to the small concerns of quantum physics 51. perhaps these editions could still use some stylistic editing for wordiness and flow but the source related job is done readers know exactly which claims the essay writer is making and which ones Hawking made in his book The Last Sentence and only the last sentence summarizes the ideas Hawking describes on page 51 of his book one warning you'll find that scholars in some disciplines sbcl in the sciences and social sciences use citations in the way I just warned you to avoid you might see sentences like this one from page 64 of Glenn Gordon Smith and a Taurus and Alan J heindel's article in the Journal of distance education some researchers have suggested curriculum as a key element in the design of web-based courses Verge 1998 Driscoll 1998 Mayan tangan and Leanne 1999 Deans and Gunter 1998. whoa that's a lot of citations remember how the writer of my earlier example cited Stephen Hawking because she summarized his ideas well a number of essays describing the results of experiments like this one use citations with a different purpose citing previous studies whose General conclusions support the study described in this new paper like building blocks it's like saying to your potentially skeptical readers look you might be wondering if I'm a quack but I can prove I'm not see all these other people published in similar areas are you going to pick fights with all of them too you might have noticed as well that these citations are in API format reflecting the standards of the social sciences journalist passage was published in well in this kind of context apa's requirement to cite the year of a study makes a lot of sense too after all the older study the less likely it is to still be relevant conclusion use your turn signals you may have guessed the biggest weakness in an essay like this what's annoying varies from person to person with some readers happily skin 255 annoying ways people use sources Ming passed awkward introductions to quotations without a blink While others see a paragraph opening quotation as something to complain about on Facebook all I've given you here all I can give you unless I actually get to know you and your various writing contexts are the basics that will apply in a number of academic writing contexts think of these as signals to your readers about your intentions much as wise drivers rely on their turn signals to communicate their intentions to other drivers in some cases when driving signaling is an almost artistic decision relying on the gut reaction of the driver to interpret what is best in times when the law doesn't mandate you one way or the other I hope your writing is full of similar signals now if I could only convince the guy driving in front of me to use his blinker discussion one because so many of these guidelines depend on the writer's purpose publication space and audience it can be difficult to know when to follow them strictly and when to bend them what are some specific writing situations where a writer is Unified to bend the standards of how to incorporate sources two choose one of the annoyances then look through a number of different pieces of writing from different genres and collect two examples of writers who followed your chosen guideline perfectly and two who didn't for each Source you found just a sentence or two describing the context of that source and why you think it's right it did or did not follow the guideline three rank the alliances in order of most annoying to least annoying pretending that you are a college professor now rank them from the point of view of a newspaper editor a popular blogger and another college student what changes did you make in your rankings works I did