Writing Workshop, Day 6: Peer Review & Wrap Up

1. Addressing the elephant:

We hear the response that a few of you are having that the material we are sharing with you to explore the current state of civil rights in our country may represent a particular "side." It is wise of you to recognize that news outlets represent the different political stances  - this is because they all need to capture a particular market for the advertisers whose ad buys are a large part of their financial viability. So the way events are described and the types of events that are covered can be skewed by the editors to attract the customers they are targeting (Democrat, Republican, Liberal, Conservative, East Coast West Coast -- you get the idea). 

However, this does not change the facts. It is wise to be wary of who is telling the story but in the case of our class and this assignment what we would like you to focus on are the events themselves. You may need to look at multiple sources to clarify what happened but we are not asking you to discuss the biases of different media outlets (although that could be a great class!).  

Your job is to focus on what happened and what you believe these events say about the state of civil rights in our country.

2. How to footnote:

• Footnoting overview 
• Find footnoting and bibliography guidelines here: Purdue OWL

2. Peer review:

• Step 1: Thesis check
• Use our Thesis Guide HERE and UNC's Writing Center Guide HERE.
• Step 2: Paragraph check
• Does every paragraph (and topic sentence) in the paper support the thesis or central idea?
• Does every paragraph have a clear topic sentence (use this topic sentence guide from Duke)
• Are the paragraphs structured using the "inverse pyramid" model:
• Step 3: Editing & Proofreading
• Use our Revising, Editing, and Proofreading Guide
• Use our list of Editing and Proofreading Abbreviations

3. Write!  

• If you need to access your sources, go HERE. 

Extension:

Article on racist incident in Old Port and on racism in Maine