Online English 101 - Lectures

1- Writing to Communicate!	2- Reading for a Richness	3- Supporting your Claims
4- Making a Point	5- So Many Choices	6- How Credible is your Evidence?
7- no lecture at this time	8- Handmaid's Tale	9- Handmaid's Tale Essay
10- Beginning your Research	11- Planning your Research Paper	12- Finishing Up your Research Paper

A Note on the Lecture Material

The lecture material is meant to help clarify some of the readings and the writing topics. At the end of most of the lectures there is a reference to a section of The Scott, Foresman Handbook for Writers. This is NOT a required text for this course; it is one of many standard college handbooks you can use to get additional reference information about writing skills, research techniques, and critical thinking. It just happens to be the one I often use. I hope nearly all of the material you need is included in these lectures, but you may need to look at some handbook for information on format, editing, etc.

Glossary

• abstract - the opposite of concrete, abstractions are words or phrases that have vague and shifting meanings; the words often do not mean the same thing to different people using them. For example, the word beautiful could suggest very different qualities to different observers (one person may see a Van Gogh painting as beautiful; another might look at the same painting and say, "That's a mess! My cat could paint better than that." Other common abstractions are ugly, pretty, good, bad, awful, right, wrong; certain terms referring to concepts which are open to interpretation, such as freedom, justice, love are also abstractions.

• concrete - this term, the opposite of abstract, refers to writing that is developed with solid (like concrete) evidence. It is characterized by a heavy use of imagery (actual sights, sounds, etc.).

• general - a relative term which is more-or-less opposite to specific. General words refer to broad categories of "things," and therefore, create very sketchy pictures in the minds of readers. The word dog, for example, might suggest Snoopy to one reader and one of the 101 Dalmations to another reader--both are dogs, but the kinds of dogs are very different. Still, the word dog is more specific than the word animal (since a dog is only one of many kinds of animals), but it is more general than the word terrier (sincer a terrier is only one of many classes of dogs).

• objective - This is the opposite of subjective. For the most part, objective writing is distinguished by its distance from the subject, its lack of bias or personal slanting. We often think of reporting as objective, but more and more this is not the case. It may be impossible to be totally unbiased when writing about a subject, especially a controversial one; still, a reasonable presentation of a subject will try to avoid personal moral stances, personal beliefs not based on observed fact. The objective writer or speaker generally does not stand to benefit personally ($, power) from the material.

• protagonist - This sometimes refers to the hero of a work of fiction, but generally, especially in modern fiction, no single character is entirely heroic or entirely villainous. So a more accurate way of determining the protagonist of work is to ask, "Who is the main character? Which character faces a crisis and undergoes (or fails to ungergo) a character change?" Often, the change that the protagonist experiences (and the reason for that change) signals the theme of the work.

• specific - a relative term which is more-or-less opposite to general. Specific words and phrases use exact names and detailed description to try and create a very precise picture in the reader's mind. The word car could bring thousands of images of different cars to mind. Chevrolet Corvette is much more specific; it eliminates all mental pictures of Mustangs and Celicas, etc. Adding details can create an even more exact picture: a flame-red Chevrolet Corvette with chrome wire wheels, black leather interior, a twelve-speaker Bose sound system, and a Bart Simpson "eat my shorts" decal in the rear window.

• subjective - This is the opposite of objective. Subjective writing is colored by the writer's opinions, beliefs, and feelings. The conclusions are often personal rather than based on actual concrete evidence.

• thesis - This is a single statement (not a question) which contains both the topic of an essay and the point the author will prove about that topic. This statement is the core of an essay; without it, a paper lacks purpose.

  NOTE: this is an important topic; for further information you will want to refer to the lecture on developing an effective thesis.

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  John Corbally
  Los Angeles Harbor College
  (310) 522-8333
  jcorbally@earthlink.net
  Copyright ©: John Corbally,