FIRST DRAFT in-class peer-review

1- BEGGING THE QUESTION ISSUES (THESIS AND COUNTER DECLARATIONS)

Take a look at each explanatory sentence in the THESIS and COUNTER declarations. Make sure that these sentences are not begging the question on the points presented!  Your explanatory sentence should give reasons for the declarative sentence. Be careful NOT TO BEG THE QUESTION!

what's in RED, below, is redundant:

In this paper, I will argue against the excessive use of social media. Firstly, social media excessive use has reduced face-to-face interaction. Individuals are more comfortable engaging with each other online rather than talking face to face. Additionally, social media have also led to a lack of privacy in our society. Any personal information that is shared on social media is no longer considered to be personal because any other users can capture that information without your approval.

The explanations in red are repeating the declarations, SAYING THE SAME THING with different words. THIS IS A GRAVE SIN IN LOGIC!

2- INJECTING THE THESIS INTO THE COUNTER'S PARAGRAPH

This student writes a paper on the side of fast food critics. Below is the paragraph for his counter, a fast-food advocate. See how he purposefully misrepresents the position of the advocate INSIDE the fast-food advocate:

Fast food advocates disagree, simply by stating that trans fats in the food are non-consequential, so it wouldn’t matter to them. The advocate will also bluntly disagree on the ingredients, stating that non-nutritious food is not necessarily harmful, which of course it is. 

3- TAKE A LOOK AT PARAGRAPH 7. PLAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO SEE IF THE THESIS MAKES A CONVINCING CASE AGAINST THE COUNTER'S LAST POINT. THIS PARAGRAPH WINS THE PAPER. 

4- Make sure that every factoid in your paper is properly sourced! Any number, whether average or percentage or total, must be properly sourced. You have to provide source where yu get it from.  Example: 

Accordingly we see an increase of 5% in the number of deaths due to suicide amongst drug users (McCulloch, 23). The realization prompted the DSCT of New York to raise the alarm that its facilities should ID such cases (Yorvis, 4). Even then, skeptics like Dr. Mathew Jordan, from Baptist Hospital in New York, declares that there is no correlation between drug usage and depression (New York Times, 1996).  

See above that the student has mentioned three different factoids and they're ALL properly sourced.

5- LOOK HERE FOR MLA IN-TEXT CITATIONS PROTOCOL. FOLLOW IT!

If you know your author, there should have a parenthetical citation (  ,  ) like this:

Human beings have been described as "symbol-using animals" (Burke, 3). 

The entry "Burke" will appear in the bibliography as such:

Burke, Kenneth. Language as Symbolic Action: Essays on Life, Literature, and Method. Berkeley: U of California P, 1966. 

If you don't know your author, do it this way:

We see so many global warming hot spots in North America likely because this region has "more readily accessible climatic data and more comprehensive programs to monitor and study environmental change . . ." ("Impact of Global Warming"). 

And this is how to cite it in the bibliography:

"The Impact of Global Warming in North America." Global Warming: Early Signs. 1999. www.climatehotmap.org. Accessed 23 Mar. 2009.
 
6- IS YOUR DRAFT COHERENT? FOR INTERNAL COHERENCE TAKE A LOOK AT THIS EXAMPLE: 

see the thesis paragraph above, each point preceded by "First," "Second," declarative sentence, explanatory sentence. Now let's look at the thesis first point above properly fleshed out in thesis paragraph 3 of the draft:

recall that the thesis' second point was that "social media increases happiness of its users." see below how the point is taken and flesed out in paragraph 5 of the draft.