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1. http://argumentandstyle.wordpress.com Lectures 1-9 slides in Power Point

2. Workshop in tutorials Feb 13. Bring two copies of your draft of the evaluation essay. • Evaluation Essay due February 20th • Put your essay in the drop box for EN 2910 located at 347 Stong.

3. Grades • Paraphrase 5% • Ad Analysis 5% • Proposal 10% • Evaluation 20% • 3 Essays 30% • Final Exam 20% • Tutorial Participation 10% • Paraphrase 5% • Ad Analysis 5% • Proposal 5% • Evaluation 10% • Essay 10% • Three assignments 15% • Fall & Spring tests 20% • Final Exam 20% • Tutorial participation 10%

4. Park 1 Kim Park Dr. McGurk EN 2910 sec. 1 21 Nov 2008 Marital Evaluations in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

5. Works Cited Johnson, Bill. “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? The Power of Ambiguity.” A Story is a Promise: Deep Characterization. 2007-8. http://www.storyispromise.com/woolf.htm Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Dir. Mike Nichols. Perf. Elizabeth Taylor, Richard Burton, George Segal, Sandy Dennis. Warner Bros., 1966.

6. Works Cited Gallagher, Carl. “Tennessee Williams’ Influence on Edward Albee.” Cineaste 20.4 (1999): 34-49. ---. “Taylor and Burton Onscreen and Off.” New Yorker. 5 Sept. 2005: 91+.

7. Works Cited • Begin your Works Cited page on a separate page at the end of your research paper. It should have the same one-inch margins and last name, page number header as the rest of your paper. • Label the page Works Cited (do not underline the words Works Cited or put them in quotation marks) and center the words Works Cited at the top of the page. • Double space all citations, but do not skip spaces between entries. • List page numbers of sources efficiently, when needed. If you refer to a journal article that appeared on pages 225 through 250, list the page numbers on your Works Cited page as 225-50. • If you're citing an article or a publication that was originally issued in print form but that you retrieved from an online database, you should provide the URL address.

8. Citation • the act of citing or quoting a reference to an authority or a precedent. A means to differentiate your original work from borrowed words and ideas. • If you cite facts/figures you must list the source. • If you have a works cited page you must actually attribute the material in the body of your essay.

9. Last year 7,000 Ontarians were diagnosed with lung cancer, almost all of the patients had been smokers for at least twenty years. VS. In an interview for the Toronto Star, Margarett Best, the Ontario Minister of Health Promotion emphasized the Province’s commitment to smoking cessation after 7,000 patients were diagnosed with lung cancer last year.

10. You must attribute all borrowed material in order to avoid plagiarism and maintain academic integrity. • When I read your essays I assume that every word and idea is yours unless you tell me otherwise by including a paraphrase, quotation or summary which cites another author.

11. When you do research, what you learn does not simply become yours just because you found it. Always cite your sources. • Strive to introduce borrowed material with the source rather than burying the author at the end of the sentence in parentheses. The opening scene of Touch of Evil continues uncut for more than three minutes (Smith). Douglas Smith’s essay explains Welles’ technical breakthrough in the opening scene of Touch of Evil, which continues uncut for more than three minutes.

12. The first time that you use a source, try to identify the author and title, from then on, you can refer to the author by last name. Pauline Kael’s 5001 Nights at the Movies dismisses the Dirty Harry franchise as reactionary conservative male fantasy. Kael regards the first production of the rogue cop series as a “kind of hardhat The Fountainhead” offering a blunt attack on liberal values (191).

13. Interpretive vs. Evaluative Claims.

14. In Outlaw Culture bell hooks correctly identifies the contradiction implicit in the American media’s hand-wringing over sexism in hip-hop music during the same year that The Piano was the most critically acclaimed film. hooks observes that in Campion’s film, “violence against land, natives, and women, unlike that of gangsta rap, is portrayed uncritically” and appears natural and above reproach (120).

15. Your works cited page contains the full publication information for your reader, so in the body of the text you can keep references brief. Page numbers are required for quotes, but are otherwise not always necessary unless you are citing a large work or more than one work from an author.

16. Evaluation arguments defend our judgments • Tone is an essential component to an evaluation. Avoid all diction that creates an arrogant or offensive tone. Respect your audience and the opposing view. • For example, while I may consider The Passion of the Christ deviant torture porn on par with the Saw franchise, I am mindful that many folks viewed it as a emotive justification for their faith.

17. Avoid language that trades in absolutes: Always, never, best, worst, worthless, or any diction that states your case too strongly. Avoid empty, vague or meaningless vocabulary such as good, bad, fine. X is a superior Y because of criteria A,B,C. A Touch of Evil ranks as one of the most influential films from the original noir cycle because of the director’s techniques, the theme, and cast performances.

18. Select and Rank Criteria • Choose a single object (film, book, band, video game, work of art) to evaluate. • In this short writing assignment 4-5 pages, you will develop an argument more convincingly on a single topic rather than dividing your time or the scope of the assignment to an additional object. • Focus on one object/situation only to evaluate. This is not a comparison/contrast.

19. You are not asked to compare and contrast. The Piano is superior to Life is Beautiful because it conveys verisimilitude, features a more empathic protagonist, and benefits from the director’s techniques. You can certainly use another example as a hook or introduction to your essay as long as the body of your assignment develops one evaluation.

20. Again, I can’t stress tone enough • Avoid any evaluations of individuals unless you confine it to their body of work as actor, director, author, etc. Anthony Lane considered Tom Hanks’ performance in Forrest Gump as an effort to convince the audience that his character was more than a bulging sack of virtues. Lane did not consider him successful.

21. Avoid gratuitous profanity and offensive slang. • If you do decide to go snarky, make sure it’s funny. • Avoid the first person. • I think Sarah Haskins’ “Target Women” is one of the most humourous web series because she exposes how little advertisers think of women, she parodies gender stereotypes and pokes fun at the beauty myth.

22. Feminism and Popular Culture by AndiZeisler “many feminists have seen in Bewitched a parable of early second wave feminism, and in Samantha an embodiment of the way women might enact everyday rebellion from behind the facade of the perfect housewife.”

23. Student example • Judy Chicago’s The Dinner Party serves as a milestone in modern art because it illustrates women’s absence from art and history, and the installation offers a feminist aesthetic by combining the female form into the classic banquet setting. Chicago created a stylistic medium for women’s struggle to get a metaphoric seat at the table.

24. Student Sample • Public Enemy’s It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold us Back influenced a generation of hip-hop artists because the album contained a relevant critique of racial politics, it rejected the popular norms of best-selling artists of the genre, and it incorporated a variety of music samples in order to create a unique sound.

25. So What? • Remember that there has to be some level of controversy or reasonable objection to your position. • You want to demonstrate a creative selection and not simply offer a no-brainer by arguing that Paris Hilton is the worst actor. • Pick a topic you can be enthusiastic about.

26. Don’t try to cover too much. You can’t evaluate why the reality tv genre is a cultural plague in 4-5 pages. You could also not adequately evaluate how Judd Apatow became rich by celebrating male privilege and bathroom humour. Or why so many films featuring demonic possession were produced during Nixon’s administration.

27. Some Criteria for Film/TV • Character Development • Dialogue • Theme • Pacing • Plot • Point of View • Verisimilitude/Realism • Cast Performance • Cinematography • Use of Motif (repeated imagery or symbolism) • Director’s Techniques (include: editing, scene splicing, camera angle, cross-cutting, flashbacks)

28. Critiquing an Evaluation Argument • Will a sceptic accept my criteria? • Am I offending readers? • Have I crafted an introduction that grabs the reader’s attention and interest? • Will a sceptic accept my general weighting of the criteria? • Will a sceptic question my standard of reference?

29. Judith Halberstam’s “Dumb and Getting Dumber” • The men of Sideways are really just older, more critically lauded versions of the hapless losers who have always populated teen comedies—the geeky strivers of Sixteen Candles, the libido-crazed pals of the American Pie franchise, or the blindly hedonistic Jesse and Chester of Dude, Where’s My Car? (Perhaps the film should have been called Dude, Where’s My Pinot Noir?) And like the dudes, the bros, the Jim Carreys and Adam Sandlers and George W. Bushes, the stupider and more pathetic the male heroes become, the more they are loved by exceptional women.

30. Anthony Lane “Mondo Bond” • All right, pay attention, 007. Here are some things that are great about James Bond movies: the suits, the drinks, the stunts, the cars, the hubcaps of the cars, the men, the women, the posters, the weather, the music, the sex, the life. Here are some things that are not so great about James Bond movies: James Bond movies. Have you ever tried to watch "A View to a Kill," a work so bereft of ideas that it chooses to employ Grace Jones as a special effect? Now is the moment to reflect on this curious discrepancy—between the completed films and the stuff they contain, between the millions of brain cells that will die as you sit in front of "Moonraker" for two hours and the pleasure of hearing Q say to M, "I think he's attempting reëntry, sir," while Roger Moore makes interlunar love to Lois Chiles, adrift in what he, of all people, must recognize as zero gravity.