Sunday, September 18, 2011

Your new best friend: the TEP paragraph



Technique – Effect – Purpose Paragraph

1. In “Title of Essay,” [author] uses [rhetorical strategy] to [achieve his purpose – do not use the word purpose in your paragraph; in your topic sentence, you should directly state what the author hopes to achieve.]

2. Establish the context of the first quotation.

3. Quote the text. Never use a quotation as its own sentence. When writing about diction, you might want to quote a “series” of “Words” or “phrases” instead of a complete sentence. Follow the quotation with the author’s name and the page number in parentheses (Kline 22). Artful writers might combine steps two and three in a single sentence. If you are not confident in your ability to properly format a quotation, visit this link for some excellent advice: http://www.virtualsalt.com/quotehlp.htm

4. Analyze the quotation. How does this help you prove the author’s technique achieves her purpose? Focus on the effect on the reader. No MORE than two sentences of analysis.

5. Repeat steps two through four with a second example.

6. Close your paragraph.


3 comments:

  1. can we quote a passage(a combination of sentences as they are written)? If so, how do we follow it with the author's name and page number? (Where does the period go if the passage ended with one?)

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  2. For the intro, quote 1, quote 2 and conclusion, do we indent each paragraph? This says its all one paragraph so I'm not sure weather we combine it all or have mini paragraphs?

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  3. @Brady: You don't want to quote more than a full sentence (perhaps two at the utmost). The length of the quotation - unless it's more than five lines of typed text (and, for this assignment, that's too long) doesn't change where the punctuation goes. The end of your sentence should look "like this" (Kline 17).

    @Katie: This is all one paragraph. Be careful not to introduce a new topic sentence as you transition from quote one to quote two.

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