MLA formatting Exercises
Paper instructions:
there is 5 questions have to be answered and responded about MLA format. see attachment and follow instructions
Respond to prompts 1-5 below after reading the following excerpt from “The Tyranny of the College Major” by J.W. Powell, published in The Atlantic on January 24, 2014, page 34. Note: use a different signal verb in each answer requiring a signal phrase and also use appropriate MLA in-text citation formatting:
The American bachelor’s degree has over the last 150 years become centered on specializations, majors, each student’s home department. General Education, the classes each student must take outside of the major, is still part of every degree—but it has become weaker and unfocused, disrespected and eroded. The degree has not gotten tougher as the world has gotten tougher. …
It is past time we re-examine, strengthen, and add to the bachelor’s degree. General Education could and should do so much more than it does. The California State University is fairly typical in its General Education program in requiring that students take the equivalent of about a year and a half of work in various categories at basic and advanced levels. Students choose among the offerings from various departments at the university. At the level of basic skills in written and oral communication and critical thinking, the choices are few. …
Several functions of General Education are missing from this approach. General Education could serve an anti-provincialism function. It could and should provide a basic two-year sequence in intellectual history including many of the best ideas human beings have had and the attacks against those ideas. It could get students to step outside their major disciplines to do a minor (the equivalent of a half a year work) in a social science, a minor in a science, a minor in one of the humanities. It should equip a graduate to deal with complex and urgent issues, which are not all addressed by their majors. …
Question 1:
Quote part of paragraph 1 and paraphrase the rest. Mention the author’s name and title of the article in the introductory part of the sentence (or the lead-in).
Question 2:
Summarize paragraph 2. Mention the author’s name in the introductory part of the sentence.
Question 3:
Paraphrase Powell’s suggestions about what a G.E. major “should” do. Mention the author’s name in the introductory part of the sentence.
Question 4:
Summarize the main idea of the excerpt, mentioning the author’s name in the introductory part of the sentence.
Question 5:
Respond to the main idea of the excerpt in 1 – 2 sentences by discussing the idea’s significance.