Answers, explanations, and other resources
Final Exam Review
Quiz 1
1) A thesis can do which of the following:
a.
All of the above
See page 11 of WR. A thesis statement can answer a question you have posed, identify the solution
for a problem you have identified, stated your position on a debatable topic, and/or contain the
controlling idea of an essay. At the very least, all thesis statements should contain some form of
any essay’s controlling idea.
2) Which of the following questions would not be useful to you as a way to evaluate your thesis statement?
d. Does your thesis provide an itemized list of all the evidence you are about to present?
Your thesis need not contain an itemized list (1…, 2…, 3…) of your evidence. That’s for your body
paragraphs to explain. You can hint at your evidence, but it’s best to save that kind of elaboration for
the body of your essay.
All of the following are questions that are helpful when you evaluate whether you’ve written a
solid thesis statement:

3)
4)
5)
6)
Can it answer the “So what?” question? Meaning, why should your reader care about this
problem/issue? It’s your job to make your topic/argument relevant to the reader.
 Does your thesis answer a question, propose a solution to a problem, or take a position in
a debate? If you’ve done one or more of these, you’ve probably developed a strong
argumentative thesis statement.
 Is it possible for someone to disagree with your thesis? If you can’t disagree because your
statement is too factual or to general, you haven’t written a thesis statement.
 Can you support your thesis with the evidence available? Is it possible to prove what you’re
claiming in your thesis statement with documentable evidence?
What is the general purpose of an introduction?
a. To engage the reader, announce the main point of an essay and provide necessary context,
and establish your credibility as a stakeholder in an issue.
See page 15 in WR for more information about introductions.
Which of the following is not a useful way to hook the reader with your introductory sentences?
c. a general phrase like “Throughout history…” or “Since the beginning of mankind…”
Avoid general phrases like these because they are too broad. Be as specific as possible with
your language. If you say “Since the beginning of mankind…” you have to research the
history of your topic since the beginning of mankind. Ain’t nobody got time for that.
The following are potentially useful ways to start your introduction:
 a startling statistic or unusual fact
 a quotation or bit of a dialogue
 a question
 an anecdote (Define anecdote: ______________________________________________________)
True or false: Revision is a one-step process that requires writers to leave the rough draft mostly intact and
focuses mainly on fixing grammatical mistakes.
b. False: On page 21 of WR—“Revision is rarely a one-step process.” Revision often takes many
steps/several drafts and works to improve everything from “focus, purpose, organization,
content, and overall strategy” to “sentence structure, word choice, grammar, punctuation,
and mechanics.”
Which of the following is an inappropriate form of revision?
b. Buying an essay from a student who already took ENGL 1301
7) Identify the problem with the following Works Cited page. (Assume the student was instructed to use MLA
format.)
c. The student didn’t organize the citations alphabetically.
8) Which of the following is a correct example parenthetical citation following MLA guidelines?
b. In her 2001 book Cyberliteracy: Navigating the Internet with Awareness, Laura Gurak begins to
examine the ways in which such ubiquitous use of technology has come to shape what she calls our
“physical spaces” (“homes, classrooms, and offices”) as well as our “private e-spaces” (9).
See page 442 of WR.
A parenthetical or in-text citation attributes quotes, paraphrases, or ideas to their original author. If
the author (in this case Laura Gurak) is mentioned in the sentence preceding the quote/paraphrase,
you need only include the page number (which must be outside of any quotations marks, inside
parenthesis, and followed by a period). If you do not use the author’s name in the sentence, you
include the author’s last name and the page number in the parenthetical citation like this:
In the 2001 book Cyberliteracy: Navigating the Internet with Awareness, the author begins to
examine the ways in which such ubiquitous use of technology has come to shape what she
calls our “physical spaces” (“homes, classrooms, and offices”) as well as our “private espaces” (Gurak 9).
How you format the in-text citation for the paraphrase/quote/idea you are incorporating into your
essay depends on what the source is. For variations, see page 444 in WR.
9)
Which of the following is a correct example of using MLA format to cite a journal article accessed using a
database?
a. Anson, Chris. “The Classroom and the 'Real World' as Contexts: Re-examining the Goals of
Writing Instruction.” The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association
20.1 (1987): 1-16. JSTOR. Web. 31 Aug. 2012.
b.
Chris Anson. “The Classroom and the 'Real World' as Contexts: Re-examining the Goals of
Writing Instruction.” The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association 20.1
(1987): 1-16. JSTOR. Web. 31 Aug. 2012. (Firstname Lastname).
c.
Anson, Chris. “The Classroom and the 'Real World' as Contexts: Re-examining the Goals of
Writing Instruction.” The Journal of the Midwestern Modern Language Association 20.1 (1987):
1-16. JSTOR. Web. 31 Aug. 2012. (Missing indentation).
10) If you find a book in the library and it has a number, volume, and date on the cover, several editors who are
affiliated with universities listed on the masthead inside the book, and contains articles by many different
people, it is probably:
a. an anthology
b. a book by a single author
c. a scholarly journal (see page 423 in WR for the directory of MLA works cited models)
d. an article from a database
e. a multi-volume work