ENGL 1013 Spring 2013
Final Exam: Take Home
Due: 8 May 2013
Note: To make this easier for me to grade, either turn on the track changes feature or change the
color of your font to red or another color that stands out equally well. If you don't do this, I might
decide not to grade your work.
Task 1: Grammar and Editing (20 pts - 10 questions, 2 pts each)
Errors: Sentence Fragments (2), Fused Sentences (2), Comma Use Error (1), Comma Splice (1), Misplaced
Modifier (1), Squinting Modifier (1), Apostrophe Errors (4), Sexist Language Usage (2)
Note: While only one paragraph will contain apostrophe errors and one sexist language errors, these
paragraphs might contain multiple instances of a particular error. In other words, in, say, the sexist
language paragraph, you will find two instances of the error.
"College Application Essay Questions Get Weird"
COLLEGE PARK, Md., Dec. 9 (UPI) -1. U.S. colleges are adding unusual questions to their applications. Including the University of Maryland
asking to share "my favorite thing about last Tuesday."
2. The question, which the university asks applicants to answer in 100 words or less, is part of a recent
trend of schools asking short answer questions on subjects atypical for a college application, such as
Columbia, New York's acclaimed university, asks applicants to describe "the best movie of all time" with
brevity, the Chicago Tribune reported Friday.
3. Drafted and put into practice this year, Dr. Bart Ender believes this new list of questions will shake up
the admissions process.
4. "You have been given a magical light switch. Turning it on permanently brings to life a dead celebrity.
Who would you resurrect and why?" asks the University of Carlsbad.
5. Katherine Cohen, a college consultant and founder of IvyWise.com who said the questions are
designed to help college officials become acquainted with applicants in ways that might not have been
possible with typical application essays.
6. "The questions allow a potential student to show a school his real self, more than a traditional
application form ever could. It allows colleges to get a more rounded picture of an incoming student and
learn things about him that they may not get from a transcript and a resume," she said. "That's why
they're fun."
7. Some students complain that the questions are somewhat bizarre, for example the University of
Louisville asks "Do you prefer going to the dog track or the horse track? Be specific."
8. Confused by questions such as "So, like, what kind of guys are you normally into, and why?" asked by
Florida Atlantic one student Arty Fischal complains that the questions make him feel uncomfortable.
9. Dr. Rhoda Camels opinion is that, regardless of the questions content, its certainly a better window
into a potential students soul than a traditional application.
10. "If a turtle, a snail, or a hermit crab loses its shell, would you consider it homeless, naked, or a
pervert?" asks The University of Miami potential student Justin Case has an answer: "Yeah, screw this I'm going to trade school instead."
Task 2: Documentation (40 pts - 20 pts for the paragraph, 20 pts for the works cited page - roughly 5 pts
per source use)
Under "Final Materials" on Blackboard are scans (well, some jpgs and pdfs) of the following types of
sources: books, anthologies, academic journals, and eBooks. Specifically, you have one of each (I realize
that they are all, technically, digital sources, but I only want you to treat the eBook as a web source), so
make sure you know which is which and how to cite each (each takes a different method, so check the
lectures). You are to create works cited entries for each (there is a mock works cited page a few pages
down for your use), then you are to create a mock paragraph that incorporates a bit of information from
each source. All must be in MLA format. It is up to you how you choose to develop the paragraph, but
you are expected to provide a topic sentence and to integrate your source material well (see the lecture
on integrating quoted material). In other words, your short paragraph should make sense. I selected a
theme which should help some of you: the theme is research on vampire literature, with a focus on the
Twilight novels (which, incidentally, I hate). You don't have to read the full sources; I scanned pages that
contained good sound bites. Just select some that sound good to you, decide upon a topic/argument,
and write your paragraph.
Thor A. Zine
Wilson
ENGL 1013
8 May 2013
Mock Paragraph
Twilight: God's Cruelest Joke
[Epigraph goes here, if you want one]
[Paragraph goes here]
Works Cited
[Sources go here, and, please, alphabetize and properly indent]
Task 3: Plagiarism and Source Use (20 pts - 5 pts per question)
Task: Below are four passages taken from mock research papers. Your task is to read each passage,
decide if any form of plagiarism has been committed, and to explain in the space provided why the
passage is problematic. If you answer yet fail to explain yourself, you will receive zero credit.
Note: The source used is Black Space: Imagining Race in Science Fiction Film by Adilifu Nama, and I'll
keep reusing this in the future until someone gets interested enough to read it.
Original source
Although the coded connection between blackness and alienness is a recurring feature in SF
cinema in general, a rarer occurrence is the presentation of black racial identity as a spectacle of
oddity in and of itself. Yet this is the case with the DJ Ruby Rhod character, the easily frightened,
bumbling sidekick of Korben (Bruce Willis), the white main character of the film. Ruby Rhod is a
flamboyant, effeminate, cross-dressing, heterosexual black television personality of the future.
Obscene in both presentation and content, he sashays his way through the film, making loud
and lewd comments. He is constantly shown prancing about with a hairstyle that has been
designed with an enormous phallic appendage jutting from his forehead. (Nama 96)
Passage I:
Adilifu Nama observes that, in The Fifth Element, blackness is associated not only with violence
and incompetence, as with the Mandalores, but also with general weirdness and aberration, as
with the DJ Ruby Rhod. Nama points out that Ruby Rhod is a flamboyant, effeminate, crossdressing, heterosexual black television personality who is obscene in both presentation and
content (96). This depiction, Nama argues, can only suggest that black identity is abnormal, and
when the only significant black character is prancing about with a hairstyle that has been
designed with an enormous phallic appendage (96), normal is the last term that comes to mind.
Answer:
Passage II:
Adilifu Nama makes the argument that The Fifth Element goes a long way towards separating
any conception of black racial identity from any conception of normality, not unlike the
notorious film Birth of a Nation did a century before. Nama argues that Ruby Rhod, the overthe-top DJ sidekick of Bruce Willis’s character, is the very soul of abnormality, in that Rhod is
both masculine and feminine, callow and timid during danger yet at the same time forceful and
dangerous in his pursuit of women. This is similar to the depiction of African-Americans in the
film Birth of a Nation, which presented African-American males as abnormal in that they were
presented as violent rapists, unable to contain their lust for (white) women (96).
Answer:
Passage III:
Adilifu Nama takes aim at the film The Fifth Element, pointing out coded racial anxieties existing
beneath the zany surface. The Fifth Element, a 1996 film directed by Luc Besson, presents on the
surface a post-racial future that features a black president (of the Earth) and vertically-sprawling
urban nightmares clearly taken from the graphic novels of Moebius. Despite this post-racial
future, Nama asserts that this film nonetheless hides a “presentation of black racial identity as a
spectacle of oddity in and of itself” (96).
Answer:
Passage IV:
Adilifu Nama makes the observation that “although the coded connection between blackness
and alienness is a recurring feature in SF cinema in general, a rarer occurrence is the
presentation of black racial identity as a spectacle of oddity in and of itself” (96). Though rare,
Nama suggests that this association between racial identity and oddity can be found in the 1996
film The Fifth Element. As evidence of this, Nama points to the flamboyant, effeminate, crossdressing character of Ruby Rhod, who sashays around making lewd and obscene comments
whenever onscreen. Rhod transgresses many boundaries that our culture finds normal, not the
least of which being sexuality. Nama points out that Rhod’s hair has been carefully constructed
to resemble an enormous phallic appendage, making the character an aberrant symbol of
sexuality (96).
Answer:
Task 4: Composition and Argument Theory (20 pts total)
Question 1 (1pt): In the writing method we have been working with this semester, what does the term
"Working Outline" mean?
Answer:
Question 2 (2pts): In the writing method we have been working with this semester, what does it mean
to "populate" a working outline?
Answer:
Question 3 (2pts): List below the general steps of the writing process. ( I realize that everyone has a
slightly different approach, but I am looking for all the general steps we have discussed. We did this on
day one, I think.)
Answer:
Question 4 (15pts): Below (well, on the next page) you will find a single visual argument (in this case,
several of a series of print advertisements - you can pick a single one). Your goal is to identify first the
claim then the specific types of support (logical, etc.) used to back up the claim. Then, you are to identify
the warrant and qualifier (I don't anticipate any backing being available). You can explain your findings in
either a single paragraph or in separate sections devoted to each of the four categories.
Note: These all come from Stetson's Tom Brady cologne campaign. Yep, that's Tom Brady. Oddly, these
ads are remarkably complex, drawing somewhat liberally from American cultural history and making
explicit references to other iconic images. See what you can come up with. More points for deeper
observations. I expect a smarter reading than "Claim: Buy Stetson cuz Tom Brady sez to." Be creative.
Feel free to resize the images - I used high-quality files. Or, if you prefer, you could just find them online.
Claim:
Support:
Warrant:
Qualifier: