The following passages are excerpted from second drafts of papers from our class.

Possessives. (for additional guidance, see Hacker, 418-20 and 769)
We use a possessive to mark ownership. In most instances we mark ownership by using the an “’s”. (Bob’s car.)

“However, Turkle point of view on Identity is ‘a rapid expanding system known as the internet, links millions of people together in new spaces that are changing the way we think the nature of our sexuality, the form of our communities, our very identities. In cyberspace we’re learning to live in virtual worlds’ (272).”

Where is (are) the missing possessive(s) in this selection? How can we correct this (these) oversight(s)?

While the “’s” is a common possessive, ownership is also indicated in other ways.
-a plural noun (“students”, for example) does not get an “’s”. It gets an “’” after the s (for example, “the students’ papers”).
-singular nouns that end in s (“Cripps”, for example) get either an “’s” or just an “’”. In many ways, it depends on how the word sounds out loud. Does “Cripps’” sound more natural out loud than “Cripps’s”?
-possessive forms of pronouns (I, you, he, she, it, we, you, they, etc.) are also exceptions to the general “’s” rule. With pronouns, your best bet is to simply learn the possessive pronouns (my, mine, your, yours, her, hers, his, its, our, ours, your, yours, their, theirs).

Assignment: Find at least two examples of each of these uses (or misuses) of possession in your group’s essays. Hint: Sometimes students use “it’s” to signal the possessive form of it, or “they’re” to signal a possessive form of they. Both of these approaches are errors. The possessive form of “it” is “its” without an apostrophe, while the possessive form of “they” is “their”.

Subject-Verb Agreement. (for additional guidance, see Hacker, 263+)
Verbs need to agree with their subjects in both person (first, second, third) and number (singular/plural). S-V agreement is sometimes a little tricky since singular forms of verbs sometimes look plural because they have an “s” on them.

In most cases, you want to add an “s” or “es” to a verb when the subject is third person singular. (“The boy plays baseball.” In this example, “boy” is our subject. Since it is third person and singular, our verb “play” gets the third person singular form and we add “s” to it.) But if the subject is not third person singular, the verb gets no “s” or “es”. (“The boys play baseball.” “I play baseball.” “You play baseball.” “They play baseball.”)

“Turkle also believe that ‘virtual social life can play a role in… Drama of self reparation’ (274). This quote support the fact that anonymity helps us find our identity.”

Where is (are) the subject-verb agreement error(s) in the preceding passage? What is (are) the correction(s)?

The verb “to be” has peculiar verb forms for singular subjects in both the present and past tense. “I am”, “you are”, “he is” are appropriate subject-verb forms in the present tense, while “I was”, “you were”, “he was” are the correct forms in the past tense). Just like the second person singular form of “be” becomes “are” in present tense and “were” in past tense, the plural form of “be” in the present tense is “are”; in the past tense, it becomes “were”. (“We are late.” “We were late.”)

Assignment: Find at least three examples of subject-verb agreement errors in your group’s essays. Hint: I’m finding that the most common subject-verb agreement errors seem to involve third person singular subjects, as we saw in our example above. But I’m very interested in seeing some other errors.

MLA Citation Style (see Hacker, 580-632)
While there are important stylistic decisions to make when quoting, paraphrasing, or merely citing a source (Hacker, 580-90), I want us to focus on just the mechanics of correct citation for now. There are two parts to citation in any essay, the “in-text citation” and the “works cited” page. MLA format uses the “author, page number” style for in-text citation. This means that you must clearly indicate both the author and page number for any cited, paraphrased, or quoted source.

“One of the reasons why Dyson said that anonymity can be a good thing is because ‘people can explore their fantasies without being judged and criticized’ (263).”

“Dyson herself explain that ‘I might have written something untrue, just because I didn’t want to be burdened with my real identity…’ (263).”

“In an anonymous chat room most things are socially acceptable, which is why it acts as an arena for ‘consequence-free experimentation’(Turkle 274).”

Do the preceding examples use appropriate “in-text citation”? Why or why not?

In MLA citation style, the list of sources used in writing a paper is called a “Works Cited” page. The Works Cited page is a separate page from the rest of your essay. The Works Cited page provides the important publication information about all sources directly quoted, paraphrased, summarized, or cited in your paper. Among other things, this page enables your reader to confirm that you’re reading your sources appropriately.

Bibliography

Writing and Reading Across Curriculum

EstherDyson “The Anonymity Voice” (262-270)

Sherry Turkle “Cyberspace and Identities” (271-278)

Does the preceding selection from a student’s works cited page conform to MLA citation style guidelines? Why or why not? How do you know? If this works cited page is not correct, re-write it in MLA style.

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