Memo no. 1 for Comm 2 students re RRl writing

The following observations constitute crimes against scholarship:
1. Listing of sources in the Bibliography which were not used/discussed in RRL. What are these sources for if not used? For completion of list?
2. Limited sources cited in a 10-page RRL. How can it be called RRL when you only cited 4 sources repeatedly throughout the whole chapter? Where is variety of sources and ideas in your discussion of the problem?
3. RRL is about research studies and ideas related to your topic. It is an acknowledgment of scholars/sources/authors. It is about them and not about you. Therefore, you quote, acknowledge, and cite them always, sentence by sentence if needed, when you mention their ideas.
4. RRL is a review not an essay. It is critical, not personal. It is evaluative, not a journal. Examine critically methods and designs of previous studies and discuss their theories and results.
5. The reason why I required 5 research papers was that I expected you to discuss and evaluate them extensively; not a one line mentioning of the result. Some of you did not even include even one in your RRL. Others did not bother to read the whole thing.

Grammatical lapses and faulty sentence-making and paragraphing:
1. Avoid shifting in tense, point of view, mood, number. Be consistent in the use of point of view and tense. Review http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/shifts.htm and http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/tenseconsistency.htm
2. Fused, straggling, run on sentences. Review http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/sentelmt.htm#comma splices
3. Maintain parallelism. Review http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/parallelism.htm
4. Referent-antecedent consistency. Review http://wwwnew.towson.edu/ows/proref.htm
5. Provide transition from one sentence to another, or from one paragraph to another. Observe coherence.