Speaking My Mind, Annotated Bibliography Example

Andrea, Heidi L. “Letters to EJ.” The English Journal 95.6 (2011): 9. Digital. 7 October 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30046616>.

The article titledLetters to EJ—written by author and assistant professor at the University of Albany, New York Heidi L. Andrea—is primarily a critique of another article. The article which Professor Andrea is critiquing is titles The Trouble with Rubrics, which is written by Alfie Kohn.

Professor Andrea makes her perspective clear through her writing that she wants to reform the way academic rubrics are designed. Specific interpretations may vary from reader to reader but based on the content of the article, a general interpretation would be that rubrics attributing to academic criteria are a concerning issue in this age of education and it needs to be addressed. The applications of Kohn’s critique pertaining to rubrics and student assessment integrated in Professor Andrea’s writing strongly support her position on how to best modify the issues she addresses.

The text in Professor Andrea’s article achieves many effects which are both informative as well as persuasive. Different elements of the issues are presented in the text about how rubrics are having an impact on students’ education as well as their thinking capabilities. Professor Andrea does a fine job of informing the audience about the interpretations of academic rubrics and how they correlate with each other based on on-going academic issues. Professor Andrea then uses this information to persuade her audience on the importance of addressing rubrics in education due to the dilemma of compromised education surrounding them.

This text might affect others in different ways all depending on their academic standing, pre-meditated knowledge of how rubrics impact education, and personal interpretations of ethical standards.

Kohn, Alfie. “Speaking My Mind: The Trouble with Rubrics.” The English Journal 95.4 (2006): 12 – 15. Digital. 7 October 2015. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/30047080>.

The article titled The Trouble with Rubrics—written by author Alfie Kohn—is primarily a critique of the trouble that rubrics appear to be causing in students’ education. Kohn argues that rubrics are compromising the way students earn their education through their academic studies and standardized testing.

A specific technique that Kohn integrated in his writing was the use of historical information in the development of his story. This was used to inform his audience on the issues and impacts of rubrics. He then imposed elements of his personal perspectives to suggest reasons for the importance of addressing these issues. The story had a strong development with use of current events and historical information to help both inform and persuade the audience for a better understanding of the use of rubrics in education. Kohn also made the choice to use external sources to help support his claims on why rubrics are causing trouble in education. This technique is often used in journalism.

The whole piece of this text is well organized in structured paragraphs, as well as the integration of collected research. This sentence structure is appealing to the audience as Kohn goes into detail about the interpretations of rubrics. This is an example of how well of a job Kohn does at making sure that his audience has a sound understanding of the topic his writing is based on. This informative style of writing can be found throughout the entire structure of the text in different ways.

Matejka, Ken and Lance B. Kurke. “Designing a Great Syllabus.” College Teaching 42.3 (1994): 115; 3. Digital. <http://web.ebscohost.com/ehost/delivery>.

The article titled Designing a Great Syllabus—written by authors Ken Matejka and Lance Kurke—is primarily an informative article conveying to the audience the importance of how and why university professors should put an emphasis on designing effective syllabi for their students.

The article is effectively divided into several parts as can be seen in the format of the text. Firstly, the paragraphs separate different sub-topics pertaining to the designing of syllabi for university students. At the same time, the transition between paragraphs flows accordingly in such a way that not only makes sense but allows the audience to follow the story in a sequential manner. Every paragraph is related to the main topic, that being the designing of a great syllybus. The authors also sequences their sentences from first being informative, and then leaning more towards being directional based on the specific instructions given on how to design a great syllabus.

Each individual part of the text is organized into separate paragraphs initially. After the authors feel that his audience has a sound understanding on the importance of university professors designing a great syllabus, they begin to individualize specific sub-topics with the use of specified criteria for such a syllabus. Using sub-titles within the article to cover the specific set of instructions is important in this kind of article as it is a means of providing a lesson on how to effectively execute a skill set. The individual parts of this text are organized in such a way that it fully surrounds all sub-topics relating to the main topic of designing a great syllabus.

Murry, Donald. “Write to Learn.” (n.d.): 1-13. Digital.

The book section titled Write to Learn—written by author Donald Murray—is primarily an informative piece of writing that educates the audience on how to practice effective writing through proper grammar usage and sentence structure.

The purpose of this book is to simply convey useful information in writing to the audience which they can interpret in their own individual way based on the knowledge provided by the writer. Each paragraph and section of this book section serves its own unique purpose of conveying specific information about the various writing techniques while remaining closely related to each other. The opening section of this book mostly informs the audience of writing styles relating to learning techniques. The mid-section of the article goes more into a “how to” instructional style of writing relating to proper grammar and sentence structure. The last section of the article is more directional in informing the audience on why effective writing techniques must be used to help writers learn through their own writings as well as reasons behind such useful writing techniques.

A stylistic consideration that went into the writing of these sentences is the strong and appropriate use of visual instructions. Visual instructions are an effective way to help an audience understand any type of journalistic information or any given perspectives on varying topics. These uses of visual instructions serve as an effective reference for those using the information from this book section to further learn how to write. This stimulates the reader’s thinking on the subject matter and is an effective use of styling his sentences. It also makes the writing more appealing to the audience as it breaks any monotony.

Sommers, Nancy. “Responding to Student Writing.” (n.d.): 284-295. Digital.

The book section titled Responding to Student Writing—written by author Nancy Sommers—is primarily an informative piece of writing that educates the audience on how to effectively critique student writings. Sommers does so through examples of student writing she integrated into her educational critique.

The writing style used in this article is simply well organized into sequential sections that convey information, historical student writings, and a perspective that can leave the audience thinking more about the structure of their own writing styles.

Although some of the material used in this writing can be effectively persuasive for the audience, it is not strong enough to the point that Sommers can be considered to be carrying an opinion based argument. The author simply relays her research and critiques of student writings to the audience through her own perspective and interpretations. The author remains neutral for the most part of the writing, all of which is supported by both researched facts and writing samples from external sources which are mostly students.

The choices in grammar, writing style, sentence structure, divided sections, perspective, as well as organization all correlate with each other to achieve the ultimate effect of leaving the audience fully informed on the subject matter. This effect also gives the audience an opportunity to interpret the writing information on their own and to conduct their own research on it. The various choices used in this writing style are mentally stimulating for the audience, especially with everything being written in a sequence of general data concerning writing styles and visuals of writing samples.