Hi everyone,

Wow! One month has passed already! After next week, we'll be one-third through our semester!!

Introduction Structure:
For the first part of our lesson, we learned about the different parts of an introduction:  
a. hook
b. general statements
c. thesis statement

The first 2-3 sentences of your introduction is called the hook statement. These sentences catches the reader's attentions and makes him/her interested in your research paper.
You can choose from five different hooks: 
a. quotes
b. rhetorical questions
c. statistics
d. interesting facts
e. simile

General Statements:
For your general statements, you will give some information that will help the reader become familiar with your topic. General statements can explain meanings of terminology, give historical explanations or biographical information.

When you organise this information, you need to use funnel structure. This means that your information is organised from general to less general to specific to more specific to very specific. 

Thesis Statements:
Finally, we learned how to write a thesis statement.  You need to include your main idea and your three sub-topics in your thesis statement.   

Homework:

1. Blog posting #4
2. Write your Introduction

• email by Tues., October 13 by 12:00noon

Blog Question:

1. What difficulties did you have writing your introduction?
2. What are the benefits of writing your essay step-by-step?

• Write 12-15 sentences.
• Use capitalization, punctuation & spelling correctly.
• Submit by Wed., October 14 by 6:00pm.

Hi everyone, 

We had another busy class.  I can't believe how quickly the time passes in our lesson.  

Bibliography
We learned how to make a bibliography for a research paper.  A bibliography is an alphabetical list of all the sources you use for your research paper.  When you organize your source information in your bibliography, you need to arrange it using the MLA style (MLA=Modern Language Association).

APA Referencing:
APA referencing is one of the ways you can document your sources in your research paper.  This style is used in the humanities, especially for writing about language and literature.  In class, I gave you an APA guide with all the different types of referencing. You'll need this during our entire course. 

Bibliography Guidelines:
For the last part of our lesson, we went through the bibliography guidelines. You can find these in the AW Lesson Materials of the website. Please remember these points when making your bibliography:

• If you have a Japanese source, you need to write the information in romanji.
• Type your bibliography in MS Word. 
• For your document file name, use this format: AW-Bib-given name (e.g. AW-Bib-Nanami)
• In the subject heading of your email, use the same format: AW-Bib-given name (e.g. AW-Bib-Nanami)
• Attached your document to the email; include a message in the email.
• Your bibliography must look like the model from the guidelines. 

Homework:
1.  Bibliography:  email by Oct. 6 before 12:00noon.  
2.  Blog Comment #3

Blog Question #3:

In next week's lesson, we are going to learn about how to write your introduction. You have your topic for your research paper. Now, you need your main idea (=your opinion) and three sub-topics (=smaller topics for each body paragraph).

Example #1:
Topic: British and American English
Main Idea:
Both use English, but there are many differences
Subtopics: vocabulary, grammar, spelling

Thesis Statement:
The U.S. and U.K. share the same language, but there are many differences between them. These differences include vocabulary, grammar and spelling.
 
Example #2:
Topic: English language education in Japan
Main Idea: use a variety of approaches
Subtopics: grammar-translation, audio-lingual, communication language teaching

Thesis Statement:
English language education in Japan uses a variety of approaches. These approaches include grammar-translation, audio-lingual and communicative language teaching. 

For Blog Post #3, I would like you to do the same with your topic. (1) Write down your topic, your main idea and three subtopics. (2) Then, combine all of this information into 2 sentences. This will be your thesis statement. 

• Use capitalization, punctuation & spelling correctly.
• Submit by Wednesday, October 7 by 6:00pm.