Links, Advanced Composition, O'Donnell, ETSU

Advanced Composition, Spring 2011

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Links
last update: January, 2011

This page contains links to good writing that is freely available on the web, arranged here under various headings. Note that there is some overlap: that is, a given article may appear here under more than one heading. Some--but not all--of these selections will be assigned during the semester. Click on "Calendar," above, for specific assignments and due dates.

I. Narrative / Personal Experience

- "The Healing Season." By Selena Roberts. Sports Illustrated , September 01, 2008. sportsillustrated.cnn.com/vault/article/magazine/MAG1144559/index.htm

- "Prologue: The Pickers." Excerpt from The Blueberry Years: A Memoir of Farm and Family. By Jim Minick. Thomas Dunne Books, 2010. Pages 3-5. Scroll to the bottom of this page, and click on the link to the pdf file: jim-minick.com/bby.html

- "Girl Meets Bluegill: How I (Nearly) Taught My Daughter to Love Fishing." Bill Heavey. Field and Stream 2005. (Click here for a cached version.)

- "Journey Into Night: Business-class emotions [Reflections]." By David Sedaris. The New Yorker, December 17, 2007. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/17/071217fa_fact_sedaris. Click here for a cached version.
- "Of Smells," from Montaigne's Essais. This is chap LV from Montaigne's first volume of essays, published in French in 1580. It's not clear who translated this into English, but the web site editor lists the following as the MLA-style citation: Quotidiana. Ed. Patrick Madden. 23 Sep 2006. 25 Mar 2011 <http://essays.quotidiana.org/montaigne/smells/>.

II. Tech Writing ("How-to"-- Expository/ Explanatory)

- "36 Hours in Asheville, N. C." By Shaila Dewan. New York Times, Oct 21, 2010. www.nytimes.com/2010/10/24/travel/24hours.html
- "36 Hours in London." By Stuart Emmrich. New York Times, Dec 31, 2006. Cached online at http://www.etsu.edu/writing/readings/london.htm
- "The Bacon Explosion" ["Take Bacon. Add Sausage. Blog."] Food article and recipe, NY Times online, January 27, 2009
- "Big and Bad: How the S.U.V. Ran Over Automotive Safety ["Commerce and Culture"]," by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker January 12, 2004: 28-33. (Click here for the cached version.)
- Excerpt from "City of New Orleans Comprehensive Emergency Management Plan."
- "Death of a Mountain: Radical Strip Mining and the Leveling of Appalachia." By Erik Reece. Harper's Magazine, April 2005: 41-60.

- "Google Keeps Tweaking Its Search Engine." Saul Hansell. NY Times online, June 3, 2007. www.nytimes.com/2007/06/03/business/yourmoney/03google.html

- H. Melville, from Moby Dick, Chapter lxvii CUTTING IN; Chapter lxviii THE BLANKET

- "Learn More about Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining: Frequently Asked Questions." ilovemountains.org, Appalachian Voices, Boone NC. No date. www.ilovemountains.org/resources

- "Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?" By Susan Casey. Originally from Best Life Magazine, Feb 20, 2007. Online at Men's Health magazine web site, www.menshealth.com/best-life/water-pollution

- "Remember His Name [the Pat Tillman story]," by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, Sep 11 2006, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/09/05/tillman0911/index.html

III. Reviews and Criticism

- "Brain Candy: Is Pop Culture Dumbing Us Down or Smartening Us Up? [The Critics: Books]", by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker May 16, 2005 [1800 words]. (Click here for the cached version.)

- "Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?," by Brock Read, The Chronicle of Higher Education 53, 10 (Oct 27, 2006): pA31 [4,000 words]. Click here for cached version.

- "The Courthouse Ring: Atticus Finch and the limits of Southern liberalism" [Department: "Politics and Prose"], by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker, August 10, 2009. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/10/090810fa_fact_gladwell

- "The Charms of Wikipedia," by Nicholson Baker. New York Review of Books 55, 4 (March 20, 2008). Click here for a cached version.

- "Don and Betty’s Paradise Lost" [on the AMC TV series, Mad Men], by Bruce Handy, Vanity Fair, September 2009. http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/features/2009/09/mad-men200909

- "The Expanding Range of Mountaintop Removal Literature: Two New Books," by Kevin E. O'Donnell. Journal of Appalachian Studies 15, 1&2 (Spring & Fall 2009): p213-18.
- "Going Deep: How Gary Smith became America's best sportswriter," by Ben Yagoda, slate.com, Monday, June 30, 2003. http://www.slate.com/id/2085059/

- "Home Alone: It's all too easy to deride Martha Stewart, but the attacks on her often point up how much there is to admire" [book review]. Caitlin Flanagan. The Atlantic Monthly, September 2002. www.theatlantic.com/doc/200209/flanagan

- "How Close to Catastrophe?" by Bill McKibben, The New York Review of Books, Volume 53, Number 18 · November 16, 2006. http://www.nybooks.com/articles/19596

- "Hosed: Is there a quick fix for the climate? [review of Levitt and Dubner's SuperFreakonomics and Al Gore's Our Choice]." By Elizabeth Kolbert. The New Yorker, November 16, 2009. www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2009/11/16/091116crbo_books_kolbert

- "Like Boiling a Frog" [review of The Wikipedia Revolution, by Andrew Lih]." By David Runciman. London Review of Books, May 28, 2009 (Vol. 31 No. 10), pages 14-16. 5011 words. www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/david-runciman/like-boiling-a-frog
- "A New Page: Can the Kindle really improve on the book? [Annals of Reading]." By Nicholson Baker. The New Yorker, August 3 2009. www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/08/03/090803fa_fact_baker

- "One Stop a 'Super' Chicken Choice," by Fred Sauceman. Kingsport Times-News, January 29, 2004.

- "Review of the must-read book: Merchants of Doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from smoke to global warming," by John Atcheson. Posted July 14, 2010, at the liberal climate change blog, climateprogress.org, edited by Joe Romm. climateprogress.org/2010/07/14/merchants-of-doubt-naomi-oreskes-review/

- "Sex and the Married Man: How Helen Gurley Brown inspired a generation of home-wreckers, and brought down John Edwards" [Book Review]. Caitlin Flanagan. The Atlantic Monthly, September 2009. www.theatlantic.com/doc/200909/sex-married-man

IV. Academic Writing/ Writing from Sources

- Blogs:

- climatedepot.com - A blog that "aims to redefine global warming reporting."

- climateprogress.org - "A liberal blog on the science, solutions, and politics of climate change."

- "'Clean' Coal? Don't Try to Shovel That." The Washington Post, Sunday, March 2, 2008. www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/02/29/AR2008022903390_pf.html

- "You Can Call Him Al ... But Al Won't Call You Back." By Gene J. Koprowski. FOXNews.com February 26, 2010. www.foxnews.com/scitech/2010/02/26/inconvenient-truth-for-al-gore

- We Can’t Wish Away Climate Change [Op-Ed Contributor]. By Al Gore. New York Times, February 27, 2010. www.nytimes.com/2010/02/28/opinion/28gore.html

- "Myths or Facts in Feminist Scholarship? An exchange between Nancy K.D. Lemon and Christina Hoff Sommers." The Chronicle of Higher Education online, August 10, 2009. chronicle.com/article/Domestic-Violence-a/47940/. (Click here for a cached version.)

- "Brain Candy: Is Pop Culture Dumbing Us Down or Smartening Us Up? [The Critics: Books]", by Malcom Gladwell, The New Yorker May 16, 2005 [1800 words]. (Click here for the cached version.)

- ''Rachel Carson, Mass Murderer?: The creation of an anti-environmental myth.'' Aaron Swartz, ''Extra!'' [F.A.I.R.--Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting], September/October, 2007.

- "Red Mike (Lost and Found New York)," by James Stevenson, from New York Times Online, August 2005.

- "There's a Skeleton In A Trainyard In East Tennessee," by Joan Vannorsdall Schroeder, Blue Ridge Country magazine's online edition, 2000.

V. Reportage

- "Bleak houses: Digging through the ruins of the mortgage crisis." By Paul Reyes. Harper's Magazine, October 2008. www.harpers.org/archive/2008/10/0082199

- "Blowing away King Coal: Can a scrawny young wind-power activist topple the biggest, dirtiest industry in West Virginia?" Salon dot com, Thurs Jan 29, 2009. www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/01/29/mountaintop_removal/

- "A Boy's Life." By Hanna Rosin. The Atlantic Magazine. November, 2008. www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2008/11/a-boy-apos-s-life/7059/

- "The Falling Man," by Tom Junod. Esquire Magazine, September 2003. http://www.esquire.com/features/ESQ0903-SEP_FALLINGMAN
- "Our oceans are turning into plastic...are we?" By Susan Casey. Originally from Best Life Magazine, Feb 20, 2007. Online at Men's Health magazine web site, www.menshealth.com/best-life/water-pollution

- "The Rape of Appalachia [Department: Politics and Power]," by Michael Shnayerson. Vanity Fair, May 2006. www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2006/05/appalachia200605
- "Upon This Rock: Rock music used to be a safe haven for degenerates and rebels. Until it found Jesus." By John Sullivan, Gentleman's Quarterly, February 2005. Online: http://men.style.com/gq/features/, accessed January 2008.
- "Remember His Name [the Pat Tillman story]," by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated, Sep 11 2006, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2006/magazine/09/05/tillman0911/index.html

- What Love's Got to Do with It: Joba Chamberlain has taken New York in a blaze of glory, his success traced to a nurturing father who used his own tortured youth, Native American roots and some lessons in humility to fan the flame inside his son, by Gary Smith, Sports Illustrated online, Oct 7, 2007, http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2007/baseball/mlb/10/03/joba1008/index.html

VI. On Various Topics Related to Advanced Composition

A. On Borrowing and Plagiarism
- "Bob Dylan: Henry Timrod Revisited -- When Bob Dylan lifted lines from an obscure Civil War poet, he wasn't plagiarizing. He was sampling" [2300 wds], by Robert Polito, Poetryfoundation.org, the site of the Poetry Foundation, based in Chicago Illinois, 2006. Accessed December 2006. http://www.poetryfoundation.org/archive/feature.html?id=178703
- Lawrence Lessig interview with Charlie Rose--on copyright, video remixes, etc. November 21, 2008. Video link to Charlie Rose website, plus commentary by Matt Rutherford, posted at TechCrunch, a weblog about new internet developments. http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/11/21/larry-lessig-defends-copyright-loves-charlie-rose-remixes/

- Letter to Helen Keller from Mark Twain, St. Patrick's Day, 1903, on plagiarism. [Posted at an American Foundation for the Blind website.]

- "Plagiarism Lines Blur for Students in Digital Age." By Trip Gabriel. New York Times online, Sunday, August 1, 2010. www.nytimes.com/2010/08/02/education/02cheat.html
- "Something Borrowed: Should a Charge of Plagiarism Ruin Your Life?" by Malcolm Gladwell, The New Yorker Nov 22, 2004: 40-49.
- "What Helen Keller Saw" [review], by Cynthia Ozick, The New Yorker June 16/23 2003. (This article explains the circumstances surrounding the Helen Keller plagiarism controversies. Click on title to see the article as posted on the New Yorker website, or click here for cached version.)

B. On Wikipedia

- "Wikipedia to Limit Changes to Articles on People." Naom Cohen. NY Times online, August 24 2009. www.nytimes.com/2009/08/25/technology/internet/25wikipedia.html

- "The Charms of Wikipedia," by Nicholson Baker. New York Review of Books 55, 4 (March 20, 2008). Click here for a cached version.

- "Can Wikipedia Ever Make the Grade?," by Brock Read, The Chronicle of Higher Education 53, 10 (Oct 27, 2006): pA31 [4,000 words]. Click here for cached version.

- "Student's Wikipedia hoax quote used worldwide in newspaper obituaries." Irish Times online, May 6 2009. www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0506/1224245992919.html

C. On Writing
- "How News Happens--A Study of the News Ecosystem of One American City: Where does the news come from in today’s changing media?" Journalism.org: Pew Research Center's Project for Excellence in Journalism, January 11, 2010. www.journalism.org/analysis_report/how_news_happens

- "Plain English Is the Best Policy" [Op-Ed Contributor]. John Aloysius Cogan, Jr. NY Times online, August 19, 2009. www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/opinion/20cogan.html

- "Oaf of Office" [an MIT Linguist's critique of language pedants' "split-verb myth"], New York Times, Jan 22, 2009. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/22/opinion/22pinker.html

- "Plain English Is the Best Policy" [Op-Ed Contributor]. John Aloysius Cogan, Jr. NY Times online, August 19, 2009. www.nytimes.com/2009/08/20/opinion/20cogan.html

- "Rules No-one Teaches But Everyone Learns," by Ruth Walker, posted on the "Verbal Energy" blog at the Christian Science Monitor online, May 17, 2007. 700 words. Click here for cached version.
- Style guidelines from "Wikipedia: Manual of Style":
    Neutral Point of View
    Avoid "Weasel Words"
    Avoid "Peacock Terms"
    Captions
- Handouts from The Writing Center at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill:
     http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/index.html

- The Writing Center Guide to Writing Groups: Resources," materials posted by the Writing Center at UNC-Chapel Hill:

http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/WritingGroups/index.html
- From California-based web-design and writing consultant, Ron Scheer:
"Web Writing Workshop: How to Make Writing Come Alive"
- Using Headings in APA Style, at Purdue University online writing lab, accessed March 2009

- Wikipedia article: Outline, accessed March 2009

- Headings: Six Levels Deep, a page explaining how levels of headings are established in html, from Maricopa Community College, accessed March 2009