ENGLISH 344
COMEDY & SATIRE
RESEARCH BASICS
Let's start with what's not acceptable. There are two major sources that are readily available on the Internet that are unreliable. The first is Wikipedia. It certainly seems like a valid source; it sounds like it's an encyclopedia. And it is...more or less, insofar as it has information on just about everything. But the problem with Wikipedia is that just about anyone can make an entry and say write whatever they like. (I don't know anything about brain surgery, but I can write about it for Wikipedia.) To find out more about why Wikipedia is not acceptable, check out either or both of these articles:
The second no-no is a blog, for much the same reason as Wikipedia. Just about anyone can set up a blog and say write whatever they like. So unless you can confirm that the author of the blog is, in some valid way, qualified to comment on the subject, don't use information from a blog.
And this brings us to the meat of the discussion. As much as we like to think we're important, when it comes to expressing an opinion our personal thoughts on a subject aren't of much value unless they are supported by some kind of evidence or research. In an academic course such as this, you are expected to back up any claims you might make in a paper submitted in fulfillment of an assignment. Backing them up means providing direct evidence (and that often can be direct quotations from whatever is being discussed) or support from outside sources.
DIRECT EVIDENCE
Here are three statements that appeared in a student paper discussing the language used in a short story. While the claims being made may be correct, they lack the necessary evidence to back them up.
- "Political satirists play a big role in the American sense of humor. "
This may be true, but it needs to include specific examples of the satirists the student is talking about and a clear specification of the role they played.
- "The trademark of tall tales and interesting conversation can be seen in popular culture today in the form of David Letterman and Jay Leno. Their long monologues at the beginning of each show are a continuance [of] an American comedic tradition"
The student says their monologues continue a long tradition, but never traces it. back. Without that, this is just an ubsubstantiated claim.
- "Mark Twain...was the master of using ethnic and regional dialect in his humor and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn is a great example of his ability. In that novel, Twain uses many different dialects for his characters and the dialects play a very important role in their development."
How do we know that without some examples of the dialect and an explanation of the role they play?
OUTSIDE SOURCES
Using the words or the ideas of another person or getting information from somewhere other than your own head requires you to give credit to the source of the words, ideas, or information. For each of these, there are specific rules.
What You Must Do
If exact words are used...
...you must put quotation marks at either end of the words.
If you restate the idea, but use your own words...
...you have to indicate where you got the idea.
If you get information from somewhere (and use your own words to express it)...
...you also have to indicate where you got the information.
How You Must Do It
Whether you are using exact words or your own, there must be an indication of where you got the material immediately afterward. This should be an abbreviation of a more detailed citation at the end of your paper.
Provide a "Works Cited" List
At the end of your paper there should be a "Works Cited" list where you list the sources you used. There are many variations on the style for such a list. The example below provides the Author's Last name, First Name, Title of the source, the Publisher, and the date. [The usual format is for the first line to be OUTDENTED five spaces--an outdent is the opposite of an indent.] The primary purpose is for there to be enough information so that any person reading your paper is able to trace back the source of the information.
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Works Cited
Gold, Jeannye. "When Fathers Raise Children Alone." U.S. News and World Report,
Apr. 12 1982: 51-52.
Larson, Eric. "Cross-Cultural Studies of Fatherhood." Journal of Marriage and the
Family, 11 (Aug. 1988): 212-18.
McKee, Loma and Margaret O'Brien, eds. The Father Figure. 3rd ed. New York:
Tavistock, 1982.
Schorr, Burt. "States Cracking Down on Fathers Dodging Child-Support Payments." New
York Times 26 Jan. 1983, natl. ed.: A1.
Valsiner, Jan. "The Father's Role in the Social Network of the Soviet Child." The Role
of the Father in Child Development. Ed. Michael E. Lamb. New York: Wiley, 1981.
187-201.
Wooster, Bernard. "Child Support Laws Should Be Tougher." Family Values: Opposing
viewpoints. San Diego: Greenhaven, 1993. 10-14. Rpt. of "Deadbeat Dads." Reader's
Digest Jan. 1992: 29-34.
Zamorra, Carlos. "Stepfathers Have Rights, Too." 2 Feb. 1995. Online posting.
Newsgroup soc.parents. Usenet. May 15, 1995.
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Give Credit in the Body of the paper
You must give credit to a source IN THE BODY OF YOUR PAPER. In the format approved by the Modern Language Association (MLA), you put a shortened form of the source along with the exact page number where you found it. For example:
| Jeannye Gold says that "natural fathers aren't the only ones raising children on their own. As more families split up, social workers note that stepfathers increasingly are being called on to bring up other people's kids" (Gold 52). According to Bernard Barber in Encyclopedia Americana there is a trend toward waiting to marry and toward postponing the birth of the first child (Barber 6). At the turn of the century many men worked long hours, which "entailed their absence from the family for most of the day: that was not a rejection of fatherhood but a necessary element of it" (McKee and O'Brien 54). |
All that's needed within the parenthesis is enough information for the reader to be able to go to the Works Cited list at the end of the paper and get the complete information. From there, the reader should be able to go to the actual document (or newspaper or magazine or web site...whatever) and find the original source.
Exceptions
As with anything, there are exceptions to the above.
If you give the author's name in your sentence, all you need to do is give the page number:
Freud found that dreams move backward in time as the night progresses (Dement 71).
If you use a work that has two or three authors:
If you use a work that has no author. (You begin with the word by which the title is alphabetized in the Works Cited)
Random testing for use of steroids by athletes is facing strong opposition by owners of several of these teams ("Steroids" 22).
AN EXAMPLE
Here's an example of a student post to the discussion board.
Notice that the student provided a source, but It's not good enough to put the source at the end of the post (or paper). When you incorporate the exact words from that source those words need to be in quotes so that you din't give the appearance of having 'said' those things yourself. The student's comments used the following phrases which are word-for-word from the source:
"...combined journalism and humor in such a way that he was able to mock politicians, American institutions, and human nature."
"one of most subversive texts in American literature"
"to attack such respected institutions as education, religion, the family, and the justice system."
Quotation marks give proper credit to the source; it tells your reader that these are not your words, so you cannot be accused of plagiarism (a very serious academic offense).
For a more detailed discussion of this, see the Research section of the Dr. Write web site.
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