I've been without internet access for about 16 hours, just as I was updating this material. My access will likely remain spotty for the near future at least, so if you are waiting for a response, please be patient and just forge ahead and do what seems best in the interim. If you read the below material once, it's worth another read for the new material alone. Be sure to click on the read more link.

I provided a different sample essay for you to look at, along with some commentary on the essay's strengths and weaknesses. If you read it and have questions about it, or anything else related to the assignment, let me know.

One of the most consistent challenges faced by students is composing a solid thesis, one that creates a context in which each of the support paragraphs can be explained. For instance, you might write about the Obama site that elements X, Y, and Z on the site make it abundantly clear he is wholly (un)qualified to lead the nation out of its present state. A thesis of this sort could be set up with a passage about due diligence or dangerous ignorance or any number of points. X, Y, and Z would then be introduced via a topic statement, that topics importance could be explained, it would then be followed by some examples and then the explanation would be about how the material in the paragraphs shows him to be (un)qualified to be leader of the free world, commander-in-chief or what have you.

When providing examples from the website, a citation is required with this assignment, as is a works cited entry. Using this post as an example, the in-text, parenthetical citation would look like this: (Bleck). There's no page number because websites don't have a page. However, Obama, and other sites of that ilk, do not list authors, so you go with the page title. The title of this page is "more on essay three" so you would have this: (more on essay three) or you could shorten it to a single word and that would be fine: (more). Note how the period follows the citation.

The work cited entry would look like this:

Bleck, Bradley. "More on Essay Three." Getting unSpun in an Age of Spin. 29 July 2008 [the date it was posted, which is not always available. when that's the case, just leave it out]. 30 July 2008 [the date it was viewed; I'm pretending it will happen tomorrow}. http://bleckblog.org/comp/node/3034 [the URL or web address, call it what you will].

Generically, it looks like this:

Author's last name, Author's first name. "Web Page Title." Website Title. Date Posted. Date Viewed. URL/Web Address.

If anything is missing, just leave it out and move on to the next element.

If any element is missing, you just leave it out and move on to the next. If there is no author name, start with the title of the page. Follow that with the site name, the date posted (if it's there), the date you looked at it, and the address.

Check the SFCC Library site, http://library.spokanefalls.edu, and click on the "citing sources" link. Look this over as the works cited page is important ot this assignment.