citing. again.

When citing many phrases from one book (specifically book 18), is it necessary to put a page number next to each phrase or can I just put book 18 as a reference at the end of the sentence along with the series of page number? ex: (bk 18, p. 483-486)

This is my first body paragraph. Could I get some feedback? Specifically, is it ok to jump from the article to the book like I did? I wasn't sure if the transition was smooth enough. Also, does my analysis make sense? Thank you kindly.

Throughout The Iliad, warriors are consistently reminded that there is honor to be gained from fighting. To understand this honor, we consider the article “The Hero” from James M. Redfield. Redfield explains that in The Iliad, warriors are exalted above other social classes and must constantly fight in order to retain their high status in society. He writes that heroes go to battle “not on behalf of their community but on behalf of their own status within it” (Redfield 179). In this culture, heroism becomes a social duty that men must fulfill in order to maintain the warrior class. Homer alludes to this idea in Book IV, when Athena urges the son of Lycaon to fire an arrow at Menelaus and renew battle after the brief truce. Athena says to him, “'Have you the daring to fling an arrow at Menelaus? Just think what thanks, what fame you'd win in the eyes of all the Trojans, Prince Hector most of all'” (Homer 148). Athena does not try to persuade the son of Lycaon by instilling in him rage for Menelaus. Instead she speaks of the honor and raised rank he will gain. Why? His social duty as a warrior overrides any personal desire he has to harm Menelaus.

intro

I am finding it difficult to introduce my thesis. I have a paragraph but am looking for feedback.

Author and retired military Colonel Dandridge M. Malone wrote, “The very essence of leadership is its purpose. And the purpose of leadership is to accomplish a task. That is what leadership does–and what it does is more important than what it is or how it works.” In war the task to be completed is winning the battle and winning the war. A leader must be out in front undertaking a task where the followers can see and emulate. Homer’s Illiad is a raging war where the leaders must be the ones who are powerful killing machines. The community follows the leaders actions and this encourages risky behavior in the leaders, ultimately helping the community.

Topic Sentence Question

Should each topic sentence have the same opinion as the thesis with a specific moment or is it another opinion that ties into the thesis.

Ex: My thesis is about the emotional foundation of family.
Should I have emotional foundation in each topic sentence

Editing Question

I am about to finish editing my final draft of the paper and had a quick question on the use of italics. When I use some of the Greek words we learned in class such as time, arete, and hubris, should I italicized them or leave them be?

Works cited?

Do you want us to have a works cited page, even if our only source was the book?

When I'm referring to Ag. and Men. collectively, I know that the plural form of Atride is Atreidae but I'm wondering if they should be called "Atreidae" or "the Atreidae". Thanks.

So in between the two parts of my paper (see my previous post) should I include a transitionary paragraph? something like

The previous three examples have shown how the warriors follow action, or do not follow lack of action. A leader recognizes what communities follow and uses the effective means to lead. Since the soldiers follow action, the leaders give action and escalate it to risky action in an attempt to lead better. The risky actions of the leaders in turn benefit the community.

Too many ideas in conclusion?

Is it all right if I were to put a real-world example into my conclusion? Not like the "Real World Conclusion" format where you set up a situation, but a real historical event that I think is relevant to my topic. Does that make my conclusion too broad and confusing?

citing

I'm always confused as to where the punctuation goes after a citation.

Like this:


Achilles slanders Agamemnon, saying “Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle […] you lack the courage” (85).

or

Achilles slanders Agamemnon, saying “Never once did you arm with the troops and go to battle […] you lack the courage”. (85)

Question

If I mention idea that was brought up in one of the packets that we read, such as brave warriors are going to be rewarded with gifts from the community, how should I cite the source? Should I say something about the author in the paragraph or should I make a bibliography?

Long-Form Quote

Is it possible to cite a large body of text, provided that you thoroughly analyze it both rhetorically and thematically?

I was thinking of giving an intro to each of the 3 characters I chose, does this work? or should I do one paragraph at the begining explaining all 3 at once??
Also, I'd like some feedback on the 3 body paragraphs.

First, Achilles’ community grows throughout the Iliad. In the Iliad, Achilles’ pride is hurt at the beginning and his state of mind causes him to lose leadership in his community. As the book proceeds, Achilles matures and regains his pride, his leadership in his community-as well as expanding his community.
Achilles acts against his community in order to obtain greater glory. In book 1, Briseis, Achilles’ prize, is taken from him and he asks his mother to “persuade [Zeus], somehow […] to pin the Achaeans back […] and mow them down” (p 91). Even though the Achaeans are on his side, his priorities lie in maintaining his pride. His actions show that he is making choices based on his own personal interests rather than his current community, which is greatly affected.
Then, once his individual needs are met, Achilles focuses on his community. The turning point occurs in book 18. The Smith’s designs on Achilles’ shield depict the world as innocent and joyful. This is when Achilles’ community becomes larger than the Achaean community. His new community is the world and his goal is to preserve it.
Achilles, overall, is a successful leader of his community. This is most emphasized in book 24 when Priam asks “Pity me” (604). They wept together, though they were enemies. Not only does the representation on his shield show his expansion of community, but his actions in this book do also.

Too broad? Other issues?

Here is my working thesis: 

 Homer’s Iliad illustrates women’s innate ability to endure through perilous times.  Undaunted by the onslaught of death and removed from the intimate rage of war, females find a resilience akin to immortality where their men find death.  This is exemplified in the contrast in images used to describe men and women, as well as the power women show in their speech and reasoning.

At this point, I'm attempting to prove it with examples of imagery and character description, then examples of power via emotional speeches (Briseis, Cassandra) and finally of women taking control of their situation (Helen and Andromache).    
My question(s):
a) Is this to broad a range of supporting evidence?
b) Is it acceptable/appropriate to devote an entire paragraph to the analysis of male imagery in order to have something to contrast with female descriptors when my thesis is primarily proving the role of women?

Quotation question.

When putting quotes from the book, is it important that we separate each line of text as in the book, like this:

"Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles,

murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,

hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,

great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion..." (1)

Or should we lump it together like so:

"Rage-Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus' son Achilles, murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses, hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls, great fighters' souls, but made their bodies carrion..." (1)

Another question.

If, in a single sentence, you use quotations from two different pages in the book, how do you cite that?
for example:

Homer shows that warriors are "wolves" and "mountain lions" (417, 335).

or something else?

(this is not a real sentence from my paper, just an example.) Anyone who knows or has an idea is welcome to answer. I appreciate it! Thank you :]

Question!!

(Wow, it took me forever to figure out how to post on here... I hate technology sometimes. :P)

Okay, so I keep hearing from people that this essay has to be 15 paragraphs long, but I'm pretty sure Ms. Dahlin made no mention of that in my class(3rd hour)... Is this really a rule? Or just a guideline? Anyone have clarification? Perhaps Ms. D, if you're on here, you could clear this up.

Thanks! Happy essay writing! (<--Oxymoron ;] )

Thesis?

Here is my rough thesis.

-The mark of a strong leader is the ability to recover from personal mistakes, as can be seen by the actions of Agamemnon, Achilles, and Zeus.

Should I include more than just these 3 subjects? Otherwise I was just planning on using different textual evidence from each of them for the entire paper. Good idea? Bad? I don't know.

Your scrutiny is welcome. Thank you!

Thesis

Thesis main part -Effective leaders act to accomplish tasks. Leaders who are out doing things are the ones that people follow is pretty much what I want to say but I am having difficulties saying it.

Quotations within quotations?

When I'm using something that a character says as evidence, do I do the extra quotation marks or not? So is it

"'...they’d soon run for their lives...if only the mighty Agamemnon met me with respect'"

or

"...they'd soon run for their lives...if only the mighty Agamemnon met me with respect"

Last year a teacher told me that I shouldn't do the extra quotation marks, and now I'm just confused.

Saturday Words o' Wisdom

“Writing is an exploration. You start from nothing and learn as you go.” E.L. Doctorow

Hopefully, you're a bit over halfway done as you begin today...If not, it's time to get moving!

Write up your last body paragraph section today, so that all you have to do tomorrow is write the intro and conclusion and then revise.

Keep on keepin' on - you can do it!

Tense

If I'm comparing present heroes to past heroes, should I still use the present tense when talking about the Iliad like you said Ms. D, or can I use the past tense since I'm talking about the old way of defining a hero in contrast to the present hero?

Check it out for me,Thesis

In the Iliad These three characters show that individualism and a lust for teme gives a person the ablility to lead becuase it gives other someone to follow.
  It's not the most solid thing in the world but yeah.
Basicly what i got is that through individualism and the lust for teme it gives people something to follow becuase to step up and say well this is what a we are fighting for and what not.

Thesis refinement and evidence

My thesis is something like this:

"A community's best interest is handicapped by the powerful individuals who...."

I'm also having some trouble finding relevant evidence. Here is some of my evidence so far:

• Agamemnon refusing to give up Chryseis, resulting in a 10-day plague on his army (roughly pages 79-82)
• Paris' failure to defeat Menelaus (pages 130-140)
• Achilles refusal to eat with his troops, distancing himself from them. (pages 499-500)
• Achilles not helping the Greeks because of argument with Agamemnon (speech on 261-266)

I was also wondering if it would be good to talk about what makes a community strong, like when the Argives are separated into different tribes, and the rituals they have (like feasting). Though I'm not surehow well this helps prove what I'm trying to say.

Clarifying my Thesis

Thesis- "The glory of war is valued more than the catalyst of conflict."

I'm basically trying to say that the grit, violence and time in battle is glorified and considered very important, while the cause of the conflict (Helen) is basically put on the back burner for the entire epic.

Should I just focus on the fact that violence of war is glorified and forget about the reasons of conflict?

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

Friday Motivation

My aim is to put down on paper what I see and what I feel in the best and simplest way.
Ernest Hemingway

Read and repeat advice from Thursday and remember that clarity and specificity are two of the most important goals to strive for on this assignment.

Identify important moments, explain your opinion about why they are important, and link your moments logically.

Evidence/Subgroups?

Here's my thesis: Communities give responsibility to individuals to provide direction and leadership for the community. (The language might be changed a bit, but the idea is going to stay the same.)

I'm worried about evidence -- I probably don't have enough passages from the Iliad, and I'm wondering if anyone has ideas for evidence I can use. Also, I don't really know how what type of criteria to divide my evidence into. Should I use the critical perspectives as a guide for the subgroups or use some other way of dividing it up? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Here's what I have so far:

-Diomedes takes over for Agamemnon - 172

-Patroclus leads in battle - 417

-Hector goes into war for his family - 209/210

-Nestor gives a speech about how the well-being of a community depends on an individual stepping forward - 318

Inspiration for Thursday!

"You can't wait for inspiration. You have to go after it with a club." Jack London

Do a bit of work today without the interruptions of cellphones, facebook, and music. Go to your kitchen table (or another non-electronically connected place) with your notebook, set a timer for 1 hour, choose a section of your paper to work on, find 3-4 quotes that are applicable, and begin writing. If you run up against a block, write down your question and skip to the next sentence or paragraph.

When you're done - post any questions you need me to answer.

The main thing is to get some writing down on paper today.

Good luck!

thesis switch!

So I think I am going to totally change my thesis, which although I realize isn't the best idea, it's something we have all done. I'm thinking of something along the lines of "women are prized beacause of their strength and resilience, and are therefore valued members of society" but that is very rough.
I have two questions. One, is this too close to the gender issues that we were told not to talk about? And two, I was thinking about mentioning in my thesis something about how this is specific to Greek society. Is that a good or bad idea?

"Greater Good"

My current thesis is "An effective leader acts towards the greater good of the community".

"Greater good" is, obviously, very extremely vague and needs to be fixed.

Topic sentence examples

Topic Sentences

Agamemnon's fear of losing glory convinces him that retreating from the war will save it. - sentence structure and word choice – “it” the war? Agamemnon suggests retreat to assuage his fears of losing to the Trojans and the dishonor that loss brings.

As a King in Ancient Greece, Menelaus demonstrates how leaders had minimal respect for their subordinates. Word choice - how/that stronger opinion would offer a rationale for this. Because battles are won or lost by the promochoi, King Menelaus needs to have little respect for his subordinates.

Agamemnon's pride causes a personal problem to become a country problem. Word choice and sentence structure. Agamemnon's pride causes unnecessary problems for his community.

Achilles is torn between the logic of wanting to live and the passion to achieve glory and maintain his pride. Unclear - what are the two sides? Where does the last phrase go? What’s the cause or the effect of this internal division?

A warrior’s ignorance of his code of honor causes distrust between him and his fellow warriors. Too general - which warrior does this? name the scene and give the opinion context.

Achilles chooses to fight not for his fellow warriors but for himself. Too close to a fact - Why does he do this? Make this an opinion by offering an interpretation. Is it a moral or philosophical decision? Is it motivated by a human desire to stay alive? By some other psychological force?

Menelaus' age and lesser strength cause him to always be the most ready and willing to fight. – The problem of “always” - Inaccurate - Diomedes

The ritual of food in Book 1 helps the community relax and forget about the problems at hand. Be a little more specific - which community? What problems?

Menelaus acts unreasonably in Book 7 when he volunteers to battle Hector because of his emotional involvement. What will be proven in this paragraph? Emotional involvement is unreasonable? That it is bad?

Hector's return to battle in Book 6 shows that his honor is determined as much by his familial motivations as his physical domination of other warriors. What will be proven in this paragraph? Are familial motivations surprising? If so, why?

Diomedes rises as a leader within the rank to compensate for Agamemnon's growing inadequacy. Excellent

Both sides burn their dead to come to terms with their loss. Excellent

Homer's characterizations of the Gods come from the psychological need to justify tragedy in warrior society. Excellent

Conclusion Resource

Sorry, I don't have any prepared Iliad conclusions - here are some from Of Mice and Men.

Direct Who? What? Where? When? George and Lennie’s friendship and dream of owning their own land generate the vital quality of hope for each of them. Connection to thesis This relationship is indicative of humans’ fundamental need for something beyond our physical existence. Relationships give people the power to handle adversity positively. Application of thesis In a world where people are constantly busy and often isolated, the role of friendship in dealing with problems is frequently overlooked, thus continuing the cycle of isolation and negativity.

Quote John Donne once said, “No man is an island . . . ; every man is a piece of the continent . . .”. Connection to thesis He believed that interdependence played a crucial role in human survival. As explored in Of Mice and Men, these kinds relationships sustain more than man’s physical existence; they provide the hope necessary for happiness. Application of thesis By recognizing that friendship is a fundamental necessity for human happiness, we can then place less importance on our material possessions and more on the people who surround us.

Real World Situation People who go through high school without friends generally have a negative outlook on life. Struggles with homework and family members are stressors that can be alleviated by confiding in a friend. Connection to thesis Likewise, George and Lennie, the protagonists in Of Mice and Men, continually struggle as they labor manually each day. Through their friendship, they manage to maintain a positive attitude. Application of thesis Relationships give people the power to handle adversity positively. In a world where people are constantly busy and often isolated, the role of friendship in dealing with problems is frequently overlooked, thus continuing the cycle of isolation and negativity.

Rhetorical Question How do your friends help make your life better? By providing laughter, emotional support, and an outlet for our thoughts, friendships are a vital part of our mental health. Struggles with homework and family members are stressors that can be alleviated by confiding in a friend. Connection to thesis Likewise, George and Lennie, the protagonists in Of Mice and Men, continually struggle as they labor manually each day. Through their friendship, they manage to maintain a positive attitude. Application of thesis Relationships give people the power to handle adversity positively. In a world where people are constantly busy and often isolated, the role of friendship in dealing with problems is frequently overlooked, thus continuing the cycle of isolation and negativity.

Introduction examples

Direct Introduction
Direct explanation of context –Who? What? Where? When? Achilles, the main character of the Iliad, is usually seen as a hero from the time of Ancient Greece. He is known for his brave deeds and great strength. Introduce the focus of thesis However, his rage and violence are not exactly what a modern audience would consider noble and heroic qualities. This is because the historical definition differs from our modern one. Thesis Statement In the story the Iliad, Achilles’ personality provides a contrast that shows humanity’s reaction to violence is ______________.

Real World Introduction
Broad generalization In today’s world, a hero is generally understood to be a man of distinguished courage or ability, admired for his brave deeds and noble qualities. Explanation While many heroes fit this definition, they have negative aspects to their character as well. Explanation of context This definition poses a problem when classifying Achilles – the main character of the Iliad – as a hero, because while he is distinguished for his brave deeds, his rage is not exactly what a modern audience would consider a noble quality. However, it is almost universally accepted that Achilles is, indeed, a heroic character. This is because the historical definition differs from our modern one. Thesis Statement In the story the Iliad, Achilles’ personality provides a contrast that shows humanity’s reaction to violence is ____________________.

Quotation Introduction
Quote Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. once said “true peace is not merely the absence of tension and violence but is the presence of justice and brotherhood." Just because someone is a moral person, it doesn’t mean they won’t ever experience the problems or injustice and violence. Explanation of context Despite some myths and misconceptions, the world is not fair, especially not the world of Ancient Greece and certainly not ours today. Violence is a common response when someone feels they have been wronged, but as a society it is difficult to condone any type of violence. This type of conflict is shown in the Iliad. Thesis Statement In the story the Iliad, Achilles’ personality provides a contrast that shows humanity’s reaction to violence is ________________________.

Rhetorical Question Introduction
Rhetorical Question Why do bad things happen to good people? Explanation Just because someone is a moral person, it doesn’t mean they won’t ever experience problems. Explanation of context Despite some myths and misconceptions, the world is not fair, especially not the world of Ancient Greece and certainly not ours today. Violence is a common response when someone feels they have been wronged, but as a society it is difficult to condone any type of violence. This type of conflict is shown in the Iliad. Thesis Statement In the story the Iliad, Achilles’ personality provides a contrast that shows humanity’s reaction to violence is _______________.

Outline questions for paper

1.  Write down one of the topics you have been keeping track of in your reading.

2.  List at least 6 pieces of evidence (include page numbers) from this topic.

3.  Identify subgroups within the list above.  Identify which pieces work together and label the subgroup headings.

4.  Prioritize the subgroup or single piece of evidence that is the most important to the topic AND to the story as a whole.  Write it below.

5.  Write a topic sentence for this group/piece of evidence.

6.  Generate two thesis drafts for this topic.  Focus on the relevancy only.

7.  Write down 3 questions about your topic that need to be answered by reading the last half of the book.  Only 1 of them should be a plot question.