Identifying Good Thesis Statements Quiz

General Guidelines

• There are 2 authors in the example given (Jones and Smith)

Thesis Statement

• A good thesis statement lists topics, provides something to argue, and doesn't stick to factual information
• Example of a bad thesis statement: "There are many types of ocean fish" (factual and doesn't list topics)
• Example of a bad thesis statement: "This essay will explore the roles of influencers during Covid times..." (statement of purpose)

Formatting and Capitalization

• Titles of chapters on reference pages are formatted and capitalized in sentence case
• Periodicals (magazines, newspapers, and journals) are formatted and capitalized in title case and italics
• Chapters in an essay or title page appear in title case with double quotation marks
• Periodicals are the only thing that never changes in capitalization and format (regular text or italics) whether on the title page, in the essay, or on the references page

APA Guidelines

• APA stands for American Psychological Association
• DOI stands for Digital Object Identifier
• Rule number 1 in a class: use the robot but never trust it
• The 7th edition of APA is used

Writing and Grammar

• Concise writing is important
• Fixing comma splices: use a comma to separate clauses (e.g., "The mood was tense, and we thought it would be difficult.")
• Fixing comma splices: use a semicolon to separate clauses (e.g., "I studied hard; however, I did well.")
• Adding commas to separate clauses (e.g., "Jogging down the street, the man suddenly tripped on the curb")

References and Citations

• Webpages have a year, month, and day (or n.d.) on the references page
• Books have only a year on the references page
• Hanging indentation is used in the references section
• The spacing for a normal assignment is 2.0