Field trip!

Okay, walking over to Mason Library from Morrison Hall isn't a huge field trip...but we are leaving our classroom today. When you've finished voting for this week's "Best o' Blogs," I want you to go over to Mason Library & into the periodical reading room. (That's the area straight ahead when you walk in the door.)

I want you to browse through several magazines AND journals that are on display, and I want you to compare the introductory & conclusion paragraphs of these two kinds of articles (magazine & journal). For each kind of article, I want you to draw some conclusions about the following:

• How do these articles grab a reader's attention?
• What sort of background information do these articles provide, and what kind of background information do they assume?
• How do these articles establish their authorial credibility? In other words, how do the authors get you to believe they know what they're talking about?
• What sorts of claims do these articles make, and how do they support those claims?
• In the end, how do these articles tie up their points, and what (if any) final questions do they pose for their readers?

Once you've had a chance to look at a handful of magazine AND journal articles, I want you to come back to Morrison 82 to write-up your findings in a blog post. According to your research, what techniques do the writers of journal & magazine articles use to introduce & conclude their essays?