Annoying Ways People Use Sources

1. Armadillo Roadkill is defined as the act of adding a quotation without introducing it first. I believe we talked about this annoyance in class, and how important it is to INTRODUCE whatever evidence we are integrating into our writing. There are many ways we can make roadkill of our writing, and our audience will certainly be quick to point them out. We could be writing about a personal experience and throw a quote in there just for the heck of it, without properly addressing who said it or the circumstance of why they said it. Look at the following example:

On one summer night, my family came over for a barbecue. "Come here, Charlie, right now!".

The reader might ask, "who is speaking and who are they talking to?" "What was Charlie doing when he was called?" It's important to introduce a quote with the proper information so the reader will not be confused. In order to have clear and concise writing, we have to be informative.

2. In my opinion, the annoyance that I sometimes apply is using too many quotations in a paragraph, better titled as "Uncle Barry and His Encyclopedia of Useless Information". Not only does this cause writing to be incomprehensible, but it is hard to follow along with the writer and distinguish between his voice and the source. There is an easy fix to this, however. We have to study each quote and look at its purpose for our writing. A fact could be paraphrased, but a piece of evidence that helps get our thesis across should be quoted. As a result, our purpose prevails and the reader is intrigued.

3. Annoyances ranked (worse first):

Am I In the Right Movie?

I Swear I Did Some Research

Armadillo Roadkill

Dating Spider-Man

Uncle Barry and His Encyclopedia of Useless Information

I Can't Find the Stupid Link