Lesson 5 Prompt: Write a question about any writing problem you think other students might also be experiencing.

One major problem that I have been having in this course is documenting sources that I have in my essays. I know that we must use a works cited page any time we use another person’s ideas, but what situation calls for using the page number and/or authors name in parenthesis and which situation calls for mentioning the authors name and then a quote from their work? I have read through Hacker’s MLA section but that doesn’t help make it any clearer. Another problem I have faced is that I am from Canada and there are some differences between the American use of commas and Canadian use of commas. This problem has lost me quite a few marks on my essays but I think I am getting a handle on it. One problem that I am sure other students face is that we do not have face to face time with Dr. Alonzo and while she does a good job giving help it would be much easier taking these courses in person. I could not imagine trying to take a math course over the internet, now that would be even tougher!