You can examine an item or event from any culture. Indeed, part of the process is defining what aspect of culture your work applies to. As we'll see in our discussions, the notion of "American" culture is at best an over-generalized concept. The same sign may function in very different ways for different groups of people.

MLA format is a component of the Project 2 grade, but as the Project 2 handout indicates, the essay's ability to propose and defend a relevant thesis is of greater importance than formal issues. Remember that your pocket style guide (the other text for this class) has a section on MLA format and there are links to MLA resources in the "links" section of our class site.

For the final paper of Project 2 we will find and defend our own theses rather than critique someone else's. However, during the course of the next few weeks we will read other authors' work and examine the claims they make and how they are defended.

We will be doing many short writings, both in print and online, in which we will discuss and analyze semiotic works. This includes looking at both student and professional examples.

I will be checking what topics students are planning to cover in week 7. Rough drafts follow in week 8 and the final draft is due in week 9. However, the paper won't be broken into components such that the paper is done bit-by-bit.

As a class we will generate a rubric, but the method probably will not be the same as it was for Project 1. Probably we will determine criteria that are important and form a class list.

Each student will select his or her own topic. Anything that you can defend as a valid choice will of course be acceptable.

Argumentative does not necessarily mean emotional, such as whether the death penalty should be used. Argumentative means proposing and defending a thesis through evidence; a thesis is something that is not self-evident or factual (such as "the sky is blue") and can be contested. An example may be: "The new Volkswagon Beetle exploits the hippie ethos of its predecessor to target an aging baby-boomer demographic."

A thesis is not the same thing as opinion. Opinions such as "I like chocolate ice cream" are not contestable. You could not "prove" to this person that he does not like chocolate ice cream. A thesis also is not description, such as "Egypt contains about 77 million people and shares a border with Libya." Nor is a thesis summary, such as "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn chronicles a young boy's journey down the Mississippi River." A thesis is a proposition that depends on the author's ability to prove it through evidence.

We will have another form of rough draft workshop, so class members will see one another's work in this way. The rubric will be formed collaboratively; probably students or groups will generate a list of criteria from which the class will choose. However, once the rubric has been formed, I will do all of the scoring.

The pocket style guide (the other text for this class) has a section on MLA format with examples. Also, a great resource is the Diana Hacker site found in the "links" section of our class site. It has a section with a drop-down box for you to look up exactly how to treat different sources. It also has an example student paper in MLA format with marginal comments.

Diana Hacker put out our pocket style guide, so there is synchronicity between the guide and the site.

The essay is itself a semiotic analysis. We have all now provided a definition of semiotics that we will work with and discuss. We will also examine both student and professional examples of semiotic analysis. In the end, we will each produce one of our own. It is important to note that these analyses are not just confined to the classroom. Semiotic analysis, as we will see, appears in many popular venues, such as film criticism, magazine articles, and newspaper reports.

The textbook's examination of the new Volkswagon Beetle is a short semiotic analysis. In the coming weeks we will see samples in the textbook of student work (pages 25-44) and professional work (chapters 1 and 2) in semiotic analysis.

The choice of topic is as broad as you wish; however, the best work will come from a thesis that is tightly controlled. This is because it is more effective rhetorically to say more about less (such as the textbook's statement about the role of the new Beetle in contemporary culture) than to say less about more (the role of the car in America). Very broad topics lead to generalized assertions that are often difficult to prove because they are open to criticism on many fronts. Ultimately, anything you can effectively defend is a good topic.

MLA is a component of the Project 2 grade, but as the handout indicates, it will be of diminished importance because this is the first class interaction we have had with it.

MLA is a comprehensive format, meaning that it applies to how the words are arranged on the page as well as issues of documentation. This means that the whole paper, including the Works Cited page and in-text citations, will be in MLA format. An example of a paper in MLA format may be found in your pocket style guide and on the Diana Hacker site.