QUOTATION EXERCISES
(class 3, Homework 3)

Note:

(1) assignments appear in the syllabus on the day assigned, not the day due

(2) You must submit your written work by blackboard

(3) BE SURE TO FOLLOW THE FILE-NAMING CONVENTIONS FOR THIS COURSE (5% penalty if you do not).

All files should be saved on your computer as: your last name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the first two letters of your first name, followed by an underscore ("_"), followed by the assignment number. So if a student named Saddam Hussein were to submit assignment number 3, the file name would be:

hussein_sa_3.doc

THIS IS ASSIGNMENT 3

Remember This homework is due by blackboad and can NOT be turned in late This homework can NOT be revised This homework is worth 6% of your final semester grade; if you don't do this assignment, however, you will lose 15% of your semester grade

Timing This written homework should take you 1 hour and 15 minutes to do: 15 minutes to read and absorb the explanation below, 12 minutes for part A, 20 minutes for part B, and 28 minutes for part C.

Quotation Exercises

Read this discussion of using quotations in your paper, and then do the three part (A, B & C) exercise that follows it. Be sure that you have done all three parts; do not stop until you see "END OF ASSIGNMENT."

Although it might be tempting to skip the various explanations below, they are essential to doing the assignment.


Be sure to contact Prof. Umbach if you have any questions

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Making & Supporting Logical Arguments

Much of this class will be focused on a central skill of both college and workplace writing: making an argument. An argument generally involves three elements.

1. The Claim -- What you want your readers to believe; the "point" you hope to persuade your reader of

2. The Evidence -- What you will use to support the claim; your "proof" -- often a direct or indirect quotation from a text, but sometimes a statistic or the like

3. The Warrant -- A general principle that explains why you think your evidence is relevant to your claim

You might want to think of making a point with evidence in a paper as a conversation with a friend in which you attempt to persuade that friend of a particular perspective.

Listed below are the questions your friend might ask as you tried to make your argument, followed by the element described above that would answer your friend's questions:

QUESTION	ELEMENT
What are you trying to demonstrate?	CLAIM
What proof do you have?	EVIDENCE
Why do you think that your proof is relevant to your claim?	WARRANT

 

You must always state both your claim and your supporting evidence explicitly; one without the other is either pointless evidence or an ungrounded opinion.  Taking a fairly straightforward example:

" (claim) I know it rained last night because (evidence) the streets are wet ."

It rained last night

<-->

the streets are wet

It would be difficult to take issue with this claim-evidence relationship.

But most evidence-claim relationships are not so simple.

They require an additional element: a warrant.

A warrant is a general principal that serves as a bridge between your claim and your evidence -- it explains how your evidence is both accurate and relevant to your claim.  If one claims, say:

"(claim) The emancipation of Russian peasants was merely symbolic because (evidence) it didn't improve the material conditions of their daily lives."

the reader might ask:

"Even if I grant that your evidence regarding the quality of life for Russian peasants did not improve, why should that lead me to believe your claim that their emancipation was merely symbolic?"

This questions underscores that even if both your claim and your evidence are entirely accurate, it is possible to make a weak argument.

You must explain why the evidence you are presenting supports the claim you are making. In short, you need to establish a warrant between your claim and your evidence

In this example, the warrant might be:

claim	Michael Jordan is the greatest basketball player who ever lived
evidence	Jordan was selected as the greatest basketball player of the 20th century by Sports Illustrated magazine
warrant	Since professional basketball has only been played in the 20th century, and since no basketball player was rated higher than Jordan in the survey, Jordan must be the greatest player who ever lived.

 

Need More Examples?

here is a chart of several arguments with claim/evidence/warrant structures. If you are confused, concrete -- but simple -- examples can sometimes help

Let's look at an example of a point supported by a quotation that might have come from a student paper.

If I wanted to argue that Gandhi thought modern Western civilization was corrupt specifically because of its promotion of material greed, I might write the following:

(CLAIM) Gandhi sees modern civilization as a threat to the Indian people because it promotes an endless cycle of selfish want. (EVIDENCE) He says, "the railways, machineries and the corresponding increase of indulgent habits are the true badges of slavery of the Indian people" (p. 118). In Gandhi’s mind, such things are unnecessary because happiness -- he asserts -- is "largely a mental condition" (p. 123). (WARRANT) For Gandhi, accordingly, if acquiring material goods will not make us happier, then the money and energy we devote to do so should be considered a form of slavery.

Exercise A:

Read this passage from p. 303 of the book The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, A Muslim Traveler of the 14th Century (1986) by Ross Dunn, a historian at the University of California, and then answer the 2 short questions that follow the passage by Dunn:

 

Ibn Battuta ended a sojourn of a little more than eight months in the capital in a state of ambivalence over the qualities of Malian culture. On the one hand, he respected [the ruler's] just and stable government and the earnest devotion of the Muslim population to their mosque prayers and Koranic studies. "They place fetters on their children if there appears on their part a failure to memorize the Koran," he reports approvingly, "and they are not undone until they memorize it." Fetters? ibn Battuta here refers to iron clamps on the leg; see whole passage from Ibn Battuta On the other hand he [criticized] the Sudanese severely for practices obviously based in [their cultural] tradition but were, from his point of view, either profane or ridiculous when set against the model of the rightly guided Islamic state: female slaves and servants who went stark naked into the court for all to see, subjects who groveled before the sultan. . .royal poets who romped about in feathers and bird masks...We may sense in his reportage a certain embarrassment that a kingdom whose Islam so profoundly influenced his own homeland...was not doing a better job of keeping to the straight and narrow.

 

Where in the World?:

Exercise A,B, and C follow Ibn Battuta in West Africa. You can see a map of the region here, with the location of the various quotation exercises indicated.

2 Questions for Exercise A:

1) Dunn uses both direct and indirect quotations. Identify one example for each from Dunn's text. If you are uncertain of the distinction between direct and indirect quotations, see here.

(Remember as you write papers in college, that even indirect quotations require citations.)

2) Identify in Dunn's second paragraph both his claim and his warrant

 

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Exercise B

Want to Know more?

you can read & search the whole book on-line here

Read the following explanatory passage from Dunn, then answer the question regarding the excerpt from Ibn Battuta.

In the passage below from p. 294 of The Adventures of Ibn Battuta, Dunn describes the relationship between Islam, the ruling elite, and the larger population in the region of Mali in Africa visited by Ibn Battuta:

Sudanese chiefs and petty kings are known to have converted to Islam as early as the tenth or eleventh centuries. Whatever purely religious feelings may have motivated such men individually, conversion enhanced their esteem among Muslim merchants, the economically most powerful group in the land, and potentially tied them to a much wider commercial and diplomatic world than they had known before. Yet the military and political success of the mansas (rulers) also depended on their continuing allegiance and cooperation of the mass of their subjects -- farming, fishing, and herding people who for the most part adhered to ancient animistic beliefs and rituals, not Islam. Unlike the sultans of Delhi [(see our textbook, pp. 19 - 21)], the mansas had not come to power as foreign invaders, prepared to organize a state as formally Islamic as they pleased. The legitimacy of their authority rested to a large extent on satisfying traditional ...expectations in their public conventions and ceremonies. Consequently, they were obliged to walk a narrow line between their urban Muslim subjects, who wanted them to behave up to the public standards of [cosmopolitan Cairo or Damascus], and the vast majority of the tax- and tribute-paying population, which took no notice of [the stricter legal dictates] of [sharia] or proper procedure of Friday Prayer.

 

[The sultan] has a lofty pavilion, of which the door is inside his house, where he sits for most of the time. . . . There came forth from the gate of the palace about 300 slaves, some carrying in their hands bows and others having in their hands short lances and shields. . . Then two saddled and bridled horses are brought, with two rams which, they say, are effective against the evil eye. . . . Dugha, the interpreter, stands at the gate of the council-place wearing fine garments of silk brocade and other materials, and on his head a turban with fringes which they have a novel way of winding. . . . The troops, governors, young men, slaves, the Masufa, and others sit outside the council-place in a broad street where there are trees...[They] are the humblest of people before their king and the most submissive towards him. They swear by his name, saying: “Mansâ Sulaymân kî.” When he calls to one of them at his sessions in the pavilion which we have mentioned the person called takes off his clothes and puts on ragged clothes, and removes his turban and puts on a dirty shâshiyya, and goes in holding up his garments and trousers half-way up his leg, and advances with submissiveness and humility. He then beats the ground vigorously with his two elbows. . . . Inside the council-place beneath the arches a man is standing. Anyone who wishes to address the sultan addresses Dugha and Dugha addresses that man standing and that man standing addresses the sultan. If one of them addresses the sultan and the latter [the Sultan] replies, [the person before the Sultan] uncovers the clothes from his back and sprinkles dust on his head and back, like one washing himself with water. I used to marvel how their eyes did not become blinded. . .This is good manners among them.

USING ONLY THE EVIDENCE FROM IBN BATTUTA, how can the evidence be interpreted to demonstrate that the rulers of Mali tempered their Islamicism with local West African cultural practices?

(you should NOT use evidence or information from any other source; limit your analysis to what can be extrapolated from Ibn Battuta's words -- everything you need is there, I promise. Do not use evidence from Dunn.)

(cl)Ibn Batuttuta found in Mali rulers who integrated local West African
cultural practices into their practice of Islam. (ev)For example, Ibn Battuta wrote ___put evidence here__________________. We can conclude that such rituals were of local Malian rather than Islamic origin because____put warrant here_______________.

Useful Hints !

CHECK YOUR OWN WORK BEFORE FRITZ GRADES IT!: Ask yourself if your warrant explains HOW and WHY your evidence demonstrates your claim. Remember that 75% of your grade here depends on the quality of your warrant

 

The people of Takadda carry on no business but trading. Every year they travel to Egypt and bring from there everything there is in the country by way of fine cloths and other things. For its people ease of life and ample condition are supreme; they vie [vie: verb, meaning to compete] with one another in the number of male and female slaves they own—as likewise do the people of Mali and Iwalatan. They do not sell educated women-slaves, except very rarely and at a great price.

…There is a copper mine outside Takadda. The people dig for it in the earth, bring it to the town, and smelt it in their houses. This [difficult work] is done by their male and female slaves. When they have smelted it into red copper, they make it into rods about the length of a span and a half: some are of fine gauge and some thick. The thick are sold at the rate of four hundred rods for a mithqal [A unit of weight, equivalent to a little over 3 1/2 grams, used in reference to quantities of gold or silver for various purposes] of gold, the fine for six or seven hundred to the mithqal it is their means of exchange. They buy meat and firewood with the fine rods: they buy male and female slaves, millet, ghee, and wheat with the thick. Copper is carried from there to the city of Kubar (Gobir) in the land of the unbelievers, to Zaghay and to the country of Barnu (Bornu) which is at a distance of forty days from Takadda. Its people are Muslim; they have a king whose name is Idris, who does not appear before the people nor speak to them except from behind a curtain. From this country are brought beautiful slave women and eunuchs and heavy fabrics.

How can the evidence from Ibn Battuta above be interpreted to demonstrate the economic function as well as the social prestige value of slaves within many West African societies at this time?

(cl) From Ibn Battuta's writing we can conclude that slaves not only served

an economic function by ______(put slaves' economic function

here)____, but also served a social function by ____(put slaves' social

prestige value here)_____. Ibn Battuta presented evidence as to the

economic role of slaves when he noted that in Takadda (ev)

______(put quotation "A" here)___. We can know from this the economic

role of slaves from this because,(wa) _____(put warrant for quotation "A"

here )____ (ev) But slaves also served a social function. Ibn Battuta observed

Useful Hints !

CHECK YOUR OWN WORK BEFORE FRITZ GRADES IT!: Ask yourself if your warrant explains HOW and WHY your evidence demonstrates your claim. Remember that 75% of your grade here depends on the quality of your warrant.

the social prestige ownership of slaves brought their masters when

he observed, ___(put quotation "B" here)___. (wa)____(put warrant

for quotation "B" here)______.

Postscript: According to his travel narrative, on September 11th, 1353 (almost exactly 651 years ago andnearly a century before the first European voyage to the West African coast) Ibn Battuta left Takadda in the company of a large camel caravan transporting 600 enslaved African women for what is now the African country of Morocco. Those slaves probably originated in the savanna lands south of Takadda. This region lacked the copper of Takadda and so the inhabitants traded extensively in enslaved persons to acquire the goods they desired. Once in Sijilmasa or Fez, the enslaved women would likely be sold into service as either domestic or sexual slaves (Islamic law permits men to own sexual slaves -- sometimes mistakenly referred to in in the West as "concubines" -- in any number; however, this practice is exceedingly rare now and generally outlawed in Muslim countries) for the urban elite in those African cities.

"END OF ASSIGNMENT"