The passage below is from the article “Is Your Texting Punctuation Sending the Wrong Message? Yes. Maybe! Think So…”. The author is Carly Mallenbaum, Culture and Entertainment Writer at USA TODAY. The article was published September 28, 2020 on the USA TODAY website whose publisher is also USA TODAY. The web address is: https://www.usatoday.com

Here is the passage:

As the global pandemic pushes more communication from in-person to text, there is even greater opportunity for confusion over digital messages. In the past six months, you may have appeared passive-aggressive in a text without even knowing because you used ellipses. Or perhaps that period you used made your tone seem curt when you were just trying to end a sentence. Maybe you read an exclamation point as shouting when it was intended to be friendly. When it comes to texting, there can be plenty of tonal confusion, especially among people of different generations. It turns out there’s a reason for the disconnect that’s tied to when a person adopted digital communication in his or her lifetime. Many young people have a “computer-first mentality” and choose different grammatical tools in messages compared with those who are older and grew up doing “more casual writing on postcards,” says linguist Gretchen McCulloch, author of “Because Internet: Understanding the New Rules of Language.”

Please number your answers in the order the questions are given below. Format your document using the Standards for Written Work. Save it as YourName.QSPQuiz.doc (or .pdf). Click the Add a File box to upload your document; then click Submit.

1. First, create a Works Cited entry for this source in proper MLA 8 format:

2. Next, incorporate a quotation from the passage into a sentence or two of your own, documenting the quoted material using a signal phrase and parenthetical citation.

3. Now, write a summary of Mallenbaum’s passage documenting it with a signal phrase and a parenthetical citation. REMINDER: Summary is the main idea(s) written in your OWN words and is always much shorter than the original.

4. Finally, write a paraphrase of Mallenbaum’s entire passage, again documenting it with a signal phrase and a parenthetical citation. REMINDER: Paraphrase is all the ideas written in your OWN words and is usually as long or longer than the original.