Opinion can begin your investigation but it does not count for anything without well-chosen evidence.
Opinion: Summary-Response notebooks are interesting.
Claim with evidence: In Bean's book Engaging Ideas, he discusses the origin of a very useful reading strategy that Berthoff named a "double-entry journal" (108). Bean goes on to describe a few variations (143-146); he claims that the sort we use in this class, a journal, to "represent the text to themselves in their own words and then respond to it" (144). I found this approach let me revisit areas that interest me and come up with questions that remain puzzling. This process gives me materials to bring to class.
Note how in the example above, I have cited every idea of John Bean's. Worry less about format now (I use MLA) than about accuracy. A reader should know instantly which claims come from me and which from sources. For your own work, when in doubt, let me and your classmates take a look.
Cite EVERY direct quotation and paraphrase. Note the links to Writer's Web pages on this as well as using details to support a claim.
Do you use an ebook edition? Here's how for Mollick's book Co-Intelligence, with and without author reference:
Mollick questions the value of Otters on airplanes, noting, "Direct Quotation” (Mollick, Ch. 3)
We see how Otters cause a lot of trouble for airlines, such as Paraphrased passage (Mollick, Ch. 4).
Checking your work over means revisiting ideas and structure first. One excellent technique involves preparing reverse outlines. Check it and other ideas for revision at Writer's Web.
You can edit for word-choice and other sentence issues late in the game, using the reading aloud strategies described at Writer's Web. Reading silently tricks the eye. If you fail to read aloud, do not expect any As, without great luck.
I do not spell well. Never have! You will find some spelling errors in this syllabus (Google Sites' checker is rather awful). Sometimes I make subject-verb errors, too. Thus I encourage you to use Grammarly and other tools to check sentence-level errors, but a grammatically correct paper that does not make interesting claims may still earn a C.
Remember for your future employment: an organization can get an AI to write decent and boring prose, and the AI costs less than a human. So learn now how to add value to the work. Examples:
Correct but superficial: Artificial intelligence could mean the end of many white-collar jobs. That story dominated much of the early discussion of AI.
Critical thinking at work that "adds value" to a discussion: As the MacKenzie report notes, a third of work may be automated by 2030. Such alarmist predictions dominated much of the early discussion of AI. Looking into matters a year later, however, reveals a more nuanced discussion of who may or may not become unemployed. In particular, two articles note how in higher education...
Boroing! I want action verbs. The passive voice has its place (and in legal prose can be mandatory), but we are talking about world-changing technology in this class. Note how our authors handle matters. And if you want a foolproof method, try this from Writer's Web.
I disagree with some of Ethan Mollick's ideas, but his prose hits the right level of formality for this course. When writing for publication you may wish to sound more formal. Here are a few guidelines for avoiding what Joe Glaser, in his book Understanding Style, calls "the professional professional" voice.
At Writer's Web you'll find my Peeves, based upon common faculty complaints.
All but the "Commonly-Confused Words" noted at Writer's Web will lose you 10 points. Luckily, you'll have a week to repair that "Peeve."
As Grad Students, I expect your writing to avoid errors such as confusing "their" and "there" or "its" and "it's." That said, if you struggle, let's chat. I have some ideas to help.