Blog #9

As we enter each class, there are always plans and goals laid out for us students. There are certain expectations that are expected of us. First, we need to comprehend text from various sources. This is a great example from our research paper. We had to look at different types of sources and analyze the information that was presented. Sometimes this can be tricky since different writers or authors want us to interpret the text in different ways. With this paper we had to read a lot of information to compose a well written paper about a certain subject that we had some knowledge on or zero knowledge. We had to gain understanding of the information. When we had to show understanding of topic and audience, this was clear in the way we presented our work. We knew who our audience was, the class. We had to adjust our writing style so everyone that was reading this could understand and we did not overstate the obvious. At the same time, we had to understand that our topic that we were discussing might have been abstract to other and dig a little deeper for the information and present it in a way that everyone could relate to it.
With writing there comes the way we prepare for it. Once we are ready to begin writing we need to outline what we want to do. The outline we did for the research paper helped out a lot since we had the opportunity to jot down the information that we wanted to write about. After that was done, organizing the information and thoughts became a lot easier. As we began writing we had to understand that we had to make others interested in the things we were writing about. Also, as we did this we began to understand who we are as writers and how we can develop into better writers. I believe this was accomplished, I do understand my writing style a lot more, and I began to improve my writing with the use of the TS/CD.
TS/CD is a great organizational tool for paragraphs which leads into the paper as a whole. As we did this our papers began to make a lot more sense. Before this my papers were all over the map, jumping from thought to thought with out clear transitions and overall sentence “neatness”. With the research, I believe we have all done our fair share of it. Not saying that we are professionals, but the final paper was great practice once again on how to use certain resources to gain information and how to cite everything we use in a proper manner. If I were to look at my previous papers I am sure that they would be considered plagiarized since I did not give credit to over half the sources I used. This is only fair to do since the people that actually did the work deserve to be recognized for their work. No I have a clear understand how sources and their citation works.
English 102 was an extension to what I have already learned about formatting and paper layout but in a more extensive manner. Before I was careless about how my papers were laid out, and I am sure they looked sloppy. Now I can look at a paper and notice if someone is formatting it right or not. As computer use goes, that is how we obtain a lot of our information and that is how we make our papers come true. With this time and age, almost all students here have general knowledge of how to use computer technology to get their work done. Once we are done with these paper and we read them, we notice that there is a lot of information that we presented, as well as soaked in. Without outside information our papers would be more difficult to compose. After doing such papers if a certain topic comes up in conversation that maybe we wrote about it is easier to educate someone on that certain topic. As a whole, I believe that I have improved a little or substantially on all the class goals.