Last One

English 102 was definitely a resourceful and encouraging class. There were several things new to me, as well as so things that I had knowledge of but needed a refresher on those. The main thing was the TS/CD paragraph. This format helped out a lot during paper writing. It was beneficial in the organization; previously my paragraphs had no meaning to them. They often did not make sense. After getting a hang of TS/CD I feel that my paragraphs have improved tremendously. OWL, on the other hand, was a resource I have heard of before, but never tried. Once I went to the site, I realized how much beneficial information was available there. I have relied on OWL on few instances to get me through a difficult writing situation. I feel that having “Cite Everything” told to us over and over again really helped out. In my previous writing I never gave enough credit to the sources that provided me with the information that I needed. Also, I never had a good grasp on writing the citations. Having to think about citations during the writing process definitely made me give all the credit to the smart people that provided me with new learning material, but also, material that made my papers complete. After doing the Using Smart Verbs assignment, I have started to think about other words that I could substitute to the ones that are always used. It has helped me to think about expanding my vocabulary when it comes to writing.
Previously when I wrote my papers, I never read them over. They were done as soon as I stopped typing. I realized that while I re-read the paper to myself out loud helps a lot. It is a new editing technique that I have not used previously. I did not use it much at the beginning of this class either. As time went on during the semester, and it was being repeated to us to read our work out loud to ourselves is beneficial to catching our mistakes. Once I began reading my papers I realized how many mistakes I had in my writing, missing commas, wrong sentence structure, and grammatical errors. After I read my last paper out loud I realized how many terrible papers I must have turned in before. That might explain some lower scores. Another thing that helped in the editing process was the Peer Editing. Getting a chance to read other peoples work and seeing their styles made me realize a few things that could improve my writing. I believe that during this semester I have become a better writer, I have learned how to be more critical of my own work, but also of others. I have realized that there are words that we can substitute that will make our paper more “spicy”.

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.

Blog #8

As I progress through the paper I keep on running into some issues. The main issue is not having enough information. It feels like putting down more information would make my paper wander into parts I do not want to go into. It would make the paper run off topic and begin presenting something totally different that I want to. Also it seems like it is difficult to find sources that stay focused on what I would like to write about. But I think the positives outweigh the negatives. The major positive is that I have somewhat of an extensive knowledge on the subject so it is not too difficult to come up with material to write about, but at the same time I need to have sources so I need to find sources that talk about the things that I already know. Also another thing that is going smoothly is the fact that I already have a base for this paper that I just need to expand on. At the same time the base needs to be completely rewritten and changed, but that is not that difficult. Overall, the paper is going pretty well. I feel that all the things that we went over in class are helping alot.

Humor/Style

Humor to me is both laugh out loud or subtle humor that only a few people can pick up on. Also, to me being sarcastic is pretty humorous. My preference is the subtle humor. The situation when a few people are having a conversation and someone says something off beat and only a certain amount pick up on and begin laughing is priceless. This type of humor almost effortless for people, where it would take others a second to plan it out and they would look like they are trying too hard. I think that is why I put sarcasm in that same category, because only a few people can discern between reality and sarcasm. Just like subtle humor and the obvious.
I see style as a way someone presents something with comfort, like they were meant to do it. They have a certain style. Just like professional athletes, let’s look at Michael Jordan. He was born to play basketball, and he made it look so easy. The way he dunked the ball, it had style. He was doing it like no one else in the game at that time. The way he carried himself on the court also made him have style. We need not mention the way he would show up to the games. With the newest Mercedes, dressed really well. To me when someone can do things like that and carry themselves in a certain way that makes them have style.

Blog #6

To start off the movie Beautiful Girls was awesome. I actually recommended the movie to several people. Also, I watched the movie about four times after we were done watching it in class. Writing critical papers in not my favorite thing to do. As I watch movies I do not really think about the message that the movie is trying to get across. Although that is an objective, but that aspect is in the back of my mind, not the primary focus. When I watch movies I tend to look at visual things, camera angles, and other technical things and try to find their meaning in a certain scene. I am still trying to figure out what is in the briefcase in Pulp Fiction. The reason I enjoyed writing this paper was due to the fact that I got to watch that movie a several times, but it also gave me a different way to watch a movie. Trying to decipher what the message is that is being presented to us made me pay attention to different things that I normally would not look at. It was a plus that the cast was made up of some big entertainment names. When I was writing it was hard to get my thoughts on the movie in an expanded format. I just wanted to write what I was noticing and not to expand too much on it. But of course that was not the goal. Understanding the movie and writing about what you got out of it would not be possible in a short paragraph. Watching grown people behave like children made me laugh and reminded me of some people I know. I think that is what made it more enjoyable, comparing the movie characters to people in my life. Which made me chuckle sometimes. Whenever you see a person in their late 20s or early 30s behave like they are still in high school, or just never getting out of that adolescent state of mind. With my paper I would not change much, except some grammatical things.

Blog #5

For the evaluative summary, the thing that I would have done differently would be to evaluate the writing more. I believe that I gave a good summary, and expressed my feeling on it. I listed the things that I agreed with and disagreed with. If I would have expanded on my thought more, I think the evaluation would have worked out a lot better. My word usage was good in my mind, but changing a few things would have been good. To me evaluating something is giving my opinion on how it made me feel and what I believe. That part of evaluation is in my paper. I stated that I did not agree with the BMI and on the fact that is the way someone’s health is determined. Maybe if I sat down and rewrote the whole thing it might have been more of a complete evaluation. Doing a paper on a short article limits me as a writer because it confines the writing to someone else’s work and limits the thinking process to their feelings and opinions. I analyzed the article too much, and did not evaluate what was really being said in it. Maybe reading the article a few more times would have helped. This way I could have understood what was really being said, although it was pretty straight forward. Also, if I would have reread my paper a few more times I would have realized that I was not evaluating as much as analyzing. This paper needs a total overhaul and maybe it will follow the guidelines for the assignment a lot more.

Blog #3

Writing papers in groups is not the best thing. I enjoy doing group work but I have noticed that I do not like essay assignments in a group setting. I think it is hard to make it work with the differences in writing styles and idea processing. As it goes for learning something about myself as a writer as a part of a group is that I prefer to take charge and get my ideas across first. Sometimes having things done your way is the best thing, but who does not think that way. On the other hand, it is nice to have someone else’s input and at times I had to put my ideas and feelings aside about something when I heard a better idea from my partner.
The solo objective summary I thought was much easier to do, but also not having someone else’s input made it difficult to put things together. I have felt that at time I did not support my ideas well enough. Rushing through the paper does not work for me either. After getting it done I needed to read it through a few more times to get the result that would have satisfied me. While doing these two papers I have also noticed that my writing is unbalanced. Sometimes I cannot find the right amount of content. I either overuse something because it is just space filler, or I do not get enough of something in. There is still a lot of work to be done to achieve the level of writing that I am capable of.