Monday, November 8, 2010
Blog #6
Wow...the critical analysis was a real tough one. I had a hard time remembering not to write the damn plot of the movie. I felt like it kept going hand and hand with what I was trying to say. I also felt that it was difficult to decide what I felt the writer was trying to get across in this movie. It seemed like I could go many different ways with it. But this movie was over all really good and now that I own it I will probably watch it again but for recreational reason next time around. I used the format of explaining each character form the time we meet them in the movie and what the significant event was that change there POV on life, which seemed to work great except it being really close to a plot summary. I really think that what these characters are going through was they just lived in a small town where highschool was the best time of their life and after that there is not much to look forward too. So when then finally got out of school they wanted to continue the good times without the responsiblitly of school work. I can relate to this because when I get to see some of my former class mates now, they seem to have the same problem. It takes sometime for people to get out of the comfort zone of high school especially if you are the "King of the School".....but overall good paper....I am excited to see what grade I got on it.
Thursday, October 21, 2010
Blog # 5
Well I guess that I am different from every other student because I was able to see my mistakes on the eval summaries and with my instructors suggestions I re wrote the paper and thought it was pretty good. I thought I did a good job at conveying the summary of the article without dominating it with my opinion of the author. I actually had my step-mom read it to get another teachers advise and she said that it would be a good paper if I fixed what my instructor told me. I had a real big problem with using the word "you" and I also learned that you cannot use an authors first name in a paper....haha. I would be excited to see what further suggestion my instructor had on my re write so that I can further build my writing experience. As I continue through the class I am learning more and more about the APA style of writing…it seems that in every paper I have written so far I cant seem to get all the in-text citations correct, but that’s ok I think by the time the research paper is done I will finally have a grasp on it. I would like to see some examples of active verbs because if I think if I remember correctly I did use the word “is” quite often. It would be interesting to see what else I could plug in there.
Monday, October 11, 2010
Research Paper Free Write
Well lets see. I am a HUGE sports fan. There is really not anything that comes close to it. Football,baseball,hockey,basketball, etc. I do play fantasy sports in all those as well. It really is all I have time to pay attention to anymore because I work two jobs and go to school. I have an opinion about everything and am readly available to argue my view. Lets just say that if Yorkville High School had a debate team I would have been the captain. I am really really in touch with my movies. I like to consider myself a movie buff. All kinds of movies it doesnt matter to me. If I had more time I would watch more tv series but I dont.
What I come in contact the most with everday is people. I am an inside salesman and I talk to all types of people everyday. Mostly the other guys in the office talk about politics and religion and I keep quiet because I have my views and I know that they do not agree with them. (Democrat, Catholic) haha. But I spend most of my time thinking about the next steps in life. Thinking about what I need to do to make enough money so I can move out, get married, buy a new car, where it is smart to buy a house........things of that nature. This is actually a really hard post for me. I am not sure what to write most of the research papers I have done before I have been able to pick a topic from a list and form and opinion from what I learn.....which is easy for me because I love to argue...anything and everything. I'm sure this is not what you are looking for but maybe after we talk I can get a better idea.
What I come in contact the most with everday is people. I am an inside salesman and I talk to all types of people everyday. Mostly the other guys in the office talk about politics and religion and I keep quiet because I have my views and I know that they do not agree with them. (Democrat, Catholic) haha. But I spend most of my time thinking about the next steps in life. Thinking about what I need to do to make enough money so I can move out, get married, buy a new car, where it is smart to buy a house........things of that nature. This is actually a really hard post for me. I am not sure what to write most of the research papers I have done before I have been able to pick a topic from a list and form and opinion from what I learn.....which is easy for me because I love to argue...anything and everything. I'm sure this is not what you are looking for but maybe after we talk I can get a better idea.
Informal Essay
The plan of attack with my group was that we were going to read the article, then send a summary to each other on what we thought the article was stating and is the point was clear and was well explained. Well the weekend came and went and we had heard nothing from each other and it kept getting push aside. Finally after a number of days, another group member and I got together and he sent me a few paragraphs on what he had started. I knew that I had to take the reigns here and come up with something for us to turn in. So on the day it was due I took what he sent me and configured a paper out of what I thought we needed to do. It turned out to be a pretty good paper so I was happy.
I really like to consider myself a leader in all types of group activities. I'm not a person who needs to be the leader but if no one is stepping up or they are not holding up their end of the deal then I will gladly step in. I felt like I did this exact thing with this group project. I saw that my group had nothing accomplished and stepped up and wrote a paper so we didnt end up with a zero. I think that this paper really started to give me some confidence as a writer, I mean I really pulled my ideas out of thin air and did it in about an hour on my lunch break. It really worked out for me because the more I can gain some confidence with my writing the more comfortable I feel and really can start to enjoy my writing assignments.
I really like to consider myself a leader in all types of group activities. I'm not a person who needs to be the leader but if no one is stepping up or they are not holding up their end of the deal then I will gladly step in. I felt like I did this exact thing with this group project. I saw that my group had nothing accomplished and stepped up and wrote a paper so we didnt end up with a zero. I think that this paper really started to give me some confidence as a writer, I mean I really pulled my ideas out of thin air and did it in about an hour on my lunch break. It really worked out for me because the more I can gain some confidence with my writing the more comfortable I feel and really can start to enjoy my writing assignments.
Diagnostic Essay
So when we had our first day of class and we were asked just to write an essay out of thin air, I have to admit I was kind of freaked out. I have not taken an english class in over a year, so therefore I have not done a lot of writing and as they explained in the They Say, I Say book the only way to get better at something is to practice, practice, pracitce. So when I wrote this essay for Kristen I did not feel comfortable.
I think my strengths as writer is that ability to keep a paper flowing. I am pretty detail oriented so I can really paint a picture for the readers. I really enjoy writing stories or some sort of paper that needs to have a picture painted for the reader. I think my weakness are that I am not that familiar with the APA and MLA style due to my lack of writing experience and I also hurt myself because I always think that my paragraphs sound silly and I'm not using enough intellegent lingo. So I try not to fight myself and just let me words flow but it is pretty hard sometimes.
As I said before I thought the essay was hard to write because I was itimidated by the fact that we were writing on the first day of class and with a new teacher and all I didnt want Kristen to think I was a re tard! But as far as the topic is concerned, I felt very good about my opinion but I didnt know how to put it all out on paper. If we were assigned this again I believe that I could make the essay a lot better, now that I hvae a few papers under my belt.
I think my strengths as writer is that ability to keep a paper flowing. I am pretty detail oriented so I can really paint a picture for the readers. I really enjoy writing stories or some sort of paper that needs to have a picture painted for the reader. I think my weakness are that I am not that familiar with the APA and MLA style due to my lack of writing experience and I also hurt myself because I always think that my paragraphs sound silly and I'm not using enough intellegent lingo. So I try not to fight myself and just let me words flow but it is pretty hard sometimes.
As I said before I thought the essay was hard to write because I was itimidated by the fact that we were writing on the first day of class and with a new teacher and all I didnt want Kristen to think I was a re tard! But as far as the topic is concerned, I felt very good about my opinion but I didnt know how to put it all out on paper. If we were assigned this again I believe that I could make the essay a lot better, now that I hvae a few papers under my belt.
Blog # 1
Wow. Let me just first say that I guess what I was learning in high school about writing was totally wrong. As I look back on my papers that I have written over the years it seems that they are all pretty identical. I feel like I have written them all the same, but as they explain in this book you can infact use these "templates" to write your papers and still have a bunch of creativity.
I really liked how it explained how to use the they say, I say format. I think this can me very useful in my attempt at getting the point or purpose across in my future papers. It's funny how when you are writing an important paper and all these facts are getting put in your getting everything that you want into each paragraph and finally when you go to proof read the paper you think you have something outstanding to turn in and then you get the grade back where the teacher has put on the top of the paper...."good facts but no point." or as Kristen Peters would say WHY?
Recently I was assigned to read some of the articles or stories out of the they say I say book and the one that I chose was What You Eat is Your Business by Radley Balko. I personally thought this story was great. It was summarizing that the government is trying to make everyones health and public problem whereas Balkos argument is that is everyone in society should be held responisble for themselves. One example that I thought was great is when he says that why would someone who is overweight and eats really crappy all day has a heart attack and they goes to the doctor and gets meds that everyone pays for and the money doesnt come out of his pocket, what is the incentive to make the lifestyle change? There is none. If everyone else is paying for your health then why change. I agree with Balko in this article and he defeintlry gets his point across in this article.
I really liked how it explained how to use the they say, I say format. I think this can me very useful in my attempt at getting the point or purpose across in my future papers. It's funny how when you are writing an important paper and all these facts are getting put in your getting everything that you want into each paragraph and finally when you go to proof read the paper you think you have something outstanding to turn in and then you get the grade back where the teacher has put on the top of the paper...."good facts but no point." or as Kristen Peters would say WHY?
Recently I was assigned to read some of the articles or stories out of the they say I say book and the one that I chose was What You Eat is Your Business by Radley Balko. I personally thought this story was great. It was summarizing that the government is trying to make everyones health and public problem whereas Balkos argument is that is everyone in society should be held responisble for themselves. One example that I thought was great is when he says that why would someone who is overweight and eats really crappy all day has a heart attack and they goes to the doctor and gets meds that everyone pays for and the money doesnt come out of his pocket, what is the incentive to make the lifestyle change? There is none. If everyone else is paying for your health then why change. I agree with Balko in this article and he defeintlry gets his point across in this article.
Monday, August 30, 2010
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