Finals thoughts

 Entry 67:

Topic: Thoughts

    I am slowly but surely, running out of things to talk about in my blog. As time has been progressing I keep forgetting to write. I also, do not have much left to read anymore to work my ideas to write for the blog. Next week is our last week of work for this class and many of my other classes so I guess we will see how everything goes, I may just quit using my blog to try and focus my thoughts and energy into my other courses. Who knows though. I guess we will see next week if I can come up with anything else! Oh yes, I should probably check if I turned everything in that was due today (with finals week approaching I feel like everything is due at the same time and I am afraid of missing a deadline as they are more strict right now). 

Portfolio

 Entry 66

Readings

Topic: Portfolio checklist/ handout

    So the final portfolio is due in two days time and the handout calls for a letter of introduction, I know that the professor says it is not due just yet in its entirety but I am unsure how I want to introduce and talk about my projects. I still have another week to actually figure it out but I need to think of something, I do not want a boring or basic portfolio. 

 Entry 65:

Topic: Writing Work Due/ Thoughts

    The only work we have due this week is our troubleshoot portfolio, this means that this week we will be gathering all of the work that we have done this semester, editing and creating a pretty presentation of it all. I am putting together a hopefully beautiful collage of projects one, two and three and all of their drafts. I think the hardest part of this may be finding all of my drafts because I used a lot of sources that do not save every version of the projects or I may have forgotten a draft or two, I do not know. I guess we will see how my final result of my portfolio project turns out. 

Thoughts

 Entry 64: 

Just Writing

Topic: Finals Week

    Finals week is approaching and happening next week, and for many this is a time to stress. Everything is due and these grades will make up for your entire semester or this is the time you actually find out your grades. I personally am draining and I feel like I am running out of energy to complete these courses before my summer break. I feel like it would be wrong to just give up though. I only have what two weeks left of work and then I can finally get my break? I can do it. I can hold on just a little while longer. 

Quote

 Entry 63:

Reflection

Topic: Quote

"You never have to change anything you got up in the middle of the night to write"

    I think that this quote provides a rather interesting approach. Makes you question why someone would say that to you. Upon reflective on this though, if you get out of bed, whatever you feel you need to say is obviously important. I know some of my best writing ideas are when I just get into bed, and when I write them down, I have something to work off of and can write forever. When I just go to sleep, I forget the idea and it drifts away from my mind like it never existed. What is there to change, only thing that may need to be done to that work is some slight editing. I think middle of the night writing is some of the best writing that there ever is. Thoughts and emotions are more raw and pure. 

Celebration of Student Writing

 Entry 62:

Reflection

Topic: Celebration of Student Writing

    For the past few days, students all over campus within our schools writing class have been sharing their project that they have been working on all semester. There are several different multimodal designs I have seen from other classes and there is some very beautiful work, discussing very serious and important topics. Some things were topics I had not even heard of nor thought to consider but I felt very informed at the end of it all. This is a very interesting approach and thing to do because it lets students inform one another on topics important to them. This has been my favorite part of the whole semester! 

Quote

 Entry 61:

Reflection

Topic: Quote

"Every writer I know has trouble writing"

    Many writers experience writers block, and the best way to overcome it, is get out of your head or just start writing. I have done a lot of research for my blogs and I found that so many good writers just start writing ideas and brainstorming on paper to get their brain working and words on a page. Sometimes, you just need to throw yourself off and start doing whatever it is you need to do. 

    For a while I struggled to write, I have been using a lot of guided questions from my writing class as prompts or ideas for my blogs until I can use them. With the semester coming to an end, it is hard to find things to write about. I have been very unmotivated this month but I have been looking within the readings and the course for things to discuss for my blog, and I have done it!

Final Touches

 Entry 60:

Reflection

Topic: Final touches

    Our final copy of project 3 is due tomorrow, and I know that when turning in the final copy of anything, you hope this and should pray this is your best copy. If this copy is not good, then there is a serious problem. Final touches on any work is the make or break of your success. Since project three was a rather simple project, it was very easy to create and then add small details. For me, I added a couple images to my work that fit my project, not just some random things, although it was hard for me to find images I loved, I found a couple good ones. I also fixed my wording and spaces. It was really easy to do, and I think these few final touches made my project look a lot better. Final tweaks are amazing when working, especially with writing and designs. 

Research Process

 Entry 59:

Reflection

Topic: Research Process

    It is nearing the end of the semester, so I would like to reiterate some research processes. Now, everyone has their own method and uses different databases. I choose to research and find articles based on their abstract to make sure they are going to fit my topic before I waste time reading 5+ pages to realize that my topic is barely mentioned in all of the work I plan on reading. I like to make sure that my topic is highly talked about in the abstract and introduction so that I know it is fitting. I also take notes and then read it over again while working so that I can make sure everything sounds like a scholar wrote it, or at least a somewhat decent researcher. This outcome is very important when you are writing, no matter the class or topic. Research is everywhere so knowing how to do it properly is very important.

If He Had Been With Me (2)

 Entry 58:

Review

Topic: If He Had Been With Me

    Like the last blog that I posted, I talked about this book. I have been thinking about things to talk about for this blog and this book has been heavy on my mind. In the beginning of this book, with the title of this book, you know that at the end and throughout the book it is building up to a tragic end. How the author portrays events and tells the story is beautiful all throughout. When I finished this book, while crying, I still for some reason almost decided to go back over it. Read it all over again, but this time take time to reflect and take notes for discussion- I have not read it again but it is that good. 

    In this book, the story is told in what some may call flashbacks and there are time skips, because she is referring to "Before"- you would not know if you do not pay attention that this book went from current time, then went to memories and is building up to tell you the story. This book is a love story, "if he had been with me" tells us what happened but does not actually provide an alternative story to if he had been with her. It is telling us the past, what actually happened but it does briefly address how everything could be different had he been with her. This is a very deep love story that does not last long but also kind of did. The authors goal was to show that time is not always granted, and to love people while you have them because you never know what the future holds. The book did just that- my heart was hurting over this book at 4 am. 

If He Had Been With Me

 Entry 57

Reflection 

Topic: Book Review

    Over this week, I found time to sit down and read a book in its entirety. The book is titled "If He Had Been With Me" and was written by Laura Nowlin. I would recommend this book to anyone, it is a pretty realistic book in terms of feelings and emotions. This book made me bawl my eyes out at the ending, and while I do not want to spoil it there are some things that I just need to get off of my chest about this book. 

    Throughout the book, there was a lot of inner battles within the characters. The mother has depression, the father is rarely in her life, she loses friends over the years and gains friends back. There is a lot of realistic problems within the book, but the way it was all put together made a beautiful story. One of the main things that I noticed in the book would be the main character, Autumn, you can see she is a young girl trying to figure herself out and to fit in. She feels like she is an outcast and she tries so hard to fit in with the other "misfits", she dates a guy who makes her happy, but she is not in love with. She tells herself when she loses feelings, to just stay because he makes her happy and she will love him again one day. I think that this is a serious problem that she maybe could have avoided. It bothered me all throughout the book, I have felt like this before. Just staying somewhere that I just feel content, not happy but just okay so I do not hurt anyones feelings. 

    The main goal of the authors was to create a realistic style book, with real problems and a love story embedded in it. They did an amazing job at that and I fully recommend this book. It just made me realize somethings about myself while reading because I felt a lot of similarities with some of these characters. 

Peer Review, Project 3

 Entry 56:

Reflection

Topic: Peer Review of Project 3. 

    Going into my peer reviews for project three, I thought it would be hard to comment on poster like projects because there would be less to talk about, especially if there were multiple partners. However, it was very easy. I could tell them to perhaps add an explanation for something, or add pictures where there was too much open space, there was many things to comment to help them achieve the best project that they could do. Many peers had amazing papers with amazing multimodal designs this week. Perfection in time for the Celebration of Student Writing. 

Reflective Interaction

 Entry 55:

Reflection

Topic: Reflective Interaction

    In this course, we have gotten to interact with several of our peers. We got to give them feedback and interact with a lot of their work as they got to do with ours as well. This is a good way to help students, reflect on mistakes and errors of their own and see what they can help other students correct or praise as well. This is a course outcome that has been worked on throughout several projects. 

Multimodal Design

 Entry 54:

Reflection

Topic: Multimodal Design

    Upon first hearing and learning about multimodal designs, I was insanely confused as to what exactly this was. Now, I have a better understanding as I work on project 3. This is one of many course outcomes we have been working on all semester and it is important to know that there are several ways to do one. Most of my confusion on the topic was that there was only one specific way to do this when in reality, there are several ways to do one. Sometimes, asking for help is what you need to do. 

Live and learn

Entry 53

Reflection

Topic: "Live and Learn"

    One thing people seem to often forget is that we are all human and that we all make a mistake. Life is about making mistakes, we all make a mistake eventually whether it is big or small. How people, including ourselves, react can determine how we treat making the same mistake again later. Live and learn to me means that we know it is okay to make a mistake, we can correct it or just walk it off- but we should not judge ourselves or others for their mistakes. Unless someone else was hurt intentionally- that is not really a mistake though I guess. No one is perfect and I think that is what live and learn truly means. We should all keep in mind that mistakes are bound to happen, we are all human and we will never not make at least one mistake.  

Infographic presentation / Canva Review

 Entry 52

Reflection

Topic: Infographic presentation / Canva Review

    I have never heard of this terminology so when I saw what is was I was like no way, never knew they gave these presentations a fancy name (granted I also never really gave or saw presentations in high school so college is teaching me a lot). Anyways, I decided to try this for my project three and may I just say that this is an amazing way to share information and there are a lot of templets online to help create this type of model. I used canva and they had so many, they also had some with similar topics which I thought was interesting as it helped me decide what I wanted to include in my infographic model. If anyone is considering doing this model, I really recommend canva (I had never heard of it before today). Canva has a lot of options for a variety of things and most things on there are free! Maybe they should pay me for the free advertisement and promotion, kidding! 

Multimodal Projects

 Entry 51

Research

Topic: Multimodal Projects

    There are several different ways to create a multimodal project. However, there are also specific things to consider when creating one. There are different parts to a multimodal structure: visual, audio, gestural, spatial, and linguistic; depending on what type of multimodal you consider doing will help to determine which parts you should look into the most (obviously you want to use a bit of all, right?). 

    When I say visual, I think everyone thinks of pictures or images shown, but visuals is so much more than that! It also includes backgrounds, color, transition, and more. I think everyone can get what audio is, the noise included in the project. Gestural is on what the person presenting (however they present) behaves and what they do throughout. A lot of good presentations have gestures but it is knowing when and where to use them that can make a presentation good or bad. Spatial is about line spacing, sizes, alignment and more. Linguistic is about how things are worded. All of these factors play into a multimodal project and each is as important as the other. 

Quote from week 11 reading

 Entry 50

Research / Reflections

Topic: Quote from "Multimodal Projects" from Kettering College Writing Center

"Never read your slides to an audience-- they can read!"

    At my high school one thing that the teachers hated was when people would read word for word off of the board while they were presenting. The teachers always said it seemed like they threw the presentation together in a day and just wrote a bunch of stuff on there- complaining when students look at the board their voices start to struggle to project. A lot of teachers preferred note cards, and only looking at the board when demonstrating a picture to show what they are saying. 

    Teachers hated when students seemed to show a lack of knowledge on their subject to where they cannot even give a presentation and not take their eyes off of the slide because they struggle to remember. For me, I either struggled with this or would do good. I get nervous when publicly speaking so I would forget what I was trying to say. Some things, most things, sound much smarter in my head. By the time the spotlight is on me, I forget what I was going to say and then I need to rely on the presentation but if I were to talk one on one I could give the best presentation. So I guess I could argue on teachers disliking it because a lot of students have social anxiety and struggle to speak in front of groups. 

Guided question week 11

 Entry 49

Reflection

Topic: How do we approach transforming research into a multimodal structure?

    When we start turning a research paper into a multimodal structure there are certain things we should consider while transforming them. Since the overall topic and research is already done, it is important to remember who the audience is and what would be the easiest way to communicate the topic? Things to consider would be what information to use, what to add on top of the research, multimodal is less words and maybe more pictures and much shorter. It should be more of a visual type of structure instead of something that may take over 15- 20 minutes to read.

Deductive reasoning vs inductive reasoning.

 Entry 48

Reflect / Multimodal

Topic: Deductive reasoning vs inductive reasoning.

Things that are very important in writing is our sense of critical thinking and know inductive and deductive reasonings. When we are reading and writing arguments we should be able to distinguish if the argument is good or not. 

This picture above explains the differences and provides examples of what inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning are. 

    This picture provides a more simple explanation of each. 

    Why is this important? When we read or write and create arguments we use our sense of critical thinking. We see what type of argument needs to be made or are being presented, knowing the differences between the two and what goes into each sense of reasoning can help one become a better writer. There is a sense of power that comes with being good at critical thinking. Knowing how to read and break down an argumentative paper or even just any type of work can help someone be able to write any type of paper and know how to find different parts to arguments that you may never have even noticed before learning how to expand your critical thinking. 

Critical Thinking

Entry 47:

Compare / Reflect

Topic: Arguments

    In my critical thinking class we are constantly learning about different argument types and how to create a good, clear argument. When writing my paper, I think this class came in handy. We learn how to make logically sense and what to avoid doing and what is a good argument. I have talked about fallacies and other things that I have learned from critical thinking on my blog before, but now I want to talk about inductive reasoning. 

    Inductive reasoning is explained in this picture, if you cannot read it: "Inductive reasoning is the process of using examples and observations to reach a conclusion". By knowing how to inductively reason we allow ourselves to see the bigger picture. It is something we can apply not only in writing, but in everyday life. 

    Here is a video explaining inductive reasoning: 

Inductive reasoning (video) | Khan Academy

www.khanacademy.org › math › alg-series-and-induction

Genres and Audiences

 Entry 46:

Reflection

Topic: Quote from Understanding Rhetoric, Issue 8, "Going Public"

"Audiences expect different things from different genres."

    When writing, it is important to know which genre you are writing about and what is required of that genre (in previous blogs I have talked about genre conventions and types of genres). Also, what is the purpose of what you are writing? Are you writing for fun or to inform? Once a topic and genre has been picked then the writer can create a checklist of things that they need to do. 

    If I were to go to a bookstore and buy a book in the nonfiction section, I am expecting informational texts and facts. If I buy a crime and mystery book, I do not expect it to have poetry in it. That is what I take this quote as, getting exactly what is expected. Audiences know what to expect by genres when they go into it. 

Guided questions, week 9 (Question 2)

Entry 45

Reflection

Topic: How do we change our messages and means of communication for a public audience?

Our message and communication changes depending on the type of audience that we receive. When getting a live audience we may try to simplify our message, more to the point and we will probably try to provide more physical data. We will also be able to connect more with a live audience, we can see their opinion and communicate openly with them on our topic. We can ask them questions and their side and maybe start a discussion and then present the message and data collected. Messages and ways to communicate change depending on what our goal is with our audience and how we see the audience. Also, each writer or speaker may have a different approach. There are so many ways to connect with our audience in person, a connection that cannot be built as well on paper. 

Guided Questions Week 10 (Part 1)

Entry 44:

Reflection

Topic: How does the presenting/sharing of our research change across audiences and contexts?

How we change our presentation depends on how we are reaching our audience. When we write a paper, we pick out our target audience and figure out how we would like to inform them. However, if you are changing how you give out your information on your topic like to speak it aloud to an audience you would be giving an entire different presentation than what your paper would say or look like. Your paper is more factual and wordy, an in person presentation would maybe require some pictures, video explanations, maybe inviting people to speak up with data- but this all depends on what context you are trying to present your topic. 

Types of Writing (Part 2)

 Entry 43:

Multimodal

Topic: Types of Writing

    Persuasive writing is yet another writing type, this form is typically used in nonfiction work, to help develop logical arguments. In this type of writing logic is extremely important. When writing this kind of piece, people should pick a topic that they can provide a lot of details and support to get other to agree with what they are saying. This style of writing should have an opposing stance and should strike peoples emotions- for a better argumentative appeal. Picking a topic that one is passionate about is great for this writing form!

  

    Argumentative writing is similar to persuasive writing, except for the fact that this style requires more data and facts than an emotional standpoint. Argumentative writing needs expert opinions and proof more so than persuasive writing. When writing this people should pick a controversial topic, research, pick their side and then collect sources to draw facts from. This is more formal and is very similar to persuasive writing so it is important to keep in mind their differences when working on papers! 

Types of Writing

 Entry 42

Multimodal

Topic: Types of Writing

    There are several types of writing, the most popular or most taught ones are: narrative, analytical, expository. Each of these types are different in what they do. 

    Narrative writing is typically used when telling a story. Elements that go into good narrative writing include: a theme, main character, side characters, a setting, structure, literary elements and an expansive vocabulary - depending on what kind of story is being told. Narrative writing is definitely more on the creative side of writing. 

    Analytical writing is more necessary in college and in careers. This type of writing requires identifying and dissecting a subject, then following that with an argument about the meaning. This type of writing requires students to read, comprehend, explain and analyze what they read. 

     Expository writing is resourceful and useful when working for a newspaper or magazine. They can talk about whatever they want, this type of writing is informative and can be used to talk about any topic. However, it should be kept in mind what the main goal is and this type of writing is typically better for news articles. 

Link: https://www.thegraidenetwork.com/blog-all/types-of-writing-styles

Writers Block

 Entry 41

Reflection

Topic: Quote from Once Upon A Time

"When I get struck by a block, I usually re-read what I've done rather than plow ahead blindly. Sometimes I find there'll be a little nugget of inspiration left behind" (Season 1, episode 18. 21:00-21:13)

    In this particular moment, a man was using writing and comparing it to solving a case. I found this fitting because I constantly struggle to finish my writing because I lose inspiration. Personally, when writing, ideas seem to just flow on until I can no longer continue, then another hits and I want to restart. Hearing this I realized just how right that quote is. I have wrote a lot of stories and papers in my lifetime, and I think I struggle to finish my stories because I want perfection and so I rewrite a lot of it, before it is even finished. However, I leave it alone til I remember it again, there is normally a bit of inspiration I find when re-reading what I have and then I can edit and continue on with my editing and writing like there was no break. I really like the wording in this because it sums up writing, sometimes stepping back and looking at what is already there can help us to solve problems and expand our ideas further. 

Revising

 Entry 40

Research/Reflection

Topic: Revision

"Revising is more than correcting"

There are different steps in revising your work: rewriting, adding, deleting, reevaluating thoughts, revising. 

    What may be helpful when you are rewriting may be to have several friends read your work and critique it. Personally, my friends are very strict, they do not beat around the bush, they all tell it like it is. Also, have a peer or professor read it- they may know a bit more considering they studied or are studying the class with you, they may be a bit better at giving useful feedback because they know exactly what to look for. However, friends provide fresh eyes and can also give their opinions on the argument. Also, reread and edit the work daily. I had a professor say that writing can always be improved, sometimes it takes years to finally finish and be happy with the outcome. Writing is a never ending process, something can always be tweaked to make it better- go back daily or weekly. 

    When I was reading over my work and incorporating my work for project 2, I started on a blank sheet, an empty page- to clear my thoughts, reevaluate. Then I read over my work, copied and pasted and then rewrote and incorporated the feedback to the best of my abilities. I rewrote almost all of my work on the blank page, there was also a lot that I kept and added on or deleted entirely. I realized I did not even know where my train of thoughts were in the rough draft or what I planned on really saying. 

Guided Questions, Week 9 (Question 1)

 Entry 39:

Reflection

Topic: What are the benefits and limitations of the specific methods you selected in order to research your question(s)?

    Personally, problems that I encountered while conducting my primary research was figuring out how to get out my survey to a variety of age groups, I figured social media would be the easiest way to just send it out- it was. Although, I wish I could have gotten a few surveys from people outside of my papers focus group, so that I would have more data. While I think social media helped me to get my survey out quickly, I think that maybe I could have used several of my accounts for the variety I was looking for. So, it created a limitation of having less data and probably created a bit of bias. Limitations from my secondary research would be there are not a lot of articles on my topic and also I had to learn how to use different databases, just more help for future projects in my life though!

    Benefits however included an easier way for my friends to share it with their friends and family. I also got data from my age group of study. The other methods of research was using different databases, there were a lot of benefits from that. I got data from several years ago (within the seven year time frame) and I got to see so many different views on my topic and could take a lot of notes. 

  

Methods to Reading

 Entry 38

Research and Reflection

Topic: Ways to Read 

There are several different ways to read, it depends on what and why you are reading. If you are reading because you enjoy it, you will probably read it front to back, every single word written in the book- but this is just one way of reading. There is a different way of reading depending on what you are reading and why you are reading it, your purpose matters in how you choose to read. 

Other methods to reading:

1.  Pillaging, this includes "stealing" tips and tricks in order to use them in a practical way, people use this method when reading books that teach new methods. 

2. Skimming, I think everyone is familiar with this term. I use this when reading long articles to find what I am looking for then I read it in depth, or I use this when rereading something to further understand (and find what I am looking). 

3. Stretch, reading texts that are a bit out of your range but forcing yourself to try to get through it. This is mostly used when trying to advance your reading abilities.

4. Rerun, this just means you are reading your favorite(s) book(s) over again. Your purpose for this is for pleasure. 

5. Failed reading, you did not complete the reading. When you read too much, you are allowed to give up on books and reading- sometimes you may circle back to it and finish reading it, until then it is considered to be a "failed" reading. 

Link: 7-different-ways-to-read

Peer Review

 Entry 37:

Reflection

Topic: Peer Review

    A peer review is designed to assess the quality, validity, and originality of articles before its publication. The main goal of peer review is to maintain the integrity of science by filtering out any invalid and poor quality articles.

    Peer reviews check the authors writing to make sure that everything is good before it gets published, these are meant to be helpful so that the article makes sense to any readers and are entirely credible sources for others to use. 

    I have done peer reviews in other classes but the most recent peer reviews I have done in other college classes were in my creative writing classes and it was for workshop, we more so offered critiques so that their poems and stories were good so that for our writing portfolio, everything sounded good. 

    The peer reviews in this class are a bit more work and we have less partners but more to read, also the work is more in depth whereas in my creative writing class we were writing things that did not require research and were meant to be fun to read or write. 

Guided Question Week 8, (Question Part 3)

 Entry 36:

Reflection

Topic: In what ways has working from proposal 1 to the start of project 2 been useful?

From writing the proposal to writing half of a draft for project 2 made it easier to write. The proposal gave me time to gather research and we already started building and practicing ideas and writing for project 2. I think I could have written all 10 pages easily because of the set up the proposal helped me with. I have collected so much research and I could easily interview friends and maybe a professor, or send out a survey to people within the age group I have made my focus group. Proposal 1 was basically collecting research and project 2 is the writing of the research collected- our class is all connected and it makes it easy to do the work. I could write my paper in a day, if I wanted, because the set up and ideas have been developed in other assignments and research has already been done and I just need to form it all into words now. Working from that to starting project 2 has been insanely easy and I appreciate the set up of the class to help me with my research paper, I have never felt so confident in my writing!

Works Cited Page

 Entry 35

Research/Multimodal

Topic: How to create a works cited page

When you write a paper and are using direct quotes, you need to cite your sources and then at the end of your paper you should have a works cited page. If you are unsure how to create one google docs has an add-on feature that can help, there are citation generators or you could use the internet to find the format you need. 

There are a variety of writing formats to use MLA, APA and more, those two are the only ones I have ever really used seriously in writing. 

MLA^

APA^

Guided Question, Week 8.

 Entry 34:

Reflection

Topic: What benefits come with peer review?

Some benefits that come with peer review would be getting new perspectives, constructive criticism, and more. When peer reviewing or receiving feedback from a peer review, you get new perspectives on your paper, from people who did not do or collect the same, if any, research on your topic. They critique your work with their own knowledge on the topic or with what you talk explain, and they will tell you any serious issues with your argument or writing. Peer review can also help you to create any new arguments that they could think of with what they read. Peer reviews overall, help to better your work so that it is presentable and to the best ability that it can be. 

The Evolution of the Written Word

 Entry 33:

Research 

Topic: The Evolution of the Written Word

Writing is a form of communication and there is a wide range of ways to go about writing, all different than the last and continually advancing throughout time. Writing changes with society and culture change, writing technology has been evolving to be easier, read faster, get information out quicker,  have less errors. From clay writing tablets, hieroglyphics, paper made from trees with the use of ink to write, written words, to writing on typewriters to computers, to writing and using emoticons on phones in texts and more to express words and meanings. 

Link: https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/statistical-life/201612/the-evolution-the-written-word

Things to consider as writers

 Entry 32:

Reflection

Topic: Things to consider as writers

    As writers, as people, we all have different perspectives and viewpoints on the world that we live in. Truthfully, we all have different experiences in the world- no fault to anyone in the world necessarily, we just all live different lives and see different things. Our societies influence who we are as people- as writers this is just one thing that we need to consider, especially when looking for an audience/readers. We need to know who would read our work, who could benefit from what we have to say- but this is one thing of many to consider. 

    The list is never ending to be completely honest, I could probably easily have a list and someone else- my peers, professors, parents- could have a different list. As I said before we all have different lives, personalities, perspectives, minds. What I am trying to say is that there is no right or wrong in writing because we all are different and we write to see and help others feel like they can relate. As I mentioned in another blog, we need to connect with our audience to create a common ground. 

    Another thing to consider is your writing style and structure. There are certain things you will want to avoid depending on what you are writing- if it is a text to a friend you can pretty much write and talk however you would like. If you are writing a paper, you have to be formal and need to follow a certain set of rules.

Citing Sources

 Entry 31:

Research and Reflection

Topic: How to Cite Sources

    There are a variety of ways to cite your sources in papers- it can depend on what you, the writer, feels is best for your sentence/structure and will flow better or on what style you are writing in. Since we are using MLA format, I figured it most appropriate to talk about citing in MLA - which is normally standard for most writers I feel like. 

    MLA citing format typically goes like this: Author's last name, First name. "Title of Source." Title of Container, other contributors, version, numbers, publisher, publication date, location. 

    However, if you are in the middle of writing you are not going to want all of that information in the middle of your sentence (maybe if you are trying to stretch your paper, kidding)- this citing is normally for your works cited page (at the end of your paper)

    When you want to use a direct quote from one of your sources there are a few different methods to choose from like "___" (Last, first). or "according to ___ "___" or paraphrasing and crediting your sources author. There are several ways, each way is correct and you do not need to follow a specific way whichever feels right to you and you feel fits your paper best!

Guided Question Week 7, Question 1 (Part 2)

 Entry 30: 

Research and Reflection

Topic: How can we eliminate assumptions in our writing? 

    To start my blog, we should identify what an assumption is, an assumption is "a thing that is accepted as true or as certain to happen, without proof" - this means that there is a lack of evidence. 

    If you are writing and reading over your work and feel as if the reader will not understand what you are saying, add more information about it, explain it in more detail so that the reader can understand what you are talking about. If there is doubt in your mind about your work, there will more than likely be doubt in your readers minds as well in your writing and you do not want that. If you, the writer, feel like there should be more add more. More evidence and proof to support what you are saying can never be wrong, it should make your argument stronger- the only way it won't work is if you create fallacies in your arguments. Create an argument so strong, there cannot be any assumptions made when reading your work, explain everything in detail until you feel satisfied that there are no assumptions that can possibly be made. The most important part of writing is having a mutual understanding on your topic between you and your readers.

Guided Question Week 7, Question 1(Part 1)

 Entry 29: 

Research + Reflection

Topic: What are considerations in building common ground through writing?

In order to find common ground in your writing, think about who your audience is. You already know who your target audience is when you start writing- if you do not know you may be in trouble as this is essential to being a good writer. Your audience is any one that you are trying to explain or talk to, for my research paper - my audience is young people and maybe parents who have young children. 

Trying to find any common ground may seem hard, but you can do a variety of things. The link I found and am currently using is less writing and more of an in person visual thing but the concepts still apply to writing. When you start writing, write a list of questions that you think your audience would be able to appeal to, sometimes writers use questions to get people interested in what they are reading- a hook. Finding answers to your questions may be hard to do in writing, but your research should be able to help you establish your points and if you do a survey that could definitely help as well. You can also identify any false assumptions about what you will be talking about. Another thing, is to connect to your audience. Again probably a bit harder to do in your writing- but also people typically don't read past the first paragraph if they aren't truly interested- even if it is only a little bit. Maybe tell a story about your own experience so that people feel like they can connect with you. 

Online School

 Entry 28:

Reflection

Topic: Online School

    This week has been especially difficult for me to focus or even think about school. I normally try to stay on track or be a bit ahead but it feels harder to do that this week. Online school is a new concept to me, I used to do zoom/hybrid classes and now I do classes that are only online with no zoom or meet up times. I prefer it because I used to sit through 3 hours of zooms for nothing. I feel like I am learning and being more productive now!

    Anyways since this week has been hard for me, I decided to look up tips to acing online classes because maybe I can help someone else who has been struggling!

1. Figure out the best way for you to learn

2. Make a schedule

3. Balance your life: work, school, social. Enjoy the flexibility that being online allows you. 

4. Avoid getting distracted while trying to do work 

5. Find a friend that will help you stay motivated and keep you on track!

    I like to keep a schedule of all of my work, it is more of a to do list, organized by due date and I cross it off as I complete it. This week I feel like I am doing everything last minute because I have not had any motivation to leave my bed, much less do any school work. However, I have friends that want me to do it. Normally that gets me a bit more motivated, but this week has been hard and I dont know why. Anyways, I learn best when things are done at a fast pace. I can never sit in a place for too long, so I turn a lot of things on 2x speed and take notes or pause as needed. All online with lectures on hand that can be watched over and over is truly a blessing. 

Link: npr.org