Project 4 Final

December 12th, 2015

Dear Professor Rodrigo and fellow classmates,

Throughout the semester, I have learned much about my personal writing process and have been able to identify and appreciate different styles written by peers. My writing process has stayed consistently the same throughout the semester, which is called being a heavy reviser. For my first blog post, I decided that “Out of these four types of writers, I would consider my writing to be in the heavy revisers type” (Duron 2015). Even at the end of the semester, I still think that my writing style would be categorized under a heavy reviser. Being a heavy reviser gives me the opportunity to correct many errors that I make during my first few drafts.

The assignments completed each week help me plan and work on the big projects that were due. These assignments were able to get my mind thinking on what I needed to get done and help ideas flow into the project. One of the assignments that was tremendously helpful was the annotated bibliographies. This assignment helped me work on my APA citations and was important for my projects by showing me how to integrate other articles that were related to the subject I was working on. As for editing papers for my peers, this stage of the project helped both my peers work and my own. While editing other students work, I was able to see things that I could improve on in my own paper. I deeply appreciated feedback from the rest of the class on my project because they saw issues that I might have missed or even suggested ways to adjust my paper for the better.

The different genres were interesting to work with as we moved from project to project. I had never done a QRG or an animated presentation before so it was interesting to try something new. I was a bit intimidated by these new projects at first but now that they are completed I feel that I could replicate similar projects. These projects helped me strengthen my purpose and work on identifying my audience. I used to think of writing as just essay papers, but as we near the end of the semester, I have a better understanding on how to complete different projects. By opening my eyes to different genres, I can see how different genres can be better options to getting information across to people.

For next semester, I will be taking many policy classes, and although I haven’t taken many of these, I predict that they will consist of many writing assignments. As for how writing will be integrated in my career, I foresee that I will be having to write many reports about incidents briefing events. The work that I put into this class will help me organize my future work. A QRG could be considered similar to a briefing report so I will use what I learned in writing QRG to help. This class has been very helpful with how I prepare my work along with teaching me how to properly address my audience and stick to my purpose.

Sincerely,

Steven Duron

14.3 Reflection on Peer Review Project #4

I commented on Andrew's and Felicia's.

After reviewing other student's letters, I found that they were able to integrate other pieces of work they have done in the past into their paper. Also, the other students papers all mentioned their writing process and did a good job at telling whether they changed their style or kept it the same. As for my paper, I need to make improvements such as integrating my previous work and giving more detail about how writing has affected me in subjects outside of school.

Steven

14.2 Draft of Open Letter

Attached is my Project 4 !

Here is my fourth project! I thought of this project as a reflection on the semester's work. But I'm not sure if I was able to get all the information necessary. Please inform me if I missed questions from the prompt that I need to answer or if you think I need to add anything.

Thanks!

Steven

Week 13 Reflections

I commented on Felicia's, Anthony's, Deb's, and Felicia's again.

Program Goals

English 102 aims to support student development in the four learning goals defined for all first-year courses in the Writing Program:

• Goal 1: Rhetorical Awareness. Learn strategies for analyzing texts’ audiences, purposes, and contexts as a means of developing facility in reading and writing.

-We wrote about our own writing processes, which made us analyze our own work and see if we are still the same type of writers we thought we were in the beginning.

• Goal 2: Critical Thinking and Composing. Use reading and writing for purposes of critical thinking, research, problem solving, action, and participation in conversations within and across different communities.

-Discussing about our writing experience throughout the semester showed us how we handled different aspects of our assignments.

• Goal 3: Reflection and Revision. Understand composing processes as flexible and collaborative, drawing upon multiple strategies and informed by reflection.

-We published our 3rd project this week and also reflected on other people's assignments.

• Goal 4: Conventions. Understand conventions as related to purpose, audience, and genre, including such areas as mechanics, usage, citation practices, as well as structure, style, graphics, and design.

-Punctuation Part 2 helped us learn about different punctuation and how to properly insert them into our projects.

Course Goals

In English 102, you should learn how to:

• Read texts to assess how writers achieve their purposes with their intended audiences.
• Devise writing strategies suited to various rhetorical situations.
• Develop an argument with persuasive appeals to your audience.
• Locate and analyze evidence to develop an argument.
• Develop ideas with observations and reflections on your experience.
• Revise in response to feedback from readers to improve drafts.
• Use the conventions of scholarly research, analysis, and documentation.
• Use the conventions of academic writing, including clear, convincing prose.

Steven

13.5 Reflecting on My Writing Experiences

Your assumptions and ideas about writing before taking your first-year writing courses and how these assumptions were reinforced or challenged.

-After working on my projects this semester, I think that my previous assumptions were reinforced. Previous classes had taught me how to write in a certain way and helped me construct my thesis's properly. 

The most important lessons you have learned as both a reader and a writer as a result of taking your first-year writing courses.

-I learned a lot during my courses, from proper paper structure to identifying my purpose and audience. 

The ways you generated ideas, narrowed down topics, and worked on thesis statements. 

-I think that the way my ideas flowed and the strength of my thesis statements improved greatly. Throughout the course I think that my thesis strength has helped my writing process.

The peer review process, including feedback you offered and feedback you received.

-In my last project, I thought that my project would be interesting for other people to distribute feedback because it was not a paper. I hope that the feedback that I gave to others throughout the semester hopefully helped out my fellow students.

Individual or group conference with your instructor. 

-Did not use.

The discussion you had about your paper with people who were not in your class. 

-With my latest project, I had some people review my animated presentation. This helped me see errors that I had previously missed. Also, having people view my project that did not know the details of the rubric helped adjust my audience and material that I needed to add. 

How you approached the revision process for each easy. 

-As I stated in my first blog post, I am a heavy reviser so the revision process was very important to me in order for my projects to be straightened and not off topic. 

Your understanding or reading and writing in different genres. 

-In this course, I have written multiple genres, some of which I have never written before. I am satisfied with my work and my ability to learn about what is necessary to have successful projects.

What you would do differently if you were to take your first-year writing courses again.

-I would not do much differently if I were to retake my first-year writing courses. I am satisfied with the work and effort I have put into these courses. 

How college writing fits into your like now and how it will fit into your major and future career. 

-I think that writing will have an impact on my career in the future because I will probably be having to write many reports about different topics. The ability to display a topic quickly and briefly catch a person up on said topic will be an important aspect of my job.

Steven

13.4 Revisiting My Writing Process

Throughout the semester, I feel as if my writing has improved. However, when comparing my writing now to my first blog post, I think that my perspective has not shifted. In my writing process, I still think that my writing style is categorized under the 'heavy revisers'. Looking towards the future, I think I would still be satisfied with being a 'heavy reviser'. Being a 'heavy reviser' makes sure that I minimize careless errors. Another approach that would provide exceptional work while working at a job would be 'heavy planners'. Being a 'heavy planner' would help structure the work slowly in order to have all the correct pieces to make a great paper.

Steven

13.3 Reflection on Project #3

Here is my final draft for Project #3.

Steven

13.2 Punctuation, Part 2

Semicolon

While reading the chapter on the semicolon, I learned a lot about where to place them and the difference it is compared to a colon. Semicolons help break up sentences, and can be used with words such as however or for example. I also learned that semicolons can sometimes replace a comma within a sentence.

Apostrophe

An apostrophe can be used to mark something as plural or possessive. I've always had an issue when figuring out when to put an apostrophe after the word instead of putting it before the "s". After reading the chapter, I think I have a better understanding as to when to use an apostrophe correctly in a sentence.

Quotation Marks

I use quotation marks frequently when writing my paper. These quotation marks are used when I am citing someone else's work word for word in my papers. Within this chapter, I learned about when to use quotation marks and also learned the differences between normal quotation marks and single quotation marks.

Steven

As for my project, I did not really use very many semicolons and apostrophes in my project. However, I do have single quotation marks and normal quotation marks that I have placed in my project. Examples of these marks are when I write 'Black Lives Matter' and when I cite another person. "Black teenage men are 21 times as likely to be the victim of a reported police killing as white teenage men" (Cook).

Week 12 Reflections

I commented on Felicia's, Deb's, Anthony's, and Oscar's.

Program Goals

English 102 aims to support student development in the four learning goals defined for all first-year courses in the Writing Program:

• Goal 1: Rhetorical Awareness. Learn strategies for analyzing texts’ audiences, purposes, and contexts as a means of developing facility in reading and writing.

-We accomplished this goal this week by analyzing our own projects to help enhance our paper. By doing so we are attempting to strengthen our purpose and the ability to reach out to our audiences.

• Goal 2: Critical Thinking and Composing. Use reading and writing for purposes of critical thinking, research, problem solving, action, and participation in conversations within and across different communities.

-By commenting on each others post and reviewing other students projects, we were able to think critically and participate in an interaction with other students.

• Goal 3: Reflection and Revision. Understand composing processes as flexible and collaborative, drawing upon multiple strategies and informed by reflection.

-This week we reflected on our own projects and revised two other students work.

• Goal 4: Conventions. Understand conventions as related to purpose, audience, and genre, including such areas as mechanics, usage, citation practices, as well as structure, style, graphics, and design.

-We accomplished this goal when we discussed punctuation. Punctuation is apart of the mechanics of writing and is just as important as the material itself.

Course Goals

In English 102, you should learn how to:

• Read texts to assess how writers achieve their purposes with their intended audiences.
• Devise writing strategies suited to various rhetorical situations.
• Develop an argument with persuasive appeals to your audience.
• Locate and analyze evidence to develop an argument.
• Develop ideas with observations and reflections on your experience.
• Revise in response to feedback from readers to improve drafts.
• Use the conventions of scholarly research, analysis, and documentation.
• Use the conventions of academic writing, including clear, convincing prose.

12.4 Reflection on Project 3 Draft

One of the projects I reviewed was Deb's.
My second peer reviewed projects is Oscar's.

The purpose of my project was to give the audience a chance to review both sides of my controversy so they could make an accurate opinion on where they stand. I also wanted to inform my audience that the media can be bias at times and to not always believe just one story from the media. I think that my project was able to display both sides in order for the audience to form their own opinion. I am revising my paper because I think I did not accurately show why the audience should not always listen to the media. I also think that I need to express who my audience is better and I need to improve on showing that this is indeed an argument. As for my project itself, I will increase the length of my project in order to provide more information and accurately address my audience. Since my project relies heavily on appearance, I may need to clean up the slides. Another aspect of my project I need to improve on is displaying both sides of the argument and create more depth in my argument. This means adding more sources and adding more slides about the controversy.

Steven

12.2 Punctuation, Part 1

The comma

Reading this section helped me understand proper places to put commas within paragraphs. Commas are important because they break up the sentence, creating a better flow between words. This point here:" "Use a comma after an introductory class or phrase. Such word groups usually tell when, where, how, why, or under what conditions the main actions of the sentence occurred," is one point about commas that I need to work on, as I tend to forget to add commas after introductory phrases. 

The colon

This section discussed colons, and when is the appropriate time to use them. I enjoy using the colon when making a list of items within a paragraph, however I did not know that you can use a colon when introducing a quote. "Use a colon after an independent clause, to direct attention to a list, an appositive, a quotation, or a summary or an explanation." This section was very helpful in giving me distinct examples on when to use a colon. 

Unnecessary Commas

I think that this chapter was similar to the comma chapter except it explained where not put them. One of the things I learned in this chapter was not to "use a comma to separate a verb from it's subject or object."  I found myself trying to think of sentences where I could put a comma despite having a rule against it. Putting commas where they are not supposed to prevents the paper from flowing properly. 

Steven

Reflection:

I added the comma after the word radiation. I think that adding a comma there is appropriate due to phrase following it helps answer the "where."

"Foreground radiation is any matter that emits microwave radiation, and there is a lot of it in the universe" (Ortega).

After reading the colon section of the book, I think that a colon could work nicely here just before the quote. Since the book stated that we are allowed to use a colon when writing a quote, I feel that a colon, with the addition of a comma, would help make the sentence flow better.

"Ian O’Neill science writer for Discovery News, “but just because the signal looked like evidence for gravitational waves, the BICEP2 researchers had underestimated the impact of the magnetized dust that fills our galaxy.” (O’Neill)" (Ortega).

Unnecessary commas can disrupt the flow of the paper. In this sentence for example, I feel that the comma after the word 'but' is unnecessary. I think that it causes too much pausing for one sentence.
But, there is a problem; CAM does not get recognized by conventional medicine (Acosta).

After reading these three chapters, I have been paying more attention of when to or when to not use commas and colons. By paying close attention to this, I hope that my writing improves.

Week 11 Learning Reflections

For this weeks reflections I commented on Felicia's, Deb's, Cynthia's, and Deb's again.

Program Goals

English 102 aims to support student development in the four learning goals defined for all first-year courses in the Writing Program:

• Goal 1: Rhetorical Awareness. Learn strategies for analyzing texts’ audiences, purposes, and contexts as a means of developing facility in reading and writing.

Outlining what we are going to say in our project helps us question what our purpose and audience is. It also helps us decide how we are going to get our message across to our audience.

• Goal 2: Critical Thinking and Composing. Use reading and writing for purposes of critical thinking, research, problem solving, action, and participation in conversations within and across different communities.

Outlining our project helped us think critically and evaluate how we will approach our project.

• Goal 3: Reflection and Revision. Understand composing processes as flexible and collaborative, drawing upon multiple strategies and informed by reflection.

Writing the draft this week gives us an opportunity to reflect and revise our draft next week and give other students an opportunity to revise their drafts when we peer edit.

• Goal 4: Conventions. Understand conventions as related to purpose, audience, and genre, including such areas as mechanics, usage, citation practices, as well as structure, style, graphics, and design.

Paraphrasing is a good convention to work on to avoid plagiarism.

Course Goals

In English 102, you should learn how to:

• Read texts to assess how writers achieve their purposes with their intended audiences.
• Devise writing strategies suited to various rhetorical situations.
• Develop an argument with persuasive appeals to your audience.
• Locate and analyze evidence to develop an argument.
• Develop ideas with observations and reflections on your experience.
• Revise in response to feedback from readers to improve drafts.
• Use the conventions of scholarly research, analysis, and documentation.
• Use the conventions of academic writing, including clear, convincing prose.

Steven

11.3 Outlining My Public Argument

For my introduction, I plan on showing my audience that it would be best to not believe everything the media says and to seek out different points of view to get the full picture before forming an opinion. In the body section of my project, I plan on addressing the issues both sides have with each other and then explain how the media comes into play in this topic. Finally in the conclusion I will argue that the media does not always equally show both sides of a story, and advise the audience to conduct more research about different stories before taking a side.

Steven

11.5 Draft of Public Argument.

This is an animated presentation video about my argument. I've never really done anything like this before so if I didn't get the message across or it seemed too short or too long please let me know. Any tips on how to improve the video for the project would be great thanks!

https://www.powtoon.com/online-presentation/bzVzXvLpsky/english-101-project-3/#/

Steven

11.4 Paraphrasing a Source

Lott, J. (2014). The truth about young black men and police shootings. Fox News. Retrieved from http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/10/22/truth-about-young-black-men-and-police-shootings.html

Original Source:"Second, that black Americans are no more than two to three times more likely to commit violent crimes than whites. They put these two points together and conclude that after adjusting for violent crimes by race, police still kill young blacks at least 7 to 10.5 times as often as they kill young whites.

But if you’re going to look at the rates that police kill black and white male teenagers, you have to adjust for the rate that black and white male teenagers put themselves at risk – not the rate that both male and female blacks and whites of all ages commit violent crime" (Lott 2014).
My Paraphrase:
Also, african american teens are more likely to put themselves at risk than white male teenagers. By doing so, black Americans are more likely to commit violent crimes than whites. Despite police officers killing african americans 7-10.5 times more than whites, we still have to take in the fact that african americans put themselves at more of a risk. By taking this into consideration instead of just comparing the amount of crimes committed by black people and white people side by side, we will see that the killings are still high.

Steven