Reflective Essay Rough Draft

Sabastian Stevens

Jenn Zukowski

ENG 121: Composition 1

12/03/2015

Reflective Essay

At the beginning of the semester my main goal was admittedly just passing the class. I knew that I would learn a lot about writing essays correctly, but at the time I figured it didn’t matter much since I would rarely use this information. While this is still true, I found the material to be more interesting than I thought and so I’m rather glad I gained the knowledge. While I don’t know whether I accomplished my main goal or not (although my optimistic prediction is that I did!), I know that I ended up with more than I thought I would when I first entered this class, which is a good goal achievement in itself.

When I first started the research of my topic, part of me thought I knew very little about the inner psychology of relationships and that this was going to be a very new learning experience. As I read through the sources used through my paper however, I realized that through personal experience that I already knew or resonated with a lot of the points made by these sources. However, I still gained many statistics that I could use for my paper and was surprised by the number of scholarly database articles that I found. From these articles I managed to learn about some interesting theories, such as the one about opposite gender parents fostering stronger relationships in their children.

In the final draft of my research essay I feel like I pulled off a lot of important aspects successfully, on top of improving problems from my previous essay. The biggest problem in my rough draft that I think I refined the best was the logical flow between my thesis and the rest of my essay. I noticed that in my rough draft that the thesis referred to friendships and the rest of the paper focused more on relationships in general. Thus, I changed the thesis and the other parts of my paper that referenced “friendships” when they should have referenced “relationships”. Another thing I think I did well on in my final draft was using the correct amount of pathos, logos and ethos. This was another aspect of my paper that was severely flawed in my rough draft but was patched in my final draft. Considering that my instructor made those particular criticisms clearly on my rough draft, I’m sure she will appreciate those parts of my paper the most, as well as the well-done citations that she usually loves to see.

As far as my computer skills go, I already had a high level of proficiency with computers at the beginning of the semester. That and the fact that this class was mainly focused on word processing and blog posts means that at best, I honed what I already knew. I also knew a lot about the basic research process since it was shoved down my throat during my high school and middle school years. However, I honed my abilities in this area a LOT. I came to realize that a basic understanding of the research process did not equip me well for writing great essays. I needed to learn the inner workings of MLA formatting and using good sources, which I eventually came to learn right around when the research essay final draft rolled around. I still feel like I could make improvements in almost every area (especially the research department), but for now, my current knowledge should be satisfactory.

There are many aspects of the research process that are absolutely critical for students to master, such as correctly citing sources and using informative and relevant sources to make a paper more interesting and credible. I do like the satisfaction of implementing all of the important aspects of a paper using the research process, as well as reading the final creation. However, I do not enjoy the research process for the most part. Looking through large articles for relevant and powerful information is a tedious task and citing other people’s work is needlessly complicated. Fortunately, I felt like I got enough time to effectively create my paper and there were many useful assignments to facilitate our learning. Overall, though, I think the research process needs to be less complicated so that there doesn’t need to be so much resource devotion to making a “correct” essay.

Rubric Assessment Sabastian

Rubric Assessment Sabastian

- Thesis Statement: I think that, according to the guidelines on the rubric, my thesis statement is pretty solid. It is well narrowed down and specific, while being identifiable. However, I think I will change it a bit in order to suit the content of my essay more, and to make it more arguable.

- Academic Style & tone: The tone of my paper stays pretty professional while still suiting the audience. However, it is in my best interest to get rid of some of my personal anecdotes and replace them with statistics to make the paper more academic.

- Clarity/Coherence: My paper does a good job of explaining the concepts in my thesis while connecting them in a logical manner. However, some of the points mentioned stray away from my current thesis and break the logical flow of my paper. I will fix this by changing my thesis slightly and explaining some of the more questionable bits.

Rough Draft Improvements

Rough Draft Improvements

My rough draft: 

- I was told to take the many instances of you, our, we, etc. out of my paper in order to make it sound more professional. Doing this also took out some redundancies in my paper.

- I was told that the opposing side of my paper was weak, so I added a personal experience of mine and another argument for the counter-argument.

- I noticed that there was quite a few parts of my paper that could be reworded. I changed those parts to either be more informative or more engaging for the reader.

Emily's rough draft

- Another paragraph was added about alternative sodas that companies are making in order to meet the demand for sodas made with real sugar. This paragraph is informative, but I feel it distracts from the main point and should be shortened.

- More statistics were added to the paper, particularly one about how bronchitis tends to develop in people who consume lots of soda sweetened with high fructose corn syrup. These new statistics help even more with the credibility of the paper.

- I noticed in this paper that some sentences should be re-formatted since they ran on too much or were in the wrong place. Emily made some of those changes, such as in the first paragraph which separates "product" and "but", and it is easier to read this way.

Chapter 17 Reading Review

Chapter 17 Reading Review

Another short chapter! A chapter that is nine pages in length and contains mostly information about avoiding plagiarism did not teach me too much. Regardless, I did learn a few things. I did learn about the distinctions between a paraphrase and a summary. A paraphrase is where you write a specific part of a text in your own words, and a summary is writing a very general overview of the text. Also, I learned about synthesizing, which is combining summaries and paraphrases with your own observations of the topic at hand. The exercises are also a useful tool for polishing the skills represented in the chapter.

Overall though, this chapter was not very informative or interesting, and the information that I did learn was very basic.

Source: memegenerator.net

Ethos Pathos Logos

Ethos Pathos Logos

An argument based on the credibility of the author of the essay uses Ethos.

An argument intended on giving the audience a powerful, emotional force uses Pathos.

An argument based on deductive reasoning or common sense uses Logos.

Ethos S.B. 1: After extensive research through educated online articles and scholarly journals, I can say with confidence that friendship with family is especially important for great mental health.

Ethos S.B. 2: Jane Collingwood writes that society is overlooking the value of friendship, and that many modern problems stem from this lack of awareness. Considering she has written many articles reviewed by people in her areas if expertise, she clearly knows what she's writing about.

Ethos S.B. 2: Rosemary Bleiszner writes that there are many different features across different friendships. The fact that she uses many sources for her specific examples and that she wrote this in a scholarly article makes this claim very powerful.

Pathos S.B. 1: I remember phases of my teenage life that were very bad for my mental health. Forunately, my friend Ezra stuck with me through them and that really helped get me back on the right track.

Pathos S.B. 2: Playing many games with my dad has really strengthened my bond with him. He really seems like a special person to me and not just a parent who provides me with basic survival needs.

Pathos S.B. 3: Making friends with many of the fun and amazing people in my life has really shaped my life for the better. It makes me happy that there are always new people out there waiting to be your new great buddy.

Logos S.B. 1: Studies have shown that people that are obese or in poverty describe that their problem stemmed from lack of good friendship. Therefore, friendship is very important for keeping life stability.

Logos S.B. 2: In bad phases of my life I did not have good bonds with my friends. In good phases of my life, I had great bonds with my friends. Therefore, bad phases of life often contain bad friendships.

Logos S.B. 3: Having people give us great things is awesome. Being a good friend with someone makes it more likely that they will give you great things. Thus, having friends is awesome.

Chapter 16 Reading Review

Chapter 16 Reading Review

This chapter was very short and gave information that was painfully obvious. Either that, or it has already been reviewed in class for the most part. Page 715 basically explained how to look stuff up on google and enter a URL, for gosh sakes! Nevertheless, it did re-enforce a few important things. Particularly, it gave a good summary of evaluating the legitimacy of a source, which I found quite useful. I also liked the idea of the exercises throughout the chapter, as they are a great tool for sharpening researching and evaluating skills. There was also a summary about what reference works are. This is great because I didn't know what they were at first but now I see them as a helpful tool for learning about a general topic and deciding if you want to delve into it further. 

I really don't have much more to say about this chapter, however. I thought it was really lacking in new information and it was a very quick read. Hopefully the next chapter is more worthwhile!

Source: memegenerator.net

Homophones Video Project

Note: I did not use the guitar sound effect because I didn't think it would sound good with all the other sound effects playing. I also couldn't figure out how to add bees but I think the video is fine without them.

Evaluating Internet Sources

Evaluating Internet Sources

Part 1:

The URL for the site I explored: http://teachforall.org/en/network-learning/importance-trust

After skimming over this article, I noticed that it was based almost entirely on the author's personal experience and did not include any scholarly sources. Judging by the source, the site seems more of like a fun article site rather than a serious database filled to the brim with facts. The article was filled with plenty of evidence to support the author's points, but of course all of that was personal experience and therefore the article seems questionable to me.

 I liked a few of the points though, particularly the main one which reads, "Building trust is a process. And it's not just about trust between teachers and students, but between teachers and other teachers, and support staff too. The end goal is the moment we can collectively have honest dialogue about our students, our practices and our impact." (Brown, "The Importance of Trust").

Judging the website by the general criteria guidelines:

• The site explains what the organization is quite clearly, it is called TeachForAll. This organization specializes in essays and facts about academics, but does not specialize in the specific issue of trust. The information on the site is acceptable for this essay, as the essay is mainly about how trust can apply in schools.
• The purpose of this essay is to persuade, and yes, the information is quite biased since it only focuses on the opinions of the author and their small community.
• There is a very small amount of advertising and it does not get in the way of the content, nor does it enhance it much.
• The site itself seems to claim that research is done through the sharing of many different viewpoints through many different regions. However, reading this article only supplies you with a small community's opinion, and not facts. Therefore, the accuracy of the content is probably low.

Part 2:

Article name: Organizational socialization tactics and newcomer adjustment: The mediating role of role clarity and affect-based trust relationships.

Wow! After looking through this journal article, I must say I'm quite impressed. There were a few strong points stated in the beginning and then authors went to town, dissecting each of those points down to their nervous systems! There were tons of in-text citations and a references list that spanned over 6 pages! While the authors did not appeal to emotion that often, the facts were well written and made an impression, not in a forceful way but in an elegant way.

Although the topic was basically the same and so were the main points between these two works, the authors of the journal article were much more informed and delivered their points formally. Especially the main point near the beginning, which reads, "More specifically, we propose that institutionalized tactics lead to adjustment through building trustful relationships with supervisors and co-workers." (Lapointe, Vandenberghe, Boudrias, 2014). Not only were there actual sources (More than one hundred!), the points made took many different organizations and scholarly works into consideration. The previous article did appeal slightly more to emotion than the new article, but overall the new article is much more impressive and is basically a direct upgrade, even if it is a long read.

One of the sources the article used a lot: Journal of Applied Psychology

Works Cited:

- Brown, Lakimbre, Dr. "The Importance of Trust." TeachForAll. TeachForAll, 28 Feb. 2014. Web. 

     12 Oct. 2015.

- Lapointe, Émilie, Christian Vandenberghe, and Jean-Sébastien Boudrias. "Organizational                      Socialization Tactics And Newcomer Adjustment: The Mediating Role Of Role Clarity And                Affect-        Based Trust Relationships." Journal Of Occupational & Organizational Psychology          87.3 (2014): 599-     624. Academic Search Premier. Web. Boulder CO. 12 Oct. 2015.

Class Blog Review 2-Technogorge

Class Blog Review 2-Technogorge

I just had a chance to look over Technogorge, a rather interesting blog created by Chris and Nathaly. When I initially looked through their blog, I noticed that the layout was very neat, containing nice little tabs linking recent posts and archives. However, I noticed that the design was a little dry. The only real thing to catch my eye was the title. I think this was made up for by the organization of the posts contents and the content of the posts themselves. None of the posts seemed to have bad grammar or lack of detail, and they were organized into little sections that could be expanded if the viewer wished to read more.

I like how the blog has a humorous touch to it right off the bat. "Wasting time in the 21st century" definitely gives the blog a laid-back and casual vibe which I can really resonate with. However, there isn't many humorous eye catchers after that. There are not very many pictures portrayed on the main blog, either because they're hidden in the "read more" section or simply aren't there. The pictures that are there didn't give me much of a reaction, either. I definitely did like the big white text titling their posts and the name of their blog, though! 

Overall, I would give this blogging team a 'A-' in the blog quality criteria. While the flaws in their blog (lack of exciting and humorous visuals and background) are glaring, everything else is executed well (organization, content, name, properly colored and sized text, etc.). They definitely keep producing high quality work in their posts and make it easily accessible, which is really important. I felt the experience was worthwhile and I am glad I chose this group's blog to review.

Picture taken from www. quickmeme.com

Chapter 14 Blog Review Sabastian

Chapter 14 Blog Review Sabastian

Wow! Quite the meaty chapter this week! I don't even feel like I learned all that much. While it was nice to see so many examples of strengthening an argumentative essay, I didn't feel like the chapter didn't need to go on so long. There were so many essays and I feel like after a while, they started to lose their touch (Like eating too many cookies and feeling like puking). Nevertheless, I did learn some fun stuff in this chapter. I liked looking at the list of common writing mistakes in particular because not only did it help me realize my weak points, it also resonated with me because it seems like most essays I read have at least one of those glaring flaws in them. My favorite of them was definitely the false dilemma, because most essays that I read often focus on arguing the two main extremes of an argument without considering the neutral arguments. I think essays do this in an attempt to pull the reader in with drama, but to me it just seems obnoxious. 

In the little bit of content of the chapter that wasn't essays, I also learned some other useful information. Particularly, logical structuring information and audience appeal information. I was reminded of pathos, logos and ethos as well as their optimal applications in writing. Since argumentative essays often use logic and facts, they mainly use logos. Since they're based so much on logic, it was helpful to see practical essay structures such as Toulmin Logic and the most effective ways to add in information to the essay.

All in all, the chapter seemed like a little too much of a brain dump but there was still effective content about 1/2 of the way through.

"It" being my brain 

Image from: memegenrator.net

False Dilemma (Logical Fallacy)

A false dilemma is when a writer forces the reader to choose between two extreme arguments with no regard to a middle ground.

In order to avoid falling for this trap, be sure to explore your topic to understand multiple views and positions.



Image from www.aurellem.org

Exemplification Essay Freaking Point

Exemplification Essay Freaking Point

Dogs are given too much free reign in Colorado and this creates a lot of problems for people's sanity, safety and health.

-Mention the risk of rabies which is increased when dogs are allowed to roam around outside unsupervised. 
-Interesting note: according to Boulder County Colorado Animal Control website, people are responsible for dogs that habitually disturb the peace with unprovoked barking and can be given a three day "barking notice" which can result to that person being summoned to court if the dog still refuses to shut it. (so people who have obnoxious dogs, beware)
-If your pet has bitten someone, or if you are the victim of an animal bite, you are required under state law to file a report with the Animal Control Unit within twelve hours of the bite.
-Introduction: DEFINITELY use your own personal experiences as examples! Don't just use it for the intro though, use it throughout the paper. I'm just mentioning the few laws I found so you can make the audience see how it affects the majority at large as well. 

Just Walk On By Style and Structure Evaluation

Just Walk On By Style and Structure Evaluation

1. I do feel like Podohertz's point enhanced Staples' point, but it was not necessary since he gave examples about "paranoid touchiness" earlier in the essay. 

2. I think Staple's strategy was highly effective, since it really forces the reader to read forward and find the context of the anecdote.

3. Staples uses more than enough examples to support his thesis, but fortunately they transition well and do not get in the way of his point.

4. He first presents examples of minor reactions that people have to his appearance and then goes on to describe major reactions, concluding it with examples of his childhood in comparison to his adulthood. I think this approach is fine but it would be equally or more effective to start out with childhood examples.

5. Robber: conveys the same idea

thief: conveys same idea 

criminal: a more general category that "thug" fits into

felon: a more general category that "thug" fits into

gangster: gangsters are often thugs

rapist: rapists are often thugs

sucker punch: "sucker punching" is often what a thug does.

Journal Entry: I was bitten by a dog when I was really young and I instinctually perceived the owner as threatening. I'm sure if Staple's was in the same situation when he was really young, he'd feel the same way.

Combining the Patterns: Yes, since it would have given more specific causes of young thugs.

Chapter 8 Reading Response

Chapter 8 Reading Response

I learned a lot about using examples correctly in chapter 8. While I knew previously that good examples in any essay made writing more compelling, I never really stopped to think about how many examples should be used in a piece of writing or how to format them. Now I know that a formal and informative college paper is usually fine with only one example, whereas a dissection of a novel may need 10 or more examples! I also learned about using commas correctly when talking about three or more things.

I also read many essays in this chapter that I thought were very interesting. Partly because I liked the topics, but also because the authors included vivid examples, some of which I could easily relate to. Particularly, I liked Farhad Manjoo's "No, I Do Not Want To Pet Your Dog" essay, because he used many examples of annoying dogs that I could relate to so easily (since I live in the most dog-infested apartments on the friggin' planet). I also liked the examples in Maia Szalavitz's "Ten Ways We Get the Odds wrong". The details were neatly organized into little sections that seemed to go on for the perfect amount of lines to keep my attention while still informing me.

Therefore, I found this chapter very interesting and informative. Hopefully, we get more chapters like this later in the book.

Mental Floss Mini Essay review

Mental Floss

Mental Floss is a visually stimulating and quirky website where a person can read a variety of things from historical events to the latest conspiracy theories. It never fails to please as it seems to have a little something for every and any reader. However when it comes to taking all of its information to heart, proceed with caution. Some of it's outlandish tales provide little to no credibility.  

First off, many of the articles on mentalfloss do not go into many specifics or details. Often times an article will display general facts about its subject without delving deep into research or varied scientific views. For example, the "What’s the Difference Between Dark Matter and Dark Energy?" article tells us that approximately 96% of the universe is dark matter or dark energy, but it doesn't go into detail about the ratio of these universal forces or what they do exactly. This tells me the author was not too interested in making a point or bringing the audience concise facts.

From the first time you read the title, mentalfloss immediately snaps your attention as a website that means business, making you remember what floss is and how it is used, especially in the context of the brain. Fair to it's name, it engages the reader and makes them think deeply on the topics discussed. Unfortunately, it only makes readers think and speculate, as it doesn't give enough sources or information to provide further info. This is not necessarily a bad thing, as long as the reader can remember that what they are reading isn't meant to be interpreted as fact, just to be thought upon. Mentalfloss therefore succeeds in its purpose to entertain and delight, but falls short in it's quest to provide reliable information.

 

Image from www.mentalfloss.com

Quality Criteria mini blog review

Quality Criteria mini blog review

I give the LifeHacker.com blog a 8/10. The background and design is plain but the articles are interesting and useful.

The Today in History blog on Tumblr gets a 4 from Daniel. It lacks a catchy title, isn't too visually appealing, doesn't contain a lot of humor and is rather repetitive. He still enjoys it though.

Emily has followed the mentalfloss blog for a little bit and decided to give it an 8. She likes the design and topics but questions their credibility since they tend to use informed guessing rather than facts.

Reverse Outline

Reverse Outline-"What your e-mail etiquette says about you"

Intro: I am a spelling geek, and I seem to be the only one

Thesis: Misspelled texts are a symbol of power

Supporting point 1: Powerful people misspell texts on purpose because they want to make the point that they are busy.

Supporting point 2: Power goes hand in hand with being hip and cool, not necessarily being formal, which means that errors are beneath them.

Supporting point 3: There are consequences of powerful people making their subordinates figure out what the hell they mean.

Conclusion: people who understand power don't say anything at all

Sabastian, Emily, Dan

Chapter 3 Reading Response By Sabastian Stevens

Chapter 3 Reading Response By Sabastian Stevens

When I pored over the information in chapter 3, it made me feel like I was in high school again. Learning about topic sentences, body paragraphs and conclusions brought a powerful sense of deja vu and did not educate me very much. Regardless, I did learn of a few refined techniques for polishing important sections of the essay and of a few questions one can ask while writing their work to affirm their purpose. For example, if you or your reader are asking yourself, "What does <your subject> smell like?", your goal in your essay is probably describing your topic. However, if the question is "What happened, and when?", you are probably writing a narrative. Either way, it is important to ask yourself these questions through each draft until you can answer them with confidence. I also found out about useful ways to start introductions to essays, such as beginning with a story or surprising statement to win the audience's attention, and following off strong arguments from there. I learned similar concepts for the conclusion as well, such as making a prediction of results that may happen due to ideal or not ideal courses of action. Everything else was review, however, and that made the chapter seem surprisingly short and uninformative. Hopefully, the next chapter is much more useful and eye-opening.

Sabastian Stevens-SDE

Chapter 1 Reading Response by Sabastian Stevens

Chapter 1 and Introduction Reading Response by Sabastian Stevens

When I was browsing this chapter and introduction, I gleaned over the writing process. All of that seemed familiar; inspiration, arrangement, drafting, planning and proofreading has been shoved down my throat even through elementary school so this was no surprise to me. A lot of the conventions advice also seemed painfully obvious, yet the book continued to drill me on points like noticing highlights, boldface, italics, juicy words and punctuation. I was ready to move onto something different.

I ended up being quite surprised though when I reading the introduction and saw the "What's in a name?" story by Henry Louis Gates Jr. I noted amount of power and emotional influence that one piece of writing can have. Equally surprising is the amount of depth that an essay can have and the many different responses people can have when reading it. For example, when I was reading, my main reacton was disgust. It was pretty awful to see that blacks were essentially resigned to injustice and had to endure stale names and treatment from their white brethren. My pain was amplified by the fact that they were almost always fearing danger, danger of losing jobs, income and sustenance. However, many different reactions were explained in the book, such as anger towards the white people or the author, indifference, and even happiness.

I also learned that to a certain extent, these reactions can shape up a different story for different people. People who sympathize with the innocence of the author in his early years may take the story's events more seriously, especially if the events are in light of the author. However, these personalized interpretations can also make people miss details about the story or essay and that is why it is a good idea to read over the work multiple times, especially if you have a strong opinion about said work.

When I read over the "Let Steroids into the Hall of Fame" essay by Zev Chafets, I saw that the author seemed to have a highly biased opinion. Perhaps he read anti-steroid articles and thought that the authors were ignorant, or maybe he had a favorable experience with steroid use in his past. I don't feel like there's anything wrong with a little bias, but I felt like in this case it got in the way of presenting viable counter-arguments. He mentioned very general counter-arguments but failed to tackle the bigger and more specific issues of his claims, probably in an effort to build his counter-arguments. However, I don't think this strategy is very effective because it doesn't inform the reader very well about both sides of the issue. What exactly is so wrong about not supporting steroids in sports? There must be arguments made against specific points in the counter-argument to really leave an impact. This is something I felt that the author Brent Staples did quite well in his "Cutting and Pasting: A Senior Thesis" essay. I felt like his writing touched upon the views that students who didn't understand plagiarizing had, while explaining the true downsides of copying work from others. I'm sure Zev Chafets could learn a thing or two from him.

Sabastian Stevens-SDE

English Composition: Interview with Daniel: Sabastian Stevens

English Composition: Interview with Daniel

Sabastian Stevens

I recently took the time to sit down with and find out a little bit about Dan and exactly what runs through his mind. He seemed like an energetic and quirky person right off the bat and so I was interested to see the results of this casual and somewhat nerve-wracking interview. I immediately started by inquiring about his preferred writing mediums. He responded by saying that he liked writing letters to friends, a rare trait in today’s technology run world. He also occasionally does gmail, writes incident reports at work and occasionally creates to-do lists when he feels his memory won’t do the job.

I followed up by asking him about his previous experiences with English teachers. After all, a fun teacher can make almost any topic engaging and makes college life seem more than just meeting the requirements for a degree! He said that his experiences were rather black and white, with a few teachers being great while the others were mediocre or plain bad. He does not have any experience with this class, but he has done peer reviews before and knows what he’s doing to a certain extent. He is also proficient with computers and uses them frequently, so navigating through web sites, Microsoft Word and blogs should be no problem for him.

Dan is a freshman at Front Range and only had his first day yesterday! He has not yet walked into the campus library, much less familiarized himself with it. His goal in English is simply to pass and improve upon some of his weaker points in the world of writing. He feels like he can’t expand upon arguments that he makes very well and has a tough time concluding an essay. He does, however, like to read large, classic books such as harry potter and super hero comic books, so I’m sure he’s an excellent story writer!

All in all, I feel like even though Dan is just a freshman, he has a good amount of natural talent and should be able to make up for his shortcomings. Experience with writing letters should also help him with class writing assignments and creating good rough drafts of his work. His excellence with basic computer skills should also help him excel in blogging and word processing. Above all else though, he’s a fun person to talk to about comic books and computers, all while coming along with a good personality.