Post 15 Final Thoughts

Looking back at the beginning of the semester, I feel that many of my goals were attained. I set out to be able to become a writer with more emotion and knowledge of how to write at a college level entry. Im still a work in progress, but my progress has been encouraging. I learned what draws a reader in. Now that I am more familiar with college level writing, I would like to add as a future goal to be able to give better critique. Just as my peers benefit me by telling me what is relevant in my essayand what isnt I feel that I should return the favor. I'm not good at peer reviews because sometimes I can be vague.

As the semester is winding down, I want to be able to have the same results as I did in this class with future classes and outside of school. I want to able to write in a serious manner regardless of the situation because writing is a serious way of communication in which people judge you on. I dont want to be just a writer at school, but use it in my everyday life. A strength I want to continue to develop is my syntax. Proper grammar is huge because it's easy to distinguish. A weakness in which I want to continue to work on is that sometimes I can be vague. To push your point across I have realized that you need to be as specific as you can. All in all, Writing 101 has been a good foundation for development as a student and individual.

Post #14

For my final portfolio, I will be reviewing my Ad analysis paper. Some key strengths that I saw in my essay were my examples to describe the essay. I felt I found a bunch of ways to describe my Ad. Also, I felt I made some good judgements on the section on competition of products similar to my Ad. I personally felt my conclusion was solid as well. Some weaknesses were that I didn't fully elaborate on some examples I used, meaning I relied on one or two sentences to describe them. My intro sounds a bit off topic because it can take long to get at where im trying to get at.

To revise my essay, I would like to re-structure my into to make it basic, yet concise. Prolonging the main point can draw a reader off the essay and I need to captivate them faster. My examples should be more clear and I should elaborate how they specifically fit to the Ad. If at one point I find myself saying an example is off topic, then maybe I need to revise if its a fit for my essay. It is important for my intro to be good so that my conclusion can be a match with it.

In the end I want to be able to apply a good structure to all the bodies in my paragraph. I enjoyed writing this essay and my re-write should warrant a more effective essay because I've learned from previous essays how to fix some "bad" mistakes.

lucky #13 leggo!

The essay that I enjoyed to write the most was the 2nd essay. I liked looking up Ads and getting a chance to analyze and interpret what I felt. Writing about the Coke Ad gave me a chance to try and see why many corporations do what they do and why they place certain things into their ads. I liked how I got a chance to interpret the message behind the images.
Even though the 3rd essay got me my highest grade thus far, I enjoyed writing the 2nd the most. I had fun talking about all the icons in the Ad. Getting a chance to tell the reader why we as consumers buy stuff based on what they advertise is interesting. I might use this for my portfolio because I truly do want to revise this essay and see what I couldve done for a better grade.

#12

Student athletes as well as coaches should be held accountable to a higher standard because of whom they represent when they take the field.

• I felt that my strongest point was that I clearly stated whom I want to adress within this essay. I didnt make it a vague statement and not generalize who I want to talk about. This also gives my audience a better hint at what to look for in the essay.
• Being a rough draft, my thesis needs to be better because I feel this specific thesis has a bunch of weak points. I didnt specify which level of student athletes/coaches should be penalized. I could be reffering to either high school, collegiate or even, but most likely not, grammar level academics. I also didnt specify what the higher standard was. To explain, it could be in regards to academics or how they behave or even their level of playing the game.

Overall I do see some glaring weak points that I need to adress in order to prepare a better thesis.

#11

I read the article "Should the Obama generation drop out"?

1. I saw that the writer was kind of biased towards not liking college education. He only gave a one sided argueement without acknowledging the other side of the argueement which sort of weakened his stance. He makes some excellent points, but his biased views make them weak.
2. Evidence was not there. He gave off some statistics without showing where he got them from or from what studies they were from. It's crucial to support your statements, but he just gives out his own opinion. He looked like he was expanding on his own ideas and beliefs. It would have been better if he provided some  actual life case studies to back up his argueements.
3. His tone was harsh and it seemed informal. Also, he kind of gave me the feeling that he was strong on his readers kind of insulting. Telling his readers, which contains college level students, that you should drop out. He kind of disses the B.A and B.S degrees, also calling us not intellectual enough. I don't know maybe he could've lessened his harsh tone

#10

The peer review system that is in place definitely has some good structure. For the 3rd assignment, I enjoyed getting to talk in groups prior to reading our essays. It gave a good vibe and allowed us to have a better understanding on the how others feel about the topic. Being able to discuss beforehand lets you see if your essay is on the right track. Peer reviewing in groups also gives you more feedback. I feel this is very effective because it gives you way more feedback and also more opportunities to read other essays and see how they are good/bad.

• A strength as a peer reviewer for me would have to be that I can figure out when a certain paragraph is fits or doesn't. I feel I can see this when I read others writing. Obviously if they have a good structure, it makes it easier for me to let my peer know they have a good paragraph.
• A weakness I see in myself is not being able to give very negative feedback. I just find it hard to tell someone that certain things just aren't good. What I mean is I usually try to find a positive out of a negative, but that can be bad for my peer because maybe I can help them out by being more critical.

I think that maybe there should be a peer review prior to the essay being due, like maybe 2 classes before. That way you dont have a "shitty roughdraft" and rather something closer to a final draft. This would give you a shot to improve in any last mistakes before handing it in. Smaller groups of like 3 or 4 are the best. It gives you more opinions without becoming to excessive that your opinion isn't taken into consideration. The amount of peer review time is just about right =)

Post #9

For this post, I reviewed my first two papers as well as my current 3rd draft. I do see a trend in the errors and is a pattern in my writing.

• I noticed I tend to use the same words alot. I seen that I frequently use the same word even in the same sentence. Also, when I use the word they or them, I tend to not describe who I'm talking about as if my audience should know who they are.
• When I'm trying to make a summary or describe something, I notice that I don't follow up on some statements. I tend to use one sentence in place of using a paragraph to fully describe in depth. This becomes a bad habit because it could lead to leaving the reader not fully comprehending what I'm talking about. I need to go more in depth and thus more organized perhaps.
• I also feel that sometimes my transitions into a different paragraph are not that great. I might be talking about one thing and transition into something else, only to later bring up the previous thought in a future paragraph. This could lead to some confusion because it can become harder for the reader to keep up.

I do feel that I am working towardstrying to fix these problems. I look into my peer's criticism as well as my professor. That's why I feel that my 3rd paper, I look into these flaws and how I can fix them to make my paper better.