Blog #3

While writing the informal summary I learned that I still have trouble with things such as citing the sentences properly or at all for that matter and learned that writing in a group can be better than with myself. I am still confused as to how to cite after the sentences that have concrete details, even though it has been explained to us how to I cannot seem to grasp the concept. I know we all get the information from the same articles that we read from class, what confuses me is that I do not know what exactly is that we are to put after the sentence, just the author’s last name, or the author’s last name and page were it was found, or author’s last name, page number, and article. I know for some of the other student’s in class it is of second nature but to me I am still having a hard time with it, a reason for this might be that it has been a couple of years since I last had an English or any other class where I was required to write any papers, so I need some refreshment because I might just be rusty with my writing. Even though I had some confusion when writing the paper I believe I did show leadership when we got into our groups and got everything started with my partner, I set the guidelines to what each other would do in order to complete this assignment and my partner did not complain about anything she agreed it was a good idea the way we had accomplished our goal. Honestly, I was not as prepared as I thought I was, so sometimes I saw myself stuck when typing the informal summary. I do not think that I am either less or more competent than what I thought, this to fact that I have never placed myself in either good or bad category as a writer.

Blog #2

For me the diagnostics essays was not difficult to write because almost all that I wrote came from what I could think of, it was not something that I needed to summarize out of another article or essay. If I had the chance to do it again I do not believe I would change anything because those ideas came from me, so if I decided to do it again I would probably come up with the same concept. Writing for me is not one of my strengths as a student, I believe that that is due to me having a hard time retaining information sometimes when I read. Something that I believe has an affect on how sometime I have trouble keeping information that I read is that some of the articles or other papers that I read are not really interesting to me. I however do enjoy writing because it is a way for me and others to express what we think and if we are reading another article, to summarize for someone else and make it easier to understand. Like I stated above, if some of the articles were fun and interesting (of course this is my own opinion) I believe I would have a better time writing. I think that for me the most fun I have writing is when I write about something in history because I enjoy history a lot as well as technological articles, like when speaking about a new technology or how something works just fascinates me.

Blog #1

Some of the things that I read that were similar to what I've learned in the past are they way we use to begin our introductions in our writing, going from a very broad statement and making our way to a more specific point that we are trying to address. Also, the ways of responding to the argumenatative writing because I've learned in the past that in order for it to be argumentative you do not have to disagree with the author. More writing tools that I've used in the past include the templates to expand the writing, although, by doing the reading on these sections I came to learn that the way I expand my writing is not the best because I use what is called the "list summaries," which just points out what I'm trying to say without going into greater depth. Last but not least, the way it shows us how to introduce the quotations is similar to what I have learned in the past because we cant just put X says "yada yada yada," I was shown to do the "quotation sandwich" by putting and introduction statement before and after to put a follow-up statement.

What I found that was new was, when I was in high school we would never start our introductions with comparing points of view, not because they did not want us to learn that, I guess they just figure we did not need them at that level.

What I found interesting was the point that in your writing or in your speeches if you only state your point at the beginning or at the end, that throughout your writing or speeches, that people tend to forget or not completely remember why is it that they are taking in that information. Also, I read about the section that explorers the opinions on the templates used in writing by some college students, I agree with the writer in that yes you can use templates to help you in your writing but it doesn't necessarily mean that that's what you have to use or follow.

I believe that these readings although just the beginning of class are going to really helpout others like me.

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