My final reflection assign.# 15

 Looking back at my first and seventh blog posts, I stated that what I wanted to gain from this course were better skills in writing, be able to write college level papers, and be able write and come up with ideas to whichever topic I was  given. Well I can sincerely say that I have learned a lot this semester, I have learned how to better analyze essays, develop good argumentative essays. I’ve had more practice in writing essays, I have learned of good features that make a good essay. I have as well learned that in order to create more credibility in your paper, I need to back up my ideas with info. Although I think I have gained a lot of knowledge in writing papers this semester, I still need to practice more and improve when it comes to using more complex vocabulary. I have become more familiar with college level writing and have learned of different important features of a good paper. Some weaknesses I need to work on would be to be able to develop better thesis in papers, as well as better organizing my ideas. I still need to work as well in trying to avoid repetition throughout my essays.

Revisions assign.# 14

For my final portfolio I have chosen to revise my ad analysis essay. In my opinion I was able to describe what the ad was trying to tell its audience, and why the strange ad was able to get people’s attention. The weaknesses of my paper were that I was not able to clearly state my thesis, and I also repeated info. My strategy on how I plan to revise my essay is to make a better explanation of the ad, and look carefully at each sentence to see if they make sense. In my essay I was able to support some ideas. I feel as if I need to work as well on a better explanation of the ad, some important facts where left out. When writing my essay I am going to try to include better info to support my claims. I am going to read each sentence out loud and see if they make sense, then decide whether I need to fix them or erase them from my paper. I will as well try to organize my ideas better, and make it clear and easy to read.

Analyzing argument essay Assign.#13

When analyzing the article “Free Speech off Campus Must Be Protected” I have learned of several ways in which a writer is able to catch the reader’s attention and create credibility towards an essay. First of all the article was very well organized and well-defended by the author. Having good clear evidence and backing up your argument with it, in my opinion is one of the best ways to write an argumentative essay. Good clear evidence and having good strong reasons on your argument creates credibility towards your papers and makes it hard for it to be challenged. A positive serious tone in a paper also helps, it show confidence and gives the reader the idea that you know what you are talking about and not just making stuff up. Being well organized with your facts and ideas throughout the essay also makes the essay more easy to read and understandable for the reader. In conclusion, I guess being well organized, providing strong evidence and a good tone are some of the main points that make a good essay.

Assign.# 12 Evidence

Question:  Should stores that sell tobacco products be boycotted?

Thesis:  Stores that sell tobacco products should be boycotted, for selling a product that can cause a deathly addiction.

Compelling evidence: My most compelling evidence in my opinion would be the fact that tobacco can actually cause an addiction which could be hard to get rid of, and which could lead you to your own death. This is strong evidence because years of research have proven that smoking can cause lung cancer and other diseases. A way in which I could cause an emotionally appeal to my audience is in mentioning how even if they don’t smoke, they should be aware of how much damage secondhand smoke could cause to their loved ones. Because cancer is a very deathly disease and one in which people are the most afraid of, I can use the fact that tobacco causes cancer throughout my essay because it is my strongest reason.

Weakest evidence: I think my weakest evidence or something that could be used to challenge my argument is that, people could argue that they have the right to be able to buy this product. Although people could argue that they should be able to smoke careless about their health, they should also think about how they could still affect others because of secondhand smoke. There could be different reasons in why people could be against my argument, but in my opinion the fact it could lead people to their death could be difficult to challenge.

Common Errors assign.#11

  Looking back at several errors I tend to make when writing an essay, the most common one is repeating same stuff over and over again. And I’ve noticed that not only me but as well as several of my classmates have had this problem. As a solution whenever I write an essay I try to only repeat facts when necessary, and try to write something else when the lack of info is the cause of this problem. I’ve also noticed that I tend to write the word “Also” and several teachers have written back comments on several papers pointing out that problem. I guess a way to fix that would be to try to use other kinds of transitional words other than “also”.

   
   Another error would be that I sometimes happen to write several run on sentences in my writing, I guess should practice several remedies like using semicolons and coordinating conjunctions. Sometime I also tend to go off topic when writing my essays, stuff that is somehow related to the topic but at the end it causes a lot of confusion throughout the essay.

Peer review assignment #10

Peer review in my opinion has been effective so far. First of all everybody has different opinions and thought’s. Because of this reason peer review is effective, because your peer might have different ways to better your essay. Some of my strengths and weaknesses as a peer reviewer is that I am able to identify errors easily and I am able to give good feedback understandable enough for my peer to understand and improve his/her essay. I think doing peer review with smaller groups is more helpful and effective, because of less distractions and more able to focus on only one peer. 

My thoughts about college

   College so far has been a great experience. All of the classes I’ve taken so far, I think have been very helpful. I’ve learned a lot and I can see how these classes may be of great help in the future. I have not yet decided what I would like to major in, but I am a bit interested in justice studies. Some of the classes I’ve taken could be very helpful no matter what I decide to major in or be. Like for example my past and recent writing classes. The two writing classes have been very helpful, and I have learned a lot and so far I think my writing has improved. Being able to write good essays, and having good writing skills could be of great help in the future.

     What I’ve enjoyed the most in college is the really simple schedule, and the reasonable time for each class. But what I have enjoyed the least would be the really complex and long assignments from several classes. High school years where some of the best years of my life, but I do have to admit that I do enjoy the independence in college.

Argument summary

Well although I didn’t understand the article that well, I will have to say that the article “Don’t Presume to Know a Pig’s Mind” was the one more interesting. The article is basically about the author trying to analyze an ad. An ad used by the chipotle Mexican grill, the author goes in depth about what he thinks the ad is trying to say. He talks about how wrong is the fact that in the ad pigs are put in into large crowded buildings, and pumped with antibiotics. The author talks about how badly these pigs are treated and how this ad creates an effect on American farmers. He talks about how the farmers should abandon their methods of production like using genetically altered seeds, and using crates which hurts animals that later we are expected to consume.

 I chose to write about this particular article, because the other ones where really difficult to determine what their purpose was. I guess I found this article interesting because it tries to analyze an ad, and show his thoughts about it.

Reflecting on progress

Looking back at my first blog post, I think that I’ve been making progress when it comes to being able to write and come with ideas to whichever topic I am given. Some aspects of the class that I’ve found the most helpful is peer review, and the recently assigned blogs. I think the blogs are very helpful due to the fact that before each essay, we are assigned to write some ideas in our blogs to help us later on write the essay. Something that I would like to change in the class is for example to be given some directions on the best way to organize our essays. And also to be able to write sometimes less than three pages for some essays. For the reason that sometimes there is not that much to write about on some topics, and I tend to repeat the same info over and over again in order to be able to finish the three pages. Like I said peer review has helped me improve in my writing process. As well as the teacher’s advice on including lots of details of the topic of each essay, in order to give the reader a better understanding of what is being talked about. My writing has changed since the semester started, because I know that giving better details and more organized info makes a better essay. I haven’t had trouble understanding the assignments, and I’m looking forward to go through the rest of the semester.

Rhetorical situations of both essays

   The purpose of the ad analysis is to be able to analyze an ad, and describe how it tries to appeal to its audience or what message it tries to send. The audience at who this essay is directed is those who want to learn the aspects of an ad.  The purpose of my literacy narrative essay is to explain the way an important event in your life has impacted your thoughts about writing. The audience of this essay would be people interested in reading about this topic. The tone for both essay would be informative and/or a serious tone. The genre would as well be informative for both.  The way, in which the rhetorical situations could affect the choices I make when writing another paper is that, I could be able to know the difference between telling a story and analyzing something.

Advertisement Analysis

Purpose: The action/advertisement is named "None of us would like to end up like this.. neither would other-than-human animals". And it consisted of four large foam plates, containing four naked activists inside, covered in plastic and with a human meat sticker on them. And the whole idea of this was to imitate the meat trays found in supermarkets. Their objective was to tell people to give the idea of becoming a vegeterian, a second thought, before saying no. As well as to make them think about how wrong is the fact that millions of animals are killed each year for food.  And to show that like any other than human animals, we are also animals, and we neither would like to end up like that.

Audience: The adverstisement is mostly aimed at those that consume lots of meat, to the general public, as well as to every other person that is not aware of the fact. It tries to put the idea in peoples minds about that like any animal, we as well wouln't like to end up like that.

Genre: This ad takes the idea of convinsing and persuading, people to contribute to the fight against animal cruelty and killings, to another level. By them getting naked and wrapping themselves in plastic on top of a foam plate, they try to tell people they are being serious about this situation.

Tone: The nudity, akward, surprising, weird way they tried to deliver this message creates a serious tone. And shows how serious they are, that they decided to make this action.

Revisions

 My final draft doesn’t look that different from my rough draft, changes were made, but not to the point that it makes it look very different than how it was. I did fix some fragments, grammar, and run-on sentences, but not enough to be able to spot any major differences. After revising my essay I did identify some errors, which I tend to make very often when writing essays. Some of them are that I tend to repeat myself a lot, and also I made the mistake of making my sentences too long.

 While I read my paper it did sort of help because, it helped me spot some errors along the way. But after all peer review did also help me make revisions and noticed some errors that I wouldn’t have noticed. After all, peer review helped a lot, because they helped me better my essay and I was able to hear someone else’s opinion about it, before turning it in. Some weak aspects of my paper were mistakes like run-on sentences, as well as some grammar mistakes. Some good aspects of my paper were that I was able to catch reader’s attention, and was able to not to fall off topic and end my essay with a sort of good conclusion.

"Qualities of a good paper" -10

During my high school years, the good feedback I received from my teachers when turning in essays and such is what helped me define the specific features a good paper should contain. To me a good quality that separates an A paper from a C paper is the intro or the hook. That has to be a major feature that can help get a good grade, because it shows you have an understanding of the outline of how to make a good essay, and because it is a way to catch your readers attention. A good thesis is also a must if you want your paper to be an A paper, because it informs the reader about what they’re about to read. Another quality is that your paper needs to make sense; your sentences need to make sense. Readers tend to lose interest in reading your paper if they see that you didn’t put that much thought and work in your paper.
  
       Lastly, another quality is that your paper doesn’t contain repetition of info or sentences. This is one problem that students tend to encounter more often, sometimes due to the lack of info you could put in your paper or simply running out of ideas. For me the most difficult quality to use is to avoid repetition. Whenever I run out of ideas or info to provide in a paper, I sometimes make the mistake of repeating things already said. The easiest to me is to provide a good hook and thesis, because you basically inform the reader about what they’re about to read, and just to find a good sentence which could catch the reader’s attention.

possible narrative essay topics

For my narrative essay I have not quite decided on what it is going to be about, but I have some topics in mind I’ve wrote about in last semester’s writing class. A topic I may write about which of I also wrote last semester, may be about my position on whether should the U.S. censor the publication of intelligence secrets in the media, like for example in wiki leaks and such. I was really proud about the paper I wrote dealing with this topic, because I was able to show my writing skills. For this paper I was able to support my thesis, due to the variety of reasons of my opinion on this topic. Although there were very good reasons of why not to censor the publication of government secrets, I was able to support my opinion of why government secrets should be censored in the media, and I was able to earn a good grade in this paper.
  
    Another topic I may write about would be about drug abuse or alcohol abuse. When I was in high school these have been some topics I’ve found more interesting to write about. I like to write about these topics a lot because of all the info and reasons you could use to support your position on these topics. I have also developed an interest in these topics because I’ve had friends and family members who have gone through or had these addictions to either alcohol or drugs. I’ve learned a lot about these topics, and somehow I like to write essays about them because, I like to make other people aware of the consequences of drug abuse or alcoholism.
   
      My last topic I may write about would be about second hand smoke, and how it harms others. I am interested in this topic, although I don’t know a lot of information about this topic; I think it would be a good topic. Some pros and cons about censoring the publication of U.S. secrets topic could be that there are good reasons to be for it or against it, but if either way if you are for or against it; you are going to be able to support your argument due to a lot of info and reasons. For the drug abuse/ alcohol topic some good reasons to write about this topic is that there is a lot of info you could provide to support your argument. And for my last topic some cons about the topic could be the lack of knowledge I have about this topic, but some positive aspects could be the chance to learn about a new topic.

My Reason for taking English 101-10

The reason why I'm taking this class is because it is required, but also because I would like to learn how to write better, have better skills and acquire more experience for when writing my papers, essays,etc. Since elementary, writing essays and research papers was a every day thing, and something I didn't like to do. Whenever an essay was assigned for homework I would always write whatever on my papers without putting to much thought in it, as long as I finished my h.w quick and be able to go outside and play or play video games. In high school I gained more experience and learned a lot in ways to improve my writing, but not as much as I would of liked to, writing essays, research papers, reports, etc. was also something we did every week in high school. I have improved a lot in writing and developing better skills for writing. But what I would like to learn from this class is how catch my readers attention, I would like to improve my writing skills more , and be able to write well written papers. At the end of this class I want to be able to write college level papers, with less errors, and be able to write papers with more complex vocabulary. I want to be able to write well written interesting papers that catch the readers attention, and be able to get straight to the point of what my paper is about, but at the same time keep the reader interested. Developing better writing skills is very important for the future no matter what proffesion or planned carrer, if you have good writing skills it could bring a lot of success to you in the future.