Final reflection

I do not think I learned a whole lot this quarter about writing. My initial post about what kind of writer I am and what I have trouble with has not changed from then till now. I still have trouble with introduction and conclusions and my ability to write a longer paper was not exercised at all. I am thankful for the latter because I do not write that long of papers and hope to never have to. I mostly focused on trying to figure out how to start and end a paper, and nothing was overly new to me in the field of writing.

Writing and Critical thinking

By copying the format of the different sources I have use I was able to stretch my paper to the 4-5 page parameters of the assignment. I still think I could cut out a lot of stuff and turn this into a one page paper, but there is nothing that would be considered "fluff" so I think it follows a well reasoned/organized format.

Critical thinking does not seem like a difficult to acquire skill in my opinion. Finding two relevant points in a text is governed by the close reading skill, and being able to put them into an argument is as simple as deciding what argument they are trying to portray and then put them into your own words. After that it is just a matter of adding your own information as an example. 

Close reading and research

Finding an article for my research started out being somewhat difficult because general terms brought up similar things that weren't really on the topic I was looking for. After using a few different versions of the same words I had been using I found it produced different results. Using the database finder I was able to get an article after a few uses of the old thesaurus. I still find Google to be more useful, my original broad terms brought me more results that I could have actually used including the one I picked from the database.

As for close reading, locating key points was as simple as looking for the word "blog" and reading the surrounding sentences. Does not really seem like a skill to me, you only need the ability to pick a key word you want to look for.

Something about revision

Revision is a process to learn new information about something, in the form of learning what was left out or what is not relevant. In order to find what it is you want to say and how you want to say it. When revising a paper I generally want whatever I consider to be a finished product to be critically graded and then I like to go back and usually get in more depth once I know what kind of depth should be applied. Regular peer revision is not all the helpful because it usually consists of vague comments that I already knew and just do not know how to fix. Essentially I prefer if my reader thinks it is the finished product and not a work in progress.

Writing and research 7

Aside from maybe taking to much influence from West's article I think I followed the prompt well. My thesis is not highly defined so hopefully it can be found and someone can help me expand it. I reached a writers block at the three and a 1/4 page point and would like some feedback on how to expand my ideas to efficiently use more space.

My paper may just be missing the long explanation most of the other papers will have of the blog they are following because mine is an easily looked up resource that is harder to explain from an inside perspective.

Writing and research 6

I chose prompt 2 for my essay and I have found that it is essentially the same idea as the first essay. I have not found a blog yet to base it on but I am currently searching. The idea should be the same though, and I will apply the same criteria for this blog and explain it using West's method instead of my interpretation. I am struggling with finding all of my resources and I am not sure how I am going to smoothly incorporate all of the required resources into my paper. It my be easier when I have the personal blog to base it off of so I hope to find one soon.

Edit: Due to the difficulty of finding a suitable blog for this assignment I am instead going to use prompt one.  

Article for paper

I do not know if I forgot a step or if my terms were no good, but I could not find a suitable article to use in conjunction with Rettberg and West. I have a few questions regarding the topic for the assignment, and what I should be looking for in an article that would help me with the topic. I will have to come back to this post in order to do the blog assignment as directed with the annotated bibliography and all, but for now I am hoping to get away with a work in progress post.

Edit: article found,  The Psychology of Blogging: You, Me, and Everyone in Between by Laura J. Gurak and Smiljana Antonijevic, this is not a proper citation but I have a paper to write.

Essay 2

After seeing that there were more choices on the topic of this blog I was pretty sure I would be picking one of the new ones. My blog was not written much like a blog and did not fit well for the assignment. The second one seems like a good choice because it is very similar to the first essay only the blog is being analyzed in a different way, but reaching the same goal of determining identity. The third is a very arguable topic because it would involve a lot more information, but the amount of sources required would make the research part very tedious and use up too much time. I am leaning toward the second option, I think my first essay was good and with the similarities this one should go well too.

Writing and research 5

This blog was written for the soul purpose of completing the assignments assigned. I purposely left out feeling or any of my social mannerisms. In an educational setting my identity is much harder to discern because I would rather not show anything about how I am. If anything can be assumed about me by reading through certain posts, it would suggest that I am confident in how well I understand and complete my work, of course this is spelled out for my readers in the reflection of my first essay and "writing and research" 3 and 4.

West's article

I had a tough time finding something significant in this article because I found it was poorly written. It made references to sources and a system of how those sources list things such as the "levels of social organization" but does not explain the system. She also gave characterization titles to each of her subjects like the "relationship-savvy teen" and does not give her definition of this type of characterization. These things made the arguments hard to follow and I felt there was no supporting evidence. I do not know what I was supposed to derive from this article, but I did not get it.

essay 1 writing process

The first essay showed me that my writing process is very dependent on trial and error. I like to have a lot of time to write in a quiet room and just let my arguments come to me. After reading it back to myself and fixing anything I wrote that confuses me or spelling errors, I like to have it read over or graded etc. because I need the conformation that I am understanding what I should be/trying to be writing about, and if what I wrote makes sense. Then I restart my writing process until no one has further comments.

First essay reflection

It was not all that difficult to write this first essay because I understood the assignment and found all my arguments rather quickly. The blog I chose made it easier because I made sure to use a average joe solo blog because it was easier to focus on his information. Introductory and conclusion were still as difficult as always because I feel like it is redundant to restate things since I always assume the readers will remember what they read. I feel pretty confident for my next essay if it is this sort of research based as well.

They Say I Say

I have not yet figured out how I am going to incorporate this book into my essay. There is a lot of information, but a lot of it I have used already. I like how my essay is laid out, and adding things will take more rearanging then actually researching for information. I will have to do a more in depth search instead of general reading so I can refine my search for what I would like to incorporate into my essay. The rest of the book is supposed to be read soon so hopefully it can add to my essay as well.

Writing and research 4

I think I followed the idea for the presentation well. I felt my arguments supported my thesis and the thesis was on topic with the research question. I kept eye contact with the audience and rarely relied on my slides.

I could have used a more visually engaging presentation but my original thought was to keep it simple and somewhat professional

Blogging 2

The only section from the book I was able to use was the three main types of blogging. It was not an important point to prove my thesis, because I used it to determine what type of blog "The Greedy Gamer" is. After figuring out which one best fit, I determined it only gave a broad definition, and had little to do with the identity of the blogger. The book only looked at personal blogs as being more focused on the reader and why they might write it. This blog did not fit under personal, and ended up being a topic biased blog. The book described these as being more community based and having more then one writer, which did not fit for my purposes.

Writing and Research 3

I do not think I have too many changes to make to the first draft of my paper. I believe I understood the concept and applied it to my paper, as well as understanding what to take away from the blog. The only real issue I had was wording my thesis and integrating it clearly into my paper. I have figured out the wording for my thesis, but because the first and second paragraph tie in with each other I need to work on putting in my thesis without disrupting the paragraph. 

Writing and Research 2

After thoroughly reading a few pages of posts from the "greedy gamer" I have found that his opinions and mannerisms have become more apparent. Throughout he mentions his life outside the games and his actual time spent playing and it gives you more of a feeling that this is a real person. 

The blog is laid out simply enough, giving previews of the posts and showing the full thing when clicked on. It has not been to hard to analyze the posts to form answers to the task given in the essay, but providing so much detail to fill "x" amount of pages seems to be the more difficult aspect. Considering this is not a personal blog but rather an informal topic driven blog, you can sometimes forget this is a regular person with a hobby and not there auto-biography. The only problem with this is he is not an overly complex individual, and is more precisely summed up in fewer words.

Blogging

"While it is usually unimportant whether we regard a blogger as a journalist or not, there are times when it really matters. These legal definitions show that blogging and other forms of user-created media are causing us to redefine the nature of journalism itself. It remains to be seen whether legal definitions of journalism and blogging are necessary in other countries" ( 91).

This quote is referring to the passages above it, in which the author states two other quotes. The first quote is the 2005 version of the legal definition of a journalist, and the second is the 2006 version. The quote I stated above is essentially saying that the shift in the legal definition for journalism is being effected by new forms of journalism; in this instance the new form of journalism is blogging.The context of the quote and Rettberg's passages before it suggest a new definition was formed, because of legal issues between whether or not the inclusion of media such as blogs is accepted to what is traditionally know as journalism.

In my reading, however, I felt the first definition was broad and had a few holes that would already allow blogging to be considered journalistic. The intention of the change in the second seemed to suggest the same, but with less specific examples and the added clause of it having to be a salaried profession. Rettberg does not really touch on the issue. I think it is important to note that many bloggers can acquire steady wages for their blogs, although they are hardly different from those who publish for personal pleasure. Some are payed on an advertisement based revenue like most local newspapers, but are apparently not considered journalists because that revenue goes directly to them instead of trickling down from a higher up in the form of an hourly wage.

Writing and Research

I am not the most artistic person; In fact I can never put any feeling toward that kind of thing. Most of the things I excel in are technical and involve hard data. This would explain why I am going into the field of computer science. In light of that I do not have any particular hobbies and my only discussable interest involves computers.

I would like to follow someones personal blog. It really does not matter who the person is, but I would like to observe how a person without a classroom agenda starts a subject in their blog and what they could have to write on a day to day or week to week basis.    

Who am I as a Writer

As a writer, I am more than a work in progress, because although I am slowly developing skills to create writing that is professional and gramattically correct, I do not put any feeling toward the writing and write it correctly just to make it technically correct. I only write when prompted to do so and not for personal pleasure or to get a point across.