Blog Assignment #8

What is the writing assignment you have been most proud of in your entire life? Why?

I believe my most proud writing assignment to date was the research paper I did as a junior in high school. One of the challenges of taking honors English was that we had to complete a very in depth research paper. The teach, Mrs. Dove, told us upfront that we would be graded relatively harshly and that she was going to knit pick at every little detail to better prepare us for college level writing.

We were expected to have several sources. I believe the requirement was around 5-6 webpages and a book source or two. We had to diagram all of our sources and create note cards with key words or phrases we may use along with any  information we needed from the source to create a citation. The research paper its self had to be at least 10 pages long and we were challenged with the task of keeping it interesting. While we were essentially given free range of our choice of topics, we were strongly encouraged to choose a topic related to a science or invention as our teacher thought information would be most readily available.

For my paper, I chose the Polio vaccine as my topic. I found it to be a topic that information was very easy to find, but was still something that kept me interested. I found great ease in writing the paper and in turn was not only able to finish mine several days early, but was also able to help some of my fellow classmates. This made me very proud because I knew the information well enough that my teacher trusted me to teach other students. When she graded my paper, Mrs. Dove called me out in front of the entire class and told them how I was the only person who was able to still keep the body of my paper clean (no plagiarism) and also interesting. She was quite impressed with my work, so much so that she gave me a 97% on the paper – a mark rarely given out in her 20+ years of giving this assignment. I was beyond proud of this paper. I put so much concentration into making it the best I could be and my work paid off and then some. This was by far the proudest moment in my writing career.

Blog Post #7

The grant proposal I chose to read was a proposal for a $100,000 grant to be used for the start up of an Entrepreneurship Prepatory School. The idea came from an attempt by E CITY to offer an alternative for individuals who may consider dropping out of high school as an option. The goal is to have a 100% graduation rate from the school and have each graduate have both a business started and an acceptance to a four year university. The goal is to keep the school free to the public as well.

I really believe this grant fit all my expectations of a grant proposal. It addressed many of the different aspects of a grant proposal that we discussed in class. It is both informative and interesting in terms of the reasoning provided. I will admit, it was also a little hard to read as its a dry piece. I believe that is also to be expected from my standpoint as someone who has no immediate connection to the grant. I do believe its a very well written piece; however, to someone who would be reviewing this piece for a grant I believe it would be very appealing.

It’s very similar to the pieces we are writing in class because we are being asked to address some of the same basic concepts such as budget proposals, goals of the project we are presenting, and use of the money we are asking for.

Obviously the topics are vastly different. The grant I read online is focused on the building and founding of a new school with a new type of program for students who are challenged by the traditional approach to schooling. The proposals we are writing for class are focused on a website used to aid students in the writing of a rhetorical analysis.

Plagiarism

Topic:  Technology plays an important role in Lethem’s argument. Do you think that technology is changing the way we think about copyright and plagiarism? Why/why not, and how?

Technology as a whole has changed the game of copyrights and plagiarism for both the better and the worse. Now students have more readily available access to millions of articles, blogs, and most importantly…other people’s works. It is much easier to locate information on any given topic unlike before when one may have to spend hours scanning the library looking for information on a single topic.

From a student standpoint, its very easy to locate information, yes, but its also very easy to copy information from somewhere or someone.  With features such as copy and paste, its easy to just copy someone else’s words and twist them ever so slightly to make them “your own.”  Although the wording may technically be changed because he/she exchanged a word for a synonym, many students don’t realize this is still classified as plagiarism. With that being said, its also beneficial to students because with a few simple keystrokes, they can locate information on almost any given topic. Before the technological age, this type of research may have taken a student several days to even locate a book or article pertaining to exactly what they want to know.

From an educators standpoint, technology has really enhanced one’s ability to spot and disipline plagiarism.  Again, with a few simple keystrokes, one can type in a certain phrase and potentially locate where a student found it from.  No longer do teachers have to make an educated guess regarding a students academic honesty and integrity.  Catching plagiarism is a 10 minute search on Google. This holds students to a much higher accountability and forces us to put forth our own effort which in turn helps us better understand the concepts we are researching and writing about.

Research

My junior year of high school I took honors English.  The only differentiation between regular English 11 and English 11 Honors was the requirement of completing a research paper on a topic of our choice.  The paper was to be approximately 6-8 pages and contain a variety of different pieces of information to respond to the prompt.  My paper information from at least 5 different sources. During this project, I learned how to differentiate whether or not a source could be deemed reliable or not based on the contents and the domain name.  While we were not strictly limited to using online resources, I did my paper over vaccines (particularly Polio) therefor, I chose to strictly use webpages to ensure I was gathering the most recent and accurate information.

Personally, after reading the chapter I really dislike how the book encourages us to formulate questions prior to looking for sources. Maybe I’ve always done things in a weird way, but I prefer to look for sources with basic information on my topic and read and diagram the information they have to offer. From there, I prefer to formulate questions based on what I have learned and then answer them by looking for more sources. On the other hand, I do like how the book encourages to pick apart the information we find from our sources.  I think it is important to read between the lines on the information we have found and the only way to truly do that is to pick apart the research.

As far as the actual research process, I love it! I find it fun and exciting. I’m a nerd, I know. I love finding sources to use and diagramming the information they have to present. What I find difficult is using the information I have found to write a paper. I’m always worried I’ll unknowingly use a phrase found on some internet page somewhere and will get in trouble for plagiarism. I guess I don’t really find it hard, but rather nerve racking.

1. I found it actually surprisingly easy.  I thought it was going to be difficult, but I found it easy. I think it helped knowing that I was able to dissect two websites that I know and love and use quite frequently. When it came to my final, I reorganized an entire paragraph to make the essay easier to understand like I discussed in conference.

2. The only two online resources I used were the two webpages I did my analysis over.  I used the webpages to gather information on context.  Over the years I have spent in the industry, I learned from other professionals and competitors about the audience of the webpages so I guess they would be resources as well. I used my former English teacher as a resource as well as Beth Towle who helped me reformat my essay a few times.

3. I believe my “dream” resource would have been the graphic designer for Highpointperformance.com’s webpage.  I have so many questions for them as far as why they formatted things the way they did.  I also wish I could have talked to a couple of then intern editors from gohorseshow.com to ask them why they chose some of the topics they did or the formatting they did. If I could have asked them some questions I feel like that would have given me a better understanding as to why certain context was presented.

Peer Review

1.  In the past, a majority of my peer editing experiences has revolved around reading another person’s essay and maybe critiquing the introduction and the grammar. This time, it was nice to have a structured outline of things to look for and critique.  It made it very easy to dissect the other person’s analysis and give valuable feedback. In the past all I have known how to do was critique boring introductions and look it over for obvious grammar and spelling errors.

2. By reading another individual’s essay I was able to better understand how to implement context into my own essay. My partner for peer editing did a very good job of explaining the context of his website and it gave me a guideline to follow.  As a reader, I learned the importance of using sentence structure variation to keep it easy to read and interesting.

3.  I really enjoyed the structure of the questions we were given to answer. It was much easier to have a format to follow and it gave me things to search for in the essay which kept me more engaged as a reader.  With that being said, some of the questions we were attempting to answer seemed a little redundant.

4.  It is similar because it’s a much more personal experience than if we just discuss things in class. This is significantly more personal though because you’re discussing the entirety of the essay with one person.

5.  The most helpful part was seeing how another student responded to the same prompt.  It really did help me understand how to address the issue of context of the websites which is something I was struggling with.  I would be open to trying this again for either this class or another. I believe its beneficial and accomplishes more than I ever imagined.

Bad Websites!!!

http://www.p5equestrian.com/

1. The audience of this website is without a doubt potential clients.  The whole purpose of a trainer having a webpage is to attract clients or in some cases…weed out the few dedicated potential clients who are really willing to stick it out long enough to discover the raw facts of the business they have to offer. The purpose is to display information about their facility and program to other members of the horse world in an attempt to draw them and their horses (as well as checkbook) to their barn.
2. Well… there are several problems with this page, but lets start with the cloud background. Eww. Very juvenile and distracting. The blue is so blue it almost hurts to attempt to read text off of. That leads me to my next complaint: color… The colors have no rhyme or reason.  Its almost like a 5 year old on the first day of kindergarten with his or her BRAND NEW box of 64 crayons picked the colors. SO many options, so little space. Lastly, I DESPISE the lack of formatting. For example, the “Horses For Sale” tab. From one listing to another, the formatting of details doesn’t like up. Its quite annoying and really makes me not want to buy a horse from here.
3. Like I said before, the cloud background makes it so hard to read. There is just so much going on that it physically hurts your eyes. I have no desire to read about their training program or the horses they have for sale. On top of that, the lack of formatting also makes it hard to follow.
4. As far as elements of CRAP… The’s no real contrast. Mostly because, again, you loose any text in the cloud background (can you tell that really bugs me?) The lack of repetition is scary. All the pictures used are different sizes which makes it look unprofessional. Alignment…hahahaha…good joke. Again, there is no template for the formatting of the details of horses or wins so it makes it INCREDIBLY hard to follow.

Capturing Purdue

I think for my parents, this is one big way I would capture Purdue. Being “daddy’s little girl” he was very concerned about my safety at college. Seeing these around campus would really reassure him

Again, going back to the idea of safety… I think any parents would like that students can safely walk to class thanks to state law

I would think my parents would be captured by the fact that Purdue offered so many resources to get me on the right track

To Mitch Daniels, I would like to capture how Purdue takes the extra effort to help their students. Classes like Biology 115 are a great example. It’s an entire class based on how to prepare students for success in Biology.

Parking… Haha  funny joke. I wish the administration saw the struggle of us students with parking, but I’m not sure there is a solution for it.

To Mitch Daniels, I would like to show him how much pride Purdue students take in their school. We PROUDLY display our love for our school. That’s certainly special.

To my peers, I would like them to see how dedicated the campus is to making the distance between classes manageable. Bike lanes make the campus so much smaller.

To my peers, if you can look past the construction & chaos, Purdue really is a pretty campus.

Lastly, to my peers I would say look at & love the tradition surrounding Purdue. Even after just a few weeks here I have become accustomed to them & already few so in tough with so many things I was told about for years before my arrival