Midterm Portfolio Revision Process

So do you like your soda cold or room temperature? Cold, right? Because I know I like it cold. But here I am...drinking a Big K Cola at room temperature. I just took it out of the box. I wish it was cold, but I was thirsty so yeah.

Midterm Portfolio...the time has come again to prepare for our English midterm. For the second revision, I am trying to connect my ideas again. It seems like that is my issue with writing. I tend to have trouble with getting my ideas together and making them flow well. So once again, I will have to really focus on the RHETORICALITY part of my essay and make sure to connect them ideas. I feel like my paper does not have enough summarizing. I am considering on putting more of the summaries into my paper. "More summary" was actually one of the comments I received from one of my peers. Apparently, I did not summarize enough of my sources into my first project. I know that summarizing is an important part of the academic writing world. But the point is not to summarize what the text says. You have to have some kind of point in what you are summarizing. For example, if you summarize the text and do not point out the significance of what you just stated, there is not much of a purpose in what you summarized. Now, I used to think that quoting from the text and analyzing it were the most important factors of writing intellectually. That is what I focused on mostly my senior year in high school, but I have learned that everything you write is almost all very important. For instance, reflection. You do not only state whether you agree or disagree, you explain your side and critique the others. Kind of like evaluating your sources. So for my second revision, I plan to critique and put more of "separate thinking/thoughts" into my paper. I believe that if I put a lot of thinking into my sources and how my ideas all connect together, my midterm portfolio will begin to look pretty awesome.

Now, let's listen to another country song. =) One day, I am going to go on a road trip with my sister. Until then, I will keep the faith up. ღ Scotty McCreery's "The Trouble With Girls".

FIAW Chapter 5

I want a little puppy.

When I read these chapters, they seem like really serious stuff. But you know what? They are very good information. We read some really interesting stuff in this class. These books give deeper meanings into what academic writing is like and such. What I have learned more about in this chapter five of FIAW is how an academic writer reads to understand the "issues, situations, and questions that lead other writers to make claims" (83). Academic writers take their time to read and fully understand the point they want their readers to catch up on. They write in a way that makes their readers respond or react in different ways. They also come up with questions that will lead their readers or other writers to other ideas and make them their claims. An important factor in writing is to make sure that you state a thesis. A true thesis is "an assertion that academic writers make at the beginning of what they write and then support with evidence throughout their essay" (83). Academic writers state their main point or what they want to prove in one sentence. And following the thesis would be body paragraphs that include evidence that supports their claim. We have learned a lot about this in this class. But reading more about it in different ways bring to my mind new things, and new views of what a thesis really is. The more you read about something, the more you understand the real meaning of what it is.

This chapter suggests three ways to how to develop a working thesis. The first way is the correcting-misinterpretations model. This model is used to correct writers that write their thesis in a form that is more of a factual claim.The second is the filling-the-gap model. This model helps writers to include discussions that other writers had forgotten to confer in their writing. The third is the modifying-what-others-have-said model. This model contributes the writer's thoughts with other writers' to form a thesis. These models give such good examples of how you can develop a thesis in your own writing. This reading has given me a deeper meaning of how to develop a thesis, and good ways to form a good thesis. These models can help me develop better thesis in the future.

I love cute little things. <3

I have good news! Tomorrow...I only have ONE class! =D And that is Music class. No English on Fridays, like usual, and my other two classes are cancelled. So tomorrow is going to go by fast. Have a good night! zZzZZZzzzzZzzzzZzZZzzz...

FIAW Chapter 4 Blog

Chapter 4 of FIAW is like an addition to our lecture in English class on Wednesday. It teaches the reader how to detect the main purpose of a paper, whether it be reading a paper or writing one. The questions bullet-ed on the first page of this chapter help the reader or writer to ask themselves what the purpose or claim of the paper is. In order to find a point in a piece of writing, it is important that you ask yourself questions such as: "what are the situations motivating these people to write?"; "who will be interested in reading what I have to say?"; and "what kinds of evidence might persuade my readers?". And of course there are more questions that pertain to the point here, but I find those ones easier to understand what to look for in the writing. I find questions like the ones I have just mentioned very helpful when you are reading an article or writing a paper. When writing a paper, you often find yourself developing ideas and actually write words when you ask yourself, "so what?", "what's the point?", "what do I want my readers to understand here?". These are questions that can help you get to the point of your paper.

Just something cute I wanted to show you. =)

In order to answer these questions, you must identify and issue, understand the situation, and formulate a question. You can identify an issue in many different ways. One way is to draw on your personal experience. In our previous years of writing, we were taught to not use personal pronouns and you in our papers. But the fact is that "our personal experiences influence how we read, what we pay attention to, and what inference we draw" (67). We can see what the author sees if we have similar experiences. It is easier to relate to the paper if you fully understand the situation and such. And because we can actually reflect on what we read, we tend to pay more attention to what is interesting to us. Another way to identify an issue is to resist binary thinking. You should "try to tease out complexities that may not be immediately apparent" (68). Try and get rid of the information that does not seem to be an issue or a difficulty. Another way is to build on and extend the ideas of others. By doing this, you will find your ideas building up as you learn about the ideas of others'. It will give you a connection to other readings and ideas that will help you do a fine job in your writing. It is important to understand the main purpose and claim of something you read or write. The purpose of the paper gives your reader an idea of what it is you are trying to point out and why it matters. A paper would not mean much if there is no meaning or purpose to it.