Assignment #15- Final Reflection

Looking back at my previous bloggs I have noticed a big change in my writting. I do feel as I have acomplished my goals for this semester however, I am well aware that I still have a long way to go. I have noticed alot of improvement in my writting. For starters I am more concise with my writting, I say more by writting less. I have also noticed that my grammar and especially my punctuation skills have improved greatly. I use to write many run-on sentences, now I pause in between with commas and complete my sentences with a period. Before I would have one long sentence with many ideas joined together with commas, slowly I am breaking away from that habit. I learned to improve my writting through peer review. I also learend about the rethorical situations found in writing such as audience, genre and stance. Lastly, in this class I learned to appeal to audience through ethos, pathos and logos.  This semester went by quickly but I feel as if I learned alot and I enjoyed it. 

Assignment #14- Planning for Revisions

I have chossen to revise my litteracy narrative, because it is the first essay I wrote for this class and I want to see how my English skills have improved over the semester.  The strengths of my essay are that I organized my essay with an intro, a body and a conclusion. I feel like the weaknesses in my literacy nerrative are my grammar as well as my thesis and I don't think I catch my readers attention.

To revise my essay I am going to try to tell the story in a different way. I am going to begin by brainstorming for new and different ideas. I am going to re-write my essay and then I am going to visit the writing center after meeting with the proffessor then I am going to do a one on one peer review.

I am hoping to find another way to tell the story in a more interesting way. I don't think I caught my readers attention. My story I felt was boring and didn't make my reader want to continue readding, as if  the reader was thinking so what? The only thing that I can do is appeal to my audience using humor or emotional appeal.

Assignment #13- Analyzing and Writing Arguments

I analyzed the essay Should The Obama Generation Drop Out.  The writer used a judgmental tone to argue that today's generation does not care about academics, are not top students and do not have the money to afford a four year university. The writer makes a strong argument and provides concrete evidence; however, he makes his audience question their intelligence this causes a great flaw in his essay. In making his audience question their own intelligence the writer ultimately fails to appeal to his audience-who would be wealthy educated people who have already obtained an education. The writer is ultimately making two arguments, his second argument is that employers should consider hiring people with certifications not just people with B.A degrees. This taught me that a trustworthy tone is important, my word choice is also important because it is the ultimate factor that plays into whether.

Thinking Critically About Evidence

Thesis: The federal government should not have the right to censor websites such as youtube.com or wikipedia.com. Censoring these websites would indicate that the federal government has the ability to exploit their power to benefit corporations instead of the majority of American citizens. Many Americans would consider the censorship of these websites to be oppressive.

• The strongest piece of evidence that I came across is a logical. In my thesis I argued that I the government would be exploiting their power by censoring websites such as Wikipedia.com or youtube.com to benefit industries, especially the music industry. This is my most compelling piece of evidence because the government is considering a law to censor these websites, not to regulate what the public watches but because musicians and record labels are losing money. In this essay I can logically appeal to the audience by arguing that the government looks out for industries instead of looking out for the people, because they are overlooking how people benefit from websites such as youtube ans wikipedia.

• The weakest piece of evidence that I could of brought about in my essay is the idea that if the government can pass a law the controls what citizens do online, what can't they pass a law about? There are many countries that  have passed a law that regulate what the public watches in line. This is a form of oppression to people because the government is dictating the way people live their lives. This is my weakest piece of evidence simply because I need more back up information to make my evidence credible. 

Assignment #11- Patterns of Error

• I tend to write run-on sentences in my writing. I have always had a problem mastering the proper punctuation to avoid run-on sentences. This causes my writing to seem infective and it tends to confuse the reader and at times lose their interest. In order to avoid writing run-on sentences I will read them out loud to myself in order to figure out if a comma or a period is necessary.

•  In my writing I often repeat what I have mentioned  in a previous paragraph. I am not a redundant writer;however, I am a repetitive writer. This becomes a problem because it makes my writing much longer than it has to be and re-states information that I have already stated. I can only make an attempt to catch these mistakes myself or rely on my peer reviewers to catch them in my early drafts. 

•  I don't always specify who or what I am talking about, for example:'' The Advertisement is appalling to the public.'' I did not mention which advertisement or specify who the public was. This causes readers to become confused do to lack of information. In order to avoid this mistake, I need to keep my audience in mind and assume they don't have much knowledge about the subject at hand. Lastly I think this issue can be avoided if I spend more time considering rhetorical devices when I jot down ideas for my rough draft.

Thinking Critically About Peer Review

The  peer review we do in class is effective in the sense that we get input in our writing from more than one person before getting a chance to look it over ourselves.  One way I think peer review can be improved is by having three separate one on one  sessions with a peer reviewer instead of having one session with three or four, it would just help keep ideas organized.  My strengths in peer review is my ability to communicate ideas, as well as my ability to help people expand on their own ideas.  I would say that my weakness in peer review is my ability to catch grammatical errors.  I would enjoy peer review if we get the chance to our writing review by someone else, before we turn in our final.  I find that for me peer review is more effective when I am working in smaller groups. I do feel like the time we spend on peer review is fine; however, I feel like the process would be more effective if  we had feed back on different occasions at different times.

Free Write

Coming into NEIU I wasn't sure if I was going to like it; but, now after a semester and a half I wouldn't have it any other way. The thing that I find the most intriguing about being in NEIU is the fact that you can find diverse people from all parts of the world, I have enjoyed watching the skating crew hang out in front of the Student Union performing tricks. The campus itself is an awesome hangout place, especially in the early beginning of the fall semester. When the weather is good, it is great seeing everyone hang out around campus just waiting for their next class to come around.  College though awesome it is not perfect, I wish the university provided housing for students who have to commute. I hear so many complaints from students who commute and it takes them over two hours to arrive at the campus. I was honestly thinking about transferring after I completed my general ed. requirements but know, I kind of don’t want to leave.

             I always say that “I didn’t choose to attend NEIU, NEIU chose me.” Originally I was planning to attend the University of Cincinnati; however, I didn’t receive the necessary amount of financial aid to attend. The cheapest alternative I could think of was Northeastern, it was convenient. I didn’t like the idea, far less the university itself. After settling down, meeting some people and taking some classes, I decided I wanted to stay. Now all I want is to find a cheap apartment in Albany Park to be part of the community.