learning to write through community and conversation
Conversation Topics
Questions, comments, words encouragement as we make our way into the final stretch toward the portfolio.
A Conversation Center
This is a group blog shared by all the members of Prof McGuire's Composition online course. This is where most of our conversation will take place. As you read and write and work through the course, post your thoughts here. Respond to each other. Engage in the conversation.
Standing To Do
There are a few basic activities that you should be doing on an ongoing basis as part of this course. They are repeated activities and critical for your success here.
1
Post under “Reading/Research Journal” in this Conversation Center once a week, focusing on the reading of the course. Each post should center on your response to one cited information source and be at least 250 words long.
2
Publish a 1250 to 1500 word draft (or a revision) to your blog as assigned—in response to the given prompt. All major writing prompts will be posted to the professor's blog as they are assigned.
3
During the week immediately following a major draft due date, read and comment on the posts that are categorized as “Ready for Review” published by the members of your review group. Respond to at least three peers.
4
As assigned throughout the course, complete a “Personal Action Report and Self-Assessment.” The report assignment/form will be made available to you through the professor's blog when assigned and then submitted privately to the instructor. It is an essential part of the course and should be done thoroughly and thoughtfully.
These are some of the key (and repeated) activities of our course. You'll get the feel for it. Consult the official course schedule for specifics.
Note: Regardless of the number of people in hour group, you need to respond to at least 3 peers during our peer review weeks. Work outside of your group as needed. Thanks.
Hi all. I trust everything is wrapping up well for you this semester. Just a quick update about this course. I am still in the midst of working through all your final work. I will be done with final assessments by midday Friday. At this point, you can visit the “Check My Grade” page one last time to see final comments and your final grade. This will remain online through the middle of next week. If you miss it, just send me an e-mail and I can let you know how things went.
It’s been awesome, everyone,–a real pleasure. Thanks for a great semester.
I sit here with a feeling of mixed emotions about my work in this course. I know I tried very hard but at the same time I wonder if I had not stressed out so much over the course and assignments if I wouldn’t have done better. I struggled to maintain a general theme through my work. I wish had been able to choose a general theme at the beginning of the course and stuck with it. However the experiences I had because of this class were like none other. I got to write about real things that were happening to me and how they related to the world around me. That’s where good writing comes from and I appreciate the opportunities given to me.
In the very beginning of this course we had to write an essay about something we would “live, die, and kill for.” So I decided to make my final essay something very similar to it.
We were all born into a beautiful world, where we as human beings are capable of discovering the unknown, and pushing the limits of the impossible to make them possible. But there are times when we take the simple things in life for granted, and don’t understand that not everyone can enjoy the same simple things. All over the Middle East, regular people like you and me have been controlled, tortured, and deprived from what the entire world has to offer by dictatorial regimes for decades. These dictators have oppressed their own people, and dared anyone to defy them. While this is all going on these regimes are letting their own citizens live in poverty and hunger making them incapable to advance in life and pursue any kind of happiness.
For example, usually when something traumatic occurs it is almost impossible to forget where you were when it happened, who you were with, and how you felt. Well in December of 2010, Mohamed Bouazizi’s family probably felt the worst feeling in the world. For those of you who may not know Mohammed Bouazizi was a street vendor in the Middle East. He was a kind man who used his little salary to support his entire family. One day, police officials confiscated his cart for no legitimate reason. This humiliating act occurs very often in places like this. Mohamed was devastated. After local officials refused to hear Mohamed’s complaints he went to the headquarters of the government, covered himself in fuel, and set himself on fire. This is what jump started the Arab Spring. The Arab Spring is a revolt against the Arab Regime all across the Middle East to stop the injustice. In places like Egypt, Libya, and Yemen some have succeeded in taking down their dictators, but in other places like Syria are in need of help.
Now, since our technology is at its best especially with social networking, the news about Mohamed Bouazizi spread like wild fire and inflamed people all over the Middle East with rage and perseverance. They persevered to regain their rights and freedom. They would “live die and kill” to have their freedom and justice. This topic is such a concern to me because even though I am an American Muslim, my family and I did come from the places these unfortunate people are living in, and it’s not fair that they have to go through all this pain and torture while the rest of the world pretends like they don’t know what’s going on. This is a very crucial time in history, and I don’t want to just sit back and watch, I want to help make a difference so when my grandchildren come up to me and ask what I did to help, I don’t have to sit back in silence. Never be silent.
For further information on this topic, I came across a video that can maybe help enlighten you on this topic. It’s time consuming, but very educational. Viewer discretion is advised…
I have learned so much throughout this course. After I completed my final portfolio I saw that I learned how to write in various ways. I learned how to write about myself and how to evaulate my morals. I really enjoyed learning how to do service learning. This was the my favorite assignment because I got the chance to connect with new people. I also enjoyed learning how to do an elevator speech. I know a speech like this will come up some time in my life and I will know how to do it. There is one thing that I could have done differenlty. For instance, I could have used my time more wisely. I believe if this was done then I could have done better on some of my work. There is not a lot that I would change because mostly everything went well throughout this course. I would keep my writing style the same if I had to do it all over again. I made sure that all my work was turned in on time which is important. I really liked peer reviewing others work. I did learn that proofreading and revising work can really be effective. Also, I learned that taking the advice from my peers can be really helpful. Finally, I learned that I can learn through an online course. I learned that I can teach myself how to learn. I feel like I have accomplished something major by completing this online class. This is because I am a person that has always had to be sitting in a classroom learning my demonstration or by listening. I am glad that I made it to the end.
When I was 16, I made a decision that would change my life.
One night after a school dance, I decided I would play a prank on the women collecting the money, and take the moneybox. After the dance was over and everyone walked out of the school gym, I gathered a couple of my friends, created a distraction, and took the box.
I figured the women who were taking the money would look around for a while, laugh, I would give it back, and be the talk of the school.However, it did not work like that. After we saw that the women at the table panicking, we went to a friend’s car in the parking lot. In the parking lot, the security officer came to the car where we had the moneybox and asked us if we had seen anyone acting suspicious.
The officer did not think we had the box, because we were all on the basketball team and were good students. Right then, we could have confessed, gave the box back and accepted our punishment. Instead, we left the dance, divided the money, and went our separate ways with a pact of silence.
Monday morning, when we arrived at school, the principal called me down to the office. Next, the principal suspended me “indefinitely” and told me that I would have to go to a school board meeting where they would vote to see if I could return to school.
They voted NO and expelled me from school. I was court ordered to obtain my GED so I never had a chance to finish high school or graduate with my friends.
I believe one bad decision can alter your life negatively.
Patrycja Gola, and Mary Zayed are discussing. Toggle Comments
Although this class was beneficial to me, like actually getting involved in something/ activity can help give more ideas for us to write about, I noticed there was a lot more I could have learned. One of the things myself and a lot of other people in this world need to work on is prioritizing our time. As I have stated numerous amounts of times, I wasn’t expecting this class to be an “easy A.” There was a lot more work involved than I had expected, so I needed to give more of my time to the course. But it was all a learning experience. Another thing I learned was that it never hurts to have someone review your writing and there is always room for improvement. I also enjoyed hearing everyone else’s comments. I personally took everything in a positive way, so it was more like constructive criticism. This overall experience was very beneficial.
What I did wrong in this course was not editing and revising my work immediately. I waited too long to do this, and I ended up feeeling confused about what I should or should not revise in my work at the end of the semester. What I should have done was go to a resource center and had someone look over my work. I had some serious grammar mistakes and obvious spelling mistakes in parts of my portfolio. I was not aware of them until shortly before I turned it in. Also, I realize that I tend to make a lot of run-on sentences. I always felt like I was a good writer before taking this course, but now I have been humbled, and I realize that I still have a long way to go in improving my writing, What went well for me was actually just the act of going and doing the two service activites. This really helped me to overcome my anxiety. Everytime I face a fear of going to a place I have never been to before, and I get through it without a panic attack, it boosts my confidence and makes me feel like I am getting bettter. This is why I am glad that we had to go places and write about them.I liked this course because there were deadlines. I have taken other online courses with no set due dates until the final, and this caused me to wait untik the very last minute to do everything.I learned that sometimes when you go back and look at your work two months after you did it, you realize that it is not as great as you thought it was when you wrote it, and that serious revisions need to be made sometimes. I also learned some helpful editing strategies through the lessons we learned before submitting our final portfolio. This taught me how to edit. Another thing that I learned is the meaning of writing style, and that also helped me to edit my final portfolio.
While reflecting on my work during this class, there were things that went right and went wrong along the way. I started off strong in the course, staying true to every course assignment, reading, post, and discussion. As time went on and more specifically when I gave birth to my son and immediately after, I started to fall behind. Papers were written, but due dates were not met. I began to procrastinate more and finish my work at the very end. However, throughout my time in this course I do not believe the quality of my work ever strayed. I loved that this course was a more think outside of the box type of learning. I truly enjoyed doing fieldwork and writing about it. It has taught me how to connect more with my writing. The one key thing I learned while revising my paper was, “Show, not tell.” This small key phrase will always stick with me and I will use this motto in my future writings. I loved my time spent during the last 17 weeks and thank Professor McGuire for everything he has taught me.
I learned many lessons in this course, the one that sticks out to me is one that will help me in any future writing that I do, as well as help me convince others to do something by talking about my own actions. My lesson learned was on the aspect of doing something physically and writing about that experience. I learned in COM 101 that physical writing is one of the best ways in which to write about something, the physical writing that I had to do in that course was not on something that I was able to just research. My experience in COM 102 was much different, I once again had to have an experience in order to create a draft but this time my experience was one that could be researched. What I learned from this was the power that a physical experience had on the writing that we did, instead of just researching on an issue we had to go out and do it for ourselves, we had to see the real thing. A topic can easily be found at the click of a mouse, but when you see what really happens during an experience then your writing shifts from the same research that everyone else can find on the internet, to a paper on your insights and views on the issue. Writing about an experience creates visuals for that reader from your own point of view, this can create a moment for your reader where they may want to go out and have an experience like you had. If you are writing on an issue that is important to you, and if you are trying to inform others that they can help and ease the dreadfulness of what comes with that issue, then using research you have found on the internet and in books may not be the best way to convince readers. Telling someone that you have done it yourself, and providing them with the exact process that you went through may convince them that experiencing the same thing is something they need to do as well.
When it comes to what could have gone better, I could have procrastinated less. Now, while I’m not a procrastinator to the point where I start working on things the day they are due, I will begin work on them a couple days before they are. It would probably be easier on me in the future if I were not to do this and I would not if I had to do it over again. I could also do the project in equal chunks from the time it is assigned to the time it is due to make it easier.
I feel the work I did was good work despite this though. Because of that, I would write the same way over again if I had to do so. To enjoy future success, I would do my best writing.
Three things I learned from this course are new note taking strategies, when to use “I believe” and general writing strategies from the peer evaluations.
One lesson that I would take with me is that sharing ideas with other people opens new horizons for me.
After watching the recent video posted by Prof McGuire, I have been writing my lists of “what went wrong” and “what went right”. Originally on my “went wrong” list I wrote “I procrastinate”. Then as I was lying in bed last night, I realized that was not true at all. I don’t procrastinate, I am far from it. Do I wait until the last minute at times? Yes, but it is not because I put the assignment off. I spend days pondering and jotting down notes. Then I turn into a night writer. It’s just me. My thoughts seem to come together better late at night. I use to think it was a bad thing I stayed up so late doing it, but realized it is not. In Chapter 1 of WWR I remembered reading on the different descriptions of the writer’s desks and their own unique techniques. Being a night writer just happens to be mine.
In the beginning of this course I thought revising my work was tedious (and that I would procrastinate on!). After spending quite some time revising, I have discovered how crucial it is to becoming a better writer. I found it to be rewarding and had a sense of accomplishment when finished. Through our service project, I have also learned how important any hours given of my time can be worth it, not only to the organization or people I assisted, but to me as well.
Patrycja Gola, and Iwona Ligeska are discussing. Toggle Comments
I agree as well, sometimes I get mad at myself for waiting until the last minute to start on a writing assignment, but once I start writing I realize that I already know exactly what I will write because I spent the last week constantly thinking about it. There were times when I have logged into this course just to look at what is due and what the requirements are, and then I turn my laptop off again, and think for the next couple days on the topic and what I will include in my draft.
I agree with you Moureen. Like you, I was taking notes, thinking during the day about the next project to come. When everyone finally would go to sleep I would go to the kitchen and and take out my notes. I would read it, reflect on them and realize how blessed I am to have this time for myself. I am very happy that I was able to give some time for others as well.
I wanted to share this article with this class not only because I am the proud aunt of the talented boy (Jack Lyle) in the article, but also because I felt it is somewhat related to what we have been working on this semester. This article is about sled hockey, which is a sport for the disabled ranging from the age 5-20 years old. This is a non-profit organization that is run by volunteers and donations. I have been to several games and although it looks easy, it is quite difficult. It is astonishing what these children can do with their disabilities. If you are a big hockey fan, this is a great way to help out in the community. If you are not, step out of your comfort zone again and come watch a game! You will not only be impressed, but you will walk away with a great appreciation for these children. They are all truly amazing.
http://southtownstar.suntimes.com/news/12358608-418/sled-hockey-lets-players-put-disabilities-on-ice.html
Vickroy, Donna. “Sled hockey lets players put disabilities on ice.” Southtown Star [Chicago] 08 05 2012, n. pag. Web. 9 May. 2012. .
Maureen Rich, Kelly Creed, and Patrycja Gola are discussing. Toggle Comments
I loved that you shared this article, it really does relate to everything we have been learning about, and what makes it even better is that your nephew is apart of it.
When taking my own notes on the video, and listed my “what went wrong”. To me not being able to expand so much everything I wanted to say. I caught myself repeating thing over and over again but not getting to the point, and when I thought I did and re-read what I wrote, I confused myself. On my list of “what went right” I liked how my own service paper came about to be because I was nervous of not having a great success and not having so much to say, but it went great! I am able to give details and explain what happened. What I will carry on is that I can make a different by giving back to my community.
The video exercise on lessons learned isn’t as helpful to me as it may be to others. When I do something wrong, or right I know right away, and I don’t dwell on it. What went right, what went wrong, what could you have done better? I think I could have done better if I was more interested in writing, I’m not, though. I suppose a lesson I have learned is to increase your attention span. Without being able to pay attention longer than 10 seconds you have to be able to pay attention to something, period. I started reading books when I realized how bad it was getting. My generation does not understand how bad we are getting. Read a book, people!
Can anyone explain how to get your final portfolio entries in order? Also, im sure this is impossible, but I originally posted my introduction and conclusion together. Last night I deleted my conclusion off my introduction post, planned to re-post the conclusion as a separate entry, and forgot to do that. Is there anyway to get that back, or should I re-write it?
You can reorder posts on your blog by adjusting the post dates/times. They publish in reverse chronological order. It is also possible to retrieve old “revisions” of what was on your blog site. Scroll to the bottom of the post editing page and look for the list or “revisions.” They might be hidden. You can make adjustments to what shows on the screen by toggling the “revisions” option under “Screen Options” in the upper right corner of the post edit page.
This might be coming in too late for you, but I hope it helps.
Hi Shawnette, I don’t know if it is possible to switch your entries around. It appears to all be in in date order, with the most recent one first. As I looked at other people’s posts, they are all in that same order as well. I am sorry to hear you accidently deleted your conclusion. I have no idea if there is a way to get that back either. I am sorry to hear this happened to you, especially with the deadline approaching! At least you caught it before 12! Good luck!
I believe in compassionate care for the family members involved with my patient. As a nurse I am bound to the Code of Ethics for Nurses. The #1 foundation for my profession is that, “The nurse, in all professional relationships, practices with compassion…” I establish some very strong relationships with my patients in the course of my practice. I must be able to incorporate a multitude of factors in delivering excellent care to my patient and one of those factors is the care and education of my patients loved ones. They are in many cases the key factor as to a patient’s successful recovery. I can tell many stories as to the compassionate acts that I have extended to my patients and families. One such elderly couple quickly comes to mind. I will call them the Smiths to protect their right for privacy. Mr. Smith was critically ill and Mrs. Smith was often alone in dealing with the stress and decisions to be made in regards to the care of Mr. Smith. I made sure to request to care for Mr. Smith whenever I was at work in order to provide continuity of care and continue to develop the professional relationship. When I had to feed Mr. Smith I made sure Mrs. Smith also had a tray and was able to continue to share meals with her husband as she did for over 50 years of marriage. Many times Mrs. Smith looked exhausted; I would offer her a pillow and a warm blanket to make her more comfortable. On one occasion I was leaving the hospital and found her wondering the employee parking lot looking for her car. I drove her around until we located her car and the next day asked if social services could be placed on their case in order to help Mrs. Smith with the stress and burden that she was about to face with the future discharge of her husband. It was through compassionate care, listening and viewing the entire scope of this family’s situation that I was best able to facilitate the proper care and treatment of the Smiths. I value and try to maintain this compassionate care with everyone that I come in contact with. It is my professional job to address all facets of care in regards to maintaining and improving my patient’s health.
American Nurses Association. Code of Ethics for Nurses. Silver Springs: Nursingbooks.org, 2001. Print.
Maureen Rich, and Patrycja Gola are discussing. Toggle Comments
I enjoyed reading your story about the “Smiths”, it’s nice to see there are people that are passionate about what they do. I have come in contact with a lot of grumpy nurses, it’s great to see the ones such as yourself who treat their patients with the care and respect they deserve.
I agree with Patrycja. It’s nice to see how passionate you are about not only the patient, but the family as well. Nurses can really ease your pain even if you are not the patient! Thanks for doing what you do and taking pride in your work!
In reviewing the lastest video from Professor Mcguire on, ” A video exercise inh lessons learned”, we were instructed to write about one of the one lessons that we will take with us . I have chosen a lesson presented in WWR as more of a conclusive summary on learning, writing and how imperative it is to continue to gain knowledge. I enjoy being challenged with new information every day and am in the perfect profession to enjoy the advances in medicine that cross my path. In chapter 8 of WWR, Professor Dow writes, “We continue to grow as writers and thinkers over a lifetime” (197). Going back to college has been a more enjoyable to me as an adult learner. I appreciate this knowledge and do apply what I have learned into my professional scope of practice. This knowledge strengthens my skills. Another excellent remark by the Professor was on page 185, he stated, “Reading will improve your writing. You will expand your knowledge, have more to say, and discover new and interesting ways to say what you need to say.” I think we can all agree that this course with Professor McGuire has done just that to our writing . I do take pen and paper in hand every day and have noticed that my style is more concise and organized and I add more precise detail. It is easier for those who must read my writing, therefore to understand my situation with minimal questioning. “ The best advice I can share with you is to keep writing what you think…” Dow writes, “ …what you want and/or need to say- and writing to help you think more clearly” (197).
journal #14
The “Impotence” of Proofreading video was absolutely hilarious. I enjoyed watching it because it was a way to show students the “importance” of proofreading our papers because even if we might have spell check it would not necessarily be a word that we intended to use. I, like many other students, can relate to this video. Back in high school I was not the best speller, but I wasn’t as bad as the guy in the video. But it is a humorous reminder to proofread our papers.
While reading the rest if the Final Ending Strategies one of the things that stood out most to me was, “Leads are like flashlights that shine down into a piece of writing. They illuminate an aspect of the subject and establish the direction for the entire piece. When working with another, you can test the effectiveness of your lead.” Basically try to make your lead as strong as possibly so your readers can understand and follow through on your paper easily. It will help give your paper more of a flow.
I decided to read over the final editing, and then go back and check some of my work before I posted this RJE. Whilst taking a closer look, there are words you may type that may not get caught by spell check. They are spelled correctly, but they may be the wrong word. I found this a good amount of times in my writing. You may be spelling something that you want, but forget an “s” or maybe add a different letter and it completely changes the word. I found that when this happens I lose all focus in my reading, and I can’t imagine the reader taking it very lightly either. I recommend that everyone go and double check your writings like Professor McGuire suggests. I found so many stupid mistakes that could cause some issues while reading, especially if you don’t know what the reader means, or in what context they mean it.You definitely want to pick someone who can be brutally honest with your writing. IE: NOT your mother. Everything you do is fine in your mother’s eyes, so you want to pick a friend, or a teacher who will tear your paper/portfolio to shreds so you can build it back up. Everyone should take this portfolio very seriously, the whole semester could be pointless if your portfolio doesn’t meet requirements, or if it is complete junk. Good luck to everyone. If anyone needs a peer review feel free to email me @ ericjwisch@gmail.com I will do my best to help!
Just got this to my phone, will definitely peruse through it and give you some help/insight. I will email you some feedback soon. like I said im on my phone, which will be terribly difficult to resond on..haha
Maureen I got your email about the portfolio. I don’t think it will be a problem if you put everything on one post. Just make sure you have something there and all complete.
I have always had difficulty with final editing. I always put a lot of time into my writing so the idea of a final edit seemed to be rather unnecessary. That has not to say that I think my work is perfect but it was more a matter of not knowing how to approach the process. The suggestions Professor McGuire offers are a new approach to an old problem. I especially like the idea of getting rid of “clutter words”. I believe that sometimes what I think of as descriptive is, in fact, just a lot of clutter. I can think of two people who would be more than willing to be “brutally honest” about my writing. (I think the key to choosing someone is making sure it is someone you trust AND respect.)
The addition of the video “The the Impotence of Proofreading” was welcome since I am starting to feel the stress that goes with the end of the semester. It put a smile on my face, especially when I realized that most everyone has been in the embarrassing situation of trusting spellcheck and then not taking the time to reread his or her work.
I also really appreciate the selection “Pulling Your Portfolio Together”. I plan to use it as a check off to make sure that I have included and/or completed everything required for the course. With everything we need to make sure to include, it is nice not to have to go back through an entire semester’s notes and assignments. The links are particularly useful.
I thought that reading the final editing strategies has been really helpful while getting prepared to edit and revise all of my previous work for the final portfolio. Turning in all of my assignments for the entire semester is kind of nerve wrecking, so I will welcome any and all advice and suggestions in making the task a little bit easier. I particularly enjoyed the part on how to clear the clutter from your entries. I must admit, sometimes when writing a paper that has a minimum amount of words required, I wonder if all the information I wrote was in fact relevant or interesting to the topic at hand. The advice is to cut 7 words from each page to remove any extra clutter, so that is my plan. The section about proofreading may have seemed a little bit obvious, but necessary. After reading one of my entries out loud, I noticed quite a few simple mistakes that I did not see when reading to myself. It really is helpful advice! I did not think it would have made a difference to read out loud instead of to myself, but I find by reading out loud, you read slower and can catch more mistakes that way. Other advice I really enjoyed was to take your paper or entry and cut it up, see which paragraphs are relevant and important, and which are not really informative or interesting at all. I plan to do this advice as well to see where I need to strengthen my pieces, to make sure nothing is boring for my reader.
The final editing strategies provided are very helpful. It is one thing to tell you, you need to proofread your major writing, but it is another to give you guidance on how to effectively proof read. Most of this lesson seems pointed in this direction. The basics are provided here, allowing us to fully understand the what, where, why, and how to get these tasks completed. I like that this lesson is short and simple, yet has very concrete ideas. It really drives a clear path on how to edit effectively. The Cut-N-Paste revision idea is a bit “out there”, but I am very excited to try it out. I am reading this section and it dawns on me that I have not printed and read anything I wrote in probably the last decade! This idea seems like a great one, I am thinking that you could really weed out the trouble paragraphs, and get a logical order for things. I could see me using this technique in the future as well. The ideas presented in the section about clutter seem risky. I feel like if I go down this road I will never get anything accomplished. I try to write greatly, so I feel like this may go on the backburner for a bit, maybe once I feel confident that I have enough content and have covered all the topics. Maybe then, at the end I can go back into the piece and slim it down. I agree that “clutter”, can distract and disengage the reader, that is why I try to keep it out in the first place.
Peter Traxler
3:09 am on May 3, 2012 Permalink
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The final editing strategies provided are very helpful. It is one thing to tell you, you need to proofread your major writing, but it is another to give you guidance on how to effectively proof read. Most of this lesson seems pointed in this direction. The basics are provided here, allowing us to fully understand the what, where, why, and how to get these tasks completed. I like that this lesson is short and simple, yet has very concrete ideas. It really drives a clear path on how to edit effectively. The Cut-N-Paste revision idea is a bit “out there”, but I am very excited to try it out. I am reading this section and it dawns on me that I have not printed and read anything I wrote in probably the last decade! This idea seems like a great one, I am thinking that you could really weed out the trouble paragraphs, and get a logical order for things. I could see me using this technique in the future as well. The ideas presented in the section about clutter seem risky. I feel like if I go down this road I will never get anything accomplished. I try to write greatly, so I feel like this may go on the backburner for a bit, maybe once I feel confident that I have enough content and have covered all the topics. Maybe then, at the end I can go back into the piece and slim it down. I agree that “clutter”, can distract and disengage the reader, that is why I try to keep it out in the first place.
The final editing strategies along with the video were great tips on how to catch errors in our revisions as well as make our revisions even better than our drafts. Personally I am very picky with my writing and I will look over it and read it again at least three times in order to make sure it’s perfect. I thought the video was a good way to make a point but halfway through I was just like ok I get it already! I like the tip on finding someone to read over your title and your first sentence. It’s hard to find someone who is willing to read an entire paper for you and state their opinion so I think I can manage to find someone to read a sentence and a title. I like brutal honesty but it’s also hard to find someone who will be brutally honest. My parents don’t read very good english so they are not an option, my brother is not very willing to help, so hopefully I can find a friend who’s nice enough to be honest with me. The first two paragraphs really are the most important in a paper as it is mentioned in the final editing strategies. Typically when we begin to read something we are into the idea of trying to finish what we are reading, but if we cannot even get through the first one or two paragraphs than the chances are we will not finish reading the rest of the paper. We all need to make sure that our two paragraphs are awesome but that doesn’t mean the rest of the paper can’t be awesome. There’s nothing more that I hate about reading someone’s writing than finding a careless mistake in every paragraph, if we just read over our paper’s a couple times those mistakes won’t happen.
On an unrelated note. I was wondering if anyone knew anything about the final? For instance when we will be taking it, etc.? For some reason this is not clear to me. Thanks!
Reading/Research: As the end of the semester approaches and I begin to look at the whole of my work as one final piece of work so comes the act of revision. I honestly am not someone who has been big on revising papers for other classes, I like the organic feeling of my first work. However I wish to make my work slightly for this course simply because it is in portfolio form and will look much better. This is not an easy task by any means, in fact I kind of started out as a sort of chicken with its head cut off. However I am glad to say that Professor Mcguire’s guidelines have been incredibly helpful for starting a plan. Of course not everything applies to me specifically, but I would definitely say everyone should look it over carefully and use his advice to better their final product. Good luck to everyone!
Mcguire, Michael. “Lesson 15: Final Editing Strategies.” 2012 Web.
The first couple sentences of Chapter eight really caught my attention. It talked about asking stupid questions, and if there really was such thing as a stupid question. It was strange because earlier in my day my two younder brothers were having their own discussion on the topic and it was funny watching them argue their opinions to eachother. Aside from the coincidence there were some good questions in this chapter that a lot of people may ask or be curious about. Especially since we are working on and coming to an end with our portfolios. One question that stood out to me was, “How can I say something about a topic I’m just beginning to explore?” For me that was a recurring question because there were some topics that I have done papers on for this course that I didn’t know much about. But after research and sharing my own ideas about the topic I learned a lot more about it. “I’m just a college student, so I’m totally not an expert here, but here are my two cents anyway.” Am amusing, but sometimes true statment for me. Or how can you forgot the the question of, “How can I possibly write five pages about this?” I know when I get assignments that I don’t know much about the topic, I have no idea how I can possibly meet the required length. I believe that everytime I have done homework with a friend and they’re writing papers they utter that question, and so do I. But it is more important to focus on the actual flow and angle of the paper, and not just meeting the required length. Quality over quantity.
Dow, Thomas. “Advice, Writer to Writer.’ Why White Rice? Thinking Through Writing. Kendall Hunt, 2010. 175-197. Print
In the beginning our final portfolio seemed so far away. Now with the due date approaching, I cannot believe how fast this course flew by. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor McGuire and my classmates with assisting me in being one step closer to my goal. I started in this course assuming it was to improve my writing skills. It didn’t take long, but I soon discovered that this course was much more than gaining knowledge in writing. I obtained knowledge of myself as a person. I may have dug deep to pull my thoughts out through my writing, but I feel I dug deeper in pulling out my thoughts on who I am, who I want to be and who I am now determined to become. Thank you to all who have contributed to this life lesson.
Now….is anyone else nervous about their portfolio? Am I the only sap or does anyone else get emotional each time you re-read your piece and make changes?
Patrycja Gola, and 
Mary Zayed are discussing. 
Iwona Ligeska are discussing. 
Maureen Rich, 
Kelly Creed, and 
Shawnette Sierra, 
Eric Wisch, and 
Sarah Binger, 
Mayra Pulido are discussing. 
Patrycja Gola 1:53 pm on May 15, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Wowww…yea crazy how one moment can change so much, but I’m sure you learned a lot from your experience.
Mary Zayed 8:58 pm on May 14, 2012 Permalink | Log in to Reply
very intresting story kenyatta. its a shame they didn’t let you go back to school, but life is about learning from your mistakes.