Blog#15

At the beginning of the semester, my goal was to become a good writer. I think my goal is not completely achieved but I've learned a lot of concepts on different styles of writing which will help me in English 102. I still have to specifically work on wording usage and sentence structure in better clarifying my writing. I have also engaged in proof reading and revisions which will help me recognize my errors and improve my writing.

blog #12

My most compelling evidence is my claim that students who take too many classes per semester will struggle through balancing out work for each class, stress and eventually perform poor on exams. My audience might be convinced by this evidence because they are familiar with it, especially students who have experienced it. With too many classes per semester, students might eventually have to repeat courses due to  stress and poor academic performance. This evidence will be mentioned at the beginning of my essay since it is a strong evidence that can be broaden throughout my essay.
My weakest evidence is that students will burden the financial problems by taking more classes each semester. This evidence is weak because it does not apply to everyone because not all universities charge more for every additional class student take. However, I will add to the evidence that if students fail a course, they might have to repeat course which will also make the financial problems even worse.

Blog #14

I chose to revise my argument analysis essay for my final portfolio. The strengths of that essay were I had a clearly stated purpose as required and good ideas. However, my summary and ideas were not completely clarified and organized.

To make effective revisions for my essay, I will clarify my ideas and better organize the summary and critique in different paragraphs. I will also reword and change my sentence structures to emphasize my indications. Lastly I will proofread it several times to catch every little errors.

blog #13

Out of the four essays, I have enjoyed writing the argument analysis the most. I guess it is because I like doing analysis and critiques. Hence, the article I chose to analyze for this assignment was interesting. I learned carefully analyze an essay, make inferences and most important is how to set up an arguable argument. I would consider to revise the argument analysis for my final portfolio.

Blog#11

I analyzed the article "Not Just Un-Constitutional, But Un-American". The author used an informal tone to build connection to the reader. He showed good evidence to support his claim. Author made a few claims specifically supporting only his side of the argument without considering the opposing side and skeptical readers. I learned that the credibility of an argument depends a lot on the choice of tone, every claim must be qualified and proven with evidence and both sides of argument must be considered.

Blog#10

Personally I think it is hard to recognize mistakes while proof reading your own paper. Peer review in class is helpful because readers can easily recognize your mistakes and give you opinions on how to improve your paper rather than proof reading it yourself. I think it would be more helpful if the peer reviewer correct any errors that he sees and make comments on the paper instead of reading the paper to just answer the peer review questions. I think my strength as a peer reviewer is I can easily recognize the errors that writer make while reading but I can't really give a good advice on how writer can improve his overall paper. It is helpful to do peer review at the early stage of writing process especially that we are still new writers, and we can also pick up the skills in revising other's essays. Smaller groups in peer review would be better because everyone has different style of writing and advice, larger groups would be too complicated and writer won't be getting as much attention and advice to improve his paper. As in timing wise, the whole period of class time is enough to review a paper.

blog#9

Through peer reviews and graded papers, I recognize that the errors I made seem to be repeated. I have a problem with correct word usage in sentence. I tend to use words that make the sentence sound awkward.
Another error that I tend to make is using unnecessary words. I often use  the "really" and "very" in front of adjectives to describe things. These words do not add any description to the sentence but make the sentence sound wordy and also devalue the adjective word used in the sentence. It is hard to recognize errors while proof reading my own paper but I'll be more careful and try to catch these common errors.

blog #7

There were things that we reviewed or read in class that helped me realize how to improve my writing. Some of the powerpoints we went over in class were helpful. They pointed out specific things in sentence structures in writing such as using passive and active voice and how to get rid of unnecessary words, grammars, comparisons in different stories of different rhetorical situations. Before our first paper, Ms. Spencer posted a few literacy narrative short stories, we read and went over them in class which gave us an idea how the writing would look like, different ways in writing it and also on choosing a topic especially if you were struggling with it as I was.I like how there are examples on errors and bad sentence structures and we went over on how to revise them. The other aspect that I find really helpful is the peer review we do before every final paper is due. Sometimes I don't recognize my mistakes reading my own paper but having someone to read and give opinions on my paper really help me improve my writing. I think my writing improved specifically in sentence structures. These aspects led me into a deeper understanding in writing.

blog #6

Ad analysis and literacy narrative share a few similarities but they are completely two different types of writing. Literacy narrative are mostly written in first person's point of view and in stories form of writing with begginning and end. In contrast, ad analysis is a discription of an ad through analyzing it. Purposes of both writing are similar, to keep the readers interested in reading. In literacy narrative, I try to tell the reader the story of my writing experience, to have them picture and imagine how my teacher who taught me how to write looks like. In ad analysis, I described the ad precisely for the readers to picture how the ad looks like without physically seeing it. Audience are pretty broad, it could be any readers. The tone of literacy narrative could be humorous or serious depending how the story is told. In ad analysis, the tone is rather convincing as in selling an advertisement. Genre is broad as well, it could be anything from music, people or materials for ad analysis. In literacy narrative, it could be more focused on oneself if its told in first person's perspective, in this case it could be about reading and writing.

blog #4

My final draft was more descriptive than my rough draft. I did not describe the teacher in my story well enough for readers to imagine how she looks like. I also revised my conclusion and added my feelings about the paper as my peer reviewer mentioned it to me. I did not make any major revisions to my paper because my rough draft was pretty much organized in a story form and it focused on me as a writer and it just needed a few  additional discriptions on particular things to it, so i thought it wasn't necessary for any major revisions. I realized that I have trouble using discriptive words to describe partiuclar things or person. I revised my small errors and sentence structures as I prove read my own rough draft and I also took my peer reviewer's opinions. I think I had a strong thesis but my conclusion was rather weak, which did that give a good ending to the story.

blog #3

A good paper must first meet all the basic requirements of an essay. If both "A" and "C" papers are being scanned through briefly, you might not recognize the difference. They both have the basic things that a complete essay has such as introduction, body and conclusion. However, when both papers are being read carefully, there are alot of different qualities that separate the two papers. The tenses of an essay is really important, if the paper is the past then through out the whole paper, the verbs and sentences must be past tense and also if the paper is current then present tenses are use. A "C" paper might lacks on the tense of the paper but an "A" paper usually don't. An "C" paper might have alot of passive voice writting in it, which contain alot of unnecessary words that make the sentence long, wordy and wanders around the point. In contrast, an "A" paper does not have passive voice in it, it has active voice writing which is short and straight to the point that does not bore the readers out. C paper sometimes has its weakness in certain area of an essay, it might has a good thesis but lacks on its conclusion which does not conclude the paper well enough or vice sersa. An "A" paper on the other hand must have both a strong thesis and a well ended conclusion. For me, personally I am pretty good and clear on the past and present tenses of my paper, I somtimes use alot of passive writing in my paper, and I struggle with my conclusion at times.

Purpose- The big red font stating " We live where you live." with the image of a busy working mother getting her kids ready for school indicates that State Farm Insurance understands your problems and is always there to help.
Audiences- There is a broad variety of audiences when it comes insurance. For this insurance ad, their targeted audiences are mostly working women, mothers, families, friends and relatives perhaps every individuals in the household or a family as a whole. The mother in the picture dressed in a bussiness suit is putting on her kid' s shoes and talking on the phone as if shes dealing with some urgent problems. This ad is trying to attract women who are dealing with the same problems and Statefarm Insurance is here to solve them.
Genre- It is different from other insurance ads. I would picture a house or car when it comes to insurance. This falls into the home and family genre. Other insurance ads might show a picture of nice fancy looking car or house which does not reveal much what the insurance can offer. However, this ad shows how much Statefarm can understand, solve your problems by protecting your family, house and yourself.
Tone- A typical busy american family life with the busy mother balancing work and home, taking care of her children brought a serious yet warm and loving tone.

Blog #1 ^_^

The first obvious reason why I am taking this class is because it is a required course but beside that there are several reasons why i am taking it.I think writing is a way a to express yourself. Alot of times people judge what kind of person you are by the way you write. However if you are not good writer, your writing might affect the first impression of the readers towards you. I am not a very good writer and I dont really enjoy writing. Writing is not only required in english class. We sometimes have to do research paper in science courses or write a resume for job or college application. Even though I dont enjoy writing and it is my weakest subject, I still think that it is very important no matter what your intended major is.
Whether you are an engineer, pharmacist or news reporter,editor, writing is still part of your job. When I was in high school, I had to write 2-3 pages essays which are nothing compare to college papers. I think English 101 will be the course where I will start writing my first "real" essays and learn the actual writing skills.
As I mention before I am not a fan of writing but I would like to improve my writing skills. It will not only help me in other courses in school but also later on when I apply for jobs or graduate schools. English 101 will also prepare me for higher english level courses that I will be require to take. And hopefully this class will also improve my reading and communication skills.