Well I have tried three times to post something to this and I still haven’t seen anything that I have posted yet. So I will just try this one last time and then call it. Perhaps because I am a newb at this blogg stuff it is testing me.
I thought the reading was very interesting. This is my first class that I remember having that is specifically about writing. I have certainly had other English courses that required reports, but not a class specifically designed for writting. I really liked in the reading how it taught you how to find a topic, and all the different ideas it had on how to finalize it. This is one of the things I struggle the most with is getting a topic. I really liked the reading in Ch. 20 where it talked about the amounts of resources that are available with the libraries at the schools, the online resources. But I particularily liked the information about the licensed databases. Despite the fact that they are generally a service you have to pay for, the resources that are available to students or other researchers seemed endless. I find that fascinating that technology has given us the capability to keep anything we want to in an electronic format so someone could be at their home computer and download it to their computer to use and research. What a phenominal capability that was probably never even dreamed of in the past. I wonder if perhaps sometime in the future, technology will get to the point where you could just think about what you want to read, and it would just pop up in your mental vision and you could just read it inside your head. Or even perhaps a virtual image of it displayed from some apparatus placed on your head. Either way would be cool, I suppose the possibilities are enless. Anyway, hope this works and that I will be able to see others comments and respond to them. Happy blogging.

I am commenting on the DK Handbook. In English 1010, I didn’t really read this very much but it did become useful when writing a paper. I like the pattern they follow when coming up with a finished paper. Going from a general topic to a narrowed statement of purpose. I liked having an example there about electronic voting machines. It helped me to visualize how to really do go step by step. I also like the idea of setting up a schedule. In the past, I would normally do that in my head, but the next time I write a big paper I am going to give myself a time table, on paper, so I can stay on time and get it all done without being stressed and crunched for time. How much will we really use this book for this class?
Alyson Livingston

I enjoyed the readings about hydrogen fueled cars and organic foods. The organic food reading was interesting because, it gave answers on the topic I was interested in (cost). I thought she could have talked about if the organic food made a person noticeably healthier.
I also found the topic of hydrogen fueled cars informative, although I would have liked graphics in the report.

I really enjoyed reading the examples of surprising essays. My favorite one was “Behind Stone Walls” by Cheryl Carp. I will admit that i had the same narrow view of most, that inmates are animals, but after reading a first hand experience from someone that volunteered at the penitentiary i can see that the inmates are real people with real emotions. It is really cool to see a different view on a subject we as a society are so narrowly minded on.

I like others found the reading to be pretty interesting. I certainly liked Chapter 20 and think that it added a lot of useful insight that will prove helpful in finding a topic for my papers as well as be a useful tool in sorted through, and finding sources for my thesis. The other thing in the reading that I would like to comment on and critique is the report by Eugene Robinson, “You Have the right to Remain a Target of Racial Profiling. I found the report to be more biased and persuasive than it was informative. Sure there are references to reports but the way he wrote about them seemed to persuade you to believe that minorities are in fact profiled. That is what the report is about but his references didn’t show that in fact minorities are profiled, I think it was more inferred by the writer. I just thought it was interesting, especially that in the critical thinking it didn’t bring that up because it seemed quite apparent to me.

I found the information in chapter 20 to be very helpful. I have always found it difficult to develop a question to focus my paper on. The book gives some good tips on page 575 on how to come up with a good question for a paper. I think coming up with a good question to focus on in a paper makes writing the paper more enjoyable and much easier.

In reading pages 208-238 I found the Behind Stone walls most interesting. It’s true that in most moves they show jails as being full of gangs and violence. All of them planning an escape and will up it into action as soon as they can, but Cheryl gives us a good inside look and it’s not what I expected. She doesn’t deny that they have done some serious crimes but some of them are changed people. After sitting in there for so long not being to enjoy simple everyday things I’m sure it makes you desperate for another chance. I know if I had been put in jail for life I would be desperate for a second chance. I think that if we were to give them a second chance they would contribute the community instead of harm it like they have. They are already helping needy people in the real world with the very little money they earn working in the jail. So I think she is right when she says that they are good people you just have to see that side of them. Which a lot of us will never see and will always think of inmates as gang menbers ready to attack at any minute, but I found this story to be very interesting and did surprise me like it was intended on doing.

I thought the “behind stone walls” in the AB book was a bit interesting, as I have toured a prison before and even got to meet people on death row that were charged for serial murder and other crazy stuff. Just knowing that they were charged for those things was pretty creepy, but surprisingly they looked and acted very normal (which is probably why they were successful at what they did), but it really is a lot like Cheryl described. The prison cells didn’t look too fun though, so small and cramped.

I agree with DanEgbert on the other readings as well. The organic foods was very informative, but it left me wondering how much healthier the organics foods are, but she simply stated that they “are” and left me curious, since the idea ends up not simply being price differences, but whether it is worth having organic over “other” foods because of the price differences. I have a brother and his wife who practically don’t eat anything but organic, and he seems to think it helps a lot…

I really liked the DK section of reading, I always have lots of apprehension when it comes to picking and narrowing a topic. The book had a lot of useful tips about the whole process such as “The narrowing process is not linear”. I’m sure most people already figured it out anyway, but I always felt like I was doing something wrong when I had to repeat steps while I was narrowing or picking a topic. After reading the text I’m a little bit relieved and picking a topic doesn’t seem so bad now.

In reading pages 208-238 I found the Behind Stone walls most interesting. It’s true that in most moves they show jails as being full of gangs and violence. All of them planning an escape and will up it into action as soon as they can, but Cheryl gives us a good inside look and it’s not what I expected. She doesn’t deny that they have done some serious crimes but some of them are changed people. After sitting in there for so long not being to enjoy simple everyday things I’m sure it makes you desperate for another chance. I know if I had been put in jail for life I would be desperate for a second chance. I think that if we were to give them a second chance they would contribute the community instead of harm it like they have. They are already helping needy people in the real world with the very little money they earn working in the jail. So I think she is right when she says that they are good people you just have to see that side of them. Which a lot of us will never see and will always think of inmates as gang menbers ready to attack at any minute, but I found this story to be very interesting and did surprise me like it was intended to do.

I also really enjoyed reading “Behind Stone Walls”. It provided a whole new insight for me on other people with whom I had previously deemed not really worthy of society’s focus or consideration. I viewed them as heartless criminals, deserving the punishments they received. I still, of course, believe they deserve their punishments but it made me realize that even though people mess up pretty bad sometimes, they’re still human and have needs to be met other than just the basics, eating, sleeping, etc.

I think its great that they can choose to give back to society in their limited ways. Reading what she said about how they worked for minimal wages and sent those away to the children in orphanages makes me think that I would much rather know and associate with those people than many of the ones around me.

Much like Indiana Jones (though slightly different ) I have to ask . . . WHY IS IT ALWAYS SPIDERS?

Sorry. Minor (major ) phobia out of the way, I liked how the book explained the concept of a ’surprise reversal’. I was, personally, surprised at how often I use that technique myself, though it’s, again, slightly different because I use it in fiction to bring conflict between characters and divide them up so I can later conquer.

Or, you know, bring them back together. Depending on the story.

At any rate, I didn’t know there was an actual term for that writing technique and it was fascinating to see a somewhat in depth explanation for it.

The readings on pages 230-238 were good examples on the surprising-reversal strategy for writing research papers. I particularly liked the paper by Shannon King about hydrogen fuel-cell cars.

I was actually glad that I read pages 573-591 about starting and preparing a research paper. It has been a little while since I have written one and so it was good to be able to freshen up on some good rules of thumb about how to go about deciding on a research paper topic. I think picking a topic is the hardest part about writing a paper. I also thought that the differences described about certain material that can be researched will be very useful to have success in researching a chosen topic.

I found that the article about the hydrogen powered cars to be an interesting article. I didn’t realize that htere are only a few methods of producing Hydrogen. A question that I thought of thogh is how can using hydrogen powered cars cut down on global warming if the only ways to produce the hydrogen gas still require the buring of fossil fuels. So how can hydorgen powered cars be anymore beneficial to the environment than gasoline powered cars, when it still takes the same technology to produce hydrogen that is currently in use to produce gasoline and electricity?

I appreciated how diverse the resources can be. It is fascinating to see all of the different ways that there are to get source material. It is nice to have the direction and resource to narrow the topic or vice versa for the subject. When we were assigned to write the report of how we would right a research paper, I found that most of what I had written was very similar to what I found in the reading. The steps were almost identical, one of the steps in the book that stood out to me was evaluating the resources.

FINALLY THIS IS WORKING!

i’m commenting on the DK reading, cause that seemed like the most helpful. in my report on how i write a paper, i kept writing how it takes me forever and i wanted to know some tips for making it easier. sure enough, thats exactly what the reading was on, so i enjoyed the tips…

as for the AB reading, i started to get really confused when it started talking about the different types of published works and the different kinds of informative writing and got a head ache.. are we really gonna need to know all that for the quiz tonight, cause i had a hard time… anyway, thats my comment. my first comment was a lot longer, but it took so bloody long to get this blog thing working that i don’t remember all my first comments.. oh well…

val.

I thought that this part on thinking critically was good. I did enjoy reading the writing by Kerri Ann Matsumoto about organic verses traditional. I did think that Cheryl’s view was very interesting and in lighting. However, I felt she was a little harsh in her feelings to the officers of detention facility.

It was interesting to see the suprise reversal technique being used to enlighten the reader on some of the topics. The article by Eugene Robinson about racial profiling was a bit of a disappointment though.
First of all, it was not surprising at all. It was very clear from the start what direction the paper was going to take. I didn’t find the statistics surprising either, just incomplete.
He talks about the statistics and gives figures, but does not cast them in a full light. Were the officers pulling people over all white? What percentage were non-white? Where does this take place? It starts off with “Washington – this just in”, is that where we are to assume this is happening? Its not clear.
If those statistics were happening in Utah, I would agree that there is racial profiling going on. If this was Watts, CA or Detroit, I would wonder why so many white people were being pulled over.

I find, when reading AB, I am at the end of the chapter before I realize it. This is one text book I don’t mind reading. I will absolutely utilize the suggestions for research and source evaluation throughout my paper writing.

I’ve had this comment saved for a while. Thanks Professor for approving the log on yesterday. Here’s my comment for any credit:

Reading the example essays and reports motivated me to write a good paper. I also enjoyed the ‘generating ideas’ sections because the brainstorm strategies help me understand what approaches I may take to my paper. I look forward to the many examples the AB book has because they are very clear.

The analytical review of the tattoo article in chapter 6 was interesting. It was funny to see the student’s point of view an how the tattoo is more of a commercial fad than the author thought.