The final thlog :( #10

Well guys this is my last thlog :(. It was one hell of a ride, a stressful one at that. Last week i focused on just finishing my portfolio. It was hectic especially since I had to make a new thesis for both WP1 and WP2. The revision matrices and reverse outlines weren't that hard since I already knew what major changes I did and the main idea of each of my paragraphs. What really took me a while was the meta-cognitive reflection. I had an idea of what I wanted to do but I really didn't know how to phrase it somewhat academically. There was some points where my normal tone slipped in mostly because I wanted to reflect what I was thinking. However, I can say I am satisfied with it. I'm very satisfied with my revised WP's because they actually have arguments now. Another change is that i shortened my WP1 by three pages. That was very stressful to somehow keep the information that was in those pages and make my paper only five pages long. Now to end my last thlog. Zack thanks for everything man. You helped change me improve my writing greatly. Before, I used to fill my papers with fluff and more fluff. Now I just get right to the point and tell the reader what I want them to know. I'm also much more confident in my writing than before. I used to stress about fitting everything inside my paper at the cost of it being really long and tedious. Now I know how to pick out the main points of articles and elaborate on it.

Thlog #9

Well here is my weekly thlog. This was a very stressful week. I essentially took my WP1 and grinded it up and spit out something new. I kept some key parts of it but I scrapped the rest that I felt didn’t really belong. On the other hand, my WP2 was less strenuous. I just had to create a good thesis statement to base my point on. After I did that it was mostly adding more analysis to my statements that tied my paragraphs to my thesis. I also scrapped most of my introductions for both pieces because they were too fluffy. They took too long to get my point across. I also scrapped whole paragraphs in my WP1 because they felt like another intro paragraph. It sure was stressful but I was able to see why my WP1 was very inadequate. I also saw my WP2 just needed some more fine tuning to be an argument-based paper. While I still need to do the revision matrices and metacognitive reflection it should not take long since I know what major changes I made. I also have to do my metacognitive reflection but I already have an idea of what I am going to do. I intend to go from start to finish using WP1 to WP3 and describe the changes I have gone through. While I intend to be formal in the paper since it does involve higher level thinking I want to keep my personal voice. I don’t want it to sound like a generic piece of writing that could be copied and pasted.

Thlog # 8

Well here is my weekly thlog. This week was interesting because of the presentations. I honestly, learned a lot especially in terms of using hedged language. Before, I used to follow the notion that you should always assert what you are saying and go all in. This was supported by my high school teachers who said if I should any uncertainty it would kill the argument. Using hedged language reduces the the amount of weight a claim has in a sense without losing the force. In writing, especially if its going to be read by others, if you make a claim and assert it is the absolute truth and its proven wrong, it makes the whole piece laughable. People will believe the rest of the paper is just nonsense and stop reading. Using hedged language makes it where you have some leeway if your claim is disproved because you didn’t say it was the absolutely correct. One merely said it may be correct not it is correct.  This personally affects, me in my writing since a lot of the papers I have to write are argumentative and require the usage of outside sources to support our claims. One has to be careful in choosing outside support because if the support is proven wrong the ones claim and argument loses the weight behind it. It becomes weak and unbelievable. My group did a presentation on commas and semicolons which helped me a lot personally. I know somewhat of how semicolons were used but I didn’t know the proper way to use them. While looking up facts for my groups presentation I saw the uses of semicolons and how they can improve my personal writing for college papers and life in general.

Thlog # 7

Sorry for being late again… but heres my weekly thlog still. This week in class what caught my eyes from the readings was the reading we did in class of the chief’s paper. It gave me ideas on how to improve my WP1 and WP2 for the final portfolio. I’ve been struggling with having an argumentative thesis in my WP’s since I did to be too broad and I saw how she was able to talk about the the articles while also directly stating her point. I also found working on the presentation with my group to be easy but hard at the same time. Commas are a topic that almost everyone knows how to use so to be able to do a 12-15-minute presentation about them was difficult. Semicolons on the other hand are not as known since most people just use commas and periods. However, the semicolon isn’t as confusing as people make it out to be. It gives more separation between words or phrases than a comma does but less than a period. So it is essentially used when a comma won’t provide adequate separation. What I found interesting when I was trying to find stuff about semicolons is that many sites place commas and semicolons against each other. They made it seem that semicolons are very hard to use when they really aren’t. Semicolons are easy to use but one has to know where to place them properly in their writing. I’ll admit I need to use more semicolons in my writing but I do know how to use them.