Blogs

Blogs Blogs Blogs.. where to begin. Before this class, I had NO idea what a blog was and now I think I've had enough to satisfy my blog cravings in the future. Sure, blogs can be interesting, but truthfully I've never been that in to surfing the web and reading random people's thoughts. It's a neat idea-basically a glorified chat room that is more high-tech, only usually has one main person posting and lists over an extended period of time. It seems to me that a blog is simply a way for a person to feel like they are sharing themselves with the world. I'm sure in some instances it can be used in academic disciplines, but mostly blogs are run by people just hangin around wanting something interesting to do.
I liked getting to understand what blogs are in this class though. Without this knowledge I would have been completely lost if the topic was brought up and then would feel ashamed and stupid. haha well maybe that's going too far, but it was definitely very helpful to learn how to set one up and communicate with it. I'm sure it would be better used by someone who was really interested and I think there are a great number of good and cool things that could be done with blogs, I just don't think I'm that person-at least not yet. I think it was an interesting thing to learn about but I feel like I personally didn't make the most of it. For example I probably didn't check it as much as I should have, didn't always go back and read people's comments, etc. I think in the future by making commenting and then rebuking comments on other people's blogs mandatory for a more extended period of time it would make sure people utilize the blog assignment.

A Paragraph with Parameters

While it is possible blogs could unite colleagues, it seems blogs are entirely too personal to be significant in any other respect. Many people have said they like mathematics and numbers because they are a universal language, something that everyone can understand no matter what cultural background. Aside from religious contradictions, many physics concepts are thought of in the same way because laws are found to be proven facts, not wavering interpretations. There are universal beliefs that are not swayed by cultural background. This leaves the study free from personal bias most of the time because personal agendas are not present. The blog, however, is designed completely on the whims of the author. No blog I have read so far has failed to entertain the beliefs and bias of the author even when attempting to remain neutral in the beginning. This personal aspect of the blog takes away from the meaning of the blog in the academic sense. In any field of science, bias presents a severe problem when considering the validity of the claims and in most cases researcher take special care to leave out this bias. Yet, in blogs people most often do not try to write without bias. Until blogs are written without personal beliefs influencing them, the information posted that is relevant to the field, in many cases, cannot be trusted.

What physicists REALLY do.. or just why

Well, truthfully, Preposterous Universe didn't really explain to me what a physicist does on a daily bases. However, it does seem to me that in order to do physics for your entire life, it's extremely important that you love it. Even though my guy doesn't talk about his own work on his blog, he's always going on about some new development in the world of physics and seems to be genuinely excited about it. It's possible this is just a special case, but I hardly think so. I think it helped me so how important it is to really love what you're doing in order to be happy doing it. I guess it's the same with most jobs, but in physics, as well as most other sciences, it's important to be extremely dedicated because the research projects can last so long.

Rakjoon's Draft Workshop

2.While the paper does fulfill the demands of the assignment, it does so on a shallow level. The paper would definitely benefit to look into the discourse more fully. He does mention 1 of the posts and their common interest in the environment, but I think he could elaborate more on this aspect. Also, I think he should focus more on why he should be allowed to post on the blog-elaborate on similarities they seem to share, common interests etc, or possibly something significant he’d done within the field of chemistry he could share on the blog. Don't just say how the professor can help him, but say how he can add to the professor's blog. I thought he did a very good job converying his enthusiasm.
3. The organization seems to make sense rhetorically because it is organized almost as though he is speaking instead of writing. There is a naturally flow of thought (he mixes analyzing the blog with his enthusiasm and shows similar interests) but I do think more organization could be helpful to clearly answer the prompt, especially in the first paragraph. This could be helped by simply making the first paragraph 2 seperate paragraphs.
4. The tone seemed very appropriate, it very effectively showed his enthusiasm for the field and seemed to convey a sense that he was looking up to the professor for answer but still had some knowledge himself. He was confident but not cocky.

My POSSIBLE field of study..

As the title suggests, my discipline for Unit 3 is only a possibility for major. All I really KNOW is I like math and I like science-both of which are very present in the field of physics. I'm taking my first college-level physics class this coming semester so I'm excited to see how I like it. I really liked my high school physics class, but I waited to take it until my senior year so I wasn't able to take the AP course. Though this isn't the real reason I'm thinking about physics, I really like the idea of being a woman in a predominately male field. I've always liked the idea of being someone who doesn't fall into the social norm when it comes to professions-like while I think being a nurse is a very noble profession, I am disgusted when men consistently suggest to me I should consider becoming a nurse when I say I'm thinking about med school. I liked the idea of physics for Unit 3 because it will give me a chance to look at what a serious person in that field is doing and see if it interests me.

Unit 2 Reflections...

I would say my work on unit 2 was better then that of unit 1 because I put a lot more effort into unit 2. I feel like I'm really starting to use the draft workshops to make my writing better because I'm really trying to go back and look at my work deeply. I think the topics were harder this time, but I think that could have helped to make the work seem better because it had to be better. I also think my work improved this time because I went to the writing center. That's the main reason I was so forced to go back and really review my work. I liked being able to actually talk to someone who was reading my stuff instead of just reading what others wrote because it really made ME think about how I can improve this or that, not just see what they think.

Unit 2: Feeder 2

Mandatory Funding for Education

No Child Left Behind sets promising goals to help make American children succeed. Yet, how can it work if it does not have the proper funding? It is absolutely essential to find a way to provide consistent funding for school programs. With funding comes success in almost every other subject. John Kerry says creating a national education trust fund “will ensure that new education programs authorized by Congress will be funded on a mandatory basis” (par 4). It is essential to make education one of the nation’s top priorities and support Kerry’s National Education Trust Fund. This fund will ensure schools are properly funded and will subsequently allow the hiring of more teachers, increase graduation rates, and improve facilities to ultimately improve education in the United States.
Kerry states the “funding for No Child Left Behind has fallen $27 billion below its promised levels” (par 2). How does anyone expect schools to achieve their set goals if they are not allocated the promised funds? It is like asking someone to build a house without any tools or materials. The National Education Trust Fund, in addition to “fully [funding] the No Child Left Behind Act,” will, “[add] an average of about $10 billion per year to hire more teachers and shrink class size, offer more students extra individualized help, better involve parents in schools, and offer more after-school and preschool opportunities” (Kerry, par 4). All of these opportunities could help make certain the success of our schools if, and only if, they are given proper funding. With Kerry’s plan, the education system would be guaranteed the funding they need.
More and better teachers are essential to creating successful learning environments. I have gone to public school my entire life and was successful enough to come to the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill because I had incredible teachers. However, many schools do not have those incredible teachers because teachers are simply not paid enough. Both my parents were originally teachers, but when they decided to start a family, my father had to quite teaching to search for a job with a higher salary. More good teachers leave for the same reason every year. This is why John Kerry plans to “recruit or retain 500,000 high-quality teachers over the next 4 years,” by giving $5000 increases in salary to teachers willing to work in high need areas and providing “better training, mentoring and career development opportunities” (par 6). When teachers are better trained and well paid students receive a better education and when classroom sizes can be decreased because of additional teachers, each student will receive more individualized attention. This will maximize the benefits from each class and therefore increase graduation rates. All of this may be possible through Kerry’s plan for a National Education Trust Fund.
The growing decay in school facilities presents a problem for many students. Kerry says “14 million children are learning in sub-standard schools in need of major renovation” (par 8). Again I ask, how are the schools supposed to meet government standards if they have poor facilities? A National Education Trust Fund would ensure schools get money for renovations continually so they can provide an encouraging environment with plenty of resources to realistically meet their goals and provide better buildings to facilitate the education of children.
The National Education Trust Fund is a good way to provide money for education in the United States. Budgets are always under reform, so there is no way to make sure schools get enough support in the form of funding. With increased money, better teachers and better facilities provide children with better education and increase graduation rates. While Bush is wasting $250 million on testing the schools he is holding back through lack of other funding, Kerry plans to utilize that money and give children an opportunity for a better education and subsequently a better life with increased choices (Bush, par 3).

Draft Workshops

Truthfully, I don't feel I get much out of the draft workshops, especially now that they're online. It's my own fault, but a lot of times I forget to go the blog of whoever did my paper for a couple of days. When they're done in class you get the responses back immediately and therefore have more days to use them for writing another draft. However, I do think more thought is put into them online and there is a real benefit in this. I feel a lot less rushed doing them online so I think that adds to their quality. I feel like I write fairly substantial posts for draft workshops and really try to put an effort into them as I think a lot of others are as well. However, sometimes I think the draft workshops for my papers are unhelpful and it's possible that it may have something to do with them coming from students, but I would have appreciate it if more effort had been put into a few of my paper's draft workshops.
I don't know if I like having them in class or out of class better because there are good and bad things about both options. I do like the less stressful atmosphere that comes with them being done online and so I would not mind keeping them that way.

How my speech was perceived

Overall, I think Addison liked my speech. The part about everyone having that one inspirational teacher was especially well received because it relates to everyone. I think I need to work on being less nervous because even with only one person listening I blushed like crazy and got a little fidgety. I don't think any specific part was not well received, but I'm not sure to what extent I proved my point. I think it might help my speech to add more specific details because right now it's mostly just generalities. This could help people really relate to what I'm trying to present because they can see an example of that generality. I'm also going to have to go back and make sure I'm presenting arguments that go along with the intended audience. By talking about high school situations the freshmen in the english class could easily relate because they were there last year. Overall I should not have to make many changes to the actual speech, but a lot of practice is necessary if I want to overcome my fear of doing this speech and turning bright red...

Rhetoric for Speech

Education is something everyone would agree is extremely important. Everyone wants to see schools succeed and appealing to people's emotions shouldn't be a very hard thing. Pathos might have played a bigger part in my speech if my argument was in favor of the plan I have to oppose, but now it's going to be important to appeal with logos to state factual evidence showing why the plan could not work. It will also be important to use ethos to show common ground, provide reasons for opposing that everyone could relate to and maybe provide some background information and appear fair. In my speech, in an ideal world the plan itself could not really be criticized, because like I said, everyone agrees education is important, but realistically things like financial support come into question so maybe I could bring in the question, what do people think is MORE important?

With this audience I think it's important to maybe stress pathos/logos because most people already know each other and know where they're coming from. However, it might be nice to prove that your opinion is a good one by appearing well prepared and like you put in a lot of effort and really researched the topic because who's going to listen to you if you sound like you're talking out of your ass? I know this isn't very specific but basically I think all of these could be used in my speech..

Draft Wksp for Addison

1. Well, the paper didn’t really go into how to actually carry out Bush or Kerry’s plans to “handle the conflict” in Iraq. He simply stated that there was conflict, that the election will depend on how well Americans believe each candidate could solve the conflict and stated what Kerry and Bush generally believe should occur to do this. The only counter argument could probably be… is the war in Iraq REALLY all Americans care about? Also, possibly why would promoting and preserving democracy in the middle east help national defense? Maybe democracy isn’t meant for all countries and maybe this war is just causing more people to be angry at the US and support their claims that America is arrogant. He did show Kerry's belief that Bush "bull[ied].. [and] act alone when they could assemble a team." Elaborate on this and prove why Bush didn't act this way in order to prove the point.

2.This paper does not have a tight, cohesive and powerful thesis. It is very unclear what the main point of the paper is. Possibly, the last sentences, “George Bush seems to me to be a much more effective leader when it comes to national defense. He has a proven track record, and while America did enter Iraq on wrong pretenses, I believe that promoting and preserving democracy in the Middle East is extremely important,” could be considered the thesis statement. However, the paper never went and discussed this at all. No evidence was provided to prove or back-up his statement.

3.Ethos was possibly used by presenting Kerry’s argument that Bush was a bully, but he never elaborated on this. He did spend a great deal of time explaining how similar their plans were though. He didn’t portray depth of thought or establish credibility at all. Depth of thought could probably come naturally with the use of pre-writing.
The only use of pathos could be a sense of audience, but even that was not especially strong. The audience would probably be pro-bush because only a pro-bush reader would leave the paper feeling that Bush was the stronger leader based on the information given.
Logos was probably the most utilized, but even that wasn’t very strong. No stats were used but he seemed to try and appeal to logic by saying “he has a proven track record” almost saying “he’s done it before, he can do it again.”
No specific rhetorical strategy dominated because no rhetorical strategy was clearly used and well developed.

4.Every point made in the paper could be supported with additional evidence with the exception of possibly the statement “both candidates will continue the struggle in Iraq [but have] different perspectives on how that can be achieved.” He needs to provide evidence of Bush’s “proven track record” and deduce why promoting and preserving democracy in the Middle East is so important. His paper has an authoritative tone-almost factual, without the facts. More evidence is definitely needed.

Public Speaking

I am incredibly nervous about speaking in front of people. I have the tendency to blush like CRAZY and upon realizing this, go psycho and continue on my path of increasing nervousness. I haven't ever done a lot of speaking in front of anyone-the biggest audience would probably be my church during some sort of youth group event or reading scripture at Christmas. I'm much more comfortable speaking when I can't see the audience. For example, if there's a spotlight and the audience is in the dark. The last time I spoke I had to perform a soliloquy in my english class. Let's just say it was rough. I'd say my strengths include clear speaking and being prepared and my weakness would be sheer nervousness. I need to be less self-conscience when speaking.

Self-Analysis

Overall, I think I did well on my unit 1 portfolio. I participated in class every day and was never late. I completed all work on time, even blogs. I also think I had significant comments on draft workshop forms. I feel that I have a good understanding of thesis statements and while I didn't include pre-writing in my portfolio it was used frequently. I think the weak part of my portfolio could be how aggressively I worked on drafts. I tried to revisit each paper with the suggestions given in the draft workshops, but I have a hard time changing things unless I really feel the suggestion is extremely significant. My goal is to revisit each draft more thoroughly in unit 2. I plan to do this by spending more time going over each draft and making sure I answer the question completely. I hope to attack my papers in more detail to really improve the writing.

Draft Workshop for Rakjoon

1.The paper does recommend the Kerry’s idea for making more alliances, but a stronger thesis is definitely needed. I felt like he argued a strong point about what was wrong with America, but didn’t spend enough time talking about fixing it. The evidence was good and some quotes were used, but that could be further explored to strengthen the argument (using statistics-specifically Iraqi death rates “How many Iraqi civilians were killed when Americans were trying to take Saddam out? More than those that died on 9.11 to be sure.”-make sure to prove this with the statistic.) I really liked the idea that our terrorists may be their heroes-the Korea example was excellent.
2.He doesn't really have a thesis statement- he does say “My point is that while Americans may think they are helping [the] Iraqi [people] and keeping peace, the Iraqi point of view may be different” in the 2nd paragraph and then in the conclusion, “America must make many allies, nobody can be alone,” but he doesn’t clearly state this together and doesn’t introduce it in the beginning of his paper. The paper should probably shift its focus to the solution instead of the problem to better answer the question and specifically address both of these things clearly an directly at the beginning of the paper.
3.He utilizes Ethos through his confident tone and makes it seem like he put a lot of thought into the ideas behind his paper-he made it seem like he feels very strongly about the issue. Also, providing examples from his home country made him seem more credible because he could prove that he understands the situation because he’s been through it also. He could have tried to be more “fair” by addressing counterarguments more thoroughly-like say why an imperialistic country might be imperialistic… Pathos is shown by his use of stories (Korean hero) and use of Korean proverb (Revenge calls revenge). Logos is used very well because he provides a lot of examples (Korean newspaper editorial). However, more facts and stats could have been used.
4.I thought his argument was convincing-America needs to make more, stronger alliances. However, I thought he should have gone into more detail explaining how to do this-yes, I agree alliances are good, but how to we achieve them? He very clearly showed that “our terrorists could be their heroes” but use of examples (Korean hero story) and gave evidence to Bush weakening alliances (Korean editorial). It might be a good idea to stray away from purely Korean examples though, for example use more from the website, because it kind of seemed like he was more focused on Korea then on Bush vs. Kerry plans of action.

Paramedic for Tom

Ahh there's no way to eliminate every preposition but here it goes:


Charlie Parker, a popular 1940's and 1950's jazz musician, says "Music is your own experience, your own thought, your wisdom... They teach you there's a boundary line to music. But, man, there's no boundary line to art." Musicians think of themselves as artists. Their vocals, intruments, and lyrical content produce their artwork. Anything could inspire their choruses, stories and beats. Musicians creatively design their compact disc covers to try to portray their lyrical messages. The cover could draw the cd attention, provide a subliminal message, and/or hint the music genre the record plays. Musiq Soulchild's Justlisen intrigued me. Musiq's cover gives the viewer a relaxed and passionate feeling and instills a sense that his music consumes and fulfills him. Musiq conveys his musical connection through colors, title, pose and emotion and consequently attracted me to the CD.

Draft Workshop for Richard Graven

This paper does fulfill the demands of the assignment and presents both candidates’ views on the issue of social security. He very clearly shows who they are targeting and how they are promoting their ideas.

Yes, the paper does seem slightly biased towards Bush. While the sentence, “This program reaffirms Bush’s platform of his ‘commitment to the American people’ and ensures that social security is able ‘to pay the benefits promised to our children and grandchildren,’” does quote Bush, it seems very opinionated. If I understand correctly he says he thinks the program ensures this and that. It may be better to say “Through this program Bush is trying to reaffirm his platform…” Other than that I think it stayed fairly unbiased except that it seemed Bush was quoted more often and his plan was better described. However, this may be because the Bush site offered more detailed description.

I thought the introduction had an excessive amount of summarizing. It seemed unnecessary to summarize Bush/Kerry's stance on social security that early-the next two paragraphs explain it completely-just saying they were different would've been enough. I did like the way the subject was introduced-nice flow into the paper. The conclusion was very good-it tied together the two Kerry/Bush paragraphs nicely with comparisons.

Thesis Battles- Episode One: The Leaky Cauldron

http://www.the-leaky-cauldron.org/

At "The Leaky Cauldron," one is subject to a mass informationdatabase, in which he/she can find out about current events in the HarryPotter world, look at pictures from the Harry Potter films, or be linked tomore sites about Harry Potter; however, one important aspect missing fromthe site is a forum for readers to express their opinions about Harry Potterin addition to a place for readers to have fun - games, quizzes, or puzzles.

Yay for Democrats

I have to say, writing that first feeder made me realize that I consider myself democratic. I've always kind of swung either way and never got into it enough to really make a decision, but when it comes down to it the things I feel strongly about are better represented by Kerry and the democrats.

Education is a really big issue for me. I have always gone to public school and I believe very strongly in those public schools and therefore despise anyone in favor of supporting private schools. When I was looking at Bush's site, I noticed he seemed to be proud of the fact he was spending $250 Million on testing in schools. Big woopdeedoo... why not use that money to pay teachers better and supply better materials. It seems like he's wasting that money just to prove to private school parents why they are so lucky they can afford to keep their kids out of those stupid public schools. I guess I've just always believed education is the best way for anyone to get ahead in life and that the diversity I encountered in public school made me a more mature and open minded person. When policies are created that make it easier for more upper-class children to attend private school, the balance that makes public school unique is lost and people begin to lose faith in those schools (and in turn they become less successful).

I also am very strongly prochoice because I don't believe anyone else (especially the government) should be able to limit another's right to their decide something so potentially life altering. Even though I'm not sure I could ever go through with it, I believe no one should be able to enforce their views on another.

While I don't have especially strong feelings for Kerry, I feel that overall the democratic party would better represent my interests.

Draft Workshop for Rakjoon Jeon

The paper does present both candidates’ views on the issue, but it doesn’t analyze the candidates’ rhetoric to a substantial extent. This paper mentions voice is the final paragraph, but really doesn’t go into a lot of detail about it. The general ideas are good, but it seems like the paper needs more research and detail because there is a lot more on the site that could be addressed.
In general, the paper does not have much of a biased tone, but there is a lot more evidence for Kerry’s faults than Bush’s. He declares at the end that Bush has the more powerful website, and so it seems there was almost a bias towards that. It seemed like he left out the evidence and just made declarations to possibly support his own opinion. In order to be less biased, this paper just needs the evidence to defend the statements made (it’ll also help make the paper longer).
Rakjoon very effectively mixes the two candidates’ views so that one does not prioritize the other’s position. However, the paper does lake overall organization. It seems like pre-writing did not occur. It’s kind of like the paragraphs are somewhat organized but within the paragraph the information is just random. It might help to separate the ideas so each paragraph has a separate idea being pondered.

Where I do my writing...

Well, I used to do my writing on the couch at home while watching TV and talking on AIM, but now I usually sit at my desk in my dorm room. I still do most of my prewriting on the couch, but I find it's easier to focus sitting at the desk. It's nice because sometimes I need to let my mind wander a bit and I have a bunch of pictures all around my desk to take my mind off writing. It's usually pretty quiet while I write because I don't like to listen to music because I get really distracted and start singing/dancing around the room (luckily my roommate has yet to be around while I've done this). Anyway, I like this set up because there's a good view to the hall so people can wander in and distract me if I have time (I would only leave the door open if I had time...), but I can also stay focused and get stuff done. The problem is my desk chair is not the most comfortable thing in the world- I like to lean back while I think and I can't, but it does motivate me to keep working so I can get out of the chair faster. In general, I like the focus working at a desk has helped me achieve, but I do miss the comfort aspect of being on the couch...

As The Target Audience

Well, I'm a college graduate, working as a copy editor at a local newspaper. I'm not going to tell you my age because a woman never should, but I guess I could say I'm somewhere around 30. I have a 5 year-old son, so I like to visit Plot Kicks In to have some healthy discussion about movies. I also like to visit to the site to get opinions on movies I might want to see because I can only get away so often, the movies need to be worth my while. The site could definitely be more aesthetically pleasing, but overall it's easy for my to get around and check everything out so it balances out. I also like how easy the discussions are to follow, but the credibility of the reviews is sometimes under question because I don't know if I should really listen to their opinion and see the movies they recommend.

Plot Kicks In

http://plotkicksin.blogspot.com

It took me about 17 hours to finally find this blog. Well, not quite 17, but it did feel like forever. Using google (http://www.google.com), I searched "blogs," "pop culture blogs,""music blogs," and finally "movie blogs" to find this site. I think specifically there was a site I used to weed through different genres of blogs like entertainment etc. The annoying thing about this assignment was that most blogs do not limit their entries to just movies, sports, or music. The authors like going off onto tangents about their lives. However interesting it may be to them, ultimately those sites were not appropriate for this assignment... This website Plot Kicks In was one of the only blogs I saw that limited itself to just movie reviews and it was something I could relate to because the movies were all movies I'd heard of or seen.

Ahh Writing

My biggest fear in writing has always been coming up with enough to say. I've always been able to come up with good ideas, but I rarely put in enough detail. I guess it's because I've always been a fan of simplicity and really like keeping stuff short. Usually, I think I've explained something fully, but don't have enough support. Specifics are definitely something I lack in my papers because I think a general explanation will suffice when in reality it doesn't. In order to fix this I really think I have to keep asking myself would I understand if I was reading this for the first time-could this really prove anything. If I do significant pre-writing I think I can overcome this problem.

Revisions

In editing my paper, Tom reminded me that I needed to say what effect the font had on me. At first, I had only described the font. I did say that it was aesthetically pleasing and gave a simple interpretation, but overall it was not descriptive enough. I went back and reworked this paragraph about font, so hopefully it is now detailed enough and clearly relates to the thesis.

Maroon 5
Posted by Hello
Even though I love this CD, I sincerely doubt my parents would have the urge to pick up the case and start listening to it. First of all, there is a naked lady on the front. Yeah, she's all covered up and what-not, but it gives off a different impression than say, a James Taylor cd. The red and black colors give off a darker feel (like a rock cd) and it seems like she may be opening Pandora's Box (yet another darker idea). I don't think the cd cover would at all offend my parents, but I don't think they would be intrigued to listen to the cd by seeing the case.

Me
Posted by Hello

My, Myself and I

Hi, I'm Katherine Johnston. I was born and raised in Durham, North Carolina and have lived in the same house my entire life. I have two, much older, sisters, a crazy two-year-old niece, three very adorable cats and one turtle named Mikey (after Michelangelo.. the Ninja Turtle... duh). My oldest sister started at UNC eleven years ago and the other recently received her graduate degree from UNC as well. I guess you could say I was destined to go to UNC. However, I grew up a hard-core Duke fan and have had many sleepless nights deciding if I could ever root for UNC. In high school I played tennis and softball and also sung in the showchoir. I generally could find at least one song from almost any music genre that I like and am not afraid to admit I am a huge country fan. My favorite subjects in school have always been math and science related, but I have absolutely no idea what I want to do with the rest of my life.