Dodging the Draft

Chapter 14 the drafting chapter. I honestly have never found much use in drafting exercises. I find it much easier and (at least in my case) much better to just right a very crude rough draft then re-read, re-edit, polish, re-read, re-edit, and polish some more. As I mentioned in chapter 17 I really enjoy the revising portion of writing so maybe this is my reason for disdain toward drafting exercises. A very well organized first draft leads to much less revising. I know this seems illogical because more revising means more work in the end but as I said I like it so I don’t feel logic comes into play here for me. That being said this is the first time I have effectively made and used an outline to pen up a rough draft and I have to admit it was wonderful. I mentioned several blog posts back about my continued struggle with organization and an outline really helped me with that flaw. Despite my previous drafting bashing I must admit that this chapter contains a lot of very helpful tips and isn’t the usual rubbish they push at you on this topic. If you don’t like the revision process I would highly recommend a close reading of 14 it will most likely make for a quick revision later

chpter sevonteen is Chapter Seventeen

Chapter 17 is all about revising and editing both very essential parts of the writing process and oddly it’s probably my favorite part. I really enjoy watching a crude rough draft turn into a solid final draft after a few coats of polish. I really like to put myself in my reader’s shoes, as this chapter suggests, and do a run through my paper. As I do I analyze; would I get that if I hadn’t written it? That fact seems like a stretch how can I make it more credible? And similar questions are common for me during these analyses. Another thing I do that the book also suggests is as I’m reading I ask myself who cares? If I can’t read it and see the point how could someone else? If you can’t see your point you know you have some more revising to do. One very good idea I had never thought to do was read the document from finish to start so the natural flow of reading it will be disrupted. This will force your brain to focus a little harder on each word and help you catch those pesky little typos. I feel like every time I reread something I wrote, even years later, I can’t help but fix this or tweak that just a little which leads me to believe there is no true FINAL draft for a writer, just the draft you finally stop re-reading.

Fine Design

          First off I want to start by making note this is the only class in the history of my school career where I have actually needed the very expensive book I was required to purchase. So thank you for actually putting my money too use!

          Chapter 18 is all about the design elements and options you have for your paper. "The design decisions you make will play a critical role in how your readers understand, react to, and work with your document"(285). It has several very useful tips on how to best lay your paper out, such as, how to use font size and typeface to catch a readers attention. A lot of the tips come off as a little obvious to be fair, but they are really good tips. The most useful part in this chapter, at least for me, is near the end when they break down several articles into their design elements. I found it really helpful to see the things they discussed during the chapter put into play in actual magazine articles.

Chapter 15: How to Use People

   

Ok so how to use people sets a negative tone to this chapter so let’s use the phrase they use. Chapter 15: Using Sources Effectively. Ok so that title explains it all, this chapter is just about how to best implement your sources into your work. It discusses using relevant sources, how to present conflicting sources, as well as how to use sources to support your assertions. That is all covered in the first half of the chapter, the second half the focus shifts from how to best use a source to how to properly use the source. They talk about how to properly quote someone such as the correct way to do block quotes or partial quotes. This is good to know... correction, this is essential to know in order to avoid accidently plagiarizing someone when you simply meant to quote or present their ideas as theirs. It would be awful to fail a class or worse because of plagiarism, when you honestly thought you were giving your sources their due.

Sweet 16

            Chapter sixteen is all about jazzing up your writing. The main focus is on developing sentences into clear concise and entertaining paragraphs. you cant have a mundane paper or no one will want to read. It also gives a helpful hit on developing your voice that I couldn't agree with more and that is READ. The more books, articles, and journals you read the more different writing styles you'll encounter. This will help you find sentence structures you like and also find style you may think to avoid. I was happy to see that several of the tips for improving your style I already implement, or at least try to implement into my writing. I also made note that several of the things to avoid I seem to occasionally implement into my writing. Of coarse this is a good thing to have pointed out; why would I work on fixing it if I don't think its wrong.

The Clock Strikes 12

            Chapter 12 is the chapter on developing your argument, unarguably a very important aspect of a successful paper. This chapter basically covers how to first choose your reason and then present the information in an appealing way to your audience. There are many different ways to approach your appeal. You can appeal to Authority, a means of asking someone to accept your reason because an authoritative figure supports it. You can appeal to emotion, though not recommended in academic writings where logic should prevail. You can appeal to principle values and beliefs as well as character and logic. There is also a large section on how to keep the integrity of your argument by avoiding such things as sweeping generalizations and red herrings.

 Quick note: the book talks about how the term red herring came from the practice of sweeping red herring, which apparently stink badly, across your trail to throw off tracking dogs. Not really important, just a fun fact.

ONE ONE

Chapter 11 is the chapter that first gets to the writing part of the paper with developing your thesis statement. Your thesis statement is essentially the main point or argument you’re trying to convey to your readers and is often closely related to your research questions. It is important to note that while researching your topic your opinion or views my change from started. This is normal and ok and should not slow you down so long as you change your thesis to reflect your change in opinion and change in direction of the paper. I have, for some time, known what a thesis statement is and how use them; however this chapter really clarifies how to best use one. It demonstrates how just rewording the thesis can set the reader up for a different experience. For example the statement the federal government should leave marijuana legalization up to the individual state sets the reader up for an argumentative paper where as the statement those in federal government need to pull their heads out and allow the state to decide on the legalization of marijuana would set the reader up for an opinion essay.

Field Research or Chapter 10

Chapter ten is about doing and using field research to further learn about your topic. It argues that despite the growing trend in using field research as only a  means to fill in the holes in your topic you couldn’t find elsewhere, it is in fact one of the best tools you have when it comes to learning about your topic. A section of this chapter covers interviewing, another observing, and still another surveys. There are several good tips in this chapter on conducting each one of these types of field research and in what seems to be a growing trend TAKING NOTES CAREFULLY is still a very important part of the process. Although this chapter does a good job at introducing these methods for my particular topic I don't see much use I can take from it, though I am now considering setting up an online survey perhaps on Facebook. I just need to figure out how to implement it into my research.

Lucky Number S7even

The importance of what chapter seven is all about is unarguable. Chapter seven covers plagiarism. Plagiarism is theft and should be looked at the same. With that in mind i think (or hope) that very few writers set out to plagiarize another’s works. This chapter does a great job at addressing just that by giving you a better idea of just what constitutes plagiarism and how best to avoid accidentally stealing ones work. Proper citing of your sources is important to this as well as understanding common knowledge use. Something that is considered common knowledge can be left without being cited, however determining what is or isn’t common knowledge can be a bit tricky. It seems, based on this chapter, the most important step in avoiding accidental plagiarism is to TAKE NOTES CAREFULLY. Always write down where you get your information and take note of any paraphrasing.

Chapter 6 : The Great Dissapointment

Chapter six, my biggest fault, the bane of my life, my Achilles heel, and the beast know by most as organization! This is one of my biggest weaknesses and I spent my whole life trying to better my results on the topic with very little improvement. I have developed myself a way of sifting through the chaos and creating a strong final out of that chaos however there is no doubt in my mind if I could get myself organized it would be a much faster less trying and cleaner process. Because of this I approached chapter six very enthusiastically and because of that enthusiasm I was bitterly let down. Perhaps I was just hoping too much, like one chapter from a text book could correct a lifetime of poor organizational skills, but I felt like the chapter was fairly phoned in.  “You can use the COPY and PASTE commands in your browser and word processer to save digital documents and graphics.”(95)… um, no shit Sherlock. It seems to just been full of obvious ways to store your information and I personally will not benefit from simply knowing how to store information (I got that part) I need tips on how to keep it all organized.

A Step Back to Chapter 3

Chapter three is all about research questions and proposals. It goes into a lot of helpful tips on creating research questions and then how to refine them to better focus your topic. It also talks about the much less common act of broadening your questions if you seem to have narrowed in too far. All of this was pretty much standard review for me until we got to the proposal part. This was a new topic for me and I do give this chapter a lot of credit for teaching about how to get around to doing that properly. I really never understood the purpose for them before this if you weren’t trying to get funding for the project, but they can be a very important organizational tool as well. One major complaint I have about this chapter is it breaks things down to much sometimes. When it was talking about how to do your proposal I want from “blah, whom would need that” to “Ok now I get this, I can see how this could be useful” then the book continued to drag on until I hit “Oh god this is over whelming!” It should have stopped at “Ok now I get this”.

I Plead the Fifth

So now you have your topic, you have your research plan, you have a nice little chunk of collected and critically read articles, books, and web pages, so what’s next? Chapter five is next and chapter five is all about evaluating that nifty little chunk of source you have collected. Just because a source exists doesn’t indicate that the source is credible or accredited. It gives you a lot of little tips and tricks into figuring out just how accurate reliable and trustworthy a source is. It also stresses the idea I had not considered of checking when the article was written. An article on advancing computer technology written in the 60’s might not be your best source for a paper on modern cell phone tech even though the two are interconnected in their own way.

There is a very, very helpful guide, illustrated guide I feel obligated to mention, that really breaks down how to evaluate a web page. I think this is one of the most important sources to evaluate as it is unedited and un-reviewed more oft than not. A web site has no restriction on presenting lies as honest truth and they should be more closely scrutinized to determine its value as a source for your paper.

Web Site Evaluation

The Site: www.NAP.edu/openbook.php?record_id=6376&page=1

1)      Check Domain – The domain is an .edu meaning it is a website dedicated to higher education. This is credible.

2)      Check Title Bar – This web sites title is Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base This title indicates a connection to my topic and is credible.

3)      Search for information on the Author/Publisher – The publisher of this site is the National Academy of sciences. They are a non-profit organization with a staff of members that are elected annually based on their distinguished and continuing academic achievements. This seems to be an incredibly credible source.

4)      Check Timeliness – Though there is no publication date on the article the copy right is dated 2013 making the page very current and relevant.

5)      Read and Evaluate – This is a relevant and credible source for my topic.

6)      Check the Footer – This gives me an office address and a link to their mother site lending more credibility to the organization.

From this evaluation I can deduce that this web site is reliable, credible, and relevant to my research paper.

Chap Four

Chapter four is about reading critically again as the heading would imply. Its focus is on the value of understanding what it is you read and knowing why it does or does not pertain to your topic. More so than the pertaining to the topic, does it support your position and opinion’s on the topic? It stresses the importance of not taking anything at face value.

The point of this chapter to me is that these articles are written by people just like me. People with thoughts and opinions just like me. People with biases just like me. So say the first article you ever read on the subject of cats talks about how awful a creature the cat is and how they are on top of the worst pets in the world list. Not having encountered any cat before you would be inclined to believe this man’s (or woman’s) article. However with further research you find the next ten articles simply adore the magnificence of the cat and how purrfect (pun very much intended) a cat is as a pet.  You will now have a much stronger idea of just what a cat is. Rereading that first article again might, at this point, invoke a blinding internal rage as you have now learned just how wonderful these creatures can be. Had you taken the first article at face value you would have avoided the cat forever missing out on a creature you actually love.

Chapter 2

Chapter two is the next step in perusing your research papers. Chapter one is all about picking your topic and narrowing it down; chapter two is all about how to go about researching that topic. It gives you several great ideas on where to get your information such as the obvious sources of books and the internet down to the less obvious such as newspapers articles and scholarly journals (though this should be an obvious source for a research paper, I personally had never really considered it before this class). It suggests using available data bases to find these articles, which is another really good, and obvious idea I had not considered.

I found this chapter to be of more use to me then the latter because picking the topic as always been the easier part for me. Researching however always feels daunting to me, with sources like the internet presenting overwhelming amounts of fact, opinion, and pure fiction it becomes almost scary to dive into the waters. This chapter, like the last breaks down your goal into not one massive project but several little tasks. This helps settle my brain as it gives me an easy task to focus on and I can stop looking, and stressing about, the big picture until it’s almost already done.

Chapter the first

Chapter one as its heading implies is all about getting started. It talks about how to approach your researching with confidence and how to pick a topic that will inspire you to write, or that you are already inspired to write about. Essentially if you have no interest in the subject you’re writing about how is anyone supposed to have any interest in reading what it is you wrote? A big portion of this chapter covers picking a topic. There are tips on brainstorming and importantly it reminds you to think about why you’re writing a research paper in the first place. Is it just for that coveted 4.0, or do you have something personally invested? Who’s your target audience? Would they care about your topic? Is your writing style over their heads or worse yet is the writing style beneath them? This chapter is just to get the cogs in your brain lubed and spinning; it’s time to start thinking about your paper.

 I feel like this chapter is trying to say ok you got a big ass paper coming up and I’m sure your stressing it like crazy, but look if we break it down for you like this it’s just a series of small tasks, not one gigantic paper. So relax and approach each task with confidence. When all these little things come together you’ll see you wrote your whole paper, no sweat. Now as far as the brainstorming tips they have in the book, to be blunt they are of no use to me. They are the same tired ideas they shoved at me in 3^rd grade and have continued to shove at me ever since. That is not to say they are bad tips just that for how my mind works they are unsuccessful. Fortunately I have been able to come up with my own ways of brainstorming over the years so this shouldn’t present a problem for me.