Unit one final essay

Tim Mattson

Jeremy Branstad

English 102

13 February 2011

Reflection on Unit One

My research was difficult and simple. Finding an article to write about was the toughest part for me. There were lots of articles out there but finding one that fit what I was researching about was the hard part. The articles were very short sometimes making it difficult to find one with sufficient information. When I found an article to write about it became very easy from there to do the extended bibliography. The easiest part was coming up with questions for the last paragraph. Each article I read had many questions that I wanted answered afterwards. I did sometimes have to go research what certain words meant. The article I did with the volcanoes had some technical terms that I came across. My research was successful I felt like I was listening to both sides of a story when I was finished.

There are many differences between writing on paper and writing on a blog. I personally love electronics so I enjoy using the blog. The past few days have been a headache for me for electronics. My thinking is starting to change about electronics for writing papers. I wrote this paper on my laptop and as I was typing my computer crashed. It is gone; there is no repairing the laptop. Unfortunately I was out of town so I was not near a computer. Long story short I ended up making my weekend getaway one day shorter. Went to best buy bought a new laptop and here I am writing the paper again. After this experience I’m always going to write my paper on paper first. That way I don’t lose all of my information. I am enjoying writing on blogs verse the typical research paper.

My writing for academic is way different then when I write normally. When I write academic papers I find that I don’t have very much interest in them. I have a very hard time figuring out what to write about. Even when I finally figure out a topic I still have difficult times deciding on what to talk about. When I write nonacademic I write short and simple. I’m not much of a talking person. I think of I didn’t have a limit on how many pages I had to write then my academic writing would improve. I tend to add random unnecessary sentences when there is a requirement I must reach. There is one time in my life that I enjoyed writing papers. That was for my English 101 teacher Kathy. She was a great teacher my writing has improved greatly from her class. In class so far I feel like I have learned a lot from the extended bibliography. It helped me look at a different side of life. My academic writing is slowly improving.

I have many weaknesses and strengths with writing. My strengths are that I have the ability to learn. Even if my writing is not strong I have the ability to learn to make it strong. I’m good at writing about my experiences. I’m sure everyone finds it easy to write about their own experiences. I have many weaknesses of writing. Many of these weaknesses I talked about in the paragraph above but, I have a difficult time figuring out what to say. That’s my number one problem. I think it could be that term writers block. When I’m writing I will be halfway done with a paper and my mind will just go blank. I will have no idea what to talk about. I tend to have to stop writing and come back like an hour or two later before I can think of what to write about. I have a problem with grammar. My grammar is definitely not the best. I reread my paper over and over, yet I still make mistakes on my grammar. I’m trying to improve on my weaknesses its slowly progressing.

My thought process and my thinking have changed a little from the research. I use to have a really basic format when I would write. I would always have a topic paragraph then a few paragraphs about each topic I introduced in the topic paragraph. Then I would always end with a conclusion, restating all the things I talked about from the rest of the paper. I learned this technique in my English 090 class. It’s a very helpful tool in keeping yourself organized. I don’t use that format so much anymore. It’s more of just a guideline to follow. My thinking has changed a lot from my research. Instead of keeping a closed mind and thinking only about what I believe, I’m attempting to see there reason. I find that when I think about both sides of the stories there both good arguments. Neither person is wrong nor are they right for most cases. For example a person that hates video games because they think that the violence encourages younger people to follow. I use to really be annoyed by people that try to ban video games because of violence. I love video games. This person’s reason for wanting to get rid of violence in video games could be a valid reason. This person could have experienced something in there life that this happened making her dislike violence in video games. Now for the other side of things the average person that plays video games does it for entertainment, just like how people watch action movies. Most people aren’t going to commit crimes based on what they do in a video game. By looking at both sides of a story, it can greatly increase our understanding of one another.

I have learned a lot so far in this class. My confidence for writing research papers has increased. Looking at both sides of an argument is the best concept. I think everyone should be taught at how to see both sides of things at a young age. I’m hoping to improve my grammar from this class. I have also learned that technology can be good but at the same time it can be a disaster.