English 106

There are not many pieces of writing that I have been particularly proud of over my past 19 years.  However, there is on that sticks out in my mind : My Senior Research Paper.

Throughout high school, from freshman year until a senior year, the beginning of the year is the same.  The reuniting of friends, early alarm clocks, and all the seniors complaining about their senior papers.  At my high school, Floyd Central, senior papers are one of the first assignments that are assigned during your Senior year.  And with it being assigned, you can bet your life that the whole senior class will be talking about it.

“I’ve never even written a five page paper, how am I supposed to write a nine page paper!?!?!” is a very common thing to hear while roaming the hallways.  You may also witness the occasional person crying in a corner or someone having a mental breakdown due to the stresses involved in this paper.  I, being no different than anyone else, shared in many of these thoughts and actions with my fellow classmates.

Digging from book to book searching for anything of value for what seemed like days on end was definitely not my idea of fun. Of course, staying up until three in the morning  with coffee cups littering my desk to finish the paper the night before wasn’t my idea of fun either, but it had to be done. However, when all was said and done, I had created my longest and greatest paper yet.  Although the days were long and nights even longer, my Senior Research Paper was something to be proud of.

The grant proposal I chose is: Proposal from New Visions for Public Schools to Charles Stewart Mott Foundation.

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This grant proposal details a plan to help schools implement a program to help students prepare for college and their upcoming careers.  It would include a partnership with Policy Student Associates.  In the proposal, it lists off points such as “redesigning the whole day, a seamless learning experience, proving students with multiple ways of learning, and anchored to high standards.”  These all are followed by detailed summaries of how each would apply and how they would work.  The proposal is requesting $500,000 in support over the next two years.

This grant proposal hit most of the expectations I’ve had for grant proposals.  This proposal had six main headings, which are numbered using roman numerals.  It also had a couple figures to help effectively show data such as budget and their “Steps for Collaborative Leadership.” However, there were some areas in which this grant proposal had things that I wasn’t expecting.  This proposal did not have a bibliography, therefore does not cite any sources.  I’m not sure if this was because it was stated in the call for grant proposals or if the authors decided they didn’t need to use outside information.   In my opinion, every grant proposal could at least use a couple sources to help backup their argument, which could add greatly to their argument.  There is also a cover letter, which I never thought of, but would be a good idea to include in all grant proposals as an explanation to the company offering the grant.

This grant proposal is similar because it uses headings which will be used in our grant proposals.  It offers figures and tables which support their argument and add to it.  I believe that our group will most likely have table, figures, and/or graphs in out grant proposal to help support the arguments that we are making.  It has a timeline and budget sections which will also be included in our proposal.  I think budget is one of the most important parts of the grant proposal because if the organization offering the grant doesn’t feel that you will be using the money efficiently, they will most likely not offer it to you.  It is very important to be detailed and coherent when writing up the budget.

As I previously stated, this proposal does not have a bibliography or any cited sources.  This is probably the biggest difference from our grant proposal.  Our grant proposal relies heavily upon research and learning the area of study that our grant proposal affects.  In this grant proposal, and many grant proposals, the people writing it will be very knowledgeable about the field.  This means that they may have enough prior knowledge to where they don’t need to reference other sources to make an effective argument.  Obviously the topic of the grant proposal is different from ours as well.  I think a cover letter may be a good thing to add to our grant proposal after the title page.  It could get us good practice and create a more effective argument.

Lethem is adamant that societies have been teaching plagiarism all wrong over the past decades, especially since technology has been constantly changing.  Technologies such as computers, the internet, audio recorders, cameras, printers, text messages, etc. have all made plagiarism that much easier to commit.  “Commit.” Commit is a great way to describe how teachers have been teaching plagiarism to their students.  When people think of the word “commit” most think of a crime, and according to teachers, plagiarism is one of the worst crimes known to man.

However, Lethem argues that the way technology has changed, has changed many views on copyrighting and plagiarism.  I totally agree with this statement.  Back before the whole world was connected by the internet and someone created a new invention, it would be almost impossible for that news to travel from the Americas to Europe within a reasonable time.  The news would have to be taken by boat which would take a while, and that persons invention could have been replicated somewhere else by that time.

Nowadays, news of a new invention is almost instantly available at any point in the world.  This makes it very difficult for people to claim that they “didn’t know” about the other persons invention.  Lethem also mentions how people used to try to replicate works of music, but could only get so close.  Now society has developed ways to record a musical performance and relay that sound identically, making copyright laws very stringent.  One of the most interesting ways that technology has changed copyright and plagiarism viewpoints is through the use of social media, emails, text messages etc.  Every single way that you communicate with others through the internet is copied and stored somewhere.  Earlier in time, copies would have to by physical which was very easy to prove when someones rights were infringed upon.  Now, people can create copies of books, movies, articles, etc. and store them on their computer until the end of time. I believe that technology has, and will continue, to change the way that our intellectual property is protected and thought of.

Throughout high school, I participated in many assignments which needed research in order to complete.  These assignments were mostly English papers.  However, some of the assignments were in classes such as meteorology, physics, and other classes.  Many of these papers only required research from a couple sources and all of them could be accessed through the use of the internet, which made it very easy.  I have the most experience with researching over the internet, and I would also say it is the easiest.

My most extensive research project was my Senior Paper in English.  This project required many in-person sources such as books, magazines, etc.  This was the first time that I had been required to have these types of sources and it was definitely a more difficult experience than web-based sources.  However, I found many helpful tips and tricks associated with gathering research throughout the course of the project.

Some of the tips I learned while in high school were also discussed in the textbook.  I think one of the most difficult parts about researching for a large project is picking the important and non-important information.  When researching using web-based sources I usually just pick information as I need it from the webpage.  I think one of the most helpful tips is to take notes while you are reading the source.  By writing down the important information when you first read the source, it helps you from going back later on and trying to find the information again, which saves you time in the long-run.

The step-by-step process laid out by the textbook is an excellent source for researching.  The process is way more in-depth than I every thought research could go.  I’ve always thought of “Decide on your argument” as a beginning part of the process, however, the book places it as one of the last steps.  I think it is very smart where they put it because you should have all the information before you make your final stance.  Researching has always been the most fun part of papers for me because I get to learn interesting information, and it also delays me writing the actual paper. (Writing is my least favorite part)

Rhetorical analysis was a new type of writing for me.  I had never written one in high school, or during my freshman year of college.  I found some sporadic resources about the rhetorical triangle and used them to research about context, audience, and purpose.  However, I did not find many resources about rhetorical analysis papers.  The main resource I used for writing my paper was the book used in class.  I found it had many helpful points about the rhetorical points and even had a couple examples.  I typically used the book while I was in the process of writing.  It helped me refine my writing into detailed and conclusive points.

One of the best resources for writing my rhetorical analysis was my notes, the in-class revision session, and the conference time where we discussed my paper one-on-one.  I think I also would’ve benefited from using the writing lab for help while writing my final draft, but I was unable to find time in my schedule.  I think I also could’ve used the Purdue OWL to help while writing my paper.  The absence of a lot of resources for writing rhetorical analyses made it difficult to know exactly how to format and write the paper.  It would’ve helped to read some excerpts from rhetorical analyses that had been written about other websites.

I also think difficulty was somewhat determined from what website you chose.  Certain websites, especially those with narrow purposes and audiences, was difficult to write multiple paragraphs about those topics.  For me, one “dream” resource that would’ve been very helpful is an online submission to the writing lab.  Since I didn’t have time to go to the writing lab when I wanted to, it would’ve been very valuable to be able to submit my work online, and have someone a the writing lab give me feedback.

1. In this peer review session, we focused more on content, sentence structure, and organization rather than your typical session of checking grammar and revisions.  In the past, the peer review sessions have had detailed sheets that were used to help guide us and we were forced to fill out every question.  The paper used in this class was more of a guideline so I didn’t have to fill out every question.
2.  I learned that my paper was very repetitive and by taking some parts out, I could improve my rhetorical analysis. I also was told that some of my sentences/paragraphs could work better in different places. As a reader I learned more than I thought I would.  I learned a lot about the flow of information and things that should be stated in the introduction to set up the rest of the body paragraphs.
3.  I enjoyed getting feedback on my paper because I knew it was far from perfect.  The only thing I could recommend is that the peer session be a little longer but I understand that we were under a time restriction.
4.  I think it is similar in that it is more personal than the whole classroom setting.  They both also provided great feedback on my writing.  One difference is that it was two students instead of a student and a professor which gives the student a different point of view than just receiving feedback from the professor.
5.  The most helpful part about my peer review session was the feedback I got on my writing. I believe that I will get a better grade because of this session and that is definitely a plus.  I would be open to doing this in this class again but probably not in other classes.  In other classes I would most likely just go to the writing lab to get help.

The website I chose is http://www.dhmo.org/

1. The purpose of this website is most likely to trick people into supporting a fake cause.  The audience is people with low IQ or anyone who stumbles upon the website and is looking for a quick laugh.  Anyone who reads English could be a member of the audience. This website has no logos or ethos because there are no facts in this website and the author is not credible because the cause does not exist.  The only appeal that is being used is pathos.  The author tries to relate DHMO to the audience by showing ways it is potentially harmful to them.
2. The website is very bland on the right side and needs something to full the space.  The website could also use more colors and designs to make it look more pleasurable to the eye.  There are many pages that have long scroll bars with a lot of text which could be fixed by widening the area the text can go.  By far the most pressing matter of the website is that it should be about an actual problem unlike the danger of  DHMO (or H20/Water).
3. Member of the audience would have a hard time staying on this site for long due to the repeated colors on every page and the large amount of hyperlinks on the page.  Looking at a page for long gets annoying and frustrating.  Also, most people in the audience would find out that the website is fake very quickly by knowing that “Dihydrogen Monoxide” is actually water and that there is no threat from this.  As soon as the audience realizes that the author cannot be trusted, most of them will tend to leave unless they stay just because they are curious and/or are looking for a laugh.
4. This website using alignment very well. Most of the pages on the website are either left aligned or centered.  However, the website does not make good use of contrast, repetition or proximity.  On most pages, there are wide areas on the right that are left blank and most of the writing is focused on the left side.  The website repeats the same colors, alignment, and style over and over again to the point at which it gets boring.  The website uses blue, red, and white on almost every page which another bad use of repetition.  DHMO.org also puts the same color text and background on top of each other on some pages which makes the text totally unreadable.

1. For the Parents

2 . For the friends from back home

 

3 . For Mitch Daniels

 

This is my first post.