Weekly Reflections

Here are four academic sources that I have found for my essay:

Title-

“Modeled Dietary Impact of Pizza Reformulations in US Children and Adolescents”

 Title-

 “Pizza and risk of acute myocardial infarction”

 Title-

“Friday Night Is Pizza Night: A Comparison of Children’s Dietary Intake and Maternal Perceptions and Feeding Goals on Weekdays and Weekends”

Source 2

Title: “Consumer Spending on Pizza Delivery in the United States from 2004 to 2019”

 

Author: Surveyed by NPD Group

 

Location: Statista

 

How did you find this source? Statista

 

Briefly explain the content of the source: The source shows how much U.S. consumers spent on pizza from 2004-2019

 

What makes this a valid source?

This source is extremely valuable because it comes from a credible source (Statista). According to the website, they collect their data “…based on the primary data gathered by our research teams and on secondary data from our partners.”

 

Why is it beneficial to your essay?

This will be beneficial to my essay because it gives readers a sense of just how much money goes into the pizza industry, which supports the idea that pizza is eaten frequently enough (it’s very popular) to be taken into consideration of our nation’s health.

 

 

Today’s writing group proved extremely insightful and informative. We talked about Monday’s zoom, and how to use the “one search” library database. This helped me immensely, because I was still did not truly understand how to use the library data base. I then found a source that I believe will prove very helpful in my essay. Then, as a group, we discussed the purpose of project three, specifically part five of project three. This was the most informative and helpful part of the entire session. My group mates cleared up any confusion I may have had about part five, like what kind of sources we had to use, and how to effectively summarize sources. Overall, the meeting proved very productive.

My research question has been deemed almost acceptable.  The research question is “How has our popularization of pizza affected our responsibility to health?” . It is not fully acceptable because I have not refined the subject of the thesis. To improve this, I will change “our” to “the United States’ “. My new research question, then, is: “How has the United States’ popularization of pizza affected our responsibility to health?” I kept the second “our”,  leaning on the assumption that readers will know that I am addressing Americans. Should I change this?

If it turns out that there is more data on international pizza than national, then I will change the subject once more. I did not interpret my data correctly because I didn’t include a contrasting graph. Including a contrasting graph would have allowed readers to adequately determine the immense investment that the U.S. has on pizza compared to other foods.

The word I would choose to sum up the semester up until this point would be prioritizing or prioritization. I would say last semester or term was far less time consuming than this one. This seems to be the case of all my classes. I do not know if it is my bad planning or large course load that makes this semester more demanding. However, I am certain that I could improve my stress with decent time management. I hope that this word characterizes the rest of my semester, because, for me at least, more time results in more effort. More effort consequently results in better grades. Last semester, I implemented a calendar into my weekly routine. To be more specific, I bought a dry erase board and color coded all my classes for different days of the week. For example, any classwork that was written in red I completed on Monday, and blue on Thursday, and so on and so forth. I stopped doing this towards the end of the semester, when things began to wind down. However, after seeing the importance of scheduling, I will ensure prioritization will happen by getting a homework journal, dry-erase board, calendar, or by setting reminders on multiple devices instead of just one.

During the group session, my peers were extremely helpful in explaining what the tasks were, and how to execute them. Firstly, we discussed what the objective of the session was, then we began discussing our different approaches and sharing our confusion. We shared ways that we started on part 1 of project 2, and everyone was kind and patient in answering questions. Some questions asked were: “Can we have more than one type of food” and “What does other name for the food mean?”. These questions emphasized the importance of brainstorming and peers, which, in consequence, will help me grow as a writer.

This week, I found the peer review to be very helpful and very insightful. My peer’s comments highlighted errors and oversights, and made me reconsider my topic sentences. Additionally, when reading my peer’s essay, I noted good things, such as a title page and a captivating title. I noticed, for instance, that I had not put my title in the proper spot, but rather, just as the first sentence, which could confuse some readers. Additionally, I had to correct some of my peer’s citations, which allowed me to properly correct mine. Overall, the group session was highly beneficial and successful.

This session helped me grow in many ways. I got to learn different approaches from my peers, which helped me revise my thesis. I also have a clearer grasp on what the purpose of synthesis is. In essence, synthesis is making a point by combining the similarities and differences of multiple sources, or, making a claim based upon the connections between sources. I am glad that this was brought to my attention, as it directly impacts my view of the articles, and therefore, my writing process. Formerly, my thesis was a bit vague and lifeless. Now, I have a thesis that hooks readers and establishes a topic. The methods used included, but were not limited to, color coding, pro con listing, and venn diagraming. As for questions, I asked what methods were most effective for each member, and how they helped shape the thesis. Overall, I would say that the discussion group improved my writing abilities in terms of conciseness and clarity. I find this extremely helpful because I tend to go on tangents when I write- or talk. This will force me to use the strongest words in my writing, so that readers don’t become bored or confused, and to ensure the point is fully realized.

During this group session, I reconsidered the approaches I used to complete part one. I was confused about the due date, and thought part one had to be done by today. So, after everyone had shared their methods, I shared the methods that I used to finalize my thesis and synthesize the sources. The approaches that my classmates proposed included, but were not limited to, highlighting important or interesting passages, color coding, and annotating. I took these into consideration. The one that I considered incorporating the most was the color coding method, because I tend to memorize things easier when good grouping measures are used. Color coding effectively and easily groups ideas. The methods I proposed included: finding a recurring theme or idea between both articles, identifying the uses of logos, pathos, and ethos, and comparing the proposed solutions in both articles. Additionally, I feel the ice breaker questions were a very good idea, although one that we did not have time to implement amidst the confusion of what to do. However, overall, I feel that today ‘s zoom was pretty affective in getting a general and specific idea of how to complete part one of the assigned project proposal.