University of Mississippi
2. Study your hardest by forming a study group or just a group of people to go to the library with
3. Treat your self to something that relaxes you when you feel confident about your work
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For the Researched Argument Unit, the course learning outcome that connected to my work the most is the obvious choice, research: students will understand what constitutes credible evidence, how to incorporate evidence in their own writing, and how to use library databases to find sources of evidence. I had to find sources for this paper, as with every paper, but this paper required scholarly sources that I was able to find using the Ole Miss library database. This was my first time using a library database for a paper and it was a very useful tool that I will definitely be using in the future. It was nice to know that the Ole Miss database was most likely not going to lead me to a source that was not a credible one, but I still had to learn how to check to make sure that the author was indeed credible. The hardest part for me was incorporating the evidence I found into my paper. Finding the sources that coincided with my topic was easy and interesting but I kept wanting to summarize everything I had found and really had to work on condensing it and only writing the basics, what the reader needed to know, and filling in the rest with my analysis. As with the other papers I had written, I struggled with analysis but this time I really felt like in the end I nailed it and could see improvement in my analyzing skills since my first paper in this class which was very rewarding. I was really proud of myself when writing this paper for absorbing some of the constructive criticism I had received on the past two papers and working hard to not repeat the mistakes I had made in earlier writings. Overall this paper was the biggest challenge for me but is the paper I have come to be most proud of in this writing class.
In the politically charged opinion piece by Arthur C. Brooks, the lines that called out to me were about the distaste that people from opposite parties had for each other. Brooks writes that “[W]e also don’t like one another very much. Thirty-eight percent of Democrats have a “very unfavorable” view of Republicans, and 43 percent of Republicans hold that view of Democrats. About half of “consistently liberal” Americans say most of their friends share their views, and about a third say it’s important to live in a place where that is so. For those who are “consistently conservative,” these preferences are even more pronounced” (Brooks para 5). Originally upon reading this, his words surprised me and I doubted the validity of the statement. However, upon looking at my own life, I realized that the people I associate with and, on a wider scale, those that my parents associate with, all have the same political bumper stickers on their cars or signs in their front yards this election season. This confirmed and made me see the possibility of this in the rest of the country, that when it comes to politics birds of a feather (generally) flock together. It occurred to me that this “flocking together” is the easy route, realizing that it is easy to go to dinner and talk about politics when everyone can generally agree without getting heated. Of course it would be nice if people from opposing parties didn’t have to discuss politics in a way that is “more contemptuous than angry, overflowing with sneering, mockery and disgust (Brooks para 9)”, but in today’s world that is how politics are not only talked about over the dinner table, but in televised debates between opposing party candidates. Since living together is the easy route, the hard route would be, in my opinion, trying to persuade those who did not share your views in an educated, calm, neighborly manor instead of the fervent anger or feeling of the others stupidity that is seen and felt in most debates. It is easier to get mad and understandably so when it comes to something you are passionate about but most people do not respond to anger and the feeling of being looked down upon so it seems that it would be much better to try and convince someone by presenting yourself as on the same level as the person you are trying to convince. This is rarely seen even among educated adults, who as these statistics show, can hardly bear to live near people of the opposing political party. This raises the question of why people can hardly ever seem to peacefully discuss politics? If you were a real estate agent trying to persuade your clients to buy a house, you would not start by screaming at them about how horrible, disgusting and stupid their current house was and then in a pompous manner describe how this new house was all the better. So why do educated and involved adults take that approach when talking to their friends and colleagues about politics?
Brooks, Arthur C. “Bipartisanship Isn’t for Wimps, After All.” The New York Times. The New York Times, 09 Apr. 2016. Web. 11 Apr. 2016.
The most recent creative endeavor I found myself on was the last time I was visting home and was visiting my local URBN factory store. This store is heaven for any girl that likes the brands that URBN owns: Free People, Anthropologie and Urban Outfitters. This store is packed with things that was sent back to or didn’t sell from the distribution center up the road and is a place I frequent more then I should when I am home. It requires creativity just to walk into the place, clothes are in boxes on the floor, furniture is broken and there are chips in the china they sell, but everything in the store can be repurposed for a new use. While searching I came across a ripped poster of a beach scene that I had to have and somehow make work in my bedroom at home. I took it home, cut it to fit a frame I had purchased, and to get rid of the tear in the poster, and proudly hung it up on my wall. Although it was a small feat, every time I go home and look at it, I think about my little creative endeavor proudly.
In the Washington Post Article, “Your reaction to this confusing headline reveals more about you than you know” by Ana Swanson, the line that called me from the page was, “Getting hitched might seem like an odd reaction to a disaster. But in an uncertain time, these couples found something stable in each other. As psychological studies show, uncertainty triggers a deep craving in all of us for stability, and that can motivate people to do strange things.” This called me from the page because it reminded me of a memory I had forgotten. When I was in the eleventh grade on a normal Tuesday at school, I was watching the clock and counting down the last five minutes before the bell rang to go home. That day I didn’t hear the bell because I was being ushered out of the three story school building along with thousands of other scared students because we were under lock down. We had no idea if it was a drill or an actual emergency until we saw the looks of panic on our teachers faces and knew it was not a drill and our lives were at risk. We stood in the stadium bleachers for three hours while waves of panic and unsure thoughts about the future came over us. We ended up being fine and it was just a precaution because there had been a devastating shooting at a community college down the road. I will never forget the thoughts that I kept inside about the things I had wished I had done when I thought my life was in danger or the things that my classmates and I discussed, things that they had wished they had done, while we waited, unsure when we were going to be let out of those stands. “Several studies suggest that natural disasters, including Hurricane Hugo in 1989 and the Japanese tsunami in 2011, led to a spike in marriages or divorces — both of which are a form of certainty, Holmes says” This reaction to consider the things that have been left undone and then wanting to do something crazy after a stressful, life threatening situation, according to this article are totally normal. I was amazed that these people actually went through with these crazy thoughts until I remembered the things I had thought of when my life was threatened and realized that it wasn’t so crazy after all. In this article I also realized that I am someone who is inclined to search for closure and that that could be one of the reasons why in stressful situations I think about the end of my life and regrets I have. Although I did not always agree with the political views of the “closure minded people,” I do agree that I am the “type of person who likes to make plans and avoid surprises.” I found it fascinated that the conclusions the mind jumps to could be the wrong ones and that they could survey our surroundings and still make a faulty conclusion. I also think of myself as a very creative person and was fascinated to learn that “wading through confusion is part of the creative process” because wading through confusing to me feels stressful and the opposite of creative. This article fascinated me but made me wonder why our brains, when faced with stressful situations, would trick us and amplify our stress filling our heads with regrets and the worst possible outcomes, instead of calming us when we needed it?
Works Cited:
Swanson, Ana. “Your Reaction to This Confusing Headline Reveals More about You than You Know.” Washington Post. The Washington Post, n.d. Web. 04 Apr. 2016.
At peer review today I got lots of great feedback and feel like I really have a clear direction to head in when I revise my paper to be turned in. My topic sentences are working well with my body paragraphs, my thesis is clear and introduction strong, and the overall message and content is scholarly and working toward a common theme. However, my essay is organized by source more than point which needs to be improved and I also need to use other sources in my paragraphs because I am usually only using one per paragraph and two per claim. I am feeling good about my progress and the revisions to come!
If I could attend a conference to talk about a shared interest it would be about fashion. Fashion weeks, up to six times a year, are similar to conference style forums where people are all together and interested in a common theme. However, if I could attend the conference I would want it to be based specifically on the designers process and the people in production, such as the seamstress or the person sourcing the fabric. I do not know everything about the other areas of the fashion process but I am so interested in learning about the actual making of the garments and accessories that go down the runway.
This article written by Barbara K. Lipska, a neuroscientist and the director of the Human Brain Collection Core at the National Institute of Mental Health, was unlike any of the other articles that I have read in this class and was very compelling a little scary to think about. What called me from the page was the following, “The M.R.I. scan later that day showed that I indeed had a small brain tumor that was bleeding and blocking my right visual field. I was told it was metastatic melanoma and given what was, in effect, a death sentence. I was a scientist, a triathlete, a wife, mother and grandmother. Then one day my hand vanished, and it was over.” This was a shocking revelation that all of a sudden you could one day not be okay. The thought of my brain being taken over by “tumors, inflammation and severe swelling” causing me to not even be able to see limbs of my body was chilling. Lipska’s piece is so dark and yet is written in the lightest almost playful tone that makes the subject matter easier to swallow. The way she describes, so matter of factly, the strange things that her condition made her do make them almost funny rather then scary for example, “I got lost driving home from work on a route I had taken for decades. I went running in the woods outside my house, barely dressed.” The most alarming part of the article was what I read between the lines. This very highly educated woman, who daily worked with people dealing with mental illness, studying the signs of onset, treatment and symptoms, did not know until almost too late that she was suffering from a nearly fatal condition in her brain. Surley, I thought, she would be familiar with signs of something wrong and take them seriously but instead her thought process was a lot like what I assume mine would be. “I had battled breast cancer in 2009 and melanoma in 2012, but I had never considered the possibility of a brain tumor. I knew immediately that this was the most logical explanation for my symptoms, and yet I quickly dismissed the thought. Instead I headed to a conference room.” The question that this article raised to me was not about the symptoms and effects of her conditions, although those were terrifying, but it is if this highly educated woman did not know about a condition in her body in a region in which she specialized, then how would someone like me know if something were fatally wrong with my body?
This semester has been much harder then last semester when I took mostly pre-requisites. I have had to adjust to a larger workload and learned more time management skills in order to make the grades I want and to feel in control of my school work. I am really proud of the way my writing skills have improved and my ability to receive constructive criticism. On the first writing assignment, I thought I had done much better work then the grade I received. However, upon reading the comments on my paper, I agreed with all of them and began to understand the grade I got without getting angry or upset. I used those comments and implemented them into my next paper, and did so much better. I also have really come to like peer review. I thought I would hate having other students look at my work and break it down, but I have found it is invaluable to making a good grade on my papers. I am really proud of my work ethic and attitude this semester and hope to keep it up.
Unlike the last writing assignment, I started off struggling with serious writers block for the Rhetorical Analysis. I had a really hard time finding a New York Times Op-Ed piece that I felt confident would make a good topic for an extensive analysis. The day before my topic was due, I came across an article that had been posted that morning and immediately knew it was the one that I was going to be working with. Writing on Why Do We Teach Girls That It’s Cute to Be Scared by Caroline Paul really taught me about my writing process particularly the specifics of the Writing 100 outcome that includes brainstorming, planning, drafting, reviewing, revising, editing, and proofreading. The first draft I wrote was completely in agreement with every point the author made, as I had been upon reading the article for the first time. But once I started to dive deeper into underlying meaning and flesh out critical analysis, I realized that certain claims the author made, like the one where she believes in basically only one way to raise a daughter into a “right” type of woman, were claims that I did not agree with. I struggled once again, as I had in my last paper, with balancing the implementation of quotes to get my message across. I think that I did a much better job incorporating quotes into this paper and used much less to just as convincingly convey my points. In the past I have struggled with analysis, but for this paper, I think because it was only the analysis of one article, it came naturally once my writers block subsided. The only main problem I had was writing a conclusion, which now I realize I could have made stronger with more summary and closure. Overall, I am really proud of this paper and the things that it taught me.