February 2021

Reading Journal: Kahn

Nadia Sumlar

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Seth Kahn, “Putting Ethnographic Writing in Context”
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words This article was interesting to read because I have never heard the term of ethnographic writing. What I took it to mean was literary analysis on a whole new level. We are considering every little detail that we are putting in our writing rather than vague or mediocre information. Also, I believe ethnographic writing is important for our research papers, because we have to cover all basis of our research to make a clear and concise paper. We have to draw connections and deeply analyze our own research to possibly put in an argumentative paper later on. But more importantly, it can be used for our own personal gain as we come to better terms with what we are researching.  
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. Ethnography: anthropologists do this when they are living in a new place for a long period of time; they try to adapt to their living circumstances.  
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I have not read anything to connect this to. 
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. Have you done ethnographic writing before? How is it different from normal writing?

 

Letter to the Reader

Nadia Sumlar

I intend for this research essay to not only educate readers on a new community and organization, but to show minority people, specifically women, that there is a place for us. I don’t want minority women to think that there is no place for us on the campus. Yes, there are many other black organizations, but the fact that there is a community specifically for minority women is refreshing. The readers I am directing this towards are college students. From one of my peer reviews, they said that they did not know an organization like this existed. To officially know that I am educating someone on a new thing is exciting, and I hope other college students can gather that interest of my community. My process was really just trying to look back into how I felt when I first found ESTEEM. How good it made me feel, how excited I was at the induction ceremony, and how helpful we are to each other. I already spoke with the president and vice president of the organization about setting up my interview, and I have a couple more people who would not mind being interviewed. The feedback from my peers was very helpful, because of the positive words I was receiving from them. It gave me reassurance that I was on the right track for my research.

Critical Thinking #1

Nadia Sumlar
  1. I looked through the prompt expectations and I went from there. I thought it was important to show the significance of why I joined the organization and what it means to me. However, I also tried to follow the prompt and add in what it asked me to input.

 

  1. Certain information that I left out was because it would have overshadowed the main point of the project. I knew that there are certain things that had to be talked about in the paper, and so certain things I wanted to leave out because I thought it would take away from what the prompt actually asked for.

 

  1. The steps for my research was to first go through the instagram page of my subject. Then I went through the GroupMe that I am currently in. Lastly, I asked the president of the organization some historical background of the community.

 

  1. I really did not bring any assumptions or biases because I had first hand information about the community considering I am a part of it.

 

  1. I stuck with the facts as much as I could. And I did not come into this wanting to persuade someone to join my community. I just wanted to talk about the community I love.

 

  1. Right now I am in the process of looking for my two interviewees.

Reading Journal: Driscoll

Nadia Sumlar

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Dana Lynn Driscoll, “Introduction to Primary Research: Observations, Surveys, and Interviews
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words This article talks about three steps in primary research which are observing, surveys, and interviews. For our semester long project. I have done both observations and I am preparing for the interview portion. I think however surveys are done for more extreme cases like for a large group of people. I do think these steps are important. You want to observe your target audience or study. Then if it is a large group, you can conduct a survey to ask a certain amount of people. Then the big one is the interviews in my opinion, it is a chance to sit down with someone from the organization you are researching to get further details from what you observed. 
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. There were no terms I did not recognize.
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I have not read other articles like this
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. Do you follow the steps for primary research? And if so, which step do you think is the most important?

 

Reading Journal: Warrington, Kovalyova, King

Nadia Sumlar

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Kate Warrington, Natasha Kovalyova, and Cindy King, “Assessing Source Credibility for Crafting a Well-Informed Argument”
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words This was an easy article to read, because once again I can relate to it and I could really take pointers from it. Writers, when writing essays or analysis or research papers, have to use important credible sources to back up their evidence. We want to use sources that also use other sources for their writing. Sources that have a date, an author, and credible evidence. I have always double checked to make sure that the sources that I used were not in any way questionable. I usually get most of my sources from new sites and professional sites rather than makeshift websites.  
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. I did not find any words I did not recognize.
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I can connect this to lectures from high school about credible sources.
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. How do you determine when a source is credible or not?

 

Letter to My Selfie

Nadia Sumlar

I would definitely describe myself as a creative writer. When I have the opportunity to do creative writing, I thoroughly enjoy it, because it is almost like I get to have fun with my writing without worrying about the academic aspect of it. A time where I felt successful as a writer was when I was made editor-in-chief for my school newspaper. Out of everyone on the staff that were rising seniors my sponsors could have chose, they chose me, because of not only my work ethic, but because of the stories that I have written. It made me think I did something good as a writer. I would like to work more on literary analysis essays and research papers. I feel as if I could get passed them, but I feel like when I write those kinds of papers, it is very mediocre and not my best work. I am terrible at grammar, so I would like my instructor to be extremely tough on me when it comes to that. I am sort of like a free writer. I would stay on topic, but sometimes my mind would just wander and it could sometimes show on my essays.

Reading Journal: Giles

Nadia Sumlar

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Sandra L. Giles, “Reflective Writing and the Revision Process: What Were You Thinking?”
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words This is something that I read easily with no problem, because I could understand the process of it. As writers, we are often criticizing our work and other work, and we ask ourselves: “what are we thinking?” What was going through our mind through writing and reading, and what is going through our mind when we reflect on writing? There are many questions we ask ourselves and each individual has their own process of reflection and revision. As i said, this was simple to read, because I could relate to reflection, but also I learned new methods for the revision process.  
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. I did not see any terms that I did not recognize. 
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I have read other articles about the revision process and reflecting. 
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. Do you reflect on your own paper before or after someone else reflects on it?

 

Analyze Student Essays

Nadia Sumlar

Both essays were a lot to read, but I could safely say I enjoyed both, especially the one about poetry. What I liked most about the poetry essay that I think is a great strength, is that they had a great tone with their essay; in other words, it was almost as if they was explaining a club to a friend rather than a presentation for a professor. That is what I thought the other essay lacked about the Puerto Rico student association; although it was very informative, it was the hardest to read because it indeed felt like I was reading a research paper. What I give credit for both papers are the amount of reliable resources that they used. For the poetry they used sources from: books, personal interviews, reliable websites, and social media. For the Puerto Rico student association, they relied heavily on book information which is admirable.

Reading Journal: Melzer

Nadia Sumlar

 

Title of Article + Proper MLA Citation for Works Cited page Dan Melzer, Understanding Discourse Communities
Summarize the article — include your reaction, thoughts, anything to help you remember its claims. 100 to 150 words With this reading, I understand it a lot better than I did the other reading about discourse communities. I understand the goals and accomplishments and the things that these types of communities share with each other. In a way, these communities act more like family with each other rather than people who just share a common interest. Discourse communities in a way look out for each other no matter the size of the community. And it is almost like a safe space for someone because they share so many common interests but also because they want to achieve the same things, so they help each other out with it.
Define new terms and concepts by quoting or paraphrasing the original author. There weren’t any new words that I did not recognize. 
How does this reading connect to other articles from class and/or your own research?

 

 I can connect this to the previous article that we read about discourse communities.
Based on the reading, craft one question to act as a springboard for class discussion. If you are a part of more than one discourse community, what is the community you are the most active in.