thank you

I would finally just like to thank my professor, Dr. Lorde, for giving our class the time and for filling us with the information that we know have that will hopefully further us along in our careers. My hat goes off to you. She was generous enough to let us redo a couple of our writings that my fellow class mates and I have previously done and to turn them in and to receive a new grade as our new efforts. I do believe that she gave us a fair and appropriate amount of time to work on each project, and for that I thank you!

Class time and at home time

I think over all I spent the appropriate amount of time in class and out of class to complete this course. I will back this statement up with that we were never given any in class time to work on our writings, so therefore I did all of it obviously at home. I think that in class we could have learned more out of the book and more book information instead of just watching a movie about a porcupine riding a rooster and dodgeball. I do understand the point that she was tying to make but me and my peers would agree that she lost all of our interest.

Final

On the final there are going to be three sections that are included. One is an essay on a movie that we will be watching Wednesday in class, the second and third will be on short answer. This final I am most worried about. Only because I don't feel like I have learned anything book smart that will help me pass the test or even further along in another English class. However I do believe that I have strenghened in my writing. I am glad that I opted to take another English class right after my English 101, like I did. I believe that this way everything that I learned previously helped me and transferred over into my new writing style.

Random

I am most worried about this final the most out of my other three classes. I don't believe that there was enough time spent talking of the book issues, rather than what I would consider random and irrelevant. At the beginning of the class they were around 25 students. Now at this moment there are only bout 7 who have decided to stay and to complete the course. I am glad to say that I am one of them, even though all of my friends have opted out and dropped, I stayed through and trooped it out over the long hall. If that's not an accomplishment in my mind than I don't know what would be.

Portfolio

This is just a collection of a couple of writings that we have written during this course and also a evaluation in the form of a essay of us critiquing how we think we personally did during the course. The portfolio will also include the blogs or journals that we have been writing over the past sixteen weeks. We had to include projects one and three and then the second would be all of our blogs in order. This had to be in a simple two pockets folder. We are not allowed to add project six into this grouping of collections simply because we have just gotten the papers back and also due to their enormous size.

Grade on Project 6

I believe that I had put a lot more effort in on my first draft than revising my final draft. I found it very difficult to make a thesis statement, and I still do not fully understand what a thesis is. I have received a D on my paper, which I understand, but I believe that I could have done a lot better. I don't think that the project was fully described. I think that a lot of my fellow peers would agree that we didn't know what the professor was looking exactly for. I think that time spent on other things in the class, could have maybe perhaps be spent on talking about things that are more relevent to the course or to the book.

Turning in the final draft of research

I was most worried about this due date since the beginning of the class. This was the biggest assignment that we have received and that we had to complete over the sixteen weeks in the class. This was the toughest and the most draining assignment out of all of my classes. This project was the research paper. It had to include 15 sources which were academic articles. That had to be the hardest part of the assignment for me personally. That and finding time to complete it and to put time into revising it. This project was given enough time to do, thankfully. I beleive that I personally did my best.

working on final

While working on my final paper I found myself really procrastinating and just not wanting to even work on this paper anymore. Its coming very close to the end of the year and I just found my mind wondering to different and more exciting things. I also need to return my library books soon , this Monday, because they are due. I need to get back into shape and into high gear to finish these last few weeks of school. I need to concentrate and to put a lot of well needed effort into this final paper and to get a well deserved grade on this paper.

Meetings

We had to sign up for a time slot either on a Monday or on a Wednesday. I choose to go on a Wednesday and I volunteered to go first. During this meeting we just met with our professor and mainly just discussed our first draft and what we needed to correct in time for the final draft to be turned in for a grade. We needed to correct theses mistakes and to work our butts of to make the final paper a whole lot better than the first draft that we had previously had turned in. This meeting was brief and short and after we were allowed to leave.

comments on first draft

One of the problems that I had with my paper was that I used a title page, which isn't part of the MLA guidelines. I need a thesis statement. What I thought was one, apparently isn't a thesis statemnet. I need to explain why I have put in my paper and why. I need to explain things better. My conclusion needs to answer my main question that I asked in the opening introduction. I also need to have an argument presnt in and throughout my paper. The tone of my paper was okay. I also need to make my main points more clear.

Peer reviewer look at

During peer review I mainly wanted my reviewer which was Kevin, just to see if my paper made sense, if my paper came across the way I wanted it too. Another problem that I had was when I went to switch paragraphs, to find a better one to follow it up with or to coinsign with it. By reading another students work really helped me understand more about what we were actually supose to do and how my fellow classmate wrote his paper. It helped me understand the citations a lot more. Out of all of the peer reiws that we had previousy in the class I would have to say that this one was the most helpful.

Problems while drafting

I went through many obstacles while doing my first draft. The first problem that I came across was trying to sort all of the information and to do so in a way that would make sence to me and of course the reader as well. Another was trying not to repeat my self and to group all the information in the same catagories. The next problem was to sit down and to clear my mind and to focus on writing the paper, not facebook or television, but in my actual paper. Another difficult thing I came across was citing the sources correctly and paraphasing what the previous author stated and to put it into my own words.

First draft research paper

This paper including the final was a 2500-3000 words. This was worth 25% of our whole course grade. This paper took me the longest to do oout of all of the papers so far in this class for obvious reasons.. Such as 2500 words! This at first teffified me.. but I soon got over that number and began writing like crazy. My first draft was not a "first" draft but rather a complete word processed draft of the entire essay. It included an introduction, thesis, body, conclusion, works cited page and and appendices. This was due on March 31. The final draft was due on April 21 which was approaching a lot faster than what I anticipated it to.

annotated bibliography

This project was to help us find our background and most of our main information for the final project. This was the time to find our useful and useless informayion.This was a "easy" paper to write if you knew what you were doing. I struggled with it. In this paper you had to give the MLA information and write a brief summary on how this article or book would help you in your writings. We had to use three books, 2 reviews, and then 5 scholorly articles, then we also had to choose 5 more items which were also scholarly. Each entry was worth 10 points with the constant MLA and 25-60 word annotation.

going to the library

I had to go to the library to get the essentials that I needed to start writing my research paper. I went to the Todd Libary at Waubonsee. I looked up and searched books that they had availbale and found them. To my surprise a lot of books popped up when i searched serial killers. I had to glance through the book to make sure that they were appropriate for my topic. To my surprise I found many books dealing with televisions influences on childeren. So i breifly disscused this in my paper. I found around five books that would serve a purpose in my paper.

Class Time

While in class my professor has used much of the time previously showing us and going over how to use the Todd Library and it's search engines. This was very useful in my research because this helped me with choosing the correct search engine ad even how to reduce the amount of hits by choosing my search words more clearly. She made it easier to follow and how to avoid accident from popping up and even how to narrow down the search terms. Without her showing us how to use the website I would be so lost, confused, and even frustrated trying to use the Todd Library. This website has shown to be much more information and more educational over than other search engines such as Bing and Google.

interesting things about my topic

One of the most interesting things about my topic was thinking about how some of the shows and t.v. shows show how a killer can get away with murder and how to beat the system! Shows such as CIS, Criminal Justice, and Law and Order , just to name a few, show how to do just that, I'm not even talking about some of the movies that they show these days! These shows show how to get away from the law and how these criminals don't get caught. They show how to do something without getting busted for the crime. There are too many t.v. shows and movies that may lead to an eventual killing spree in the future.

Research Proposal

While writing my research proposal I found that I narrowed my topic down and thinking down in a way. My first paper topic that I thought that I was going to use was What is it that makes serial killers kill? My teacher pointed out that they're aren't may serial killers to begin with, and pointed out how the entertainment media effects or may affect upcoming or future serial killers. So as I revised my paper my current question reads as follows, "Is media entertainment a training film for killers?" i find this to be much mor einteresting and a lot more clear. This also narrows down my question. i find this topic will be very intersting to search and to find information about as well as my reader to follow and to read.

outline for project 5

Today my teacher handed out the outline for our last assignment which is project-5 documented argument essay. My summary of this project would be to persuade my reader the validity of my paper. This is a persuasive essay supported by evidence by scholarly articles that states my position on my topic. The paper must be in MLA format including any information that we recieve and that we use towards our paper. We must include 3 books and 5 academic journals in our paper. The articles that we decide to use must be appropriate to our topic we must make sence and we should explain why we are using that article. The paper must meet a 2500-3000 word requirement. Our first draft should not be turned in as our "first draft".

project one

My first writing assignment of the class was the editorial assignment. I found it tricky to keep up on the blogs, do the paper assignments and at the same to keep researching all at the same time. With all that said and done we all had to revise our finals because they would have mostly have received F's on the papers. By revising my paper for the fourth time I received a C which I was relived because I was thinking the worse. This first paper had to be in APA format which i rarely have ever used to write papers in. That was also very difficult for me to do as well. While I was looking over my graded paper that my teacher had handed back to me I had found some silly mistakes that could have been avoided by reading my paper aloud.

search engines

Throughout my researching I have come across many articles that aren't relevant to my topic at all. I have learned to not only read the title of the article but to also click into the link and to read partial of the actual article. Some of the hits that the computer picks up are ridiculous. One or two words can pick up over 1200 hits alone. By looking through and actually reading or even skimming the article can lead to much more appropriate and even useful information. Most of the hits that the computer picks up are not what you are looking for and there are better hits out there that are more useful. By narrowing your search down for example by looking under a psychology or social search engine will also be very healpful.

library assignment

Today our class met in the APC building, in a room with computers. We were allowed to use these computers to complete an in class assignment. This assignment was related to our final research paper. We had to under mywcc and into the Todd library to complete this mission. This assignment had us realistically narrow down out topic and find the word or words that would be our primary search engine topic. After that we had to search these terms under different search engines and see how many hits we got and how many of those were relevant, on the first page. The words that ended up to be my final search engines were the words serial killer and media entertainment. This assignment was very helpful and even useful in my essay. It also familiarized with the website and search engines.

Research!!

I have recently started looking on the Waubonsee Todd Library and have started looking for books that I will use in order to complete and start my research paper. My teacher has spent every class showing us different search engines to use as under Purdue Owl and the Todd Library. This information is greatly appreciated and that I will be using. She also said that we need to start ordering books now! The libraries say that it takes generally three weeks to mail a book out. When we only have roughly seven to eight weeks to do the paper we need to find books fast and not only that but to find the right books or articles with the right information that can to our paper and make then sound better!!!

1st peer review

My partner for my first peer review was my neighbor in class Jamie. She was the one who was going to critique my paper and hand it back to me, as I would correct her paper also and hand it back to her. While reading her paper, which was also about tetxing while driving, I learned a lot. I also saw how each person has a different way of writing their paper, as to the words they use, the way they set it up, and even to their opening and closing statements. Her paper gave me ideas for mine, as top changing my opening statement and to make it more interesting. She also made corrections on my paper which made me understand what I did wrong and what I needed to change to make my paper overall better.

Other writings

While i am still finding more research about serial killers, I am also working on another paper. This paper is about texting while driving, and how it is as high of a risk as drunk driving. This paper has taken a lot of my focus of off my serial killer paper which is a bigger project. I'm finding that I need to do more time management and to target my main focus on the paper than is handed out at the time, while still concentrating attention and write down notes for that final research paper. The class assignments I believe are going to get harder and harder as the weeks pass on. The length of the papers are probably going to be roughly the same until the couple final of weeks. The class in it self it going okay and the conversations that we have during class are intresting. My teacher shows my class a lot of different websites to find books and articles under.

response to topic

I turned in the topic for my first paper which was What gives serial killers that spark of aggressiveness? My teacher replied with saying that they're aren't many serial killers to begin with and they really don't approach killing in a emotional way, that its more of a business stance. So with that being said I will be researching on to see how accurate the depiction of serial killers actually is. I believe that this is a better approach and will be easily more understood. I really enjoy my topic. Hopefully it will be easy to find books and articles on this topic. This is soo intresting and I believe my reader will also enjoy reading my paper as well.

About myself

In order to write my first paper or even to come up with the topics I had to find out things about myself. First off my name is Samantha. I have attended a catholic school my whole life. Waubonsee college is my first public school. I have been in sports since the 5th grade. I'm planning on getting my major in nursing. Some hobbies that I enjoy would be hanging out with friends family and boyfriend, shopping, walking and jogging with my dog, tanning, swimming, and outdoors things. Some aspects that I enjoy learning about are in the medical fields. Some ideas on the psychological field would be on how humans think, and even to the physical side to nutrition.

Psychology Asspect

I am currently in a psychology class and we touched on the topic of serial killers for a brief minute. Their home lives may have not of been the best. Such as they may have been beaten, parents may have been addicted to drugs alcohol or both, or they may have even been raped as a child. That doesn't mean that every child exposed to the occurrences will be a serial killer. With that being said, it also means that not all serial killers have this as a background in their childhood or even their lifetime. I find it so intriguing on what actually runs through their mind, what their childhood was like to make them just go on rampages on just kill, even innocent people.

Narrowing down

The two topics that I narrowed it down too would be The Nicotine topic and the Serial killer topic. I finally decided to do my research paper on serial killers. This interests me because I always wondered what runs through the mind of serial killers? How so they become so aggressive? What was their childhood like to make them want to kill? Do these killers think that they are perfectly fine and nothing is wrong with themselves? These are all the questions that I hope to find in my research while writing my paper. I will start looking for books and articles to help me answer hopefully all of these asked questions.

Finding a Topic

It was a lot more difficult than i thought to find a topic to research about. I knew that I wanted to write about something that I was definenltely interested in. Some of the ideas that were rushing around in my head were things such as something to do with the medical field or psychology which both interest me. For the medical position I wanted to write about how nicotine reduces stress in smokers lives, that would also relate to the psychology field as well. From the psychology field I wanted to write about what is it that makes serial killers aggressive. I couldn't really think of any other topics that would intrest me as much as those two.