Kendra's Site

In my essays I believe that I have some trouble in breaking up my argumentative sentences, and I tend to make them to be a run on sentence.  When I believe that I have a really good argument, I want to get it all down on paper so that I don’t forget or miss anything that I want to write down. Although, when I am doing this I tend to write more than one argument in a single sentence. Just now I almost did it at least once while I was writing my first sentence, but I stopped myself. I feel that I am learning to do it the right way already after just reading the passage once.

I chose to write about chapter eight. This chapter was solely based on  getting out of the habit of connecting your sentences without making them go on longer than they should. It gave me a list of words useful to make your sentences connect correctly and make them run smoothly with out just blurting your arguments out. I found these to be very useful and intend to use them on my final essay. I chose to read this chapter because I remembered it being very interesting and helpful when I had to read it for my blog eleven. I also thought it could give me useful tips on my final essay.

I used the techniques that were suggested in this chapter and found it to be very helpful. I was able to make my sentences that sounded to be said with out stopping or think, into sentences that sounded very planned and well thought of before putting it on paper. I used a few of the words listed in the chapter and they really help me create well worded sentences.

My goals for my final paper are to, first, organize my paragraphs properly. While I was peer reviewing my classmates noticed that it seemed out of order. This is because while I was writing my free draft, my main priority was to just get all of my thoughts down on paper. Now, my intentions for my final draft consists of taking the time and making sure everything is it the right place so that it flows smoothly. Since this is a shorter final paper, another one of my goals is to fit all of the most important material, and not have floating sentences that aren’t necessary in the context. I am going to make every sentence count.

The steps that I am going to take in order to achieve my goals is to come up with a pattern of organizing my paragraphs, so they flow from one paragraph to the next. I am also going to make a rubric with points that I want to fulfil in my paper. That way when I am focusing on my word count, I don’t have to put much thought in the arguments that I want to create. This is probably going to be the biggest challenge because there are a lot of good points to be made while being cautious of the word count.

My resources that I plan to use if one of my conflicts is to hard to solve on my own is my writing fellow. She can help me make sure everything is organized and categorized correctly. She can also give me insight on something that I may be missing or tell me to take out something that I don’t need.

I feel that a lot of people feel impeded by their life story depending on what they grew up on and what experiences they had as a child. If you were raised to be smart, to always do your homework and do chores, you would feel impeded to do the same as you grew up. For me personally, one of the things that I was always told to do was to be kind to other people. Naturally I grew up learning to be kind. As Schechtman says, “by developing and operating with a (mostly implicit) autobiographical narrative which acts as the lens through which we experience the world.” This is stating that most of us experience the world relying on our past stories.

Galen explains that he experiences life in the present. He does try and make memories in order to tell them or write stories about them he just lives these moments as they come. He doesn’t forcefully enjoy moments, he does it just because. He uses a quote from Fernando Pessoa stating, “Each moment I feel as I’ve just been born/ into an endlessly new world” I feel that this is a great way to live, and that more people should experience live as if it is the only day in their life.

Julie Beck gave me a lot of insight on looking at life as a story. There were many instances where I agreed and related to her text. She continuously states that our use in telling our lives as stories is a way of organizing our lives into pieces to express them to other people. She also states that explaining your life is inevitably told as a narrative. It is very hard to explain your life in a different way. Mostly because your life happens in events, specifically one event leading to the next. Finally, she states that different people have different degrees in how deep they engage into their stories. This all depends on how they think of their personal life stories. I felt that I related to the description about how age impacts our narratives. We are capable of telling our stories even at a young age and as you get older those stories that you tell begin to develop and advance into more meaningful and descriptive narratives. I felt that this related to me because as I was young, I mimicked this action of telling my life as a story and as I grew older, I realized that these stories meant something and that was when I was able to advance them and create more descriptive ones. I agree with most of Julie Beck’s text and believed it provided me with insight on how we tell the stories of our lives.

Brainstorming is a very important part in creating a paper. It can help you get your brain thinking and revolving around the subject at hand. It can inspire your point that you are trying to get across and help with starting your paper if you are in a rut and are unable to say what you have in your head. My personal preference while brainstorming is using the “free write” technique. This is when you take time before writing your actual paper and just attempt to write freely. Whatever ideas you have in your head you put it down on paper as it comes to you. It doesn’t matter if you spell things wrong or skip over words. The purpose is to just get all of the ideas down on a piece of paper to get it out into the world and not have it trapped in your head where no one can see it. If you are trying to write something that you know people will see you will hesitate when writing and not write what is in your head. You will write a paper depending on other people’s judgment of your paper. In your free write there is no judgment because no one is seeing it, and you are able to get all the ideas that are stuck in your thoughts down on paper freely. This is a very useful technique that works very well for me and probably many other people as well.

In Yo-Yo Ma’s article he states, “The values behind arts integration- collaboration. Flexible thinking and disciplined imagination- lead to the capacity to innovation.” (Yo-Yo Ma) He explains that art is a critical part in the learning and understanding process and if used correctly it has the potential of creating a drastic effect. This is relating to how Pinker sees science as an outcome from these skills that were given to us through art. Pinker states, “The commitment to intelligibility is not a matter of brute faith, but gradually validates itself as more and more of the world becomes explicable in scientific terms. The processes of life, for example, used to be attributed to a mysterious élan vital; now we know they are powered by chemical and physical reactions among complex molecules.” (Pinker 2013) The way we perceive molecules, and such are through images and models. We founded the laws of physical and chemical reactions through art and sciences.

Pinker states, “To begin with, the findings of science entail that the belief systems of all the world’s traditional religions and cultures- their theories of the origins of life, humans, and societies- are factually mistaken.” (Pinker 2013) Just as Pinker believes that science is our answer to the mysteries of life, I agree with him. I believe that there is an answer for mostly everything and those answers are found through science, and not religion and culture. This is because science has facts that have been studied for years and years and religion and culture is an idea that was made and passed down from generation to generation.

Summary:

In the article “The Future of Science… is art?” Jonah Lehrer argues that, you need to have the experience of art to have a good understanding of science. He shows that things such as dancing, sculpting, writing, and painting can alter one’s perspective on scientific theories.  He uses many reliable sources to back up and create a strong argument on what he is attempting to prove.

Definitions:

The word reductionism is to analyze something complex; especially when you are trying to explain a good definition of the phenomenon.

The word synapse is a junction between two nerve cells; where neurotransmitters are diffused.

The word holistic perspective means to think about things in a big picture perspective.

Surrounding context is “the part of a written or spoken statement that precede or follow a specific word or passage, usually influenced its meaning or effect.” (Google)In this specific passage, “Yo-Yo Ma”, The surrounding context involves the author which is Yo-Yo Ma. He has a remarkable bio that includes having seven Grammy Awards and has produced more than ninety albums. He has earned many other awards and graduated from the Julliard School as well as Harvard University. Circumstantial context is “referring to specific details about something.” (Google)The circumstances surrounding my personal reading experience are things such as the environment I am in. If I am in a loud place with distractions such as my phone or people talking, I will more likely not be able to focus on the task at hand. The purpose for reading the current text is to annotate and find useful information for the given prompt. The word intentional means, done on purpose or deliberate, so I can only assume that the phrase intentional context would mean to specifically organize context in a way that shows a clear argument of what the author is trying to explain. A rhetorical situation is the context of a rhetorical act. It has to involve a writer, an issue, and an audience which is exactly what is provided in the text. In the passage, the scope is him trying to argue that the decision making and thinking process must include empathy and artistic endeavors.

I think I am doing well in my annotations with relating to the text and understanding it and being able to write down my own thesis and conclusion. Although there is still a lot of room for improvement, I believe It has helped me be more involved in critical thinking.

My experience was a little different from Anne Lamott’s. While I was writing my first draft, I felt that it was written much differently than hers were. Mine was written in the mind set of expecting my peers to see it and annotate my work. Where as Anne knew that no one would see her writing. My mind set was I would have to make my free write sound some what good and I was stressed or worried most of the time of what my peers would think of my writing. If I knew that no one was going to see what I wrote I might of wrote my free draft more carelessly and got more of my thoughts down. I think trusting her process of writing would be really good for me. This is because I do get stressed and worried of what people will think of my writing so I attempt to write my papers thinking that everyone will see them. In trusting her process, I think that if I do decide to follow it, I would be very happy with the results.

Revision Plan Strategy

My personal goal for revision is to create a well written paper that has good grammar, is well organized, and clearly portrays my thoughts and ideas.

Steps in order to achieve this is:

–          Create a free write to get all my ideas and thoughts out on paper.

–          Read over to check my grammar and organization.

–          Let other people read my paper and ask for them to provide their honest opinions and helpful comments about my paper.

–          Rewrite paper with all new and helpful ideas.

My biggest challenge with revising is getting all my thoughts down first. I find it hard to just write what ever comes to mind because I am constantly thinking in the back of my head what other people are going to think of my paper. So I feel pressured and end up holding back on a lot of poetically good pieces of my essay.

For this specific issue that I struggle with, I can use a lot of my resources to help me out with this problem, such as my writing fellow. She is there to help me figure out where I’m getting stuck and help me to get out of that rut. I can also use the help of my friends to support me by keeping me encouraged on what I am writing.

I felt that prioritizing global edits over local edits was definitely a more complicated task. This is because you are taking in account a majority of the essay and attempting to revise it. Rather than a few here and there grammar errors. You are attempting to look at the context as a big picture and not small increments of it. Although it was challenging at most times it was also a great experience. This is because it was a great way to reach out and have a chance to see other people’s work on your specific prompt, and not only yours. I was able to branch out my opinions as an overall point of view and decided to apply this method to my paper and was very satisfied with the results. Another reason why I enjoyed global edits was because it gave me a chance to see what different paths were all chose to answer the prompt. I felt that it inspired me to work with different arguments throughout my paper. So not only did it allow me to get experience in reviewing other peoples work but encouraged me to elaborate more on my own work. This was an overall great experience and I believe I have gained many strengths with this exercise and hopefully helped out my peers by giving them supportive advice on their work.