Get Smart About College

Get Smart About College, written by S. Baum and M. McPherson, discusses the process of picking out the right college for incoming freshmen. Parents and students may think they're 'dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's,' but they fail to realize the bigger picture when it comes to financing for school. One reason for this is how a school presents its financial aid, e.g. XYZ College charges $40,000 for tuition and offers a $10,000 scholarship, instead of simply stating they want to charge $30,000. The second reason why parents overlook the bigger picture is short-term thinking. Most often, people will see the school's price tag and only think about the first job their students will get straight out of college. In the end, the school with the best price will get chosen, instead of the one with the best fit for the student. The last reason the article mentions is due to the misleading warnings, bad examples, and "inspiring" stories. Some families think that college isn't worth it, or they hear of "captivating headlines." They don't understand the bias these stories hold. At the ends of each point are helpful tips for parents and students. 


I chose this article because I can personally relate to it. A year ago, I was in this position, desperately trying to pick the right college. I was never told the financial aspect to the decision making. I do think I would have an easier time writing about this because there are a lot of ideas I agree and disagree with.

Help Change the World

Some aspects of the class that have been helpful to me are the papers. I'm not particularly fond of writing, but having to write about different forms really put me in my place. They showed me where I was as a writer and helped me figure out what I needed to refine. Therefore, my writing process has definitely changed and improved since the beginning of the semester. My weakest link is elaborating on key points in paragraphs and explaining their significance. Once I go back and pick out the sentences that are just left without an explanation, I’m able to ask myself why that sentence is important to the overall topic of a paper. If needed, I’ll jot down a few reasons why it is or isn’t on a separate sheet of paper. If it is, then I go back to the paragraph where I found the ‘lone’ sentence and fix it. If the sentence is not relevant, then I not only take it out of my paper, but I recheck my key again to see if everything else supports my paper.

Another huge impact on my writing is the Writing Center. Although it’s not directly in the classroom, it’s been a great benefit to me. I’m able to meet with someone who’s been in my position, and have her breakdown the parts of my papers. I always ask her to be as honest and, dare I say, ‘nit-picky’ on anything she may not agree with while reading. She pointed out that even though writers finish their version of a final draft, there is always room for improvement.

Eat Pear-Flavored Applesauce.

So I tried making a venn diagram in Word--failed. Online? Don't wanna talk about it. Now I'm forced to do it the boring way...eh.


Writing an ad analysis and a literacy narrative essay are the same in the sense that they both express someone's thoughts and opinions. Depending on what the focus is for each of the papers, their tones can be serious or more on the casual side. Regardless, an ad analysis is always going to be different because the writer has to prove what's being written. She has to take specific examples from an ad to back up her argument. If she were to write a literacy narrative, there are no "facts" to back up her words, nor does she have to state them. Her narrative is a story from a moment in her life.


Considering these points affected the choices I made when writing my papers. Again, I have to pull information from the ad I'm analyzing to back up my arguments. 

Sad, Sad Doggy...

• Purpose. The purpose of this ad is to promote the PEDIGREE Adoption Drive, their dog food, and raise awareness of sheltered animals, particularly a dog named Echo. In the text, it states that when you buy Pedigree, a donation is made to help dogs in shelters find new homes. The lower right corner provides the total donations to shelters in 2008.
• Audience. The target audience is mostly adults who can afford to take care of a dog. However, it also attract families with children. The text features Echo's story of how she became the victim of a divorce case and how different her life is now. Many people can relate since Echo's story is very similar to others. 
• Genre. This ad is similar to other Pedigree Adoption Drive ads. The main characteristics of them all feature a sad shelter dog behind a fence and dark background. 
• Tone. The sad story about Echo while she is sitting in a dark lonely cage create a despairing tone. All the more reason for someone to take sympathy and help animals in shelters.

Revisions

The first paper of college is back in my hands...graded! Oh, the horror! ;O 

• How specifically does your final paper look different from your rough draft? 
• Actually, I had written a rough rough draft before peer reviewing. That draft was complete crap. I revised that edition to take to peer review. So technically, my second draft was the one reviewed. The difference of that draft and the final paper are the few grammatical mistakes and how I worded the paragraphs. 
• Did you make major revisions to the content, organization, focus, etc.? Why or why not?
• Definitely. After reading the revisions PowerPoint on omitting words and instead use better action verbs, I took out a lot of unnecessary wording. The organization of the paper was switched just a bit, but not too much to really throw off my main topic. 
• After revising your paper, are you able to identify your own pattern of error(for example, I know that as a writer I tend to be excessively wordy and am prone to comma splices)?
• I already knew what my main issue was before I started my paper. I'm terrible at explaining the significance of papers. Actually, I don't even write it. It's not that I don't want to or I'm lazy, I just have trouble with it. Likewise with clarifying the importance of some paragraphs. There would be a lot of 'junk' (I don't know a nicer word) added in all because I can't express my thoughts onto paper.
• What guided you to make the revisions you did? Was it peer review? Rereading your own paper? Other factors?
• There were two paragraphs I struggled with: one about an old game and the other about walkie-talkies. After re-reading them over and over again, I felt a strong urge to fix everything about my paper. 
• What aspect of your essay do you think is the strongest? The weakest?
• The paragraph retelling my first hands-on experience as a 'texter' is my strongest. It uses a nice flowing style and most of it is concise. As a writer, I feel like I got the message I wanted to portray in that paragraph. The weakest are the second to last and last paragraph. They have the most errors and don't sum up my feelings or significance of paper.

Overall, I say I did an OK job. I used the idea from "Shitty first drafts" to start out my paper. Usually I'll organize my thoughts into an outline, then build from there. The plus side is that I actually got my thoughts onto the screen without having writer's block. The bad side is that it's not something I'm used to. So all my thoughts were disorganized. It's good I got to experiment with a different writing style instead of using the "same ol, same ol,' but I think I'll stick to outlining. >.>

Irresponsible. I know.

1. Ideas. An excellent paper responds to the given assignment. It's interesting and and clearly communicates its main ideas. It may also recognize the opposing arguments, but will follow up with a well thought-out significance. Whereas a mediocre paper is a much weaker version. 
2. Style. Another reason an excellent paper is, well, excellent, is the level of detail. It will use a specific style and appropriate wording in all the right places at the right times. How a sentence is worded fits the paper's audience and purpose. They will focused and varied, instead of drawn out and unnecessary. The mediocre paper will be vague and use general dialogue. Its sentences may be repetitive and confusing. 
3. Requirements. This one is the most obvious tell tale signs. A paper will most likely receive an "A" if it has checked off all the requirements the teacher and/or rubric has asked for: size, font, margins, grammar, paper length, etc. There should be little to no mistakes. 

The biggest problem I have with writing a paper is style. I can never fully explain what needs to be explained while fitting in the right words. I always lack some detail that would ultimately make my papers great. For example, I could be at the last paragraph of my paper, which is usually the conclusion. Two or three sentences later, I'm done. I get feedback on that last paragraph and readers are left wondering what the bigger picture of my paper was. I clearly met the requirements, but in general, there's never enough substance.

Literary Narrative Ideas

1. The topic I want to write about involved me learning how to send text messages for the first time. Cell phones are fairly new pieces of technology and were completely different ten years ago than its present model. A lot of the interface and functions changed as technology advance. That never stopped me from trying to keep up with new times. 
• Writing about this topic inspires me to produce a well-written paper. I can clearly remember the facts and details, plus it is something that affects me today. The downside is that I can easily get off-topic.
2. Another idea could be the time I first listened to The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe being read aloud by my second grade teacher. She got be into reading fantasy books when I was younger. Although she wasn't the "sweetest" teacher ever, I really appreciated her reading such a higher level book to a bunch of seven-year-olds. Honestly, that was the only part of second grade I enjoyed.
• This topic could be made into a good paper. I can vividly explain my bookshelf filled with all my old children's fantasy/adventure books, or the reading times sitting on the rug in my old classroom while my teacher read to us. The downside is that there's a giant gap between then and now because I don't have the time to read an adult fantasy/adventure book for fun anymore.
3. The last topic I can think of would date back to the first grade. I would purposely get in trouble just to write what I did was bad multiple times on one of those handwriting papers.  I started writing while I was in pre-k and since then have gotten a lot of compliments on my handwriting. I guess I wanted to see my pretty writing on something tangible. My teacher figured out what I was up to. So I had to ask for her permission to write on these.



Handwriting paper.

• I can't really think of any pros to writing this into a paper. I basically summed up every detail into that one paragraph. This topic is covered in such a short period of time that I can't possibly write a three paged paper without me adding unnecessary words in there. Good times, though.