Some Highlights from Post #4

The following are just some highlights I pulled from your 4th posts. If you have something interesting or insightful to say about blogging/research/writing that you'd like to add (or copy and paste from your 4th post), please do so in the "comments" section. I didn't mean to slight anyone and everyone wrote something worthwhile!! The words "made me think" and "intense" popped up a lot to describe blogging and research - GREAT! I'm personally very happy with how this blogging assignment has gone. And although Blogger was a supplement to the Annotated Bib assignment, it's not going away just yet, so don't lose your login info. -Ms Ingram

"Blogging has allowed me to identify exactly what I know and don't know."

"Blogging has taught me that writing down my thoughts somewhere where I can go back and read them is extremely beneficial. Blogging really helped me organize my thoughts and ideas. I also believe blogging can help you build off of your orignal topic. I learned that being organized can really payoff in the long-run. I predict that my blog will continue to be helpful to me as we begin our next papers."


"This blog...has helped me realize that I need to take the time and reflect on the work I have done and the progress I have made even if it isn’t a required assignment."


"when you write something down, it has a different significance and meaning then it does when it is in your head"

Fourth Blog Post Assignment

Let's move this due date back as well, to Saturday 2/25 by midnight.


For this post, let's focus on the "writing to learn" aspect of blogging.


You're probably used to using writing to communicate. You write e-mails to your family and friends back at home, you facebook chat, you text, you complete homework assignments, you write essays: you write all these things to communicate something. Maybe that e-mail to your mom is clarifying what time she'll pick you up from campus this Friday. Maybe that text to your friend was to communicate your excitement about your Spring Break trip. Perhaps that homework assignment was to communicate to your Sociology professor that you've read and understand last night's chapter. This blog assignment, however, has been less to communicate and more to learn. 


Return to the passage I quoted, from our textbooks, in my "First Blog Post Assignment" post:
Good writing comes from returning to your ideas on your own and with your classmates, reconsidering them, and revising them as your thinking develops. This is not something you can do with any specificity unless you have written down your ideas (12). 
The authors of our textbook are saying that you have to write, throughout the entire writing/research process, to keep track of your thoughts and to make sure your ideas are fully developed.


And consider this quote, one of my favorites:
I never know what I think about something until I read what I've written on it. -William Faulkner


Also consider this quote:
Writing has got to be an act of discovery. . .I write to find out what I'm thinking about.   -Edward Albee

So my question to you is, what have you learned from doing this blog? About the research process? The writing process? About your inquiry question? About yourself? Aim for a few meaty paragraphs here - and think about the genre of blogging. Even though you might want to contain your blog within my classes, which is absolutely fine, the larger purpose of blogging is to share your ideas with the blogosphere, with other blog writers and readers - and interesting blogs get followed. So, make your last post as interesting as possible. Put some muscle into it! Be creative. Be insightful. Be thorough. Have some fun!

Did You Know...

To all my shy students who would rather not walk over to the library and ask for assistance at the reference desk (where, by the way, there is always a librarian on duty!):

You can Chat LIVE with a librarian via the library website - http://library.uncc.edu/
Just click on "Live Chat" in the orange bar across the top. If the site asks you to log in, I believe you use the same login info as you do for 49er Express.

I'm enjoying your blogs!

Third Blog Post Assignment

This third blog post is now due Saturday 2/18 by midnight. Wow, I packed a lot into this semester-but there is SO much to think about as we traverse the world of academic writing.

Please answer the following questions in your 3rd post:

(1) Some of us struggled a bit with the infamous "list" on pg. 2 of our textbooks, so I'd like to revisit some of those concepts here...

Readers: The readers of your annotated bibs are you, me, and your classmates. But soon enough we will be entering into academic conversations with our essays. Who will YOU be writing to? Can you decipher yet who will make up your audience, even in broad terms? (Example: You are writing about the dangers of yoga, so your audience members will be those who practice yoga because you want them to be aware of the risks they are taking).


Timeliness: Making sure a reader understands why your topic is timely is crucial to them caring about your writing. Do you have a better understanding now of why your topic is timely, or how you can make it timely? Explain.


Investment: Your investment in your topic goes right along with timeliness; if you don't care about your topic, why should anyone else? Why are you invested in this topic? (In other words, why do you care about it?) Why do you think (many of our) high school teachers instructed you to write objectively without any sort of personal investment in your writing? Why do college teachers suddenly care that you care about what you're doing?


(2) Are you starting to see multiple viewpoints emerge in your research? Can you list them here?

(3) Tell us about one new and interesting thing you've learned about your topic this week. What have you learned about the process of researching?

(4) Read and respond to at least one other student's blog. Find a blog that interests you and provide an interesting perspective, some helpful advice, or ask some questions. In your post, please mention the blog you commented on so I can see it, too.

Good work - onward!

Second Blog Post Assignment

Your syllabus says this 2nd post is due Friday 2/10, but let's move that back to Sunday 2/12 by midnight.

OK, for your second post, please...

•  Tell us about the most interesting source you've found so far. What type of source is it? What's the title, and who is the author? Why is it interesting? Give us a brief summary of the source, in 5-6 sentences.
• As you've been researching, has your topic changed? Have you revised your inquiry question?  For instance, say your initial question was "Why do some people choose to be vegetarian?" As you've been researching, you've realized how you can narrow your scope to something like "Is it healthy for vegetarian parents to raise their children as vegetarians?" OR "In what ways is being vegetarian better for the environment?" How will narrowing your scope affect your research -and the eventual writing you'll do about this topic?
• What challenges are you facing in your research? How might you address these challenges? What research "tips" do you have for your peers?