After finishing essay two....

I finally finished my essay, but I don't think I did it right.. I was a little behind from all of the classes being canceled and I took a bit of a mental vacation.. Bad idea.. But I think I did alright. I covered my argument very well. I had no problem voicing my opinion but I don't think I did enough research.. So when I go back to edit, I plan on adding more text based evidence from both of my articles. To those who are reading my essay: feel free to leave feedback!

Essay two

This essay is much harder than I had originally anticipated, and I have been having a really hard time writing it. Coming up with an argument is especially tough when I'm not exactly sure how I feel about the topic. In a way, I guess I'm torn because I think that it's hard to put a lable on a blogging identity since each post is unique, but on the other hand, there are patterns and clues to determine who the writer is as a blogger. But I still don't know how to put all my thoughts into words for this essay :/

What I will do, with essay two:)

I've decided to use myself as the guinea pig! Based in the information found in the two articles I'm using, and Rettberg's book, I'm going to see if any of this information matches up with my blog and me personally. I'm interested to see if I fall into the same statistics or stereotypes of blogs that all the authors have studied. I will also see if there are any major claims that I strongly agree or disagree with. I think since I'm a young media involved college student, I might see things differently than the way they see things involving expression and media for youth.

Source #2

The article I've chosen is called "In Their Words: Connecting On-line Weblogs to Developmental Processes." I picked this article because it seemed very relevant to the topic of my essay and similar to Kathleen's article. Instead of how people use their blogs, this article discusses how youth can develop from their weblogs and how they think through what they post. There are some quotes that are a perfect fit, and I'm excited to cite this article in my essay.

Plans for essay number 2,

I've decided to stick to option number one. I'm choosing this option because I feel like our last essay was similar to option two, and since we are going to need another source anyways, I picked one over three. I liked reading West's article, and I think I would like to make an argument that technology should be used in the classroom more. However, there are a few reasons why it should be limited. I'm going to use West's research to help show that identity is strong through blogs where it may have not be as strong in a hand written papers. Also, how students can be more comfortable using these technologies versus pen and paper. I think I have a good idea to start my paper! (I hope).

Benefits from Blogging.

I enjoyed the article by Kathleen West and it made me wish I blogged more in high school! I too think it would have been the highlight of the week when visiting the computer lab for a blog post. I especially enjoyed reading about Lucy; she seems funny and easy to relate to. I would like to think my blogs have humor, but they don't seem as entertaining as hers. I agree about the identity, and personality shaped from blogs. Obviously since our last essay was about identity, it's fresh on my mind, but also seeing the movie "The Social Network" this weekend is another thing that re-enforces how easy it is to create yourself online. The language was another thing that stuck out. I feel like on Facebook and other social networking sites I'll use more abbreviations and acronyms but when writing on my blog I pay more attention because to my language since it's for a class and not just peers are reading it. It makes sense when saying the blogs are making the bloggers into serious literature students because I personally can see how blogging for this class has shaped my way of online writing.

My writing process includes music.

I'm always listening to music when I'm writing in my room, and I particularly like listening to the soundtrack of Peer Gynt, which is music from a Norwegian play. It's very relaxing and gets my brain going. If I'm not listening to that its Tchaikovsky's 4th or some Eric Whitacre (all the music is classical so I don't sing along!). Other than music, it's usually night time, and close to the due date. I work well under pressure. After a long session of writing, I'll usually take a facebook break or tv break. Depends on the night. I like to focus on my own thoughts, and just let the words flow. I'm not a fan of research papers unless it's a topic I'm really interested in, so I'm a little concerned about the next essay. It's extremely helpful when the topic is interesting. Writing is pretty easy for me, and if I have  topic, I can usually write something about it without difficulty. I like when things are structured. If something is too broad or general, I sometimes don't know what direction to go.

Reflection of my essay.

My essay is coming along pretty well, I'd say. I think that I've read over it a lot and need a new pair of eyes to read it again. The writing conference really helped, and I think another advice session like that would help. The length is fine, the layout is fine, but I still need to work on my citations and possibly word choice. I think my thesis is much stronger after the presentation feedback, and I'm overall pretty happy with it. There have been major improvements to my intro since draft one, and I think it's close to being ready for a final grade after a bit more editing.