Practice

This semester my writing has improved a lot. It is not yet perfect, which is close to impossible, but it has improved greatly. I am able to put more ideas on paper without sitting for about an hour wondering what I am going to write, which is something I did a lot when it came to having to write anything. I never knew where to start or what to write about, even if I did an outline.
I think my organization also has improved in my writing. I have been able to analyze our groups writings and while writing my own, the group questions are in my mind. I am looking while I am writing my own paper for what I should be looking in my groups papers. So, the goup part of this class helped. I also liked where our group members analyzed our papers and gave us feedback. It is hard to critique your own paper. I think that as well, helped improve my writing because a lot of what was found by my group members, there was a greater chance that as I was fixing another draft of my paper that I would have missed what they found for me to fix.
Another way the group work has helped me in my writing is by giving me more confidence. I may think that my paper sounded horrible or that it looks as though an elementary school kid wrote it, but in the groups critiques, there were times when there was not too much wrong with it. Though there is the constructive critiques on the papers, the compliments and what they liked about the paper helped boost confidence. I am able to see that, though not perfect, maybe I was not as bad of a writer as I thought I was.
By doing the blog, it made me have to write. It was not too long, but it gave us the practice of thinking, organizing, and putting it into writing. We also have to remember that other people will be reading our blogs, so we cannot just throw something together to make five hundred words. Our blogs were pretty much like writing a short essay.
The discussion boards was another to have to write every week. We had a question, thought about it and had to write what we thought on what we had read. By having the practice to stay on topic, was helpful. I have a tendency to go off topic when I am writing something, so discussion boards made me aware of having to stay on topic. Because of this, it somewhat forced me to try to stay on topic when writing anything else.
Writing papers has been really hard for me. I can see now that it comes easier with practice. Just by having to write anything every week has boosted confidence, enabled me to write, instead of thinking about it too long, and made me concentrate while I was writing on the topic and ensuring I do not stray.

Time

So, this blog is about venting about a research paper that I had plenty of time to research and write. I could really vent about this assignment. This assignment has caused me a lot of unnecessary stress, but I am trying to deal with it and get it done. I seems as though so many things went wrong for me when we got this assignment and as soon as we got the assignment, I had started with figuring out what sources I was going to use and ordered what I needed from the library and did the other research I did. Since I started when we first got the assignment, you would think that I got it all done by now and have time to spare. Not the case. Sources were so easy to order from my public library and I had already had one book that I needed, which was one of our required texts. I got a couple sources from EBSCO Host, which was great. That got two sources done with the research I needed from those sources. I waited and waited for my other sources, which were books from the library, to come in and it seemed to take forever. I had three books to get my information from and one came in on Monday. Another came in on Wednesday, and the last one came in on Friday. I like to read and am a pretty fast reader, but to read the books the way I have to for my research paper does not give me a lot of time to put everything together into an outline and into a four or five page essay. On top of this my internet went out, so I had to make it to the library before it closed for the night. Didn't happen. I could have gone to AVC to use the computers, but guess what, no car this week! Living in Lake Los Angeles, I had to take the bus this week and we only have buses every few hours. I have internet now to get what I have to get done, but now time is scarce. Today is going to definitely be a busy day with reading galore, writing, and staying up extremely late, which is not something I usually like to do, to get everything done to be able to look at what I have before I turn it in. This is the hardest assignment of this semester that started out with plenty of time to do it and should not have been so hard to get completed. Everything just went wrong that I think could have gone wrong and I hope that it does not affect my grade on my assignments and it definitely means I am going to have to work harder than I usually do to get this done.  I wish I had more time to get everything done, but I don't, so I have to stay positive and just try my best to get everything done the best I can and hope that it goes well.

Send...

Email differs from ordinary conversations in many ways. Some of these ways can be better in taking less time to get things out and some may not be so great, as in messages getting misunderstood. In a face to face conversation it may take a while for someone to get what they want to get out, out. If one is not wanting to hurt one’s feelings, then they will probably try to go about something in little hints leading up to the main idea of what was wanting to be said in the first place. This can take a while depending on how many hints one may have to hint. Also in a face to face conversation, someone can read the facial expressions of the other person. They can tell if the listener understands or not and explain. The listener can also be bored and it can be read either in their body language or on their face. The messenger can easily make the conversation more interesting or change the subject to get the listener engaged. In email you cannot see the facial expressions or the body language of the receiver. You can be writing whatever you want and read it back and it makes sense. It does not mean it will make sense to the receiver. You cannot see their face or hear them ask a question for you to immediately explain yourself. Here is where people get mixed up with misunderstandings. Something sent could mean something totally different from what was received. You could have said that the present for your birthday looks good hanging on your shelf. Well, if it was something for you to wear and they got you the gift, they may be a little offended and might think you meant you wouldn’t wear it because you didn’t like it, so it sits on your shelf collecting dust. You may just liked the shirt so much, that you would rather keep it new and actually hung it up on your shelf for decoration being that it looked that awesome. Another way emails can be misunderstood is because sometimes people use abbreviations to take less time in writing what they have to say. Someone may completely miss the message or they may think you meant something else and you just set a date to take fly them out to Florida for a week’s vacation. That may be going overboard, but people automatically assume because it makes sense to the messenger when they are writing, that it makes sense to everyone else or to at least the person receiving the message. Abbreviations can also be a way to spend less time on what you have to say rather than having to explain yourself, get it all out in a short paragraph. People tend to say more in emails because they do not have to worry about being questioned or sometimes judged. It is an easy way to get everything out and avoid the emotions that go along with it, though sometimes a joke can carry along it’s laughter.

Endangered?

Political cartoons play a communication and entertainment role in American culture. There are ways that political cartoons are put to make people think about an opinion about an issue that may be going on in the world or within one’s country, where more than often they are about the government. There was a political cartoon written in the Antelope Valley Newspaper on Thursday, May 05, 2011, called Prickly City by Scott Stantis. This cartoon was talking about a Senator gone missing and that bad things do not happen; but that the senator makes bad things happen. When asked “bad things can’t happen to bad people”, the cartoon then had a character say” well, he did get elected to the U.S. Senate…” In other words, to me the cartoon was saying that the senate is crooked. This can be controversial to some who would disagree, but for those who agree they would find it funny. Here is where the cartoon represents entertainment. It is funny to read a cartoon that is making fun of an issue. Some people do appreciate a laugh.

            There was also a cartoon that came out on Thursday, May 5, 2011, that talked about an issue that almost everyone should know about here in the United States. Osama Bin Laden being dead. The Cartoon has a radio speaking with Zawahiri sitting in front of it. He has a target on his chest and a number 2 button on his vest. He is sitting in what looks like a cave and listening to the radio saying “Osama Bin Laden is Dead…”The bubble above Zawahiri said “And I don’t feel so good myself.” I gather from the cartoon that another terrorist that is known by many to be a terrorist is next to be found and he should be scared. People who are patriotic would not only find this funny, but will cause more patriotism on them.

Marlette, the Author of “Freedom of Speech and the Editorial Cartoon”, seems to think that political cartoons are endangered. When looking through the paper on Thursday, May 05, 2011, I only found four political cartoons in the whole paper. I do not read major papers like the Los Angeles Times, but I do read the local Antelope Valley Newspaper. I have noticed that the paper only has a few political cartoons. I do not know how many cartoons the paper has had before the time that I began reading the paper, but I can say that I do not read the political cartoons often. When Marlette stated that political cartoons are endangered, it may not be for reasons he thinks completely. Some people do not know everything that is happening in the world, read that part of the newspaper, and may not understand the cartoon, so they do not read them. The cartoons becoming endangered may be true within the idea of the readers not reading or taking any interest in them. There may be some truth also in some cartoons being cut from print when editing the newspaper.