I am having quite a difficult time writing this health argumentative essay. I have a few topics chosen, with corresponding articles. I cannot, without great effort and pain, provide an argument for the opposing side of the author's opinion without siding with him/her, myself. I have written a few drafts that have been scrapped due to the flippity-floppitiness of my argument; not to mention the lack of a solid thesis. Being able to see both sides of the argument can be a good thing in settling disputes, however it does not work that way when trying to argue your point.
I plan on having a set opposing view of the topic. I am currently attempting a dietitian's approach for the topic of a specific type of diet and how it does not work as advertised, along with supporting works provided by nutritionists and doctors. I need to work on certain writing techniques for this essay: shortened paragraphs, summarization, and order of statements. When writing about my own topic, about something that has me distraught, I am well-off and able to provide accurate responses and arguments; I am a decent author. When provided with a set subject and given timelines, then I run into problems.
I read the chapters as assigned from our textbook -- this isn't the problem. The problem is applying something I have read if it is not scientific, algebraic, or technological. I focus too much on minor details and cannot "summarize" as well as many others instinctively can. This not only affects my writing ability, it affects the way I "skim" through articles to get the main idea; my focus begins shifting to points that I deem "important." I also don't like reading anything that isn't "interesting" to me, which is anything not scientific, algebraic, or technological. These topics are very specific on items and require much focus on minor details, so I excel at them.
I feel that through this class, even having a hard time, myself, keeping-up with the class, I have already learned a lot about writing techniques. I found myself prone to over-utilizing commas, misusing semicolons, and mainly bringing-out the foreigner in me by creating unnecessarily long sentences. I have, however, stopped switching tense while writing like I did in High School. Not everything is bad; there are many good points.
I feel that I have been a foreigner learning English my whole life, and have been very bad at it, but really good at learning other languages. I understand the struggles incorporated with learning this terribly difficult language. I hope that by the end of this class, I will be able to, without researching how-tos, write a decent enough essay to pass pertinent information along in a mature, proper manner, with minimal mistakes.
What are some of the problems others have found within themselves through this course? What are some of them that were fixed?
Hi,
ReplyDeleteThis is the instructor. Can you tell me your name. I cannot tell who this post belongs to. Thanks!
This is Alex Childs. Sorry about the google name; my account it tied to google.
DeleteThe two biggest issues I've had problems during this course are with time and the shift from military to academic writing.
ReplyDeleteWhen I get home after work, being away for twelve hours, I have to use what little time I have left in the day to eat, spend time with my wife, and work on assignments for this class. This time of the year is busy at work and I often find myself spending a couple of hours extra in the office each day. To make things worse there are some assignments that follow me home and I have to work on those before I can start my academic work.
My wife understands how busy I am, but it’s not an excuse to ignore her. One thing I struggle with is trying to listen to her and to type. If I’m typing something casual it’s usually no problem, but if I have to concentrate then I really struggle. During those times it’s just best for me to write some notes down to come back when things quiet down. There are other distractions that take up my time like chores; therefore I try to do those when I need a break from writing.
One of the other issues I had to deal with is making the shift from writing for work to writing for school. During my writing I have found myself going back over my documents to ensure I am using the MLA format. I have been writing in military correspondence style for a long time now and there are many differences. The first part I always mess up is the number of spaces after a period. In military correspondence it is always two spaces, so it’s a natural habit for me to double-tap the space bar after a period. I always find several instances in my writing where I have made the mistake to use the double space and have to go back and correct myself. The font is different in the military writing I use. Courier New is the only acceptable font used, but there is some leeway in the size where it is acceptable to use 10, 11, or 12 size font. There is no spacing between lines unless there is a different paragraph or a subparagraph. I continuously have to double-check what I type for this course to make sure my military correspondence habits haven’t crept in.
I really haven’t found a fix to these problems just yet. Like I said, I break up typing by doing some chores. Since I can’t put more hours in the day I have to ensure I never sit around and not accomplish anything. I find myself working on something each day of the week to include the weekends. My bedtime has changed, I get somewhere around 1 hour of sleep each night. I have given up some of my exercise time to work on assignments. During the President’s Day holiday I spent one whole day typing away.
One thing I try to do is stay ahead of schedule. I had one week where I got behind and found myself on a Thursday without a solid draft typed up. I pushed ahead and forced myself to put something together. That draft was the worst grade I have received during this course. I was under stress to put something together and it showed in my prose. My thoughts wandered and began to drift off subject. The stress I felt at the time also came across in a pretty harsh tone.
Well I am sure I’m not the only one, so I’ll stop complaining and wrap this blog up so I can work on my next assignment.
Lee Jacobs
David Harper
ReplyDeleteWhat am I allowed to write?
I am in a situation where what I send out on a computer could be monitored
I do not disagree with our use of the computers being censored
The safety of everyone here is depends on the proper management of information
But it is a little more difficult when you want to do something like a blog or watch a You Tube video
There are people that have use blogs and Facebook improperly and you hear about it when they do
The effect planning the put information in a public forum that shouldn’t be or maybe not be the best way for people to receive information
I am not going to express my deepest feelings in a public forum, in my opinion we may be doing that a little too much now.
Feelings mean more to the people they are presented to the person brought the feeling to the surface or it is taken into consideration who you are talking to.
While it is a release putting your feelings out there for the world to see, but are we losing our ability to interact on a personal level
I myself need to work on interaction, and I maybe it’s just me getting old, but I see a lot more frustration in people a lot more of people that can’t cope with interaction
There are more people that are lashing out or doing horrible things because they don’t feel people are listening to them
I want to be the person that listens even if I don’t agree I want to be the person you argue with, but
I want to be able to express myself and have you express yourself also.
So I don’t know where that puts me. What and I allowed to write?