Brooklynn's Blog

When I found out that I had to take an English/Writing class I was a bit nervous. I despised writing with a passion because I could never think of the right words to say and honestly I was terrible at it. Being in this class helped me to understand that you can not improve your skills if you do not practice. After doing these blog posts and writing both group and individual essays and to see the amazing grades I made me more confident in my writing capabilities.  I have learned a lot of new things through this course. This course has taught me about MLA, Thesis statements, myths of writing, how to analyze essays, and so much more. MLA was the most important one for me since it was something I struggled with because it changes every couple of years. I did not practice writing/MLA so when I did write I was using the older versions. Reading the essays from the volumes also helped a great deal because it too gave you the information you needed to have a great essay and it was free....

The Little Seagull handbook had many defining attributes. It had a section about MLA, Language, Sentences, and so much more. The handbook consisted of everything that you'd need for a college english/writing class. But, was it helpful? Well, it honestly depends on what you already knew about MLA or Sentence structures beforehand. If you didn't know much or needed a refresher then the Handbook was great! Other than that, I did not feel like I learned anything from the handbook. The Little Seagull Handbook was like a double edged sword to me. I already knew about subjects and predicates and all the other language rules that were mentioned, so having to read all that information was pointless to me. What I most looked forward to in this book was learning about MLA since it is such a huge deal when it comes to college papers but it was no help at all because it was outdated. I could not use it for reference when I needed it so I had to use Purdue Owl. I felt like I wasted my $11....

Class blogging has had many effects on how I write. First it made me more comfortable with writing! I did not do much writing before I started college so I was not doing any type of writing practices and the class blogging gave me that experience. So, instead of procrastinating until the very last minute to write my essays, I can confidently begin my writing. The mandatory comments have also helped me when it comes to evaluating writing because I'd actually have to read and analyze the post in order to give a effective response.

The peer review process was a big help to me. I have always been taught to take constructive criticism as a blessing even if I don't agree with what they have told me. It allowed me to get a view of how others received my paper and if it was effective or not. Sometimes I would get comments telling me that I had them hooked the entire time and that I had a good paper but other times I would get comments telling me to change 'this', add a comma, get rid of this sentence, or that I had a weak argument and vocabulary. Honestly it made me feel good when people would tell me those things because they aren't telling me these things to hurt me but to help me. Telling me that my paper is good is not constructive and won't help. peer reviews also gave me a chance to see how others write and to use their writing styles to improve my own. Seeing the mistakes or the flow of the other students papers allowed me to make out the do's and don'ts for my own paper.

My original post 3 was okay but it was a little bleak and lazy. I didn't really give any real tips on how to maintain a professional online image. One thing that I fixed is that I introduced my source properly. In the original I introduced the quote as  "In the article "10 Tips For Maintaining a Professional Image Online" by Nathan Chandler". This gives little to no authority to the quote and makes you question it's credibility. So I went deeper into the website to actually find this man and what he did and re-introduced it as "According to Nathan Chandler, a 10 year expert in consumer tech,". This offered more authority and credibility to my quote because know my readers know what he does and that he would have accurate information about consumers and professional images. I also got rid of the scenario in the beginning on my post to make it seem more informative and less fun.

Building Your Online Image       Have you ever thought about how much information you post about yourself on the internet? You reveal parts of yourself through pictures, text posts, and tagged photos whether you realize that or not.  The way you display your self online can have both a positive and negative effect on your image. Anyone can put your name in the google search bar and find out what they want about you. According to Nathan Chandler, a 10 year expert in consumer tech, "People who initially find you on the Internet have only that content by which to judge you."(1) Your future employer or customers would have access to see all your posts whether the post are good or bad and make biased assumptions of you before they have even gotten the chance to meet you in the real world. You could lose your job opportunity and some money. Chandler also mentions that if you are to be a professional at anything that you do, never post anything negative. Keep your p...

Peer reviews can be extremely helpful or very disappointing. Some advantages are that you are able to get helpful criticism on your paper and be given pointers on things you would have never noticed or thought there was anything wrong with it. Another advantage is that who ever is doing the peer review can check your grammar behind you just in case you looked over something. But with almost everything there are disadvantages. Sometimes instead of giving actual criticism who ever is doing the review will only right compliments and sometimes they are so blatant you can tell they did not read the paper. Another mix of a disadvantage and an advantage is that the peer reviewer could tell you your whole paper that you spent all night working on is horrible and needs a redo which crushes your soul but the bright side is that you'll get a chance to redo it before it's graded.

Something new that has entered my life is foreign music. I've become more interested in music from other countries. I find it amazing how American rap and hip-hop has influenced others and how they change the culture to make it their own. For example in South Korea, they have a variety of music genres that are inspired from American music but it's different in their own way. They have K-soul, K-RnB, K-trap, and the most commonly known is K-pop. But the downside is because they are foreign and are from a conserved country they often do very racist renditions mostly pertaining to black people. It kind of puts you off a little bit when you find out an artist you like thinks that all your people are ugly and ghetto because of their skin tone from the multiple stereotypes painted by bad media and likes to paint their skin black to mock you. And this is not only a downside to K-music but to also every other foreign music.