Hello everyone! My name is Jess and I am a sophomore here at IUP. I took Marlen’s class last semester and while it was very challenging I really got a lot out of the class. I decided to be a course assistant because I feel like I can really help to guide you all to write the best paper you ever have. It was a very tough class and you definitely have to work but I’m here all semester to help you all! Can’t wait to meet everyone in class tomorrow

          At the beginning of this semester I was just terrified that I wouldn’t even be able to get through the 15 page paper. Those 15 pages though just flew by! I just kept telling myself a little at a time will help me get through so just taking it a little here and a little there made it a lot easier for me to make a great paper rather than just writing it all the week before it’s due. My future goal as a researcher is to continue to improve my talents. I showed myself this semester that I really do have a talent for writing and I will continue to work harder at being a better writer as well as researcher. My proudest moment this semester…well there were two. The first one was when I got feedback from you about my intro. You were so stoked about it and I was so proud of myself for working really hard on something and having my professor really love it that much! The second proudest moment was when I got my final revision back from you for before my submission and there was hardly anything!! That was an awesome feeling to know that on my own I was able to pull together the loose ends and that I didn’t need you to point them out to me. What is going to stick with me long past this course is that the first draft isn’t always perfect (unfortunately) and that if you work a little at a time you’re able to focus just there for that moment instead of what is coming next and that allows you to have a great piece of work throughout the whole paper.

I would say that the document that was most helpful to me was Shitty First Drafts by Anne LaMott. This article really helped me to get started because hearing from a real writer that they had trouble getting started and that their first drafts were aweful gave me some encouragement to start. Just knowing that not everybody writes a perfect paper right away was nice to hear. LaMott said that you just need to let everything out and then you can go back later and scuplt your words to mean what you really want them to mean. I did not really receive a lot of feedback from my classmates the best feedback that I got from someone was from my professor. His feedback was helpful because he really went in depth and I felt that some of my classmates did not give me anything back. The most difficult thing for me during the drafting process was that I never felt like changing what I had. Once I had it written down I just wanted to leave it as is with some of the things I wrote. It was really difficult for me to reword or rewrite some of my work because I felt like it was so good already. The easiest thing during drafting was that once I saw the mistakes I made I was able to go back in and fix them but that was only if it was really a mistake. I feel like my intro shows my best ability as a writer. I spent the most time on that in my opinion because I wanted to make sure that my work was actually read and the intro does that.

From doing this first peer review project, I learned how much time and concentration really is needed to properly review and comment a peers paper. It was extremely time consuming for me because I wanted to do the review to the best of my ability. Doing this also made me think about how much will need changed in my paper. The number one thing I learned though is that you HAVE TO have someone read it out loud to you after you write because some mistakes do not need to happen in papers and now that I’ve seen the repercussions of not having someone read my work, I will definitely take time out in the future to be sure I have everything written down like I wanted it in my head.

Results:

The language center of AIT (2003) says that the purpose of the results section is to state what you as the writer found. Statistics such as percentages are used.  A few common issues are going into too much detail like you should do in the discussion section. AIT (2003) suggests ways to organize the results section which include combining the discussion section with it. They conclude with an example as well as advice to aid a writer in composing their discussion section (AIT, 2003).

    David Caprette (2007) says that a results section must summarize your findings as well as allow the reader to understand them to a point. It should not go into great detail like the discussion section does though but it should atleast make sense. When writing the results section, use past tense (Caprette, 2007).

I think that the results section should just be short and to the point. The place to go into detail is the discussion section so you should not let yourself go on and on with the explanations.

Caprette, D.R. (2007). How to Write a Research Paper: Discussion. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~bioslabs/tools/report/reportform.html

Language Center of Asian Institute of Technology. (2003). Writing up Research Results. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/EL21RES.HTM

Discussion:

The Department of Biology at Bates College (2002) says that the discussion section “interprets your results.” They say to stay focused and keep a solid voice throughout the section. Also, do not waste time talking about your exact results exactly because it was already done in the previous section. Finally Bates College (2002) states: “Do not introduce new results to the discussion section. You must relate your work to the findings of other studies- including previous studies you may have done and those of other investigators.

     Dean Hess (2004) suggests that you ”state the major findings of the study, explain the meaning, relate your findings to other studies, consider alternative explanations of the findings, state the relevance and limitations, and make suggestions for further research.” All of those parts make up the complete discussion section. Once you have written about each other these parts your discussion is finished.

The discussion section is where you have room to go on and on unlike the other two sections I read about. Although you are able to write more, you do not want to ramble on and lose the readers attention. The discussion section needs to help the reader understand the results as well as give yourself, as the writer, room to interpret what you believe happened.

The Department of Biology at Bates College. (2002).  Discussion. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://abacus.bates.edu/~ganderso/biology/resources/writing/HTWsections.html#discussion

Hess, D. (2004). How to Write an Effective Discussion. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.rcjournal.com/contents/10.04/10.04.1238.pdf

Conclusion:

The writing center at UNC (2007) describes the conclusion section as the most difficult of all of the sections. They say that it should make the reader be happy they read your paper. A strategy they say to use is called the “So What?” game. While writing, ask yourself “So what?” and then explain. Do not use the phrases “in conclusion,” “in summary,” or “in closing.”

     Barry Hamilton (2005) says that the conclusion must bring closure to the reader. He also says to not introduce new information like the Writing Center at UNC says. Hamilton says that if you write it well, the conclusion only really needs to be one paragraph (Hamilton, 2005).

I think that the conclusion needs to be short and to the point. If you continue on and on you’re not giving the reader closure, it is like they are reading another paper. Keeping a short conclusion as well as giving the reader closure is the perfect ending to any paper.

Hamilton, B.W. (2005). Tips for Writing a Strong Conclusion. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://acc.roberts.edu/NEmployees/Hamilton_Barry/TIPS%20FOR%20WRITING%20A%20STRONG%20CONCLUSION.htm

The Writing Center at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. (2007). Conclusions. Retrieved October 26, 2009, from http://www.unc.edu/depts/wcweb/handouts/conclusions.html

     I began combining my three papers from the very beginning. So, when it came to start tonight’s homework, I did not have much to do. One thing that I did find though while I was combining them along the way is that transitions are necessary. I personally did not use many but my ideas flowed in my opinion without always needing to use a transition. Since I have already combined the three papers to this point, what mostly needs editing is the literature review. I have much more work to add to it but that will come with time. I think that after my peer’s review it, I will have more of an insight as to what I need to work on specifically. I am very interested to read their feedback on my work.

     My research subjects will be my English 202 classmates as well as some random people I find in the Oak Grove who have a few minutes to spare. I will find my English classmates in class and the other random subjects I will find in the Oak Grove. I will try to have 30-40 people to try and get a good range of opinions. There is absolutely no danger in my participants undertaking my research. They will just be watching short video clips and responding with their opinions and feelings. In order to safeguard my participants I will refer to them as Subject A, B, C, etc. and once I get through the whole alphabet I will double the letters (AA, BB, CC, etc.). I do not have any questions at this time about methods and data collecting. I just need to figure out what I want to exactly do but the only person I can ask is myself. I will answer the questions for myself by sitting down and thinking about what clips I will show and what kind of questions I will ask the participants.

     The Language Center of AIT states that the way information is obtained is very important. If the information was some kind of survey or questionnaire then that should be stated in the Methodology section because it validates the information (Language Center of AIT). Another suggestion made by the Language Center of AIT is to not write a “how-to” article because the readers will understand the information at hand. They also list different ways to fit your methodology into your intro, lit review, method, results and discussion, and conclusion which is very helpful (Language Center of AIT). This website had very good ideas and ways to indicate your methodology into the paper as well as a lot of other useful information about research papers. I will certainly use this site in the future.

     Kendra Van Wagner (2009) from About.com explains that “The method section should provide enough information to allow other researchers to replicate your experiment or study.” Wagner (2009) tells you exactly how to start your method section. She says to describe your participants, materials, design, and procedure to give the reader enough information about all four (Wagner, 2009). Wagner (2009) also provided a few tips about writing the method section, but the one that helped me best was to write it in past tense. I did not know that you needed to do that and that tip is the one that helped and informed me. Wagner helped break down the process of what needs done and I will certainly refer back to her site in the future as well.

Language Center of Asian Institute of Technology. Writing Up Research: Method and Research Design. Retrieved October 7, 2009, from http://www.languages.ait.ac.th/el21meth.htm

Wagner, K. V. (2009). How to: Write a Method Section. Retrieved October 7, 2009, from http://psychology.about.com/od/psychologywriting/ht/method.htm

Rubric

Book Test 1- Maus