Amy Doty

English Composition

15 July 2018

The Changing of Hate to Love

At the beginning I would not be caught dead reading or writing a story. It took about ten to fifteen years before I started to fall in love with reading. I still don’t enjoy writing, but I don’t dread it anymore.

How it all began was back in elementary school when I first had to learn how to read and write. Back then when I was first learning English, I was having a very hard time trying to pronounce different words, let alone spell them. At that time the resource teachers there took me out of my English classes and began helping me. As time went on I continued to still get help as I progressed through school with my reading and writing. My reading however progressed a lot faster than my writing. It was around middle school that I started to read more on my own. At that time, my mom would always read books to my brother and me before bed, and the cliff hanger would start to get to me. That’s when I would grab the book that my mom would be reading and read ahead to find out what was going to happen. It still took me quite a bit of time to get faster and better at understanding what I was reading.

Then around the time I was in high school I started to watch anime a lot more and most of which is subtitled. During that time, I had to learn how to read at a faster rate than how I was reading prior. The part that made it harder to do that was the fact that I still at that time had a smaller vocabulary. Most of that is due to me reading and sounding out words phonetically. Around the time I was graduating from high school I decided to go into the Marine Corps. At that point my writing was at the level it needed to be at as long as you didn’t look at grammar and spelling. Luckily most papers are now written on a computer and you can have others check both of those problems.

While I was in the Marine Corps I didn’t write that many papers and the few that I did were in Navel Correspondence which has a very different formatting than most writing. I truly began to full in love with reading when I found out that most anime was based off light novels. While I lived in Japan for two years, I began to try and find all the different series that I enjoyed watching and found out that most of the stories continued pass the last episodes. So, I looked for English translations in the book stores in Japan and of course could not find any. Luckily there are a lot of fans that are willing to translate them to English. With that I have gotten a lot better at reading and deciphering broken English due to the machine translations of a few light novels. 

This is how my reading has progressed over the years and it’s due to me finding something of interest. My writing in itself has not gone anywhere though I no longer hate writing at the very least.

Amy Doty

ENGL 1010

8/20/2018

Writing Reflection 2 for antithesis paper

                This is a reflection on the antithesis over my social issue which required me to interview someone else’s point of view. What the paper required was that I find someone with a different view point and interviewed them, which ended up being my brother. From the interview I was to make a thesis statement that represented his stance, the 3 main reasons for his stance, along with an introduction and conclusion. The only outside source aloud was my brother for the interview and was written in academic formatting. This paper evolved over the course of the week that it was worked on and I was surprised by the time I finished writing it. When I started to write this paper, I had a very rough outline and first draft. After that I work on it and sent it in to be looked at by the writing tutors and as well as my brother. He sent me back a replay asking me what I meant for the last part and realized that I need to fix the entire last paragraph and conclusion. After fixing that part I felt a lot better about how the paper sounded and was very pleased with the paper.

                How I decide to work my way through writing this paper is that I had to start by picking someone to interview. After that I wrote out an outline based off the interview and looked at it to see if I need to go back and get more information. Once the outline was written then I wrote the three main points and thesis and had classmates look at them. Once the first draft was written I then started to make correction to all the parts that needed it and add the parts that wore missing. To make sure that I did not have a lot of errors on my paper I checked it on Grammarly. Once I finished that I sent the paper to smart thinking and my brother who I interview to look at it. Before I got my paper back from smart thinking my brother asked me a question about the last paragraph and I realized that I miss heard what he said and rewrote the entire paragraph. After that I checked it on Grammarly for errors and checked it with my brother as well to make sure it sounded right to him. Once that was done I checked it on Turnitin and then I got back my paper from smart thinking. I looked at what all they told me and made some correction based of that information and finally turned it into Turnitin for a grade. 

                I learned a lot for doing this paper. I did not really know how to do an interview until I did this paper. I also found out how easy it is to totally miss interpret what someone else says and then must go back to fix everything that you miss wrote. I learned a lot about how to write a proper introduction and conclusion for higher level writing. I managed to find a lot of the problems from what I did in the first paper and made those correction before I had anyone check it. For the most part no one pointed out a lot of different things that I did wrong consistently which surprised me, but I did have the whole problem with he last paragraph.

                I had a lot better understanding when I went into writing this paper this time which helped a lot. Although writing a paper that is another person’s view point to show their side and present their opinion was a lot harder. The audience would still be the same people as the first paper just that it is informing them of the opposite side of the argument. 

Amy Doty

ENGL 1010

8/31/2018

Writing Reflection 3 on Argument paper

                This is a reflection on the argument paper over my social issue which was about clean energy. What the paper opened with a narrative and topic paragraph. After that it went into the body which was made up of the opposing view point and three main ideas all with supporting details. The only outside sources were the previous two papers and my interview with my brother and written in academic formatting. This paper I felt like it did not develop as well as the last two. When I was working on the draft it feels like it came together really well but after thinking about it after I already turned it in I feel like it was missing parts. This paper like the two before this one took just as many drafts and revision. I didn’t have the conclusion in my first draft and for the most part I know what need to be added to my paper or at least I felt like I did.

                As for how I decide to work my way through writing the paper. I used the outline that was handed out to make my outline. I got help in work shop with making my main points and thesis. From there I wrote my body paragraphs and had my classmates look at them on the following Monday. After that I made correction and then summitted my paper to smart thinking. The one thing I have notice is that they always want me to cite sources, which I will be able to due in the next paper. I think the narrative is relevant to my paper, but I think I made it way to look after the conversation in workshop class today. When I sent it to Turnitin I had to resubmit it because I forgot to make some corrections to the paper layout which I need to keep in mind with this paper. 

                I ended up getting a lot out of this paper in that I need to think a lot more about each of the body paragraphs. I did like using a narrative at the begin but again I need to shorten it up. For adding the opposing view point after reading it again today I need to be more precise on what it is that I want to get across. I feel like I did the same thing with my main points as well, so I will need to take a look at that and fix it. Although I feel like the main ideas where there I think I went off topic and I need to be more on topic. I feel like my thesis stated what I wanted to get a crossed but from what I got for feedback from the writing tutors I’m not as sure after looking aback at it this morning. I have improved on expanding my grammar and using MLA formatting. 

                I well have a better written body paragraphs in this next paper by using supporting details that are from outside sources along with what I know. I’m still aiming at persuading and informing people about the need of clean energy, but I also want people to understand that fossil fuels should not be wasted by using it for power when it is used in so many other places. The audience is still the same as before for age ways but on top of that I want people on both sides of the argument to take a look at what it is that fossil fuels and clean energy is before going and rioting without knowing anything about the topic. 

Amy Doty

ENGL 1010

9/11/2018

Writing Reflection for paper 4

                This is a reflection is on the continuation of the third paper but with sources. The paper needed to have at least 3 sources added to it to give it more of a leg to stand on. I used the narrative from the third paper but fixed the parts that wore unclear in the paper. I then went through the paper and add information from outside sources for both sides of the argument on green technology. After I did this I went though and fixed the transitions that didn’t sound right and the parts of the paper that need more information. Over all the writing part I ended up not putting enough time into because I spent too much time looking though different sources and deciding what I wanted to us. When I finally figured out what all I will use and fixed the paper I ended up not sending in the paper to the tutor until after I turned the paper in. I looked at the tutor notes after I got them back and do agree with parts of what they say. I didn’t agree that I don’t have topics in the different paragraphs but after reading them I can see how it would look like I might not because they are all very similar. I don’t know if the transitions are as bad as they make them out to be, but I felt that the transitions were a lot better this time around. Over all I felt that this paper was the most solid paper I wrote until I read the tutor notes.

                How I decide to integrate the sources was I looked at what each paragraph was about and pick ones that fit with them. It took a lot of debating to decide on which source I would like to use because a lot of them had the same type of information. So, when I finally decided I pick the ones that I got get the most information that would support more than one part of my paper. As for how it went with putting the information in the paper it was not as hard as I thought it would be. Although from what I was told by the tutors is that I didn’t put the sources correctly and that I needed to say the article title with every time I put in a new source. Over all I think integrating the sources was not bad and the feedback I got from the tutors will help me with the next time I write a paper with research in a class like psychology.  

                I do believe that the sources that I ended up using where relevant and credible. Although that is because the information that I read when looking at all the different sources showed a lot of the same type of information. The statistics that came up in each of the sources may have varied but it was not enough to make one more credibly then the others. Again, I choose them based off which ones covered more information in there one article instead of using ten to 20 articles to say the same thing. The ones that I didn’t choose wore still good information to know but those articles wore not that long and did not have enough information to make a good point from then. Those articles did support the ones I used which gave me more confidence in using them at least.

                When I went into writing this paper I had a better grasp of what I wanted to write, and I feel like I got that point a crossed. Although the tutors did say that I need to rewrite my entire paper I felt that it was a lot better but with that I will have to go over it again while on break to see how much I can improve it to make it even better, so I can see how much more I can grow as a writer. Over all the audience did not change even after I finish this paper it would still be people older than 25 years of age. 

Amy Doty

ENGL 1010

9/18/2018

Final Writing Reflection

                 During this quarter I have had learned many things about writing that I either forgot or did not know. As I went through this quarter I have slowly become more of a writer. I have learned many different rules about MLA and APA as well that I know nothing about. As for college writing in general that the word "you" is not used when writing. I also learned how important it is to use sources to back what you are writing and that you need to always widen one's viewpoint to see the whole picture.

 As for my reading, I would say that it did improve just not as much as my writing did. I have not read that much scholarly writing before so that was a learning experience for me. I learned that you may need to look up what a lot of the different words mean. Also, that scholarly writing is the best source for information unless it has to do with statistics on energy production, which it might be but they are way too confusing to understand and very long.

 As a student and a thinker, I think this helped me get a very good idea as to what I should be expecting from my college experience. As a new student after having been out of school for more than 6 years, this is definitely an eye-opener. I knew going back to school was going to be a lot of work and a lot of thinking. Luckily I have been using critical thinking skills the entire time I was in the military so it helps me adjust to school quite quickly. But with that, I still need to have better discipline for the coming quarters.

                My biggest takeaway from this class is that I can write a paper that is not trash. I did know that it would take a lot of work to do that but it helped reassure me that I can make it through college as long as I put my mind to it and focus on what I need too to succeed. Also that there are others that are going through the same troubles as I am and that we can work together to make it through the class together.  

                As for what I thought about the different parts of the course it would be all over the place. For instances, the texts that we had to read and annotate from the book drove me crazy because I could not figure out how to annotate something that was already annotated. But with that, the reading that wore had outs those wore a lot easier to understand what to do for annotating because it was not already done for you by the book. I did think the book had a lot of good information in it but I think for learning annotating using handouts was a lot better.

                For the theme of social issues for writing on I truly loved it. Writing about something that I have a passion to make it a lot easier to write and I can put a lot more passion into my writing. If it was a topic I had no interest in I would have written a paper that would have had almost no voice in it because I would not care to really write the paper. So, in the end, using this theme I think is a great idea and I love that we get to build on it and improve what we are thinking and write an even more in-depth paper as we go. Along with that since we get to look at the other side as well it makes a lot better argument and since I'm normal in the middle and look at both sides even if I lean more one way I still can go look at the other side without it offending me or someone else.

 As for the use of the class time, I think it was used effectively for most people. As long as the individual wanted to learn there was a lot to take away from every class time. When we were in groups I got to hear amazing ideas from my classmates and when you went over what we are going to be covering it was relevant to what we need to learn in class. Even when we had debates in class it was turned in to a learning experience instead of just a pissing match between people.

                I enjoyed working with everyone in my class. I was glad that I was able to help others with what I know and that I got help from others on what I need help on. My classmates wore open to others ideas made for a great environment to learn in the class.

                I thought that all the assignments wore useful except the annotating in the book. That is again because it already did that for most of it except for the articles in the book. Those we still had to annotate. Otherwise, I think it was just the right amount of work if anything I would have liked the class to be another week or two just to have a bit more time for writing the papers but even with it the way it is right now it is doable.

                I enjoyed the way you teach a lot better then the teachers I had in the military. You always would tell use way what you wore teaching mattered to us. You had a very open-minded teaching where you would listen to all of us and give of feedback and not just ignore whatever we asked. Even when you talked with me in the hallways you have an honest interest in what I was talking about which shows that you do care about us as your students. I really appreciate that you show respect and are a very kind person because it makes it a lot easier to learn from someone like this then from the opposite. 

                All in all, I'm very glad that I was able to have the privilege to have you as a teacher and have learned a lot from this class. I will defiantly take what I have learned in this class and use it in all of my future endeavors in school and outside of school.