Blog 5

I’ve always enjoyed analyzing the world around me and researching things I found to be interesting. I was fascinated by the topic of pop culture because it’s all around us, and therefore affects us everyday. Signs of Life allowed students to enhance their writing skills instead of never ending research on an unfamiliar topic. Before English 802 teachers would usually suggest I was being too “wishy washy” or supported both sides instead of displaying a clear argument. This course has definitely helped me display a stronger argument in writing.

In the first two essays I had trouble finding sources that were valid and supported my argument. In the beginning of the course I would just basically write most of my essay and then try to find sources that fit into it. I found out that this process wasn’t the best and eventually later discovered it would be extremely hard to do essays 3 and 4 with this strategy. Over time I’ve learned to make an outline of ideas I already had about a particular topic, and then research secondary sources before the writing process. In this way, finding secondary sources didn’t seem almost impossible and I could incorporate other people’s ideas instead of papers being only my opinions on things.

English 802 also helped me realize that I need to get more organized. Sometimes I would loose a secondary source and then spend a lot of time trying to relocate it. I was also very happy that Temple Library Database give you the actual MLA format for a specific source. I discovered that the Paley Library isn’t so confusing and the librarians are very helpful if I need more help later in my college years. I like how essays were divided up in workshop groups and conferences so it would give a chance to collect some insight and ideas from others to improve my work. This class contained a lot of analyzing and work, but I’m glad I took it because I feel like I have more confidence in writing