Writing has come naturally to me due to my past and experiences. My first language was not English and for this reason I devoted myself to learning what I could and more. Any project that was given in school, I chose to do a written essay or paper. This gave and continues to give me practice and experience to the English language. If I want to get anywhere in life in America, I have to read, write, and speak English fluently; otherwise I would be known as less by my peers. As of today, I can read, write, and speak English fluently. However, speeches are still a difficulty; I feel as if I am being judged, but I know I can overcome this obstacle with practice and experience.
Ever since I was in elementary school, I had always favored writing
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There are no personal views, opinions, or thoughts in research papers, so I the idea of sharing myself in a paper felt disturbingly wrong. I had no idea what was too personal or if I was personal enough. Personal stories, that are required for the course, have always felt invasive to me. However, in this instance, it felt therapeutic. For years, I carried these thoughts with me without sharing them with anyone. When I got my paper back, I showed it to my sister, to show her how much I appreciate her.
For this paper, I visited the Writing Center in the library multiple times. However I felt about my paper, I required a second opinion on my paper. The fear of not being my best, has always hindered me. When I visited the Writing Center, they told me, my fear of not being my best is unwarranted. According to the Writing Center, the paper was fine by all standards. However, I visited the Writing Center multiple times, for multiple papers, and for multiple classes. However, the need for a second opinion will always be with
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As a political science major, I have a firm grip on my opinions. The hardest thing to do was settling on a certain topic. Almost every example I was given to do the paper on, I had an opinion on. I am confident in choosing race relations in America. I felt knowledgeable on the subject and had a personal dash on the subject.
I realized that race relations in America was a very broad topic. Therefore, I chose a more narrow subject. I wrote about how technology has recently changed race relations in America. Social media, smartphones, news media, and body cameras have revolutionized the movement. While I had changed the topic from its previous inception in the opinion paper, it still held the core subject necessary for the research paper.
The research paper felt like familiar territory after the personal papers in the beginning of the semester. Nonetheless, I did not expect for my research paper to be personal as well. The hardest things for research papers, for me, is keeping an unbiased view on the topic. Being a minority in the United States and writing about race relations, albeit not my own, was personal and opinionated at times. Every time I delved into dangerous territory with opinions, I always tried to back-up my opinions with facts. There was a very thin line in the paper that separates opinions and facts. I may have reached the line a few times, but I do not think I crossed the line at any
The issues of how technology is influencing our nation today has come into play with social media and surveillance in our personal lives. We use twitter, Facebook, Instagram, etc. to express our opinions on things and as a voice to inform people on what’s going on in today’s society. We have learned how to use the tools we’ve been given to change our lives forever; our government has access to all of our personal information in exchange for our protection against terrorism. In Bijan Stephen’s article on “Black Lives Matter” and Rebecca McKinnon’s chapter on “the Arab Spring”, they both touch on the power of technology in negative and positive ways.
Particularly, in Chapter Two “Race and/as Technology or How to Do Things to Race,” new media studies scholar Wendy Hui Kyong Chun provides a vital intervention within digital racial studies and racial theory by her formation: “race and/as technology.” While race and technology has been widely theorized in across disciplines, Chun’s “race and/as technology” provokes crucial questions on race and/or “how to do things to race.” Chun argues the “and/as” shifts
I talked about a lot about race, ethnicity, and the different movies we watched in this paper. I believe that continuing on in this class will help myself get a better understanding of different races and cultures, which will make me more knowledgeable in the future and better me in the long run. I cannot wait to see what we are going to learn about in the weeks to come!
When approaching your paper, you must consider what your writing situation is. That will help you identify who your readers will be and why they would read your paper. Once you understand that you can start generating ideas and topics that you would like to write about. To generate ideas about your paper you can brainstorm, free write, and cluster ideas as they come to you. Then, when you have your ideas written down you can refine your topic and start to develop a research question. At that same time, you can start to read, evaluate, and collect the information you have found. It is also a good time to take notes or highlight what you think is important and begin to take a position. Next, you can start organizing your argument, sources,
Several people have trouble writing college level essays and believe that they are unable to improve their writing skills. In “the Inspired Writer vs. The Real Writer,” Sarah Allen argues how no one is born naturally good at writing. Sarah Allen also states how even professional writers have trouble with the task of writing. Others, such as Lennie Irvin, agree. In Irvin’s article “What is ‘Academic’ Writing?” states how there are misconceptions about writing. Furthermore, Mike Bunn’s article “How to Read Like a Writer” shows ways on how one can improve their writing skills. Allen, Bunn, and Irvin are correct to say how no one is born naturally good writers. Now that we know this, we should find ways to help improve our writing skills, and
In many ways technology makes access to academic work, research and employment easier and faster. However, I am concerned that technology is too often chosen over humanity. Historically,representations of African Americans in technological media tend to value "white" bodies at the expense of Black bodies (Stam and Spence, 1983). Further, recent studies show (Zickmund 2000), in fact, the ways in which some World Wide Web sites make it easier for hate groups to spread their misinformation, contributing to the devaluation of black bodies in technological media. Together, these media representations can be understood in terms of a digital devide between technological "haves" and "have-nots". Film and new media play integral roles in misrepresenting race. The film,The Matrix, reflects these problematic representations of race. Yet it provides critical metaphors for African Americans who contend that we are controlled by beings other than ourselves, and that our bodies must first be filtered through white bodies to be considered valuable.
Today, the world is connected digitally through the internet. Here, we can see many cases of anger and or racism daily. The Internet helps us see the severity of the issue with anger and “symbolic racism”, for it is widely understood that it does not matter what race or gender you are to experience or express the emotion anger in a racist way towards others. (Redlawsk. et al. pg. 681). Many racist acts are displayed daily on social media, yet no solid understanding is presented as to why it happens in its totality. It is more common to see these types of acts nowadays, even though we are more educated on the matter. It may be that “people use the internet as an artificial platform to express their emotions” including anger and racism. In an article published in the UK, Shakuntala Banaji claims Social Media is a “potentially therapeutic resource, for those needing the validation of their racist or anti-racist views”. (Shakuntala n.p.) Based on Shakuntala’s observation, technology is playing an instigative role in this phenomenon. Some use the internet to release, and more times than less fuel their anger. Even so, social media isn’t necessarily just a negative factor on the issue of anger and racism, for it also exposes other factors that may help understand the subject in a broader spectrum. The internet allows us to view these acts of anger being portrayed by
“The media serve as a tool that people use to define, measure, and understand American society” (Deo et al., 149). Thinking of the media as a tool for the American people also extends into the realm of race and ethnicity. The United States has had a long and difficult history pertaining to the racial and ethnic identities of the many different people that reside within and outside of it’s borders. That history is still being created and this country still struggles with many of the same problems that have plagued this area since before the founding of the U.S. As stated above, the popular media has a large impact on the way that race and ethnicity are understood by people, especially when considering the prevalence of segregation in the U.S.
These two topics have been a huge problem since 2015. Although, racism has changed over the years, it is still a big problem today. In today’s generation, we have seen a great deal of racial strife in just about everything. Some examples are, books, movies, poetry, and articles online. Since everything is online today, social media has really expanded all the drama of racial strife.
I chose the topic of transgenderism. Transgender is when an individual tries to switch genders. Transgender comes from the Latin words trans, meaning “across.” Transgender literally means “across gender.” Many trans-individuals decided later on in their lives that they want to switch genders, and other people argue that they were born the wrong gender. Trans-people experience many difficulties throughout their lives. Switching genders makes their lives more challenging, because of many reasons. Their lives are more challenging because of their religion, whether or not they are accepted. The military is very strict, and will not accept trans individuals whatsoever. Insurance companies sometimes will not accept them as well. Trans people are not always accepted by certain occupations. Growing up in schools, trans people are all treated differently regarding to which bathroom/locker room to use. There is a huge debate whether or not trans students are even allowed to participate on sports teams, and if they are, which team to be on. Other obstacles such as birth certificates, passports, and driver’s licenses are all major issues as well. Trans people have to decide if they are willing to come forward, and say ‘This is who I am.’ But before trans-people can come out to other, they must come out to
Some of the papers that I wrote throughout the course were mostly things that I felt very close to and loved. Whether it'd be sports, family, or friends, I always had something to write about. For how often I chose these topics, I always learned something from them too. Like with the Red Cross, over 95% of the workers there are volunteers that want to help out those in need after natural disasters.
As a second language learner I have never expected myself to be a perfect writer throughout the semester. Even If English was my first language still, I would not be a perfect writer. It is not about first or second language, it is about how well I understand the learning objectives. Then organizing and writing with my own ideas and putting them in my paper. I am going to be honest, I am not good at English subject and English subject is my strongest weakness than the other subjects. In this paper I will discuss and analyze my own writing, reflecting on the ways that my writing has improved throughout the semester.
Many of our youth turn to social media to vent about any and every issue that is going on and it is not always positive. Dr. Nakagawa described in her article “The Use of Social Media in Teaching Race” how social media might open people to detest discourse or perspectives of White matchless quality. Numerous individuals fail to be racially educated meaning that they lack having the education and knowledge to talk about race, deconstruct and challenge occurrences of bigotry, and interface and work with others to deliver disparities in connection to race. The internet gives numerous chances to utilizing social/new media to produce content and points of view that are generally lost from more extensive societal exchanges about
“Man is an animal that lives in language as a fish lives in water and so written communication is just one of the ways that man can survive through” (English scholar Annie Dillard). Writing is a skill to give information. Like all skills, it is not inborn and so it needs to be learnt. To give information you need good communication skills including the ability to write simply, clearly and concisely (Harris & Cunningham, 1996).
Whenever it come to the research paper, I struggled tremendously. The topic for the paper was “How to do Good Research.” While brainstorming I began to get overwhelmed. I have never done a research paper before and I didn 't know where to start. This is where I can grow as a writer. Acquiring more knowledge on how to research accurately and correctly would be helpful. There is an abundance of information online, trying to sort through it all is mind-boggling. Learning how to correctly cite sources following APA guidelines would be beneficial as