My paper

Been getting pretty nervous about tomorrow hoping that my paper is really good I have been working really hard on it. My paper has definitely changed from the first draft my first draft was pretty rough I'm just hoping it has been revised enough I think I did a pretty good job and I feel pretty confident about it but still a little nervous. 

E-portfolio

Dear, past self

If only you could see what the benefit of writing is. At the beginning of this semester you hated writing and didn’t think you would ever really learn how to develop your writing skills, and I think this is why we hated writing because we never thought we were good at it or would ever approve. With the help and guidance, this would all change this semester you really learned rhetorical knowledge. At the beginning of this semester, I had almost no clue on how to really use source information to strengthen my argument or the summary to make sense. You also really learned how to start writing early so that someone could read it and tell you when something may need to be looked at and revised because of information being in the wrong spot or not needing to be there at all because there was too much information in a spot.

               The complex thinking was a big thing you learned this semester if you were told that you were going to write a rational argument at the beginning of this semester as your first paper you would have never been able to write it. Over the learning curves that hit you this semester you learned how to take specific ideas from an article or writing and learned to use the quote of the author while also being able to take that quote and expand on it and make your own rational thought on it while not putting your bias opinion into it and at the beginning of the semester you would have written all your papers with little to no ration thinking behind it at almost completely biased point of view but now you know how to take the authors ideas and turn them into your own words and how to read an article and summarize using your own ideas about it while staying away from a biased opinion.

               A big thing you learned was how to focus your ideas on each separate paragraph while also reminding the reader about what they read in the previous paragraph with information. You know about this problem of mixing all the ideas in each paragraph and never being able to focus your ideas in a paragraph you would be happy to know that you can actually do this now and are able to make sense in each paragraph. Your ideas now flow into each sentence and paragraph and have one central idea in each paragraph.

               You finally learned critical and creative thinking to it is still a little rough but you are coming along ok with continued practice this skill will continue to grow. You are now pretty capable of reading an article and able to summarize it and take the authors ideas and analyze them and see what they apply to and are able to make a rational argument out of it.

               All of these skills you have learned this semester will continue to help you in the future and to my future self don’t ever give up on writing because you don’t think you are good enough. The only way to get better is “write early revise often” (Kyburz). Continue to refine your writing abilities they can only improve you have the rough skills now you are like an engine with constant work and tweaking you can become a well-tuned machine or also a well-rounded writer.

Sincerely,

                                     Past John

grades

As grades come in for each class I'm taking this semester my stress I getting less and less. This means I can focus more of my time towards some of the last papers I have due this semester. One of the papers in my college writing paper and the one I am really stressed about is my British literature final exam paper and I am super stressing over it because I really don't understand the whole idea behind the paper but I hope I do ok on this paper.

help on paper

I have learned some of the best help on papers can actually come from an outside peer not one in the class but someone from the outside. I have recently enacted the help from my good friend Jeff. I have handed him the rubric for my recent papers or explained to him the idea the papers are supposed to prove. He then takes my paper and doesn' t only look to see if the information is there but also that it makes sense and that it doesn't have grammatical and puncuational errors he doesn't come out and tell me what is wrong he tells me hey John look at page three line 25 will say and says what is the issue there and he will almost never tell me whats wrong he waits till I figure it out and this has really helped me this semster. So my personal advice is find yourself a person like Jeff that doesn't tell you whats wrong but helps you figure out what is wrong so that you can learn from what you do wrong.

How this class has helped me in other classes

Just this last paper I had to write I was able to use the knowledge from it to help me have a rational argument in my brit lit class and it really helped my papers grade because most of this semester I was getting 70's on my papers. After I made the connection because of how Dr. Kyburz taught the class and what she explained to me in our meeting I was able to strengthen my paper and I got a 95 on my brit lit class paper and I was really happy about it. 

Stress of the semester ending

This week has been a very difficult week with stuff going on at home still having some paperwork to finish for me to transfer to Olivet. Also having to go to work and all the stuff being assigned by professors. This rational argument paper though has been getting easier as I write it and that kinda scares me because I don't know if my paper is good or bad I know I have the basic idea of the paper down I just really hope it is good. I am really thankful though on how Dr. Kyburz has been so understanding with my situation that has been going on this semester. 

Paper update

I have finally found some sources that will definitely fit into my paper. These sources will help defend my argument against trophy hunting and how it is destroying the populations in Africa now I can realize it is really strange to hear that coming from a big hunting advocate like myself always looking for the next big buck but how I hunt is a way that will preserve a heard and make sure the population of deer grow. The problem in Africa is that lion populations are really low and unfair tactics are being used to hunt these big cats.