Exploratory Research Paper Reflections

What I liked about the project:

• I liked that we were asked to add a personal voice to our findings and share our reaction to the information we gathered. I am not used to that writing style so it definitely was a new learning experience for me. 
• I liked the freedom of the project and how we were able to research whatever topic we researched. From the first description of assignment I knew my research was going to be be done on a modern military aircraft, which immediately got me pumped and anxious to begin conducting research.
• I also really enjoyed the personal one-on-one meeting with Dr. Kyburz. That meeting helped me determine between two research topics and Dr. Kyburz pointed me in the direction that ended up being a better learning experience for me. Up until I wrote that paper, i knew nothing about the Russian Sukhoi T-50. 

What I didn't like about the project:

Image Source

• I liked everything about this project! =)

What I learned from this project:

• I learned a lot about how exploratory research differs from a regular research paper. 
• I learned a lot about a brand new aircraft that I knew nothing about other than its name. 
• I learned how to properly cite web sources in in-text citations in MLA format. 
• I learned that exploratory research is much more fun than informative research. 

 

Summary with Rhetorical Analysis Paper Reflections

• The rhetorical analysis paper was a rather long project and I did not expect to spend more than four weeks on the project. I did not take a liking to this particular project because of how long it took and how it was broken down into a series of stages rather than just writing one draft and revising it.

 

• The topic was not very interesting to me, most likely because i do not follow Mark Bittman in his New York Times articles. However, I do like the point he makes in this particular article and the way he presents his message. I related to the article because I know that i do have a tendency to "sweat the small stuff" due to my perfectionist mentality. 

• Lastly, I enjoyed the rhetorical analysis component of the project because I knew nothing about Ethos, Pathos, and Logos before the project. i learned what each category was and how they impact a paper, which helped me better analyze Bittman's work. Despite how much experience I had writing analytic summaries, I was still able to learn a new skill through this project, and i really enjoyed that.     

Multimodal Project Presentation Reflections

• What I thought about the project:

When the project was first presented to us in terms of what we had to do and how we had to do it, i was excited because I usually do not make my own videos. The fact that we had the freedom to choose what topic we wished to present made me anxious. Hundreds of topics streamed through my mind and I could not decide. However, I was able to narrow down my options to aviation related topics. Overall, I loved the idea of the video format and I enjoyed bragging about my favorite plane. 

• What I felt at the during my presentation:

Knowing it was presentation day, I was excited to share my project with the class and boast about the Advanced Super Hornet like there was no tomorrow. I couldn't help but feel a little nervous considering the fact that I don't like "stepping under the spotlight" as Hollywood folks would describe it. I don't perform well when I know I have a handful of people's attention watching over me. I have learned to cope with it over the years by simply facing the music and getting over with.On a more positive note,  I do love to teach people about military related subjects so that helped me cope with my stage anxiety. While I was setting up the projector I could help but kick myself in the rear for not adding photos of the other two aircraft I had mentioned orally to help my audience better understand what i was talking about. With the exception of those missing photos, I felt very proud of my project and I enjoyed presenting it to the class. Something just felt right about my approach to the controversy and the style i chose to present it in. Even the soundtrack I chose was perfect for the video I had formatted. 

• What I felt after the presentation:

After I received feedback from Dr. Kyburz and a few classmates, I was satisfied with what I had created because I know they enjoyed the presentation and I was pleased to hear that I did well informing them. I concur with the feedback that was given back to me, and again the only disappointment was that I did not include a photo of the Raptor or the Lightning II.       

Multimodal Project Reflections

• What are my modes? (Audio, video, image, text: Be general and specific...which)

The modes that I utilized for my multimodal project included video, audio, and text. I took an excerpt from a large documentary I found on You-tube and added a track that I found suitable for the excerpt. The video also included audio and narration so I overlapped the track I added with the video, giving the narration and audio priority over the music. Once I implemented the music with the video, I added my own text into the video to help present what I wanted the viewers to think about. The text consisted of controversial questions concerning the aircraft and some general information on the aircraft itself. Once my editing was complete, I matched the audio, video, and text into a video that I found satisfactory to what I wanted for my class presentation. 

• What is my platform? (youtube, ppt, prez, etc.)

The platform that I decided to use was Microsoft Windows Movie Maker. The reason that I decided to use this platform was because I had experience with it in the past. It is the only platform I felt comfortable with for the project and , in my opinion, is the easiest to use. 

• What is my concept?...The nature of my inquiry?

The concept that I chose was to present something I knew i was going to feel excited about. Currently, I am following a controversy that is very relative to my career goals and so I picked that controversy to present in the form of a video. The issue is that the researchers and developers at Boeing have unleashed an outstanding new strike fighter for use by the US Navy and Congress is hesitant on the decision to add it top the 2015 Fiscal Year due to budgeting concerns. At first, the nature of my inquiry on the topic was to be as informational to the viewer as possible, but I changed my approach due to some suggestions and made it more opposing to excluding the aircraft from the 2015 Fiscal Year. At first I did not like the idea of changing the approach but as I edited further I realized it made sense. 

• How can it be better?

Honestly, I was very satisfied with the outcome of my project. The only improvements I would like to make to the project is if I could add footage of a live debate between congressman, Boeing representatives, and the Secretary of Defense about the military budgeting controversy. 

Christo Summary Reflection

Rhetorical Knowledge: 

• How to use sources appropriately- I felt that this project really helped me refresh on the proper procedures for MLA citation, especially considering the source was a film. I would not have been able to remember what an MLA film citation would have even looked like without the assistance from the Purdue OWL. I was also able to look up the citation format for a wide array of sources, such as journals, newspapers, movies, video clips, and web sites. I really enjoyed the extra push the demand for a proper citation gave me. Without that requirement, I am sure that I would have completely forgotten the MLA citation format and I would probably not practice its use on my own time. 
• How to organize thoughts, focus, and create an impression- This project was very particular in this subject area. What I found to be one of the most challenging elements of the composure of this essay was the strict limitation to just a summary of the short film. I quickly discovered the difficulty involved in keeping the essay strictly a summary rather than an analysis. As I delved deeper and deeper into my essay I found it so tempting to naturally insert my own opinions and thoughts and disrupt the flow of events in the film with commentary. However, after much editing and a better understanding of what a summary really should look and sound like, I was able to cut out the "chit chat" and get down to the business of composing a true summary. 

Critical and Creative Thinking:

• Draw reasonable inferences- Although this project did not require much analysis in terms of composing the summary, there where still many inferences that were made in class as to what the idea behind the making of the film was about. Many students were able to mutually agree that the moral of the film was that although Christo was doubted by everyone around him in terms of the success of his massive project, he was still able to disregard the overwhelming doubt and press forward with his project. The students and I in the class were able to pick up on this subject rather quickly using our critical thinking skills and see more meaning to the film that goes beyond the major focus of it. 

Genre Knowledge:

• #3 As you grow in academic writing experience, you'll encounter more types of academic genres: researched arguments, reports, reviews, summaries, personal testimonies, etc... - This assignment was especially helpful in distinguishing the differences between summary papers and analytic papers. Weeding out text that did not relate to the sole description of the film and unfiltered description only was the most difficult component to writing this paper. To be able to identify the difference between analyzing and summarizing was a huge skill to pick up on during the construction of this essay. After the completion of this project, i now have a much better understanding of the differences between analytic writing and summary writing.

Mechanical Knowledge:

• I must be honest, I did not learn very much about the basic mechanics of writing a paper in this assignment being that I am already very familiar with how composing an essay works. If anything, the assignment was an excellent means of refreshing my memory in terms of how organize an essay and put it into MLA format. However, what i did learn is that in terms of summarizing any sequence of events, it is best to compose a paper in a chronological fashion that corresponds to the chronology of the story line itself.  

  

         

What Makes a Good Question?

"The wise man doesn't give the right answers, he poses the right questions."-Claude Levi-Strauss

In my opinion, a solid question worthy of investigation and research must include the following:

• A question of good quality must not seem common or cliche. Common questions like "How are you?" or "What time is it?" are far too common in the modern world. They lack creativity and meaning are are not difficult to answer. Often times these questions can be answered on-spot without research or even complex thought. Simple, everyday questions pose no challenge and require no insight or research and, in simpler terms, can be described as boring. Questions worthy of thought and careful attention can be described  as complex questions with sometimes no definite answer. A question without an answer will send a curious human being on a journey through their conscious thought, knowledge, insight, history, and every other corner of the universe to find an answer. If a question does not take an adventure to answer it, then it is not a good question.      
• A question worthy of the world's attention is a question that cannot be answered by the modern internet search engine. Amazing questions are questions that even Google itself will respond "I don't know" to. Often times, it is too easy for Individuals, like myself, to log onto their Google account and look the answer to a question we cannot answer ourselves. Although this method has proven very efficient and beneficial, it is also harmful to human curiosity because it is far too easy to answer even the most complex questions because of the internet. The web has take away the thrill of traversing to the local library and vigilantly seeking out the required knowledge to answer the question that brought you to the library in the first place. Of course this fault does not apply to everyone because not every person on the face of the Earth has access to the internet, let alone a computer. In worst case scenarios, some individuals may not even have access to a library or any information database. We as students at a resourceful university would not understand the complications of not being able to access information, so I will drop the subject.    
• My final point on what an excellent question consists of is that the question must require a hint of philosophy and creativity to answer. Again, this brings me back to my previous point on a good question not having a definite answer, but it has to go beyond just being a complex question. Somewhere in the recipe required to answer it, "six cups of philosophy, three cups of facts, and a pinch of personal opinion" must be added to give the answer the "zest" it needs to solve the complex question. In other words, the question must have no definite answer and a mutual agreement between millions of insightful people as to what the answer should be before it can be deemed a good question.   

Summary: 

A good question contains complexity, requires intense amounts of research, cannot be answered by a search engine, presents a challenge to even the best of scholars, and in some cases requires agreement between many scholars as to what the answer should be.  

"This is Water" Response

Anthony R Valadez
Dr. Kyburz
College Writing 1 
August 28, 2014

"This is Water" Response

      
      The excerpt of the speech by Doctor David Foster Wallace featured in the video entitled "This is Water" initially struck me as just another lecture from a higher educated person about how important something as overlooked as water is. However, after watching just half of the video, I realized that that message was not based on water or it's physical properties as defined by chemistry, or even about how important something like water is. Instead, the author used the water as a simile to portray the true message of his excerpt, that we as human beings tend to overlook some of the most essential things in life because we are too focused on the stress and problems only in our lives instead of looking at the world around us. It was the use of that simile that I liked most about this excerpt. I found his use of the comparison to be effective because. unfortunately, most people do not realize that water is the essence of life and perhaps the most important compound that can be composed by the elements. 

      In the video, Doctor Foster uses the reference of the two young fish as nearly graduating college students about to embark on their journey we call life, and the adult fish as someone who is experiencing the life that the two young fish are embracing for. The context meaning behind that brief moment of personification is that the water in the bowl is the life the fish share, just as the world in which we inhabit is shared and does not revolve around ourselves. The message conveyed by the simple use of goldfish in a bowl is what I liked best about the video, and the message itself as well.

      What I found to be quite clever about the video excerpt was the use of the text and video that was directed and integrated into the speech by Doctor Foster. The scenarios illustrated in the video were matched so perfectly with the words of Doctor Foster and it really helped enhance the permanence and understanding of the purpose of the video, to look at life through more than just my "default setting", as Doctor Foster had phrased it. The use of so many scenarios in doctor's speech created an awful lot of images in the listeners mind, thus bringing the attention of the listeners away from the main point and too focused on trying to imagine themselves as that programmed adult living their depressing, routinized life. The illustrations provided help to eliminate that problem by providing a demonstration of that programmed adult and enhanced the audience's understanding by providing the text coupled with the illustrations and the facial expressions of the adults in their times of frustration. The compare and contrast effect between the male and female shopper in the scenes of the check-out line also helped me understand how much more beneficial it is to look at my surroundings with more than just me "default setting." The creative ways the directors used to enhance the understanding of the message of the film is what I found most clever and insightful.              

      In short, the film did not fail in reaching my utmost consciousnesses by making me see in a different lite, so to speak. I too, like so many others, spend my days on a routine constructed by myself and concentrate my concerns on only myself. After hearing and seeing this message, I now realize that yes, I do have options, and yes, I can choose to make the best of my routine by seeing things in a different manor. To open up more to the world around me and to be more considerate to the people around me, for I am unaware of how severe their situations may be or may have been. I can honestly say that I was touched by this video and I will now think twice before I loose my temper because of life's everyday inconveniences.