Writing as a Social Act (B)

-Review: 

I made some, although small progress towards SLO B. I believe that progress was made towards it in the sense of Peer Review, as well as incorporating others’ review of the same thing into my own review. This could count as international/national composing, since the other person is not part of my local group. This is a valuable thing to do, as using other peoples viewpoints from a circle outside your local circle can help see things in new light, reinforce points of your own, and overall enhance the review significantly. 

 

Writing as a Process (C)

-Proposal: 

My writing as a process has improved over the semester through mainly planning, researching, editing, and revising so far. I have incorporated planning by making an overarching plan for how to lay out this first Major Writing Assignment, what to include, and what points I want to make and how to back them up. I have also improved in the research aspect by using sources, data, and information that is applicable to my topic. I have also improved in my editing, revising, and incorporating feedback by having others read my paper via peer review, commenting on what they think needs changing, and implementing those that I deem appropriate.

 

Grammar and Usage (D)

-Proposal:

I have improved my dialect in Standardized Written American English in a few ways. By asking about what it is in class, I developed a greater understanding of what it means, just the style of writing that is appropriate for presenting to others in a professional way. It is free of slang, if it uses abbreviations they are outlined previously in the writing, and is free of any major grammatical or spelling error. It is also structured in a way that makes sense, and can be read easily and understood by the intended audience.

 

Grammar and Usage (E)

-Proposal:

Adding multiple dialects, languages, and registers in my own texts has really helped to improve the overall readability and ease of understanding in my writing. By including images, such as charts, graphs, etc. readers can have a quicker way to view the intended material. Analyzing other’s writing via peer review, I have noticed that including images as well can be helpful depending on the reach of the proposal. For example, one student may include pictures of destroyed homes via wildfire to elicit an emotional response to their proposal, and have a greater impact on the reader. This is something I hadn’t quite considered before but could be a great addition to many proposals or other writing. 

 

Reflection (F)

-Proposal

Composing in various genres can be very helpful and applicable to my goals within the Exercise Science program. It is a very research heavy program towards the second half, and requires a student to be able to quickly understand complex studies and results through graphs, charts, and articles. They can also use complicated language, with a lot of integrated numbers, etc. that can muddy up the waters of what is being read. Sifting through this and picking out important information is essential to grasping what was done in the overall study. 

 

Research (G)

-Review:

I definitely made progress towards SLO G during this project. Going into this project, I of course had some views and opinions that just came from playing the game for a long time. I went into the project with the assumption that it would likely be all praise, as this is a game I’ve played for a long time, and have a very deep understanding of. Quickly I realized though, that if I was going to recommend it to other players, I had to address the obvious shortcomings of it. Looking at it this way gave me a new perspective on the game overall, and newer players likely experience of it. 

 

-Research Project:

Using writing and research as a means of discovery to examine my personal beliefs is something I did a lot of with this Major Writing Assignment. Something I always thought true with personal health and fitness was that people focus a lot on all the wrong things when it comes to making lifelong changes for health and fitness. I personally thought that instead of focusing on nutrition, or training, or supplementation etc. being their main concerns when starting, that the mindset they had from the beginning was all wrong. This was the main thing I wrote and researched about, and confirmed it to be true.

 

Research (H)

-Review:

I made significant progress with SLO H as well during this project, and the past few weeks of class. The peer review process, was again one of the areas that helped me integrate other’s position into my writing. I received feedback about things I forgot to mention that would help the reader understand the game, as well as areas in my paper that needed fleshing out, and areas that needed to be dialed back. I also integrated other reviews about the game from IGN, and reading their review helped me realize the massive shortcomings, something that if left out, would certainly have made the review incomplete. 

 

-Research Project:

Along with SLO G, integrating others’ positions and perspectives into my writing was of course something I did a lot of as well with this project. I went into it with the idea that mindset was the most important part of the health and fitness journey, and chose to find non biased sources that examined elements of that. The main mediums/sources I chose to use were articles and journals because I wanted my research project to contain an opinion I had about the thing, and then synthesize these sources together to back it up. I also took into account peer review from others’ and changed a few things that I deemed appropriate from their responses.

 

Research (I)

-Research Project: 

The research based academic argument I wrote was a paper, and was not one of a different medium or technology. The assignment stated that the project could be a video, paper, podcast, etc. but I chose not to go down any of these paths, and wrote a traditional paper instead. I started the project by coming up with my main thesis that psychology is the most important aspect, and is often overlooked, then thought about counter arguments people could have and how I could counter their counter-arguments. For example, a counterclaim may be that nutrition is the most important part, but my counter-claim would be that nutrition only makes a meaningful difference if a plan is followed for a long time, and to follow that plan a certain psychology would need to be in place. I chose to use an article explaining normal Total Daily Energy Expenditure, as a way to show that nutrition is often overcomplicated.