Climate change is a topic that I want to research on because it is a topic that is discussed heavily in politics frequently but isn’t briefly understood by people in today’s society. I hope that one day it will be fully understood and that people would take the necessary steps to avoid the effects of climate change.
Author: Nour El-Refaey
Writers Statement
The idea of discourse communities makes the most sense when comparing it to genres and rhetoric to me. Discourse communities has played a large role in my youth from when I moved to Egypt in 2006 to coming back to New York In 2012. The fact that a person can distinguish one group of people from another depending on where they are shows that a persons mind is shaped according to their environment. Those who have traveled anywhere In the world can definitely agree that discourse communities are all over and it depends on common interest and differences to shape a specific discourse community. I’ve come to the realization that genres really depends on a persons mindset. I might view something as dull while the next man views it as all the light in the world. Rhetoric is definitely a topic that is very complex when it comes up in discussion due to it being about how someone views a specific thing that has meaning behind it. Discourse community is a very useful term in the sense where it is a concept that is used to specify a group of individuals with specific interests that distinguish them from others. A discourse community is not something that is thought of on site, rather it is something that you realize once you are no longer in contact with that specific group.
Genres- Nour El-Refaey
One genre that I feel like I know and enjoy reading is fiction. I read countless amounts of fiction books growing up which has to be the main reason as to why I enjoy the genre so much. Common rhetorical features that come with fiction would mainly be imagery and illusion. Fiction books are based on the writers imagination. Things that can not happen in real life are usually portrayed in fiction novels. Fiction novels gives me the ability to write freely. When it comes to writing fiction has given me a certain style that I follow in order to make my piece of writing as strong as possible. Usually in a fiction novels, all the characters are introduced very briefly in order for the reader to not be confused on the rest of the novel. When it comes to my writing, I always give a brief introduction that really specifies to the reader what exactly I will be writing on for the rest of the piece. I never find a limit in writing, I feel like there is always a million things to speak on about one thing, whether it carries a specific trait or not is the simplest way to talk about a specific thing. Fiction has opened many doors for me in my everyday life, whether it is with writing or with trying to come up with a plan for my life.
Discourse Community
A time where I had an opportunity to join a discourse community was in 2006 when my family moved to Alexandria, Egypt so that I would learn Arabic and study the religion of Islam. Moving to Egypt was probably one of the hardest things I had to live through when it came to fitting in with a community that had no common interests with me. Leaving the United States at age 6 to a whole new environment where literally everything including the air we breathe is different may be viewed as a challenge but in my opinion it could have been worse. My first two years in school were the worst, I got bullied a lot for being the American kid in my class, barely anyone wanted to be my friend because they feared being picked on for being my friends. Luckily I went to a private school so therefore I did manage to make my fair share of American friends, but I still hated it. It almost felt like the school was segregated into two different groups, The foreigners and the Egyptians. Within the two year stay at that school I witnessed countless fights and it was not fun to watch being so young and naïve. The one thing that saved me from staying at that school and possibly ending up very hurt by someone else’s carelessness was the fact that when midterms were going on, the school decided to take all the foreigners and place them all in a classroom without a teacher to hang out all day claiming that none of us payed tuition and that we would have to stay there until our parents arrived to pay it off for us. This sparked a lot of outrage with all the parents. A whole new issue occurred and this time my mother was involved. All my life I hid any of my issues from my parents because I feel like they have enough stress to deal with themselves. The whole secluding the foreign students in an empty classroom situation gave my parents no choice but to move me to another school. This new school was different, almost like a safe haven for anyone. I made so many friends and it felt like the whole school cared for me. The school I attended was so good that even my mother started to work there as a teacher which was amazing. At first I feared to show my true self so I always carried myself like I was ten times my own size to protect myself from any type of harm. Walking into that school on the second week of my first year there I felt like I was walked right through the door of my house ready to feel free of any type of stress. I fit into that discourse community almost as if it was created by myself, and when it was time to leave Egypt 4 years later, it felt like my life was ending.
“Googlepedia” Nour El-refaey
Part 1
When it comes to researching a specific topic, and trying to come up with interesting and valuable information I usually start by using my own knowledge on the topic, followed by online reliable source proof. The reason why I always start by using my own knowledge on a topic is because everything that I tend to remember about anything is remembered because of how interesting it is to me. Nobody remembers boring things that doesn’t spark interest in their mind.
Secondly once I’m out of personal knowledge I go straight to searching the topic and the top result will always be Wikipedia. I look at Wikipedia so that I could get a better understanding of the topic I am about to write a whole lot about. Wikipedia is very reliable when it comes to getting a time frame on certain topics. For example if I was doing research on automobiles, Wikipedia would be my primary source for dates and information on the history of automobiles.
Tertiary, I love including articles in my research papers from reliable sources around the internet. Most of my writing would be based on articles because articles are usually based on specific events that all relate to each other. For example if I am writing a research paper on the Arab Spring that occurred in 2011, news articles from around that date on that topic will give you information on specific experiences that were faced by individuals in those middle eastern countries at the time. The reason why I chose regular articles rather than news articles is because the news tends to miss out on more valuable and interesting events. It is almost as if regular articles are written from the point of view of the people in a country while the news writes on the political stance of an issue that goes on in a country.
Without citing your information on a research paper, the whole paper will go to waste because it is considered plagiarism, which is something that is taken very seriously within the writing world.
Portrait of a writer U1 DRAFT
Writing is one of the most complex skills in the world that has been around for just as long as language has existed, it is a way of communication without the use of sound or gestures. Writing has to be one of the most underrated skills due to it being used in many people’s everyday lives, the more you do something the less interesting it becomes to you, and writing is something everyone does. When it comes to the skill itself, there is many ways to come about coming up with a piece good piece of writing. For the most part writing has no specific rubric that could grade every piece of writing in the world. It is almost like a free world where you can do whatever you want ,and for the most part not get judged on it. I write every single day without even acknowledging it, whether it comes to writing notes in class, to writing a grocery list for my little brother at home. When it comes to how I view my skill level as a writer, there is a lot to think about. What I come up with in my mind versus what I actually write on paper is usually completely different from each other, and by the time i notice it, I would have actually forgotten what I had planned on writing from the start. I view myself as a very lazy writer because It takes a lot from me to go back and actually revise a text that i wrote.
I tend to make a lot of simple grammar mistakes because mid writing a sentence I tend to forget what I wrote two words behind where I am at, and start writing a totally different type of sentence. It is easy for me to come up with pieces of writing that relate to my personal life because I really appreciate the life I have lived. Writing argumentative essays is something I tend to enjoy writing because I have the ability to understand two sides of an argument which helps me come up with strong arguments that could lead to strengthening my stance. One thing I really like about writing is that it is for all types of people, whether you are mute, deaf, or blind, writing is a skill that could be used to cover the oral part of communication.
Growing up, I was a very shy child, so reading and writing were my go-to’s when I needed to express myself. By the time I hit 10 years of age, I learned the importance of confidence. I feel like finding confidence is one of the reasons why my argumentative skills prospered so heavily since I can freely speak my mind without having to worry about how other people view me. Learning how to spell is one of the most important parts of writing in my opinion because when someone is reading a piece of writing their main focus is to catch a misspelling, which is very easy. The way I write is the outcome of the person I am. My strengths and weaknesses are there because there is no such thing as a ‘Perfect writer”.
Reflection and revision.
Things I should try to do when revising my draft…
1. Cutting out unnecessary words as much as possible.
2. Working on making a powerful introduction paragraph followed by equally as strong body paragraphs.
3. Refrain from grammar and spelling mistakes.
Bad Ideas
Leaving yourself out of your piece of writing is one of the bad ideas of writing. Every good piece of reading is good because it usually comes with a connection between the reader and the writer. It feels different when you know what you’re reading was created by the man in the writing. Leaving yourself out of your writing is bad because you it leaves out the passion for writing part.
Literary Sponsor…
Dear Miss Roach,
First and foremost I want to thank you for all of the support you showed me throughout high school. I learned a lot about my struggles in writing , and learned to overcome them through you. You chose to be my friend before a teacher on the first day of class due to me being the one student in your AP English class that stood out. All the students in your class looked down on me because they thought I wasn’t up to par with them. Without your support I would have definitely compared to what the other students thought of me. It was definitely hard to do all the work you handed me, due to my lack of responsibility when it comes to doing homework, but you pushed me, and never gave up. You are the main reason why I came to college to pursue a career that I dreamed of my whole life.
Thank you.
Mike Rose’s Piece…
In order to have an at the very least decent essay I would usually focus on things that writers focus on last. I tend to focus on structure, font, line space, and even size. I feel like if my essay is not structured correctly it could easily throw me off with what I am writing about. One of the biggest obstacles that I usually face when it comes to writing an essay has to be my intro paragraph. I do not believe in coming back to my intro whatsoever. This is a bad habit in writing that I am aware of and will be focused on getting rid of. In mike Rose’s writing he wrote strageties down on how to improve your opening statement, which I completely agree with due to it being completely concrete.
