Category: Unit 2

Categories
Unit 2 Weekly Assignments

Micro-reflection

Micro-reflection

One of the challenges I face working on  Annotated Bibliography was coming up with a beneficial research question.   After pondering  a variety of different subjects for two days, I narrowed it down to a subject that I can identify with and encounter daily.  Once I established my research question, I  had to frame it to make sense to the reader.   Living in New York City, most people have interaction or connection with the homeless population.    Most people view the homeless as an individual that fell on hard times or made poor life decisions.   I believe it a broader issue that contributes to the cause of homelessness.    That develop my question; now the next difficult task was finding three creditable sources.

To narrow my resource to just three was a challenging obstacle; the reason why is I wanted  the sources to dig into the question and not scratch the surface.  I wanted in-depth articles that provide research and data to answer the question.  Another big challenge most of the article I review was outdated, and  most articles focus on providing the solution to the growing homelessness problem.  So, finding the three sources that address the question took a lot of time and effort.   After reading through countless articles, I finally narrowed down to three and began the Annotated Bibliography.

After completing the research, it was differently worthwhile.  I was able to discover many different circumstances that play a part in homelessness in the United States.   To name a few, it started s with poverty, policy, mental illness, and race were just some of the surrounding factors that contribute to homelessness in the United States.  I think one of the pitfalls I face with this assignment is the question covers many different areas.  I was not expecting to discover so many issues that impacted the homeless population.   In the process for future assignments, I will detail the question better to target one subject.  Overall, it was a great learning experience.

Categories
Unit 2

Week 11: 4/12-16 – Writing Week _ Sara Reyes

What has caused you difficulty? What I am struggling the most with is narrowing down what I want to discuss in my essay. There is so much information and I want to write about every aspect of obesity in America. Why America is top ranked of obesity? How to overcome obesity in America? Battling with obesity in America compared to other countries. I know that it is best to pick one topic and branch out of it but not too much. So I’m working on trying to stick to my main topic “Why America is top rank of obesity?” in picking to 2 topics that still stick to the main topic.

Was it a worthwhile challenge?  Absolutely. I have been learning so much from the sources I picked to complete my essay. Some of the linked I initially picked have hyperlinks with additional information and off topic information. I’m looking forward to completing this assignment and sharing all of the information I found.

How did you overcome/get around that sticking point? I have yet to come around my sticking point. I will be making my essay’s main point the initial topic using the sources I found but I’m still debating if I want to add some information on “How to overcome obesity in America?” & “Over Coming Obesity – Youth” as I came across great informative sources (hyperlinks).

How could you avoid that trouble in future assignments? I will try my very best NOT to select the hyperlinks. I think doing so expanded my curiosity to learn more on this topic but I didn’t realize it would also throw me off my main topic. Opening up additional issues to obesity and the prevention of obesity.

I have faith that my essay will all come together & flow nicely!

Categories
Unit 2

Unit 2: Micro-Reflection

To be completely honest, I had a very difficult time trying to set up the structure of my essay. I wasn’t sure of the direction I wanted to take my essay. The question I wanted to explore came naturally, as it’s something that I deal with on almost a daily basis and something I knew other females encountered frequently as well. However, talking about sexist remarks in multiplayer games felt like a very generic and one directional topic to me. Female player gets into a game. Female player talks. Female player gets harassed by male player. Female player feels bad. The End.

I needed to find a way to stretch this topic beyond just talking and detailing the experiences that these female players go through. I had a huge mental block at this point, because I wasn’t sure what else to talk about, but then I tried to think about the topic in a much more broad sense. This made me question things such as how these sentiments came to be and the further implications of these feelings. I wanted to know if the sexist mentalities these players would just stop at their computer screens, or if they would be carried out into the real world. These two other questions helped me make the framework of my essay. By introducing and educating the readers about the topic of sexism in the online world, then talking about the formation and implantation of this idea in people, and finally talking about the connection of this to the offline world, the readers would have an easy time understanding this situation. 

I guess in order to make this easier on myself the next time I get to pick a topic to write about, is to approach it with an outsider’s point of view. If I approach it with a point of view that I’m familiar with, I’d probably see the issue at hand in a very one directional way, as I did when I first came up with the topic. If I approach it as someone who has no idea about the topic, it allows me to have so many more angles to tackle the question from, which can allow for a more thorough investigation of the question.