1.14.2020

Since today was the first LE class after the winter break, we were introduced to an overview of what we are planning to write. Over the last 2 semesters, we worked in groups, learning and improving our presentation skills as well as design, so it was no surprise to see that writing informative essays was the topic of this time. At first, I was confused because we had already written a group essay, so I thought it didn’t make sense to create another one from scratch. However, we were going to write based on the 3 body paragraphs that we wrote during the group project, meaning that those who had already met the guidelines of 3 paragraphs and 3 bibliographies only had to work on an introduction and a conclusion.

Fortunately, I met the guidelines, so in class, I worked on creating a new document and checking to see if the resources fit the quotes that I wrote in some of my paragraphs. Being able to cite a certain source can improve the section’s persuasiveness. Any reader who scans through an article is more likely to examine the article itself, rather than the citations that they used. This means that even if the writer has included good proof, it would not catch the eye of onlookers, especially when it comes to reading a wordy paper. By copying a few lines from a cite, and connecting the proof with the statement that you have thought of, it would up the professionality of the paragraph. In this case, I made sure to add one resource in one paragraph, trying to showcase the proof that I researched. What surprised me was the standardized amount of resources per paper, which is equal to at least 10 for university students. If I need to reach that level, I would want to improve my researching skills and the ability to pinpoint the main ideas of each bibliography. While I was editing my paragraph, a thought that came up was the format for citation. When Mr. Paterson was explaining the upcoming classes, he described a citation tool called Zotero. When doing a quick search, it turned out that this tool can not only help cite with the correct format but can also allow collaboration with other team members, as well as it being a utility that can detect possible websites that can be possible resources. I am looking forward to learning more about the abilities that this system can bring.

Something that I would like to work on is figuring out a creative hook for my introduction paragraph. In class, we learned ways to catch an audience whether that would be with interesting data, facts, quotes, or a question. Back then, I thought that creating a hook was free and creative, meaning that it would feel like an easy process. However, through this project, I learned that certain styles of hooks fit certain topics of essays. If there is an essay about a major crisis that is known regularly, there are a variety of options to choose from. Unfortunately, this means that topics that are vague or are hard to research, also result in a limited number of hooks to choose from. Even if there are a lot of options, the atmosphere of the essay can also be acknowledged as well, because hooks with data are more likely to fit with a numerically based essay. With that in mind, I want to continue to find a hook that can act naturally in my type of essay.