Portfolio annotations

Overall Reflection
Overall, portfolio number 2 continued with peer revision, drafting, and reading. But we also obtained new information on outlining, thesis statements, reading images, and researching. Outlining was a way to help a writer organize their thoughts on what they prefer to write. There are different kinds of outlining; for example a person can organize by using roman numerals, free writing, or the MEAL plan. Outlining can be telling what a person’s observation is and it shows by using evidence to support an observation. On the other hand, thesis statements are what display the main purpose or topic of an essay. It can introduce a point that the writer is trying to give to the reader. For example, my thesis statement from my essay is “In our society’s case, perfection is imaginary due to war, poverty, sickness, torture and crime. Seeing our community as a perfect environment is certainly setting high standards that would take time and consideration from people to achieve.” My statement shows the reader that the essay will be talking about perfection and how a society can or can’t be perfect. In order to produce my essay, we had to read an image to get the topic of our paper. I chose a picture that seemed powerful to me by the form of body language and emotion represented. Therefore, I wrote my essay with the same attitude I had by looking at the image.
From the new information we learned for portfolio two made my work easier than not knowing the technique of outlining or researching. For outlining, I ended using the “spider plot”. Which has the topic in the middle and from this box I made subtopics boxes, each containing their own details. Using this plot helped me to focus on what I had planned to write so I wouldn’t run off track. Also, researching was more interesting due to the topic I had chosen to write about: Perfection/Utopia. For research, I tried the internet first and I found information but I wasn’t sure if it was relevant. I then found books on Utopia at the library and trusted the info that I received. At the library I ended up getting twice as more information than I did from the internet. By researching, it helped me to produce a thesis statement which led into helping me start my essay. My thesis does the job of covering the topic I will discuss in my writing. Also from learning how to read from an image I found this activity more exciting because it was interesting to figure out the point to an image. From observing my image is how I came up with the topic of “perfection.”
In the future I want to continue using outlining techniques and researching and eventually improve on these skills. I became a huge fan of peer revision also. I’ve never done peer revision until I was introduced to it in this class. I find it helpful because my peer usually finds issues in my writing that I would have never seen. I like the honesty from my peer because in the long run it saves me embarrassment when it is time to hand in my paper. Out of all the new techniques we’ve learned, peer revision was my favorite. As for research and thesis statements, those will only improve from the amount of time I spend on them. I tend to come across research papers once in a blue moon because essays that are assigned to me usually have to do with my personal thoughts. But I will defiantly take what I’ve learned on thesis and research into consideration because I know I will come across these types of essays again.

Research Reflection
Researching on my topic “Utopia” and “perfection” wasn’t hard but it related to many other topics such as politics and relationships. As mentioned before, I first turned to the internet to begin researching. I noticed perfection is a topic that can be told through other people’s opinions on what it should be. I found many online articles from other people that contained their own personal feelings on the subject. I even found videos that documented random people and explained their thoughts on perfection. Meanwhile, when I searched Utopia on the internet I found a great deal of history on where the term was founded and why. But after a while of internet searching on perfection and Utopia, I began to find repeated information. I turned next to the library and found 2 good books on Utopia and these books ended up answering all of my questions. What, where, how, and why there is a word Utopia.
I’ve learned that researching on the internet may get you far but if you want to look for info to go much deeper into a topic, I recommend a library. As said before, the internet can be sketchy at times and not provide people with the right information. When I began research, the internet was a good starting point for narrowing down my topic, then with the topic I chose I went on to using more relevant information out of a library. I will admit I never did take the time to read written articles from authors to support pieces of information in my paper. Even though the internet provided me with enough personal thought articles from others, I still should have read actual articles from a magazine or journal to see truthful information.

Abstract
Context: I will be exploring the term Perfection and describe is the word is imaginary or reality.
Problem: I will discuss why the world around us is not perfect. There are too many different cultures, beliefs, and goals to settle on one agreement.
Launching Point: I want to cover how not having a perfect world effects people.

Essay Reflection

Writing this research paper helped me to improve on my skills of researching and writing a thesis statement. Putting in all together the methods I learned this semester: outlining, peer revision, researching, drafting, and reading images, I now can take what I learned and turn it into any good paper. I tested this knowledge by first choosing an image I thought was powerful. In the image are a man, a woman, and a child in a stroller. By the way the couple is standing with the child in the middle, staring out onto a heart sculpture reminded me of how “perfect” this image was taken. Keep in mind this was not a planned scene, the picture was taken at the right moment. After examining the picture a little bit more, the body language of the couple showed they may have issues going on in their life. The way they are both positioned, looking at the heart, could resemble troubles in love, money, or just the moment itself. This picture showed a perfect example of the world today. It represents families in their same situation; by taking a break from what is around them and admiring how something is so simple but yet beautiful. Therefore, the topic of my paper was perfection and later leading into the term Utopia. Then as I wrote my paper I continued with my knowledge of the thesis statement, drafting, and revising. By the time I was done with the paper I’ve experienced throughout my research all the skills needed to make a great paper. Even though I favored more methods than others, I will still continue to use all of them.

Outlining

Now that we have done a draft for our introduction, we now need to think about the whole draft itself. Think about how you will organize the draft by having an outline. An outline is made up of methods or structures that help organize your thoughts. When thinking about an outline, we think of our topic, support, and evidence statements. There are many different ways to construct an outline, such as using roman numerals, capital letters, or numbers. Not everyone is a linear organizer; others may organize by free writing. They can have the main idea, evidence, analysis, and then a link. The main idea correlates with the topic sentences, evidence is your idea from research, analysis is the reading of the research, and the link follows into the next section. Non-free writers can have an introduction, and then with each part include the MEAL.
Outlining can be telling and showing what you want to write about. Telling explains your observations on the topic and showing is using evidence to support your observation. In each paragraph, you should include 3-4 tells and 3-4 shows.

annotations

The source from which I picked from the website You Tube is my favorite. It is a video that shares opinions of others on what they think a perfect society is. This helped me think about how people see what the term perfect is; helped to define.

Another source that I also admired was a short poem on how life is perfect. In this poem it mentioned how the author told a guy that he was perfect, the guy responded with “but I am not perfect.” This helped me to think a lot of people feel the same way, they are not perfect as well.

The source on Utopia is probably my main source in which majority of my info will come from. It talks about what utopia is and where the term came from.

intro to essay

Can anything in the world be known as perfect, such as jobs, relationships, traveling, or the world itself? If so, how can we define this certain something as perfect? Perfection can be seen as being flawless; there are no defects or problems. It can be seen as an adjective, describing people, places and things as nice, beautiful, charming, loving, satisfying and pleasing. Although when we think of “perfect”, is it reality or imaginary? For example, in our society’s case, perfection is imaginary due to war, poverty, hunger, torture and crime. Seeing our community as a perfect environment is certainly setting high standards that would take time and consideration from people to achieve.
Another form of being “perfect” is Utopia; which is a name for an ideal society. Utopia is seen as unrealistic; displaying a faultless image of the world around us. The reason for Utopia being unrealistic is because it sets high standards of the world that people will never see. For instance, Utopia would present an image of the world showing cultures interacting friendly with other cultures. It would show these cultures enjoying each other’s company and beliefs and not judging one another by color or race. In this case, the term perfect is important because the welcoming of different cultures can eventually lead into world peace. If there were to be any issues between the groups, the solutions to the problems would not include violence or war. For a society to be ideal may be asking for too much but it is a thought that makes us wonder if a perfect society would ever happen.

9 sources

www. Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. 4 November 2009
Www.rumormillnews.com. Nemesis, 06 May 2009. Web. 04 Nov. 2009. .

www.HelpingTeens.org. 18 June 2009. Web. 04 Nov. 2009. .

www.wikipedia.org N.p., 2009. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 .

Lawrence, David W. www.muddleglum.orconhosting.net N.p., July 2000. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 .

www.encyclopedia.farlex.com N.p., 2000. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 .

Spannos, Chris. www.zmag.org N.p., 5 July 2008. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 .

"Utopia-The Perfect World." www.youtube.com N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2009
.

Fresco, Jacques. "Perfect Society." www.youtube.com N.p., n.d. Web. 6 Nov. 2009 .

context/problem/launching point

Context:
I will be exploring Healthcare and the benefits and issues we have with the system. I would like to learn exactly what it is because it is a daily problem in this country.

Problem:
My image displays emotions such as confusion or "how do we solve this together?" The couple could have been thinking of anything at the moment; so i picked a common issue in America. It tends to bring more disappointment rather than relief.

Launchig Point:
I want to cover why there are issues with this system and how it affects people everyday. If there is one, i would like to find the bright side of the contoversy.

Richard Miller

Richard Miller describes how the world should dream. He focuses on technology today, such as having our laptops. He mentions to his audience that having a library is useless because everything we use at a library is on our hand held computers. To prove his point further, he explains the differences between incremental and fundamental. Incremental would be using our computers on a daily basis while fundamental represents a library. He feels the technology with computers is a better way of learning. Between typed documents and educational films, why wouldn’t a person use a computer? To support his answer on why he feels learning with a computer is more useful, he mentions an article he had written in the response of the Virginia Tech killings. Visually, he showed his audience the readable text and emotional pictures all in one sitting. He also had done a Martin Luther King document that included text, images, and even films. The examples of imagery put an effect on the audience. Resources needed for a certain person is all on one page on the internet; while a library contains endless amounts of books.

Miller sees the internet as a way of showing a person’s dream to the public. Rather than hiding the idea of a dream, the concept of the dream is shared with others. Or even when it comes to learning about another person’s story, the internet allows us to dig deeper and see the backstage of how a certain story was produced. In books we can only read and see images on a certain story, but the internet can contain a film of how the certain story was even thought of. Miller strongly encourages people to take how we can learn from the internet source of technology seriously.

images for portfolio2