Who am I as a Writer Now?

As a writer, I still need to focus on following through on my work with the same amount of energy I start off with. I need to be able to work on longer pieces of writing without being distracted or discouraged. I still have trouble with papers that are four to five pages long. Though I still have trouble with long papers, I am getting used to writing longer papers. Now I have an easier time working with writing longer papers with quality. I feel that if I had more time with certain pieces of writing I will be able to add length and quality to that paper.

Critical Thinking and Writing

At this time I feel like I do a pretty good job of summarizing and getting to the main point. Whenever I have to deal with large pieces of texts, I am usually able to summarize it using a very short amount of words. I have always felt like that was one of my strengths. One problem that I do have with critical thinking is comparing two pieces of texts and using evidence. For some reason I just do not like comparing written work and have a hard time doing that. The same goes for using evidence when writing.

When it comes to writing, one of the biggest problems I have is writing long papers. Unfortunately one of my strengths, being able to summarize my thoughts, also happens to be one of my weaknesses. No matter what the topic may be, I always struggle writing a paper that is 4-5 pages long and what results of it is usually of poor quality.

Close reading and research

Since starting this class, I have gotten a little bit better at close reading. I still have a very hard time staying focused on long pieces of writing, but I have gotten better with how long I can stay focused. I also have a bit of a struggle with finding key points in certain pieces of writing, due to the lack of focus I have when reading certain types of texts.

When it comes to my progress so far in researching, I still seem to struggle with finding a variety of resources to utilize. One of the areas I seem to have a very difficult time with is utilizing some of the resources in my writing. Every time I try to make connections between a resource and my own paper, things seem to become forced. The flow of my writing seems to lack a natural feel to it. Even with all of these problems, I still feel like I am getting better with my ability to utilize different resources.

What Does Revision Mean To Me?

Revision is the process of improving a certain piece of work. This process is usually used several times when creating something, but is utilized most right before finishing the final draft of something. It allows the person to have an audience's view on their work, so that they could fully see any mistakes or errors they may have made. Sometimes the creator may choose to bring in other people to help revise their work. This is usually done so that he or she could get different perspectives on his or her work in order to catch certain mistakes that can not be seen by the writer themself. It is a very crucial part of creating something, knowing that people tend to make plenty of mistakes.

Essay 2

With my essay I plan on using West's article as a framework for finding the identity in a blog. I plan on using this framework to find the identity in my research blog, cagewriter. At first I had a hard time finding a good blog to analyze. Of course I have one now, but I am still a bit unsure about it because I am a little worried about how things may unravel as I get deeper into my essay. Some other problems that I have encountered so far are putting together an adequate thesis to go along with my essay. I wanted to come up with some solid points in my thesis that I could support efficiently. Another issue that I had to deal with was finding enough evidence to support my points. Even though I had some evidence to support my points, I wanted to make sure that I had enough evidence to have a strong argument.

My Article

The article I will be using to help with my research essay is called Students express themselves through blogs, and it is by a woman named Deborah Zhang. As the title suggests, she basically looks at the different ways that students express themselves through blogs. In order to support her argument, she brings up a bunch of cases where students, mostly high school students, use blogs in order to further express themselves to the world. She uses a very broad group of students to show that all of this self-expression through blogging is not limited to a certain group of students, but that all types of students rely on blogging to express themselves. Since the article is about students expressing themselves through blogging, I can use the article to help me see how people may do certain things when blogging. I can use the article as a tool to help identify unique things in blogs that may not be as apparently to me.

Applying West's Article

When looking at West's article or essay, I have a hard time seeing how I would like to apply that to my essay. Seeing how most of West's article is about personal experience and how students would have an easier time learning if they were doing something they enjoyed, it may be hard to relate that to my research essay, especially since my essay is about how I would identify someone through their blog. When looking at the introduction of the article, she does talk about some stuff related to a framework, and that could be used to help me with my essay. The choice that would seem to make the most sense as of now is to use West's article as framework for my essay. Hopefully using the article as a framework for my research essay will give me a chance to use the article and enhance the quality of my essay.