Wednesday October 31, 2012
Welp, this marks the last blog of the semester! I am VERY happy to not have to blog about each and every class after this! The rest of the semester is going to be spent only on our papers: reviewing them, editing, and finding any additional information. I am actually enjoying the new change in my topic focus because for the entire 1920s Aurora College worked hard to fund raise for their endowment and then it just disappears during the Great Depression. I like my topic more because it is actually about the school that I go to, rather than the city of Aurora as a whole. I have spent my mornings and afternoons doing research and I have started writing a little bit.
Today, we started off class by looking at one other student's introduction about African American midwives in the South. I never really understood the concept of a midwife, but LaSonya's paper makes me want to read more about it. She seems to have a great deal of information on her topic, but it seems a bit muddled in some places to me, though I am sure that she will do an awesome job.
After looking over the introduction, we began talking about our reading for the day from What Should I Do With My Life? Though it seemed like a lot to read it actually went quite fast. The main point of the reading was to never burn bridges in the workplace, have your jobs and priorities lined up, and how to really make yourself stand out among hundreds of people when applying for a job. Some people in the book had worked for the same company their entire life! Like the book states, my parents worked the same jobs for the majority of their lives, so I don't find it that strange, but now-a-days people do not stay with the same job for that long. I think its because people are always looking for something better and are willing to advance in their field even if it makes them unhappy (people will do anything for more money!). But this book talks again about people who are willing to give up big paychecks in order to do what they love and help others in the process. Many people are just ridding through life thinking that their happy and that they are somehow making a difference in the world until one day something major happens (like 9/11) and it throws some people into a state of shock which eventually makes them rethink their lives and their priorities. One story in the book, about Leela de Souza, talked about how she ended up doing something that she liked and was good at even though it wasn't the "perfect job." I often think of this because there is a wide variety of things that I could see myself doing in the future, many of which relate to history. The only problem is that some of the things that I absolutely HATE doing, I am very good at. For example, I love to experiment with artwork and create drawings and painting, but I am not any good (the picture in my mind is always so much better than what is actually produced). On the other hand, I have been told by many people that I am good at writing papers and reviewing/editing the work of others.......yea.....hate writing papers! It takes me forever to just finally settle down enough to be able to sit at the computer for like five hours to get a paper done, but once it is done I am usually satisfied with my work and I rarely ever go back and change things (just go back and make sure everything sounds okay and spelling/grammar is right). Editing is kinda fun because I get to read other people's work and learn something about a topic that I myself would never have thought to think about. Editing and reading other peoples' papers also helps me with my own writing because it exposes me to a variety of different forms of writing and helps me think outside the box and look at a topic from another perspective. I am really hoping that I will like what I do in the future (hopefully high school history teacher!) because then I can be creative in the different ways I teach, show students a variety of different viewpoints, and I can also read their papers and see what they think on certain matters. The only problems that I think I will have is, as I recall, high school classes never went into too much detail because there was so much information that needed to be covered each semester and not enough time, so students only get a broad/general idea of a topic without actually getting to see how interesting and significant it actually is. The other problem that I think I will have is the textbooks...they make history super boring by just throwing out dates and information, they do not really engage the students. So, when thinking of this, I think I will try out teaching high school for a while, but eventually my new goal is to go back to school and get my masters in history (probably 1900s to present) and teach at a community college or university. This way, I can still teach, but I can go into more detail and make students write papers (I never wrote a single paper for history in high school!). I think writing about historical events is important because when you actually sit down to write about a topic you have to think about it from a million different views and do research. It is way more fun when teachers let students put their own spin on a topic instead of just giving them a "write 5 pages about ____" kind of assignment. Ha, I seemed to have gotten a lil off topic...
We will not be meeting as a class for another two weeks because students are having their individual meetings with the professor. I can't wait for my meeting even though I have a TON of things to do before then. I am sure that I will get a lot more help on my paper and some constructive criticism. On November 12th I meet with the professor, the 14th is when our rough drafts are due and the 19th is our 15 minute long presentation to the class about out research. I am just so happy that 1.) this semester is almost over and 2.) I have no exams this semester because I have no time to do anything else except research, read, and write. Speaking of writing, I am done with this blog and must now go and write a 6-7 page paper for my Hitler and the Nazi Revolution class. So, finally, my last blog is done....
~fin
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Monday, October 29, 2012
The Manchurian Candidate
Wednesday October 24, 2012 & Monday October 29, 2012
Today we began watching The Manchurian Candidate; a movie from 1962. The movie was adapted to from Richard Condon's novel that he wrote in 1959. The movie stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. The movie focuses on a rich and powerful right-winged political family who's son had went to Korea, but had been taken as a POW and then brainwashed by Communists. The film was released on October 24, 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2012 marks the 50 year anniversary. Frank Sinatra was very good friends with President Kennedy and when he was assassinated, Sinatra pulled the movie from theaters and it was not seen again for decades.
During the war, Soviets capture Raymond Shaw and his platoon and take them to Manchuria, China. While there, the men are completely broken down and reconstructed to not remember what happened and to think that Shaw was a big war hero who saved the platoon, a title which earns him the Medal of Honor upon returning home. All men that were in the platoon were trained to say that, Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Also upon returning home, men from the platoon, including Major Marco (Sinatra) begin to have terrible nightmares in which they see Shaw kill other men of the platoon - men who were thought to have died during action in the war. When Shaw is killing these other men, the whole platoon is sitting in front of a group of people from different communist nations, such as China and Russia. Since Marco became a Major upon returning home, many of the men confide their intense dreams to him, explaining in great detail. Marco is somewhat concerned that all of the men had the same dreams, but Army Intelligence will not support the matter, so Marco just collects evidence on the matter himself.
The other major problem in the movie is the conflict between Raymond and his mother, Eleanor. His mother, similar to Mary Todd Lincoln, is trying to get her new husband (Raymond's step-father), Senator Iselin, to emerge as a political leader. In order to advance Iselin, Eleanor uses him as a puppet and makes him state that there are communists in the American Federal Government (this is totally a stab at McCarthy!). Throughout the movie, everyone thinks Iselin is a crazy man because every time he is asked how many communists are in the government, he comes back with a different number. That is, until Eleanor finally settles on one number, 57, that Iselin can remember because that is the number of different pickle varieties that the Heinz Company owns. Eleanor's plan is to get her husband to run, and win, the U.S. Presidency, so she can really be in control. It is not until the end of the movie that the audience figures out that Eleanor is actually a Communist spy who is working under cover! It was even Eleanor who asked her communist "friends" to train her an assassin that she can use to kill the competition so her husband can win.
Unfortunately, the assassin that is created is Eleanor's own son, Raymond. The "trigger" that puts Raymond into a state in which he will do anything is the queen of diamond from a deck of cards. So, when Eleanor wants Raymond to do something, she hands him a deck and tells him to play Solitaire. When the queen appears he transforms, she tells him what needs to be done, then he goes and does it. Raymond does not really remember what happens before he goes into this state and doesn't remember anything while he is in it, therefore, he could kill someone and not remember it or be held accountable for the murder.
The movie jumps around a bit, which is confusing, but after watching the entire movie, or even watching is a second time, things become more clear. As the movie progresses, Major Marco discovers more about what actually happened in Manchuria and how it affects the men that were there. Marco also finds a love interest while taking a small vacation. The woman even leaves her fiance and bails him out of jail for their "second date."
The brighter side of the movie is the romance between Raymond and Jocelyn. The two met a few years before and fell in love. They were actually engaged, but, as it happens, Jocelyn's father was a senator and Iselin's rival. In the end, Eleanor made Raymond break off the engagement (in rather a rude way), then Raymond joined the Army. Upon returned home, the two meet again and the romance is rekindled. Knowing that Raymond is trained to kill, Eleanor now lets the two be together and they eventually get married. VERY shortly after the wedding, Eleanor conditions Raymond and has him kill his new bride and her father. This leaves only one other person running for vice-president besides Iselin - eliminating the competition. After coming out of his hypnotic trance, Raymond is grief stricken and can't think of who would want to kill his new family.
Around the same time, Marco finds out that Raymond is not a war hero and it is the queen of diamonds that triggers him. Using his new found knowledge, Marco makes a deck of cards that only have queens of diamonds. He goes to see Raymond and is able to get all the information out of him such as who killed the Senator and Jocelyn, who brainwashed the platoon, and if the men who died really died from the war or if it was friendly fire. Marco also finds out that it is an American operator that is controlling Raymond. He orders Raymond to break all ties and tells him that the queen of diamonds will no longer have an effect on him. Raymond is free, but to the audience it doesn't really seem like it. Raymond goes to see his mother/operator where she tells him that at the presidential candidate nomination convention Raymond is to shoot the other opponent, leaving Iselin running along. Eleanor, thinking Raymond was still under her spell, tells him about how she is a communist and all her plans. She even plants a very nasty/strange kiss right on his lips! Talk about gross....! I thought it was kinda funny though because it was have been VERY hard for Raymond to act like he was under her spell and listen to her plans and let her kiss him like that. The only good thing that comes out of this little conversation is that Eleanor swears once she is in power she will get back at the people who screwed Raymond up. This is actually the only time during the whole movie where she actually seems like a real mother.
So at the convention, Raymond is to snipe the other candidate while being disguised as a priest. At this point the audience still thinks Raymond is under the spell because he is still walking and acting like a zombie. Marco figures out what is going on and also shows up...right after Raymond shoots his step-father and his own mother (initially saving the country from communism)...finally breaking free from their spell completely. As Marco enters the room Raymond turns the gun on himself and commits suicide, while wearing his ill-gotten medal of honor.
I, personally, was not surprised that Raymond came out of the trance and killed his mother because, like previously mentioned, this movie was created around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there is no way that Hollywood would produce a movie in which the communists win! This movie actually is one of my new favorites because I have some personal feelings toward it. First, my grandpa served in the Air Force during the Korean War, so it was nice to see the time period in which he would have been returning home and living in. He is still alive, but doesn't like to talk about it much. Second, Timothy, my boyfriend, is currently in the Army as a Warrant Officer (WO1). Last February Tim went through extensive training, though he is not allowed to talk about the details, I can only image what he had to go through.....some of his training probably deals with similar issues like those from the movie. This movie also shows that the threat of communism was a real thing and that people were willing to do anything to gain political power during the time. As one who hopes to join the history profession, this movie will certainly go on my list of excellent movies!
Today we began watching The Manchurian Candidate; a movie from 1962. The movie was adapted to from Richard Condon's novel that he wrote in 1959. The movie stars Frank Sinatra, Laurence Harvey, and Janet Leigh. The movie focuses on a rich and powerful right-winged political family who's son had went to Korea, but had been taken as a POW and then brainwashed by Communists. The film was released on October 24, 1962 at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. 2012 marks the 50 year anniversary. Frank Sinatra was very good friends with President Kennedy and when he was assassinated, Sinatra pulled the movie from theaters and it was not seen again for decades.
During the war, Soviets capture Raymond Shaw and his platoon and take them to Manchuria, China. While there, the men are completely broken down and reconstructed to not remember what happened and to think that Shaw was a big war hero who saved the platoon, a title which earns him the Medal of Honor upon returning home. All men that were in the platoon were trained to say that, Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life."
Also upon returning home, men from the platoon, including Major Marco (Sinatra) begin to have terrible nightmares in which they see Shaw kill other men of the platoon - men who were thought to have died during action in the war. When Shaw is killing these other men, the whole platoon is sitting in front of a group of people from different communist nations, such as China and Russia. Since Marco became a Major upon returning home, many of the men confide their intense dreams to him, explaining in great detail. Marco is somewhat concerned that all of the men had the same dreams, but Army Intelligence will not support the matter, so Marco just collects evidence on the matter himself.
The other major problem in the movie is the conflict between Raymond and his mother, Eleanor. His mother, similar to Mary Todd Lincoln, is trying to get her new husband (Raymond's step-father), Senator Iselin, to emerge as a political leader. In order to advance Iselin, Eleanor uses him as a puppet and makes him state that there are communists in the American Federal Government (this is totally a stab at McCarthy!). Throughout the movie, everyone thinks Iselin is a crazy man because every time he is asked how many communists are in the government, he comes back with a different number. That is, until Eleanor finally settles on one number, 57, that Iselin can remember because that is the number of different pickle varieties that the Heinz Company owns. Eleanor's plan is to get her husband to run, and win, the U.S. Presidency, so she can really be in control. It is not until the end of the movie that the audience figures out that Eleanor is actually a Communist spy who is working under cover! It was even Eleanor who asked her communist "friends" to train her an assassin that she can use to kill the competition so her husband can win.
Unfortunately, the assassin that is created is Eleanor's own son, Raymond. The "trigger" that puts Raymond into a state in which he will do anything is the queen of diamond from a deck of cards. So, when Eleanor wants Raymond to do something, she hands him a deck and tells him to play Solitaire. When the queen appears he transforms, she tells him what needs to be done, then he goes and does it. Raymond does not really remember what happens before he goes into this state and doesn't remember anything while he is in it, therefore, he could kill someone and not remember it or be held accountable for the murder.
The movie jumps around a bit, which is confusing, but after watching the entire movie, or even watching is a second time, things become more clear. As the movie progresses, Major Marco discovers more about what actually happened in Manchuria and how it affects the men that were there. Marco also finds a love interest while taking a small vacation. The woman even leaves her fiance and bails him out of jail for their "second date."
The brighter side of the movie is the romance between Raymond and Jocelyn. The two met a few years before and fell in love. They were actually engaged, but, as it happens, Jocelyn's father was a senator and Iselin's rival. In the end, Eleanor made Raymond break off the engagement (in rather a rude way), then Raymond joined the Army. Upon returned home, the two meet again and the romance is rekindled. Knowing that Raymond is trained to kill, Eleanor now lets the two be together and they eventually get married. VERY shortly after the wedding, Eleanor conditions Raymond and has him kill his new bride and her father. This leaves only one other person running for vice-president besides Iselin - eliminating the competition. After coming out of his hypnotic trance, Raymond is grief stricken and can't think of who would want to kill his new family.
Around the same time, Marco finds out that Raymond is not a war hero and it is the queen of diamonds that triggers him. Using his new found knowledge, Marco makes a deck of cards that only have queens of diamonds. He goes to see Raymond and is able to get all the information out of him such as who killed the Senator and Jocelyn, who brainwashed the platoon, and if the men who died really died from the war or if it was friendly fire. Marco also finds out that it is an American operator that is controlling Raymond. He orders Raymond to break all ties and tells him that the queen of diamonds will no longer have an effect on him. Raymond is free, but to the audience it doesn't really seem like it. Raymond goes to see his mother/operator where she tells him that at the presidential candidate nomination convention Raymond is to shoot the other opponent, leaving Iselin running along. Eleanor, thinking Raymond was still under her spell, tells him about how she is a communist and all her plans. She even plants a very nasty/strange kiss right on his lips! Talk about gross....! I thought it was kinda funny though because it was have been VERY hard for Raymond to act like he was under her spell and listen to her plans and let her kiss him like that. The only good thing that comes out of this little conversation is that Eleanor swears once she is in power she will get back at the people who screwed Raymond up. This is actually the only time during the whole movie where she actually seems like a real mother.
So at the convention, Raymond is to snipe the other candidate while being disguised as a priest. At this point the audience still thinks Raymond is under the spell because he is still walking and acting like a zombie. Marco figures out what is going on and also shows up...right after Raymond shoots his step-father and his own mother (initially saving the country from communism)...finally breaking free from their spell completely. As Marco enters the room Raymond turns the gun on himself and commits suicide, while wearing his ill-gotten medal of honor.
I, personally, was not surprised that Raymond came out of the trance and killed his mother because, like previously mentioned, this movie was created around the same time as the Cuban Missile Crisis, and there is no way that Hollywood would produce a movie in which the communists win! This movie actually is one of my new favorites because I have some personal feelings toward it. First, my grandpa served in the Air Force during the Korean War, so it was nice to see the time period in which he would have been returning home and living in. He is still alive, but doesn't like to talk about it much. Second, Timothy, my boyfriend, is currently in the Army as a Warrant Officer (WO1). Last February Tim went through extensive training, though he is not allowed to talk about the details, I can only image what he had to go through.....some of his training probably deals with similar issues like those from the movie. This movie also shows that the threat of communism was a real thing and that people were willing to do anything to gain political power during the time. As one who hopes to join the history profession, this movie will certainly go on my list of excellent movies!
Monday, October 22, 2012
Introductions (Part Two)
Monday October 22, 2012
Today we sat down and immediately got started on finishing our critique of the rest of the class' introductions. I must say, I didn't think that we have so many good writers in our class! Everyone has their own writing style and everyone has good ideas for their introductions! It made me feel kinda bad because I didn't think that mine was very good - my intro definitely needs to be re-worked. Some started theirs off with a story, a description, a quote, or a question, but each was able to make it work for their paper topic. After reading each intro I wanted to read more because they intro made the topic seem interesting. I need to get my intro to this point because as it stands right now it seems kinda boring.
For today's class we were supposed to read chapter 6 from "Doing History." This chapter just goes into writing a five paragraph essay, annotations, article reviews, book reviews, and other short writing assignments. The book tells what should be included/excluded from each, what to look for, and how to do justice to the author/creator and the profession of history. This chapter also includes how to write a good resume (which we will have to bring to class Monday October 29th). Since the job market is very competitive, I was happy to see this in the textbook because it offers good information and ideas about how to make yourself more appealing to potential employers!
We spend almost the entire class finishing the introductions. Our annotated bibliographies are due on Wednesday and have to be at least five pages with one and a half spacing. I, again, went to the library and found more sources. I need to actually stay at the library for a while because there are a lot of local history books there that they don't let you take home, but by the time I get to the library it is like 20 minutes until they close, so I don't get much done. The only good thing about Wednesday is that we get to relax a little bit because we are watching a movie. However, we are gonna have to write about the movie in our blogs extensively. I was told that this movie will be more interesting than the last - I hope! I don't know what else I am supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to go and work on my annotated bibliography and get some reading/research done!
Today we sat down and immediately got started on finishing our critique of the rest of the class' introductions. I must say, I didn't think that we have so many good writers in our class! Everyone has their own writing style and everyone has good ideas for their introductions! It made me feel kinda bad because I didn't think that mine was very good - my intro definitely needs to be re-worked. Some started theirs off with a story, a description, a quote, or a question, but each was able to make it work for their paper topic. After reading each intro I wanted to read more because they intro made the topic seem interesting. I need to get my intro to this point because as it stands right now it seems kinda boring.
For today's class we were supposed to read chapter 6 from "Doing History." This chapter just goes into writing a five paragraph essay, annotations, article reviews, book reviews, and other short writing assignments. The book tells what should be included/excluded from each, what to look for, and how to do justice to the author/creator and the profession of history. This chapter also includes how to write a good resume (which we will have to bring to class Monday October 29th). Since the job market is very competitive, I was happy to see this in the textbook because it offers good information and ideas about how to make yourself more appealing to potential employers!
We spend almost the entire class finishing the introductions. Our annotated bibliographies are due on Wednesday and have to be at least five pages with one and a half spacing. I, again, went to the library and found more sources. I need to actually stay at the library for a while because there are a lot of local history books there that they don't let you take home, but by the time I get to the library it is like 20 minutes until they close, so I don't get much done. The only good thing about Wednesday is that we get to relax a little bit because we are watching a movie. However, we are gonna have to write about the movie in our blogs extensively. I was told that this movie will be more interesting than the last - I hope! I don't know what else I am supposed to blog about for today's class, so I am going to go and work on my annotated bibliography and get some reading/research done!
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Introductions (Part One)
Wednesday October 17, 2012
Today was a busy day! We started off by doing some online research that pertains to our topics. There is a list of online website types in one of our textbooks: archive, electronic essay/exhibit, teaching resource, gateway, journal/web zine, organization, and virtual community. Our goal was to go online and find a good example of each of these that would help us with our Senior Seminar paper. I found some good websites that I have to look further at. One of these websites had a list of different words that came out in the 1930s, it was really interesting and even had some cartoons from the period, but I don't know how useful it will be to my paper (which is why I have to look at the website closer). Other websites were also interesting and I made a copy of each of them to look at them later when I have time. This activity took up about half of our class time.
The other half of the class was spent critiquing each others' introduction paragraphs. We were given a copy of everyone's intro, given time to read it and make marks/corrections, then we discussed them out loud. Mine was one of the first to be peer reviewed and the others did not hold back about what they liked, didn't like, and things that I need to improve on! I thought my paragraph was good, but now I have good feedback in order to fix it properly so that common people and other historians will understand it better. We only got about three or four introductions done before we were released for the day.
Today I got more books for my essay. I also made another appointment to go to the Aurora Historical Society. I most definitely need to start writing soon, but I keep finding more information! Before I can even start writing I need to organize all my sources, notes, and ideas. I am going to focus a lot on different groups and organizations in the city because many of them did things like food drives, clothing drives, and other things to help each other out during the Great Depression. I also plan to make an appointment with Susan Palmer to see if she has any other ideas or information for my paper. Martha made an appointment with her and got a lot of good information and ideas that really helped her put her paper into a proper order. I think I will work my self into the ground this week and start getting ready to write, then this weekend really hammer out some of the main ideas and fix my introduction. This just really sucks because I have a ton of other papers and readings and various assignments for my other classes that are coming due. I am having such a hard time with time management this semester! I can't wait for December 12th to get here!
Today was a busy day! We started off by doing some online research that pertains to our topics. There is a list of online website types in one of our textbooks: archive, electronic essay/exhibit, teaching resource, gateway, journal/web zine, organization, and virtual community. Our goal was to go online and find a good example of each of these that would help us with our Senior Seminar paper. I found some good websites that I have to look further at. One of these websites had a list of different words that came out in the 1930s, it was really interesting and even had some cartoons from the period, but I don't know how useful it will be to my paper (which is why I have to look at the website closer). Other websites were also interesting and I made a copy of each of them to look at them later when I have time. This activity took up about half of our class time.
The other half of the class was spent critiquing each others' introduction paragraphs. We were given a copy of everyone's intro, given time to read it and make marks/corrections, then we discussed them out loud. Mine was one of the first to be peer reviewed and the others did not hold back about what they liked, didn't like, and things that I need to improve on! I thought my paragraph was good, but now I have good feedback in order to fix it properly so that common people and other historians will understand it better. We only got about three or four introductions done before we were released for the day.
Today I got more books for my essay. I also made another appointment to go to the Aurora Historical Society. I most definitely need to start writing soon, but I keep finding more information! Before I can even start writing I need to organize all my sources, notes, and ideas. I am going to focus a lot on different groups and organizations in the city because many of them did things like food drives, clothing drives, and other things to help each other out during the Great Depression. I also plan to make an appointment with Susan Palmer to see if she has any other ideas or information for my paper. Martha made an appointment with her and got a lot of good information and ideas that really helped her put her paper into a proper order. I think I will work my self into the ground this week and start getting ready to write, then this weekend really hammer out some of the main ideas and fix my introduction. This just really sucks because I have a ton of other papers and readings and various assignments for my other classes that are coming due. I am having such a hard time with time management this semester! I can't wait for December 12th to get here!
Monday, October 15, 2012
Getting Started & Introductions
Monday October 15, 2012
Today we talked about getting started to begin writing our Senior Seminar essays. I am slightly freaked out about this because I am still doing research and still finding things that I find interesting and want to include in my paper. I know that at some point I will just need to start writing, but at the current moment I do not feel like I have a sufficient amount of material. I plan to spend ALL day on Friday at the Aurora Public Library going through their microfilms more and other information that they have. So, to start off today's discussion we began talking about things that we must keep in mind while writing: the audience and our writing style. The intended audience is our professor and our fellow classmates, while the unintended audience will be whoever decides to read it later. We then talked about our writing style. This means that we should write our paper like how we talk. This paper is not for super scholarly people, but more for the common people who do not know much about our topics, therefore, we need to use simple language and explain our arguments clearly. We must also remember to construct our argument, tie everything back to the argument, and demonstrate perspective.
We then moved on to talking about introductions. I, personally, always write my introduction first, but then usually go back after the entire paper is written and tweak some things. The first thing we did was look at some examples of other people's introductions from books and papers. We read them, then evaluated what kind of introduction it was. Some people told stories or gave a brief background of the topic, then the second paragraph has the thesis. One intro was horrible because it opened up the topic, but then just started listing things and I got bored before I was even done with the paragraph. For my paper, I am planning on starting out with a brief history of the City of Aurora, then a brief description of the Great Depression (in general), then go into what my paper will be about. I am still trying to think of an interesting way to get the audience's attention right at the beginning. Also, the first page or two of our paper should have a long footnote that tells the reader the type of sources used, shows that the author is knowledgeable, and also shows that the reader can look other places for similar information on the topic.
This conversation moved on to talking about our overall writing. Obviously, every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb, no run on sentences, have proper transitions, and every point must relate back to the main argument. We were also told that a thesaurus will be our best friend for writing this paper. I LOVE the online thesaurus because it has a ton of different examples and other places to look. Ha, I didn't even know what a thesaurus was until I entered college (thanks high school for preparing me for the real world *sarcasm*). We were also told to watch our choice of words, not to use slang/jargon, and that everything needs to be in the past-tense.
There are four types of writing. Narration is storytelling. This includes describing an event in a way that attracts the readers, using multiple perspectives, but not too much detail. Description is writing in a way that brings the people back to the event and making them feel that they are actually there. One must be careful when writing this because it is easy to make things up that might not have been true back during the event. The third type of writing is interpretation. This is where the focus on primary sources comes in. Under this type of writing, the author must give their interpretation of a source, but not to make it seem like that is the only way to look at a source. The last type of writing is persuasion. This is what our argument will be, everything has to help the argument. Our papers will use all four of these writing styles, some more than others.
The more we talk about writing our papers, the more excited I get. I don't feel like I have enouggh information to start writing because I only have the brief history of the Great Depression as a whole, some info on the City of Aurora, and just random information on the different clubs, organizations, etc. that were around in Aurora in the 1930s. I am planning on looking further at education this week. I have two other classes, each with papers constantly due, so I really need to start micro-managing my time in order to get all of this done in time! I am still kicking myself in the butt for not doing any research over the summer! I could have had the majority of this paper researched and written!!! Ugh....well, next time I will know to just jump-start any and all projects that I know I will have to do for the semester, including reading, researching, and writing!
Today we talked about getting started to begin writing our Senior Seminar essays. I am slightly freaked out about this because I am still doing research and still finding things that I find interesting and want to include in my paper. I know that at some point I will just need to start writing, but at the current moment I do not feel like I have a sufficient amount of material. I plan to spend ALL day on Friday at the Aurora Public Library going through their microfilms more and other information that they have. So, to start off today's discussion we began talking about things that we must keep in mind while writing: the audience and our writing style. The intended audience is our professor and our fellow classmates, while the unintended audience will be whoever decides to read it later. We then talked about our writing style. This means that we should write our paper like how we talk. This paper is not for super scholarly people, but more for the common people who do not know much about our topics, therefore, we need to use simple language and explain our arguments clearly. We must also remember to construct our argument, tie everything back to the argument, and demonstrate perspective.
We then moved on to talking about introductions. I, personally, always write my introduction first, but then usually go back after the entire paper is written and tweak some things. The first thing we did was look at some examples of other people's introductions from books and papers. We read them, then evaluated what kind of introduction it was. Some people told stories or gave a brief background of the topic, then the second paragraph has the thesis. One intro was horrible because it opened up the topic, but then just started listing things and I got bored before I was even done with the paragraph. For my paper, I am planning on starting out with a brief history of the City of Aurora, then a brief description of the Great Depression (in general), then go into what my paper will be about. I am still trying to think of an interesting way to get the audience's attention right at the beginning. Also, the first page or two of our paper should have a long footnote that tells the reader the type of sources used, shows that the author is knowledgeable, and also shows that the reader can look other places for similar information on the topic.
This conversation moved on to talking about our overall writing. Obviously, every sentence needs to have a subject and a verb, no run on sentences, have proper transitions, and every point must relate back to the main argument. We were also told that a thesaurus will be our best friend for writing this paper. I LOVE the online thesaurus because it has a ton of different examples and other places to look. Ha, I didn't even know what a thesaurus was until I entered college (thanks high school for preparing me for the real world *sarcasm*). We were also told to watch our choice of words, not to use slang/jargon, and that everything needs to be in the past-tense.
There are four types of writing. Narration is storytelling. This includes describing an event in a way that attracts the readers, using multiple perspectives, but not too much detail. Description is writing in a way that brings the people back to the event and making them feel that they are actually there. One must be careful when writing this because it is easy to make things up that might not have been true back during the event. The third type of writing is interpretation. This is where the focus on primary sources comes in. Under this type of writing, the author must give their interpretation of a source, but not to make it seem like that is the only way to look at a source. The last type of writing is persuasion. This is what our argument will be, everything has to help the argument. Our papers will use all four of these writing styles, some more than others.
The more we talk about writing our papers, the more excited I get. I don't feel like I have enouggh information to start writing because I only have the brief history of the Great Depression as a whole, some info on the City of Aurora, and just random information on the different clubs, organizations, etc. that were around in Aurora in the 1930s. I am planning on looking further at education this week. I have two other classes, each with papers constantly due, so I really need to start micro-managing my time in order to get all of this done in time! I am still kicking myself in the butt for not doing any research over the summer! I could have had the majority of this paper researched and written!!! Ugh....well, next time I will know to just jump-start any and all projects that I know I will have to do for the semester, including reading, researching, and writing!
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Research Day
Wednesday October 10, 2012
Today we have off of class because Professor Butters has a meeting or lecture to go to. So, instead of having class we are free to spend the time doing our research and writing. I will be going to the Aurora Public Library after my noon to one o'clock class. I plan to spend at least four hours there looking at their newspapers on microfilm and there other documents. They actually have a great deal of information at the library that the historical society does not have, so I must utilize my time well to get through it all. I have been going to the historical society on Monday and Wednesday mornings and the library on Friday afternoons and any time over the weekends that I have free. I feel very bad because I know several other students already have a great deal of information for their topic, but I am really struggling trying to find useful information that pertains to my topic. So far, I have done a great deal of research from the stock market crash in 1929 until about 1933 and I haven't really found anything to support my thesis that the city of Aurora was greatly effected by the Great Depression, so I might have to change my thesis. Most of the information that I find is people commenting on the stock markets in New York and Chicago and for most of the information, only the big cities are discussed. I plan to get through more information from the later years to figure out if the depression stifled the social growth of the city. I also plan to get to a nursing home to do an interview or two and possibly go to Phillips Park to see what all the Civilian Conservation Corps. did.
Today we have off of class because Professor Butters has a meeting or lecture to go to. So, instead of having class we are free to spend the time doing our research and writing. I will be going to the Aurora Public Library after my noon to one o'clock class. I plan to spend at least four hours there looking at their newspapers on microfilm and there other documents. They actually have a great deal of information at the library that the historical society does not have, so I must utilize my time well to get through it all. I have been going to the historical society on Monday and Wednesday mornings and the library on Friday afternoons and any time over the weekends that I have free. I feel very bad because I know several other students already have a great deal of information for their topic, but I am really struggling trying to find useful information that pertains to my topic. So far, I have done a great deal of research from the stock market crash in 1929 until about 1933 and I haven't really found anything to support my thesis that the city of Aurora was greatly effected by the Great Depression, so I might have to change my thesis. Most of the information that I find is people commenting on the stock markets in New York and Chicago and for most of the information, only the big cities are discussed. I plan to get through more information from the later years to figure out if the depression stifled the social growth of the city. I also plan to get to a nursing home to do an interview or two and possibly go to Phillips Park to see what all the Civilian Conservation Corps. did.
Monday, October 8, 2012
Quotations & Citations
Monday October 8, 2012
Today was a challenging day! We started off talking about quotations. Some things I already knew, such as to use a block quote is the quote is longer than three sentences or three lines on the page, but some things were new to me, such as using a colon before the block quote. We were also told that you can either indent five or ten spaces when doing a block quote, but you have to pick one and use it throughout the paper; you can't use five spaces here and ten spaces there - things must all follow a pattern! Then we talked about something that I have always found a bit strange: using brackets in quotations. Brackets can be used for several different reasons, such as if the author of a paper is using a quote and has to add extra information to make the quote make sense, especially if it is kinda taken out of context. For example, an author might write "They [Native Americans] were exposed to several life-threatening diseases after the first contact with Europeans." An author can also put "(sic)" after a misspelled word in a quote to show the readers that the author knows that the word is spelled wrong and that it was not just a typo. The order that a writer must remember when using quotes is: punctuation mark, quote, footnote number.
We then moved on and talked about when to use footnotes. I always thought that footnotes made a paper look funny because it seemed to me like they took up too much space on a page. Since coming to Aurora University, I have learned that footnotes are a good thing! The more footnotes, the better! Especially because footnotes in Chicago Style are easier to use than MLA or APA. Footnotes show that an author is experiences and well-read on the topic in which they are writing about. It also shows that they are not afraid to use other people's work within their own and give them appropriate credit. The six main times that footnoting should be used is:
1.) writing an opinion
2.) using a direct quote
3.) using uncommon facts (common facts/knowledge do not need to be footnoted)
4.) paraphrasing
5.) summarizing a piece of work
6.) borrowing ideas from someone else (either directly or indirectly)
After discussing this we moved on to a footnoting exercise. This was BRUTAL!!!!! We were broken up into groups and then given seven different sources and were told to put them in the proper format for footnoting. I thought that this was going to be easy and I started writing the information down, then Scott and Martha pointed out to me that I was doing the sources for a bibliography, not a footnote. So, we work together as a group to guess what order we should put the information in. After we did this, we were told to put the seven sources on the board. Well, once all three groups did this we saw that everyone did it differently and no one was 100% correct. After we failed at this, we were given five more sources to do the same thing with. This activity was harder still because they were sources such as things from archives, speeches, and interviews. I had absolutely no idea as to what order or what punctuation was supposed to be used! Again, after all three groups put their answers on the board, no one had any correct. The whole point to these exercises was to show us that footnoting is DIFFICULT! We should always have our Chicago Style manuals in front of us when we are working on our papers so we can cite and footnote our sources properly. This is as much for our own benefit as for the readers. Sources need to be properly done in case someone wants to go back and check your research or start their own research using yours as a secondary source. So not only is the information being correct is important, but so are the footnotes and bibliographies!! I know that I will have a lot of trouble doing this, so I have two different Chicago Style manuals in my backpack with all my other Senior Seminar paper stuff!
Today was a challenging day! We started off talking about quotations. Some things I already knew, such as to use a block quote is the quote is longer than three sentences or three lines on the page, but some things were new to me, such as using a colon before the block quote. We were also told that you can either indent five or ten spaces when doing a block quote, but you have to pick one and use it throughout the paper; you can't use five spaces here and ten spaces there - things must all follow a pattern! Then we talked about something that I have always found a bit strange: using brackets in quotations. Brackets can be used for several different reasons, such as if the author of a paper is using a quote and has to add extra information to make the quote make sense, especially if it is kinda taken out of context. For example, an author might write "They [Native Americans] were exposed to several life-threatening diseases after the first contact with Europeans." An author can also put "(sic)" after a misspelled word in a quote to show the readers that the author knows that the word is spelled wrong and that it was not just a typo. The order that a writer must remember when using quotes is: punctuation mark, quote, footnote number.
We then moved on and talked about when to use footnotes. I always thought that footnotes made a paper look funny because it seemed to me like they took up too much space on a page. Since coming to Aurora University, I have learned that footnotes are a good thing! The more footnotes, the better! Especially because footnotes in Chicago Style are easier to use than MLA or APA. Footnotes show that an author is experiences and well-read on the topic in which they are writing about. It also shows that they are not afraid to use other people's work within their own and give them appropriate credit. The six main times that footnoting should be used is:
1.) writing an opinion
2.) using a direct quote
3.) using uncommon facts (common facts/knowledge do not need to be footnoted)
4.) paraphrasing
5.) summarizing a piece of work
6.) borrowing ideas from someone else (either directly or indirectly)
After discussing this we moved on to a footnoting exercise. This was BRUTAL!!!!! We were broken up into groups and then given seven different sources and were told to put them in the proper format for footnoting. I thought that this was going to be easy and I started writing the information down, then Scott and Martha pointed out to me that I was doing the sources for a bibliography, not a footnote. So, we work together as a group to guess what order we should put the information in. After we did this, we were told to put the seven sources on the board. Well, once all three groups did this we saw that everyone did it differently and no one was 100% correct. After we failed at this, we were given five more sources to do the same thing with. This activity was harder still because they were sources such as things from archives, speeches, and interviews. I had absolutely no idea as to what order or what punctuation was supposed to be used! Again, after all three groups put their answers on the board, no one had any correct. The whole point to these exercises was to show us that footnoting is DIFFICULT! We should always have our Chicago Style manuals in front of us when we are working on our papers so we can cite and footnote our sources properly. This is as much for our own benefit as for the readers. Sources need to be properly done in case someone wants to go back and check your research or start their own research using yours as a secondary source. So not only is the information being correct is important, but so are the footnotes and bibliographies!! I know that I will have a lot of trouble doing this, so I have two different Chicago Style manuals in my backpack with all my other Senior Seminar paper stuff!
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