Research Paper : Baby Steps

Upon entering Columbia College, writing was one of my weaker areas. It was very important that I gained the necessary knowledge and confidence to become a better writer. I didn’t know how to express myself and felt as though my writing was not my interest. As a result of taking English 101, I have gained a better understanding on how to properly research and build a satisfactory paper. Every paper that was assigned seemed like a struggle to complete. Before entering this class, I did not know the meaning of a thesis or why it was important, however, I obtained this skill quickly. I noticed that every paper has an argument and the thesis helps clarify the rebuttal. Now, I have a new outlook on writing. It’s a way to express my thoughts and allow others to see things through my eyes. There is no doubt that I still have a long way to go, but I know if I continue to write, I will get better. Just as I developed more skills in class, the various papers assigned helped to better structure the writer in me. In addition, the subject areas were not only interesting, but very informative and made it much easier to write about my experiences.

For example, an instructional manual on how to repair car, or fix an appliance is considered a research paper, since someone had to investigate how to do it. Moreover, I was specially interested in the learning about how my writing and thinking could improve by foreseeing my reader’s critical questions (p.13).

In “What Is It We Do When We Write Articles Like This One- and How Can We Get Students to Join Us?”, English professor Michael Kleine conducts a research of his own the similarities and the contrasts of students and professors when it comes to writing academic papers- what makes professors differentiate in methods of writing an academic writing piece versus a student and how to have students be more open in writing about their own interests? Mr.Kleine concluded this essential question by observing high school and college students on one Sunday night, writing research papers. He noticed a pattern in all of the students in which they were actually doing, copying. “I know they were writing research papers because they were not writing at all-

"Constructing a Research Paper" is a unit from "Academic Writing for Graduate Students" was a third edition written by John M. Swales and Christine B. Feak, and published by the University of Michigan in 2012. This book mainly focuses on how to prepare international graduate students to write academic papers. This book consists of a total of 8 units, of which unit 8 explains how to construct a research paper (Swales & Feak, 2012).

Teachers, parents, and friends often tell students exactly what the writing process should entail and how long it should take. However, the older I get, the more I realize that the writing process varies not only from person to person, but also from one writing project to the next. Throughout my years of life, I have written countless papers, ranging from a persuasive speech to an extensive research paper, and each project requires an altered version of my personal writing process. While each individual has his own writing process, there can be many similarities between different writing processes. Finding one’s individual writing process takes trial, error, and repetition. When an individual finally uncovers his unique writing process, better thought, work, and writing is produced.

In chapter 9, Writing Across the Curriculum, the process of reading and writing was investigated and explained in comparison to one another. The reading-writing connection focuses on drawing from students’ prior knowledge and cognitive processes in order to build learning. The authors mentioned that the writing process is a strong tool for exploring and clarifying meaning and the two major instructional components used are writing to learn (WTL) and writing in disciplines (WID). The chapter also focused on the subareas of academic journals and writing disciplines.

I came to realize that all writing consists of a series of choices” (Bunn 72). From the works, “The Inspired Writer vs. the Real Writer,” “What Is “Academic” Writing?”, and “How to Read Like a Writer”; Bunn, Allen, and Lennie are well versed in formulating information and tools that can be very beneficial for the student writer, works that complement each other. For example, Mike Bunn explains about the analytical process of reading like a writer, to consider the choices the author made and decide whether to apply them, Lennie Irvin gives a very detailed method on how to tackle academic writing tasks, and Sarah Allen tackles the issues and myths that plague the writer. They understand that writing and reading is a simple task with complex implications and put conscious effort to show that.

While writing this paper, I attempted to follow the forms and models put forth in the research papers we read in class during this unit. It was helpful to have something to follow while writing this report because I focused more on the “how” and “why” instead of the “what” of the research report structure. Overall, I found that this paper was much more organized than my last and I hope that this also improved the quality of my writing.

Greene, Stuart, and April Lidinsky. From Inquiry to Academic Writing: A Text and Reader. 2nd ed. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin's, 2008. Print.

In the same article, Elizabeth St. Pierre provides what I consider to be a systematic process to writing; she posits that, “writing is thinking writing is analysis, writing is indeed a seductive and tangled method of discovery” (p. 967). So, throughout the process of writing these assignments,

Writing is most of the time a dull and exhausting activity that some students tend to avoid when their ideas are not completely precise, and they do not know what they can do because they do not have the appropriate plan. However, in her book, writing your journal article in 12 weeks, Wendy Laura Belcher gives lots of wonderful and practical ideas to make of writing an amusing and pleasant exercise, through many charts that can help the writers to write down their ideas, to schedule the tasks they will pass through, and by means of explanations about the types of articles, concerns (that each person has towards writing), obstacles, structures, evidence and more. The main purpose of this book is to help people to develop writing skills and overcome those barriers that are showed up at the moment of starting to write. Her writing is too persuasive that

What interest me in this major is that I see working with babies as more of a challenge than working with adults or kids. Babies can’t verbalize what’s wrong, you have to diagnose them, and this is the challenging part. With babies, you have the most potential to impact their lives, because they have their whole life. Also, I have always loved working with kids, what made me go into this career was my little cousin he was premature baby and I would go and take care of him at times and I would always see the nurses doing so many diagnoses to them and that was interesting to me. It’s a challenging career but that’s what I love to experience I love challenging my self.

What are some potential ways this step might breakdown (for a directional process, think about the mistakes a person might make; for an informational process, think about what might possibly interfere with the completion

Early stage refers to patients of all ages who may be diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease or a related disorder. Early stage means the Alzheimer patient is in the beginning stage of the disease, which can last for years.

The first paper we wrote was about our experience in a community event. The description of the paper was narrative, which was a light way to start the course. Moreover, we were introduced to visual rhetoric. Based on a visual media image we used persuasive writing to decode what is being conveyed through everyday advertisements. Visual media analysis was very fun to write and my personal favorite. As we went on, I stumbled across literary analysis, it was the most tedious paper of them all. Personally, it was a challenge for me to write an analysis of a short poem/speech based on only literature. I didn’t see how I would meet the seven hundred-word criteria. So, I chose an extensive topic, politics. Consequently, it was never-ending. Finally, our research paper was a fresh breath of air. Academic writing is of significant importance. The concept of formal writing is essential for every college student.