I cant start any other way then to acknowledge that google has somehow linked me to my blog from siu hahahaha i cant wait to reread old essays. So.... i was gonna start with a quote that goes along the lines of "Every journey starts with a first step" or "the climb of a thousand stairs starts with one" but you get the point. Some philasophicle shit. I'm giving this blog a second life apparently haha, that's too awesome! I thought to do it because I've been wanting to keep track of my thoughts and thinking and to basically see my mental blueprint kind of. I like that idea a lot but writing is to slow for my thoughts at the moment, and so is typing. These are situational though because i'm thinking with emotion and not logic............

Group Statement: U5 Sample Essay

In the essay, she has a strong introduction and conclusion. The intro had a very good analogy about writing and building a house. The conclusion was also strong because she explained what she learned in 101. She seemed to just be explaining her other papers throughout the whole article though. She also had poor organization and no transitions between each paragraph. The thesis of the article was "A superior paper is made up of solid research, meaning and all the rhetorical devises, which are just some of the writing skills I have learned this semester in English 101." She supports her thesis somewhat by explaining all the rhetorical devises she used in her papers, but failed to explain the skills she learned in 101 until the conclusion. She uses quotations but they don't seem to be supporting her thesis. They are quotes that she had used in her papers previously and have little or nothing to do with her thesis. This is how our group reorganized the paper:
a. Deletion summary of unit one
b. Introduction stayed where is
c. Second paragraph is the audience paragraph
d. “Many times in order to generate an effective paper…” moved to third paragraph
e. “In some forms of writing, research is necessary in order to back up a specific…” moved to fourth paragraph
f. “In any research paper it is the responsibility…” moved to fifth paragraph
g. “Not only did the unit four paper involve arguing…”
h. “One type of paper to write is based on analysis…”

She feels that she has improved a lot because she had not even known most of the things that were taught in english 101.

Essay Analysis

Essay Errors:
In the Unit 1 essay, I realized that in the introduction, it would have been a better intro if I stayed away from background info and just got into the story. There was also a few grammatical errors that would need changing too. I also realize that I tend to have trouble with transitions. Not just from paragraph to paragraph, but sometimes just from from different sentences. I feel that I also need to be a little more clear with how I word my sentences. By reading some sentences they make sense to me but may not to the reader. And lastly I need to be more descriptive. Rereading my story makes me think that I need more descriptive words to help paint a picture for the reader.

In the Unit 2 essay, I once again catch myself not being fully clear on what I'm trying to say to the reader. Also, in my readership section, I was very general in describing how the readership was strong. I catch myself assuming things rather than describing what it really is. I make some claims in the paper that shouldn't have been made but instead worded differently. Last, I see that I'm using phrases like, "this is a good ad because..." when I need to phrase it like, "by doing this in the ad, it makes the ad stronger by...."

In the Unit 3 essay, I immediatley caught many grammatical errors just in the first paragraph. Also, when I quote the author from the article, I failed to cite where I got it from like page numbers. I do make claims that are true, but don't support my own claims by explaining how my claim is true. I also see that in my paper I also give too much information and sort of steer away from the main point I'm trying to make. Lastly, I feel that I'm repeating myself by saying that "this" made the article stronger, and "that" really helped. Instead I should focus on how to explain and support these claims I make.

Organization of Problems:
1. A problem that is easily fixed is grammar. I found that I often made small grammar errors that could have easily been avoided if I simply re read what I wrote.

2. I need to also be more clear with how I word my sentences. In all 3 papers, I found that the sentence would have made sense to me but may have been confusing to a reader that is not familiar with the topic.

3. I found some trouble with description too. I found myself describing something like a situation or a picture, but not fully. I have to re read a desription to make sure that it flows well and is fully described.
4. I found a few times that I poorly or not even at all supported my own claims with evidence. I would make a claim but sometimes fail to give my own evidence from the article proving why my claim is true.
5. I also feel that sometimes I lose focus on the main point and trend on a different topic. I need to keep focus up and sidetracking to a minimum.

Problem Analysis:

I feel that my biggest problem is supporting my own claims. I do sometimes support my claims but even then I think that they're not supported fully. I have improved the most in how clearly I write my sentences. Comparing the first paper to the third paper, I realized a great improvement on my sentences being more easily understood by the reader. They make more sense and are much more clear, but its not perfect. I know that my writing skills have improved because of how my papers are written. I feel that from the first to the third that my papers are more clear and sophisticated. I saw more general problems in my first essay and found that most were fixed by the third essay, but I'm now dealing with perfecting the more complex problems with my essays.

Unit 4 Reflection

Even though Unit 4 is at an end, I still have a lot of work to do due to technical errors. Although I'm not done, I still learned from it and will soon learn more. So far, I have learned how to take ideas from several sources and create a main idea based off of those sources. Unit 4 was rather hard from what I experienced, but I still have a lot to go. There was a lot of work that needed to be done but it wasn't impossible. It challenged me to work harder and that will help me in the future.

Group Synthesis Activity

Article 1-The thesis of "A Public Option That Works" is that there should be a public health care, like a universal health care, for the people that don't make enough money to pay for a private health care provider. Strong points of the article is that this is happening in San Francisco now. There is a public health care program also called a medical home for people that are under the poverty line.

Article 2-This article was about a plan to cover people in their twenties with health care. There were several ideas to try to cover these people. They wanted to appeal to young voters and their parents.
Thesis: Young voters need an easier way to afford health care.


Article 3-Germany: requires people making less than about $70,000 a year to have health insurance Care is provided by private doctors and a mix of private and public hospitals.

Sweden: Sweden provides universal health care coverage. Doctors can be government employees or private practitioners

Canada: Canada provides universal health care; Hospitals can be either public or private, but their budgets are negotiated with the government.

Italy: Italy offers health care to all residents.There are some private and for-profit hospitals.

Spain: Spain provides universal health care coverage; Doctors are private practitioners, and the majority of hospital beds are government-owned.

Australia: Australia provides health care to citizens, Public hospitals provide free care, while private hospitals tend to cater to people with private insurance.

Netherlands: Everyone living or working in the Netherlands is required to purchase health insurance

United Kingdom: The U.K. offers health care to all people "ordinarily resident" in the country.

France: France provides health care for all living in the country — legally and illegally.


Article 4-Thesis Statement: Obama told his audience the bill is needed because tens of millions of Americans have no health insurance and "live every day just one accident ... away from bankruptcy."

In this article the major points is that some people believe president Obama's induction to presidency was unlawful because they don't believe he is a natural born citizen of the United States, which is unlawful according to the constitution. In addition people believe that if Obama actually came through with this health coverage being a basic right it would basically give him more power and make him more of a success as an African American president. The author is trying to prove that the conservative are trying to do more than break president Obama, they are trying to say it's about political ressurection.

Group Thesis: Health care should become universal in the U.S. and in other countries to provide health care to the general public.

A Public Option That Works

The thesis of "A Public Option That Works" is that there should be a public health care, like a universal health care, for the people that don't make enough money to pay for a private health care provider. Strong points of the article is that this is happening in San Francisco now. There is a public health care program also called a medical home for people that are under the poverty line.

Myspac Generation + STAR Criteria

In the article, there is much evidence to support the claim. They say that social networking is become very popular very fast and it is being backed up by a lot of evidence. Throughout the whole article they give facts to support this such as, the average college student is social networking 6 hours a day.

The data does represent and is typical to basically everyone that is social networking.

They data that was given was very accurate because it talks about the facts that occur when people social network. It is also as up to date as it can be.

The data given is very relevent to the claim because most of the data supports the claim.