Victoria Barrasso's Blog

Blog #3

vbarrasso — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 17:16:32 +0000

According to http://owl.english.purdue.edu/owl/resource/658/2/ on the Purdue Online Writing Lab website, the two major forms of research genres are argumentative and analytical. An argumentative research paper explains the stance of which the writer stands for or against and a persuasive essay on the topic of choice. More times than not, argumentative/persuasive papers are biased is my opinion because the writer chooses a side of the topic to stand for. The other major type is analytical. Analytical research papers often ask a question that needs a hypothetical or researched answer; normally these are not persuasive and hold no stance for the writer to take up. An analytical research paper may have a debateable or controversial topic but there is no intent to take a side on this topic.

TOPICSS!!!!!!!!!

3. technology evolution and blogging’s affect on society (facebook, myspace, xanga, blogs, etc)

In our ever changing society, I believe this would be the most interesting topic to research. Personally, facebook takes over my life and I know I am not the only one. I would interview people on their thoughts and views on the uses. I could even study different problems with these mediums: blogs that cause governmental issues etc or even facebook/myspace fights or stalking that is dangerous.

I decided on this as my top 2 because I am very interested in researching something that has such a huge effect on our society. I beleive this would be a fun research topic with lots of interesting results.

4. colon cancer and its affects

My father had colon cancer. I had started doing some research on this before and I wrote a story about the affects it had on me. I think it would be interesting to research more and write and story of my life at the time on the cancer and how it affected me.

I chose this becuase an autoethnography on something I can truely connect with would be easy. Also, I already wrote a paper on this topic so it would be no problem to elaborate on this.

Blog entry #2

vbarrasso — Wed, 27 Jan 2010 15:00:39 +0000

Five Possible Topics:

1. psychological problems and their affects on families/friends (autism, ocd, oppositional disorders, etc)

My cousin has a lot of psychological problems that have affected our family majorly. He is currently living in a home where they give him school and help everyday so that one day he can function properly in society. Because of this my Aunt and her family are constantly in therapy, etc. I would like to study how these diseases are diagnoses or even why he had the diseases and how they affect people: not only the victims, but the families and friends.

2. domestic voilence

Domestic violence has increased tremendously between husband/wife, significant others, children and even animals. I would compare and contrast all the different options of domestic violence and even interview people who have witnessed this in their own homes. Even media stresses domestic violence in shows such as CSI or Law and Order.

3. technology evolution and blogging’s affect on society (facebook, myspace, xanga, blogs, etc)

4. colon cancer and its affects

5. Dave Matthews Band- then and now

This was on my FCL. I have no idea what I would even do with this. I guess I could do a history, but that’s kinda boring and how would I get 40 pages out of that? haha

Blog Entry #1

vbarrasso — Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:50:23 +0000

The article I found sets the idea in the reader’s mind that research writing is simply look up information and writing about it…nothing more than maybe expanding on the idea beyond the reading, but simply writing about a topic that one might have interest in learning more about. {http://www.esc.edu/esconline/across_esc/writerscomplex.nsf/0/ddbc866bc537f67e85256a460066ab2d?OpenDocument#research} After reading this article, I did not learn anything new about research writing and my opinion about research writing did not change. In class, we discussed that research writing is simply expression of your own feelings and thoughts and that to me is better sounding than “researching” and “writing.”

To me, being a research writer is an everyday activity. Everyone is constantly reading, comprehending, judging, and then turning around a writing something or responding to something after they have formed a clear opinion about it. For example, today I read a facebook post and then posted something under it because of the way I felt about it. For this assignment I read a journal entry and then responded to it. It’s all research: reading, learning, comprehending, and then responding to it or expanding on the topic.

Research has become a dreadful word because many times we are forced to react to research this way due to past encounters with it. In high school, teachers made research a long, tedious, boring process and no wonder I have such a horrible idea of research writing. the only research I was made to do was research that did not interest me and research that was irrelevant to most topics that were important to me. I hope this class changes my impressions and assumptions about research writing.

I would like to approach my research paper this semester with a positive attitude, because research does not normally give me a positive feeling. I would like to use research to enhance my learning and my writing because I consider myself a daily writer and I would like to expand my horizons.

This picture reminds me of writing…looking beyond horizons, taking roads not taken. Writing is an endless process…